Felix had said ‘Leave it loose.’
So Loren left it loose, as if that would coax Felix to hisside again.
He shook it off. This was a distraction attempt. Loren wouldn’t let her win this round. He drifted past her to survey their battleground.
With the window closed, Julia’s study was stifling, dusty and dimly lit by a half-burned candle. Parchment lay strewn across the floor, a series of drafts discarded for whatever disappointments they contained. A platter of untouched cheese sweated in the heat. This wasn’t the right setup for a scolding. Loren should know. He’d faced plenty in his father’s office.
‘Julia,’ he said slowly, ‘why am I here?’
He peeked at the parchment centred on the desk, the sole draft to have passed her scrutiny. Even from a distance, Loren hazarded a guess at what it said. After all, he’d seen a version before.
Julia clasped her hands. ‘I’m prepared to forgive you.’
Incredulity hooked in Loren’s gut. ‘For what, precisely? For having the nerve to speak the truth? For not wanting some washed-up senator to get away with smuggling and murder?’
‘Settle, Loren.’
‘Don’t tell me to settle. Not when you lied. Not after threatening me.’
‘You take liberties,’ she said. ‘Remember, in Pompeii we’re not equals. Here, you are nobody. Do me the courtesy of hearing my case first. You wear the clothes I gifted. You owe me this, at least.’
‘Speak quickly, then, or I’ll leave and not come back.’
Always an ultimatum, the ghost murmured.This or that.
Loren shook him off his shoulder with a huff he hoped Julia assumed directed at her. She didn’t acknowledge it. Instead, she began to pace, slow, even strides.
‘Most think me a recluse. Unsociable. If you thought the same, you were too polite to voice it.’ She shot him a wry smile he didn’t return. ‘But my estate wasn’t always so empty. For a time after my father’s death, I rented out rooms. I employed more widely. Built new baths. Expanded.’
‘Was it unsuccessful?’
‘The contrary. I was booked throughout the year.’ Julia paused, jiggling the window latch, but didn’t push the shutters open. ‘Until I pieced together the truth about how he died. I’d been forbidden to visit his deathbed, robbed of my right as his only daughter to anoint him, to arrange his funeral. And the undertaker refused to tell me, believing my constitution fragile. I stole the records months later.’
‘Julia—’
‘Poisoned. Strangled. Clovia’s death wasn’t my first brush with Servius’s methods. I learned quickly there are few people I can trust.’
‘Yet you deny her a funeral.’ Loren’s lip curled despite his effort to keep accusation from his tone. ‘You trusted her enough to make her your sole attendant, and now you condemn her to the same fate as your father.’
‘Disgust spoils your pretty face,’ Julia said coldly. ‘So does contempt. If you knew half of what I know, you would not regard me with either.’
Loren swallowed hard. ‘I wish I could help you. But my answer stays the same.’
‘You still don’t see it.’ When she spun to face him, her eyes brimmed. ‘You don’t understand the opportunity I offer. A route into politics, a stable life in Pompeii, a new family. I could give you everything.’
‘You want a puppet. You want my father’s name attached to yours.’ Loren stepped back, striding for the exit. ‘But you are no better than he is. I can’t put myself through that again.’
‘I want you, Loren.’
He froze.
Julia smelled victory. ‘When was the last time someone asked what you desired from your life? And didn’t force you into a mould? When someone wanted you, exactlyas you are?’
Last night.Loren grimaced. What he and Felix had was different. And the knife it twisted hurt far more than Julia ever could. Not that it counted for much. Felix still picked flight in the end, and Loren was reduced to an afterthought.
His mistake for believing he was worth choosing.
‘Not your parents,’ Julia continued. ‘Or you wouldn’t have run. Not Isis, or the Priest would have valued you as more than an errand boy. And the seamstress-woman and her daughter have their own lives to worry about, you cannot keep clinging to them. Where does that leave you?’
