didn’t pull away. Good. Little bit by little bit, he would get her used to him. “And the wine?”
“The wine also.”
“How many have you tried?”
“This is my third half-glass.”
A glass and a half in. No wonder she didn’t pull away from him. Good. He shifted his arm a little to put his hand on the cushion behind her once more. Just enough that it rested close to her back. She wasn’t reclining on him yet, but that was his goal. “Which was your favorite?”
“I’m afraid I don’t have one. I have been told I have had both a shiraz and a cabernet. I can taste the difference between the two. But then when I had a second, different cabernet, I’m afraid there was more similarity between that and the shiraz than the two of a type. I think I have no future as a wine afficionado.”
He chuckled and let out an exaggerated sigh. “And for shame, that’s precisely why I brought you here. My plans are dashed. Dashed, I say.”
She laughed along with him and sipped the wine. “I like this one. But then again, I liked the last one as well.”
“Here, trade with me. It might have everything to do with the fact that you are drinking wine from the West Wind’s dominion. Try mine. It’s a Barolo from here in our own damnable country.” He put down his glass to pluck hers from her hands and gave her his own. He wondered if she would protest.
But she took the cup and thought it over for a moment before sipping it. Tasting from a cup that had touched his lips. She might not let him kiss her—not yet—but the thought of sharing a glass with her was surprisingly charming to him.
“This is lovely.” She savored the taste for a moment before she went for a second sip. “I do like this better.”
“Keep it. I will order another for myself.” He gestured for the waiter to bring him one, and he amused himself with watching Hope sip at the glass. She wasn’t lying to him; he could tell by the smile on her face. She had such a sweet expression when something made her happy. He wanted to see more of it.
And he wanted to learn more about the imp who had played him for a fool in his car.
“What were you two lovely ladies talking about? Me, I hope?” he prompted. “On second thought, knowing you two, I would rather not know.”
Kema chuckled, and Hope’s smile widened. “I hardly know you, Cardinal. I have not had enough of an experience with you to rightly judge you for much. Save for the fact that you enjoy women a little too much. That, I can attest wasn’t a rumor.”
“What, because I’ve kissed you?”
“And you insist on sitting so close, yes.” She turned her head toward him, and though her eyes did not focus on him, he was caught up in her all the same. “I think you are a rogue.”
“I am that. But I am also taken by you, Hope. Not everyone gets an invitation to play with me.”
“Just most.” Kema grinned.
He picked up an olive from the bowl and threw it at Kema’s head. She laughed and deflected it, ducking from the projectile. He threw a second. But they laughed all the same. Kema was like a sister to him—another reason he hadn’t taken her to bed. And if there was one thing he was accustomed to, it was being teased by siblings. When the moment was over, he turned back to Hope. “Don’t listen to her.”
“Kema and I were talking of Egypt. You, shockingly, had not come up.” Hope seemed a little too happy to deflate his ego. How quickly she learned.
“Well. I, for one, would love to hear more of Egypt.” Nero shifted to lie down on the lounge and draped himself on the armrest. It put him at Hope’s back with her nestled by his hip. The lounge was deep enough that she did not need to move to let him lie there fully on his back.
She sipped her wine again. To her credit, or to his, she didn’t move.
“Keep talking, Kema,” Nero urged.
He didn’t hear a word of it.
He was only watching Hope.
His future-if-unknowingly-so bride listened to the princess’s stories. She asked all the right questions. She was an attentive, intelligent, inquisitive thing. There was a cunning that burned in her. He could see it in the way she had played him, even just briefly.
He liked