“How long has it been?” I asked, unable to contain my curiosity.
“Since the Opening Night ball. I’ve been… busy since then.”
He hadn’t kissed anyone else since we’d met.
My part in that timeline probably held no significance, but my heart was racing anyway.
“I overheard your father talking with Stellon about how… difficult it is once you’ve reached bonding age to go without… intimacy.”
Pharis’ gaze came back to meet mine. “That’s not the reason I kissed you.”
“Oh?” And now my curiosity soared exponentially higher along with my heart rate.
“I don’t want to talk about this anymore,” Pharis barked and turned away, striding back to the picnic blanket. “I’ve apologized already. Let’s leave it at that and finish our lunch.”
Well okay then. He obviously regretted kissing me and wanted to forget about it.
That would be an impossible task for me. I’d be reliving it for a long time to come—perhaps forever.
Though the kiss had been brief, it had affected me powerfully. And when it ended far sooner than I would have liked, I realized I had been secretly hoping something like that would happen with Pharis.
Was I a horrible person? Was something wrong with me that I could feel that way about kissing Pharis when I was so recently convinced that I was in love with his brother?
Of course, Stellon was a married man now, and he’d said himself he never wanted to see me again.
And Pharis was so… so…
My own question popped back into my mind.Can I have more?
As we sat and ate in awkward silence, his forbidding expression was an answer in itself. It stifled all the questions that kept poking my mind about his real reason for kissing me.
“This is all very good,” I said in an attempt at making conversation. “The food purveyors in this village are quite skilled.”
Pharis gave a terse nod of agreement, still not talking to me or looking at me.
Simply to force him to speak, I asked, “What do you think of the wine? Was Solfrid right?”
Pharis finally slid his eyes in my direction. “It’s not bad, actually. It reminds me of the wine from upper Nordaris where my mother was from.”
Ah,herewas something we could talk about.
“Have you been there?”
“Not for a long time,” was all he said.
Those guarded eyes shuttered again as they always did when the conversation threatened to unearth one of his closely guarded emotions.
“Tell me about your mother,” I urged. “You never speak of her.”
“No. I don’t,”he said as if it was a closed topic.
But there was something in his eyes I’d never seen before.
Something that told me maybe heneededto open it.
Chapter22
The Whole Sordid Tale
