“I’ve been in your position more than I’d like to admit,” Felix replied. “Not particularly enjoyable, is it?”
The boy shook his head, inspecting a scrape on his elbow with a frown. There was something about him that seemed familiar. Something about the coppery sheen of his hair tugged at a thread of recognition, but Felix couldn’t place it.
“Do I know you?” Felix asked. “What’s your name?”
The boy glanced up, meeting his gaze with hazel eyes that sent another pang of familiarity through Felix. “Marcus Cornelius.”
Cornelius. “Lucretia’s son,” he realized out loud with a jolt. He had never actually met Lucretia’s fourteen-year-old son, but now he clearly saw the resemblance. Marcus’s hair was a few shades browner than Lucretia’s rich auburn, but they had the same eyes and even the same pointed shape to their chins.
Marcus narrowed his eyes. “You know my mother?”
“Yes.”And I’m trying very hard to ruin her.“My name is Lucius Avitus Felix.”
Recognition dawned on Marcus’s face. “I know you. Mother says you—” He bit back the words, flushing. “Never mind.”
Felix could imagine the sort of things Lucretia would say about him.Grasping. Greedy. Money-grubbing. Ruthless. “You should get home,” he said. “Before she starts to worry.” He nodded to the boy, then turned and left the alley.
Chapter 2
As soon as Felix left, Dihya reappeared in Lucretia’s office, taking the chair he had just vacated. Their office consisted of two rooms, a front room where Dihya dealt with visitors, and a back room that served as Lucretia’s private workspace. “What did he want this time?”
“You’ll never believe it.”
Dihya leaned forward, eyes lighting with interest. “Tell me!”
Dihya was the widow of Cornelius’s former right-hand man. Both men had died in the same shipwreck a year ago, and she and Lucretia had bonded over their shared grief. Once Lucretia found her footing with Cornelius’s business, it became clear she needed a trusted partner to help manage things. So, she’d hired Dihya.
The woman could read and write, and she knew much about the business already from her late husband. A freedwoman, she hailed from the province of Mauretania, on the African coast, and spoke Berber, which helped communicate with merchants and suppliers in that region. Of course, all Lucretia's contacts spoke either Latin or Greek, but Lucretia had noticed that letterswritten in Dihya’s Berber script tended to get a faster, more helpful response. While Lucretia appreciated all of Dihya’s wide-ranging skills, she had come to value her friendship and advice most of all.
“If you can believe it, he proposed marriage,” Lucretia said. “With my ships as a dowry, of course.”
Dihya’s mouth dropped open. “And what did you say?”
“No, obviously!” Lucretia threw her hands up. “Even if I liked him—and I despise him—I’m never going to marry again. And I would certainly never marry a man whose sole desire in life is to take my business from me.”
“I don’t think that’s hissoledesire,” Dihya said with an arched eyebrow.
“Stop that,” Lucretia said in her sternest tone. Felix might once have harbored certain…feelingstoward her. But those feelings, whatever they might have been, hadn’t stopped him from trying everything in his reach to acquire her ships for himself. He grasped for power as greedily as Caesar Augustus, who’d been steadily consolidating his influence in the handful of years since the civil war.
Her stomach growled. “I need some sustenance after that conversation. Are you hungry?”
Dihya smiled. “If you mean Caeso’s bakery, then I’m always hungry.” Caeso operated a stall very close to Lucretia’s office that sold freshly baked bread, honey cakes, and flatbreads with various toppings. Lucretia and Dihya often visited him when in need of a quick lunch or afternoon snack to get them through a long day.
They rose to their feet and left the office, Lucretia locking the door behind them. The day was pleasant, with a strong, cool breeze whipping at the edges of Lucretia’s garments. Even several blocks from the harbor, she could smell the sea air on the wind. She used to love nothing more than to linger at theharbor’s edge, looking out over the rolling waves as flecks of saltwater dampened her face. But after Cornelius’s death, she only went to the harbor when business required.
They passed through the Square of the Guilds, where all of Ostia’s merchants and shipping enterprises kept offices, and soon arrived at Caeso’s stall. At certain times of day, his wares would attract long lines of people, but now, they were his only customers.
The young baker sat on a stool behind the wooden counter but jumped to his feet when he saw them. “Good afternoon, ladies. Always a pleasure to see you both.” His wide smile lingered on Dihya, and Lucretia suppressed a grin of her own. She had lately noticed a certain rapport growing between Dihya and Caeso—lots of prolonged smiles and extra treats that somehow found their way into Dihya’s hands.
Caeso was undeniably a handsome man, with broad shoulders, strong arms, and an easy smile. But Lucretia’s stomach never fluttered when she saw him, and her eyes weren’t drawn to linger on the planes of his face.
Her mind went back to Felix’s visit. It irked her that she found him handsome, even as he’d issued a proposal in a bare-faced attempt to seize control of her ships. How unfortunate, that the only man to kindle such feelings since her husband’s death was the one she found intolerably scheming and avaricious.
Lucretia returned her focus to the much more pleasant matter of purchasing an afternoon snack. “Hello, Caeso,” she greeted the baker. She glanced over the items on display. There wasn’t much left by midafternoon, only a few round loaves of bread and flatbreads topped with olives, which weren’t Lucretia’s favorite. “Busy day?”
He nodded. “Though I had a feeling you might be paying me a visit, so I took the liberty of holding a few things back.”He reached beneath the counter and withdrew a platter of four hand-sized honey cakes topped with sliced figs and berries.
Lucretia let out a sigh of pleasure at the sight of the sweets. “Just what I needed.”
