Felix couldn’t bring himself to move. Dead for five years? It was impossible. There must be some mistake.
“How did you arrange a meeting with this man, if he’s been dead for five years?” Mother asked.
“I—I was given his name by another.” Felix struggled to summon a façade of calmness. “Perhaps a miscommunication.” What did this mean? Several possible conclusions jumped into his brain, tangling themselves in a web of confused suspicion.
His mother was asking how long his journey had taken, so he forced himself to put the question of Lucretia’s guardian from his mind—for the moment.
Felix managed to keep up polite conversation as they meandered through the orchard back to the house. Upon reaching the villa, he retreated to the bedroom he’d been assigned under the excuse that he wished to wash and change clothes after his long journey.
In the quiet room, he paced, his mind spinning. Lucretia’s guardian was dead. Could Siro have given him the wrong name? It was possible, but Siro didn’t make mistakes like that. Felix had to assume the name was correct.
If Lucretia’s legal guardian had been dead for years, even before her husband’s death, there was no way she didn’t know of it.
Which meant she had arranged the situation exactly as she wanted.
When Cornelius had died, she must have decided to invent a guardian. She had no father, brothers, or uncles in Ostia or Rome. Manilius Cotta probably was her closest male relative before his death. And a distant relative who lived far from Ostia would suit her purposes very well.
In reality, the system of guardianship was not strictly tracked, so it was likely that no one had ever bothered to check. It was usually assumed that an independent woman could manage her affairs as she pleased, unless her guardian raised an explicit objection.
Which was exactly what Felix had been planning to convince Manilius Cotta to do.
But that was before their truce. So this new information, of course, didn’t matter to Felix.
He sat on the bed, dropping his head into his hands. A headache pulsed in his temples. The room was so quiet his ears rang.
This could be damning for Lucretia if anyone were to find out. The rules around guardianship might not be closely monitored, but the fact that Lucretia had been brazen enough to invent a guardian would not go ignored. Women were supposed to appreciate such regulations, which existed to safeguard their interests and ensure no one took advantage of them. They were not supposed to flout the rules.
Lucretia’s business operations would be considered unlawful. All her assets would be seized. It would ruin her. And all it would take was a whisper in the right magistrate’s ear.
If Lucretia was removed, that would clear the way for Felix to attain unquestioned control over all shipping in Ostia, as he’d always intended.
You have a truce, he reminded himself. It was reprehensible to even consider betraying her, given their current arrangement.
He rose from the bed and resumed pacing, hoping the orderly movements would bring some logic to the chaos of his mind.
As far as he could tell, he had three options.
One, he could anonymously reveal her secret to the magistrates. She and Marcus would lose everything. But she might never find out it was Felix who had destroyed her.
That option seemed cowardly, and besides, Lucretia was too smart not to realize that her old rival had finally vanquished her. He would lose her, even if he gained everything else.
The second option was to tell her of his discovery. To convince her it was in her interest to transfer all her operations to his control, before anyone else should discover her secret. Perhaps they could come to an amicable agreement. Perhaps he would be able to keep her in the bargain.
You think she’ll consent to sleeping with you after you blackmail her? Idiot.
The third option was both the easiest and the hardest: do nothing. Say nothing, either to a magistrate or to Lucretia. Pretend none of this had ever happened. Go on with their highly enjoyable carnal explorations, and maintain their truce in Ostia.
Part of him—the ambitious, greedy, scheming part—was shocked he could even consider this option. Two months ago, he would have been gleefully running to the nearest magistrate to expose and ruin her.
But much had changed. His gaze lit on the plum he’d pilfered from the orchard for Marcus. Her son would despise him if Felix took any action against Lucretia. And Lucretia—
Nausea spiraled in his stomach as he contemplated betraying her.
Something about this situation felt different than any of the other efforts he’d undertaken against her.
With a jolt, he realized why: it wasn’tfair. This dilemma wouldn’t exist for any other business rival—anymalebusiness rival. But because the world had decided that women required legal guardians in order to run businesses or manage property, he now had a unique opportunity to demolish everything she’d worked for.
For some reason, his mind went back to his first meeting with Marcus, that three-on-one beating in the alley. There was nothing wrong with schoolboys scuffling with one another, but Felix had intervened because it wasn’t afairfight. There was no possible way Marcus could win against three bigger, stronger boys.
