“Why?”
“Two reasons. One, I need to have the symbol replaced. Can’t have you walking around still advertising you belong to the Temple of Hera. Second, I want to have the gold tested. I can learn where it’s from and who made it.”
“How?” She grasped her cup with both hands, needing something to hold on to. She suddenly wasn’t quite sure she wanted to know the answer of who she was. She had wondered who her parents were for her whole life, but now the idea of finally knowing was terrifying. It was possible the answer was worse than the question.
“If it was made here in the South Wind, which, judging by the color, it was, then it can be traced to one of the jewelers. Only a few make slave chains, and even fewer would be able to make something like this. We’ll find who made it. Then we’ll get them to tell us who commissioned it.”
“That’s confidential information, isn’t it?”
His hand went to hers, and his fingers roamed over the back of her knuckles. “I’m Cardinal. And I’m Nero Finch. If they don’t tell me…I’ll make them. We’ll solve this little mystery. You and me.”
“And if I don’t belong to some royal family, what happens then?” She felt her cheeks grow warm at the continued circles his fingers were drawing over the back of her hand. She wanted to pull away, and she wanted to let him continue. The two urges canceled themselves out, and she did nothing at all. Which was the same as the latter, she supposed.
“What do you mean?”
“You bought me hoping I can serve some political purpose. If I’m useless to you—what happens then?”
The sound of a chair’s legs on the marble heralded his approach. He moved close to her, his chair touching hers, his knee against the side of her leg.
Here we go again…
He draped his arm over the back of the chair. She could feel the brush of his silk shirt on her shoulders. The dress she had worn had an open back and sleeves. It was comfortable, even if she did feel a little exposed. When she went to pull her hand into her lap, he caught it with his, interlacing their fingers.
“What if I were to say that the moment I saw you I fell madly in love, and right then and there I vowed to Hera that I would make you my wife?”
She laughed. “You’re joking. You? Married? That’s ridiculous enough, let alone married to a born slave.”
He went still. Then he chuckled. “You got me.” He placed a kiss to her cheek. When she did nothing, he placed a second just to the side of the first. It shouldn’t feel as good as it did. But his kiss coiled something low in her body. Something hot, and something that begged for him to keep going.
She should push him away. He was a murderer. A Cardinal. A womanizer.
But oh, when he placed a third kiss close to her ear, she shivered.
He just killed a man. He just murdered someone!
Why do I want this?
The realization rocked her. She sat back in the chair, unintentionally pulling away from him. Hope couldn’t remember a single time in her life that she had wanted anything more than the passing desire for a banana at breakfast.
But this man. The Cardinal.
She wanted him. It was undoubtedly wrong.
“What man in a position of power has not killed, Hope? Either by their own hands or because they sent some goons to do it?” He placed his hand against her cheek, stroking the pad of his thumb over her skin. “Tell me a name of a man who commanded a country and never spilt blood, and I’ll kneel at his feet. Tell me of a country that hasn’t ever taken a life in the name of its flag, and I’ll repent.”
She wavered. There wasn’t one. Not that she knew of, at any rate. With a mild shake of her head, she conceded his point. What was the difference between murder and execution?
Still, her thoughts swirled elsewhere. The rising tide of her own distraction pulled her away from the political debate and back into her personal one. A very personal one.
She should be recoiling from his touch. But it was so warm.
He leaned in closer. “I want you for my wife, Hope,” Nero whispered, breaking out of her thoughts. “Too bad you don’t believe me, because it’s the truth.”
“You’re—” She never got the chance to finish.
He turned her head quickly