The ruckus had drawn several servants to the atrium, and Lucretia asked for cloth and hot water to be brought to the dining room. Felix rose to his feet, one hand still clasping his nose, and she led him to the dining room.
“Surely you’ve had a broken nose before, with all the boxing you do,” she said as she dampened a cloth and helped him cleanhis bloodied hands. Anything to avoid talking about what he’d said earlier.
“Only once.” He gingerly poked his nose with his index finger, then winced. “There is a tacit agreement among those who box for recreation to avoid any permanently damaging shots, to the best of our ability.” He sighed. “I suppose I only have myself to blame, teaching him to throw a punch like that.”
Together, they mopped up the majority of the blood, and Felix held a clean cloth to his nose to staunch any further bleeding, but it seemed to have slowed. The front of his tunic, however, was saturated.
“I can give you one of Cornelius’s old tunics to wear home, if you wish,” Lucretia said. “So you don’t look like the victim of an attempted murder.”
“Thank you, but I’m not ready to leave yet.” He reached for one of her hands. “I meant what I said to Marcus. I came here to ask you to marry me.”
“Felix,” she murmured, unable to meet his gaze. “I don’t know—I don’t think I can—”
“Hear me out before you say anything.” He tightened his grip on her hand, as if worried she would pull it away. “We could be the perfect team, Lucretia. Between your network in the western Mediterranean and mine in the east, we could have everything we’ve ever wanted.”
She raised an eyebrow. “Everythingyouever wanted. I never thirsted for total control. I am happy with the way things are.” Exerting gentle force, she withdrew her hand from his grasp. “We’ve covered this ground before, Felix. I have no wish to marry, and certainly not for mercenary reasons.”
“It’s not mercenary,” Felix objected. “Iloveyou, Lucretia.”
That word sent a flutter through her, but she ignored it. “You love my ships. That’s what you’ve always wanted. I haveno desire to give up my independence to a husband, even you. Nothing has changed.”
“Everything has changed!” He leaned close to her, lowering his voice even though they were the only two in the room. “Lucretia, Iknow. I know about your guardian. I found out when I tried to visit him on my trip to—”
Lucretia shot to her feet, fists clenching. “What?”
When Cornelius died and she took over his business operations, she had decided to take a calculated risk—giving the authorities the name of a deceased male relative to serve as her guardian. She even went so far as to forge a letter from the man, indicating his acceptance of the role and his assent to her conducting her business as she saw fit. No one had ever bothered to check, just as she expected.
No one, except Felix.
He rose too. “I found out, and I didn’t say a word. If I hadn’t changed—if you hadn’t changed me—do you think I would have kept silent?”
Lucretia’s head spun. She backed toward the wall and braced an arm against it. Felix took a step toward her, concern flickering across his bruised face, but she held out a hand. “Don’t touch me.”
“Don’t you see what I’m telling you?” he demanded. “I will keep your secrets.”
She exhaled a long, shaky breath. “How did you find out?” Her voice was flat, too shocked even to summon the energy to rage at him.
Felix shifted, crossing and uncrossing his arms. “Long ago—before our truce—I set Siro to find out who your legal guardian was. It was underhanded, I know, but my intent was to convince him to withdraw his consent for you to manage your business.”
She felt as if she’d been punched in the stomach. “You—you would have done that to me?” She couldn’t even look at him.This man she’d grown to trust, tolike—he had plotted against her to that extent? Nausea swirled in her gut, and she swallowed hard.
“That was before,” he insisted. “Before our truce. We were both sabotaging each other, remember?”
She shook her head. “You were trying to ruin me. I was only defending myself.”
“Well, yes,” he admitted. “But then, like I said, I found out your guardian didn’t exist, and I said nothing.”
Her hand, braced against the wall, curled into a fist. “You said you discovered that on your trip to visit your sister. But that wasafterour truce. So why were you trying to locate my guardian then?” She drew in a sharp breath through her teeth. “You never intended to hold to the truce. You wanted to destroy me regardless.”
“No, I didn’t—” Felix reached for her, but she shoved him away. “That’s my point. I said nothing.”
“You should never have found out in the first place!” she shouted. “You should never have been looking!”
He flinched. “Perhaps that’s true. But you’re not hearing what I’m saying. I love you, Lucretia. You’re the only woman I have ever wanted.”
“You have a strange way of showing it,” she spat. “Let’s say I agree to marry you. I give it a month before you try to convince me that it would be safer for me to transfer all my assets into your name. Just in case someone should find out about my guardian, even though I’m married now—they could still make trouble. Still question everything I’ve worked for. So of course it would be safest to give you full control. Which is what you always wanted, isn’t it?”
His mouth opened and closed. The lack of an instant denial sent a stab of pain through her heart.
