Page 73 of Peasants and Kings
Hadrian opened the sliding glass doors and we walked into a magnificent salon and dining room area with its own helm in the corner of the room, complete with a captain’s chair and all sorts of gadgets for navigation. He guided me toward a seat at a dining table and I slid into it, completely overwhelmed.
“You don’t even look tired. How is that possible?” I asked.
“I don’t sleep much to begin with,” he said with a rueful smile. “Maybe four hours a night.”
“Four hours?” I marveled. “How do you even function?”
“I’m a machine.”
One of the yacht crew came from below deck up a flight of stairs into the salon. He placed two steaming, unshelled lobsters in front of us along with a container of freshly melted butter. He then poured us two glasses of white wine from a bottle that had been chilling in an ice bucket on the table.
“I figured, why bother with salads?” Hadrian said.
I nodded. “Good, vegetables are gross anyway.”
Hadrian started to laugh, a booming sound that echoed off the walls of the dining area.
I derived a strange sort of pleasure from making him laugh. He didn’t strike me as the kind of man who laughed a lot and the thought made my heart lurch in sadness.
“Do you have friends, Hadrian?” I asked suddenly.
“Do you?” he countered.
I smiled.
He glowered. “What’s that smile for?”
“It’s not fun being on the receiving end of personal questions, is it?”
Hadrian leaned back in his chair and played with the stem of his wine glass while he surveyed me. “I think I may have underestimated you.”
“What do you mean?”
“I think you’re as tenacious as I am. So, you’re a talented linguist. How did you learn to speak three languages?”
“How did you learn to speak five?” I countered.
He sighed. “And here I’d hoped that after a long day of travel you’d be a little more…”
“Malleable?”
“Forthcoming,” he corrected. “You’re a conundrum. The day we met at the Bar and Restaurant, you were flirtatious and confident. The night at The Mansion you were terrified—which I now know was because it was your first event. You said there wasn’t money growing up for you to enjoy the finer things in life, and yet your table manners are perfect, like you come from a wealthy family.”
He leaned forward. “You’re evasive in conversation, and the only time I feel like I truly have a grasp on who you are is when you’re in my bed. And for a man who reads people, for a man who knows when people are lying, I know there’s something you’re not saying. Something big.”
His words terrified me. No matter how much I thought I could bury my past and have it stay there, I seemed to wear it like a badge for Hadrian to see. And even though he didn’t know exactly what I was hiding from him—from the world—Hadrian wasn’t a man who would let it go.
He was relentless, and he wouldn’t be happy with anything less than my complete and utter surrender. Not just in his bed, but in life, too. He’d never stop asking questions, he’d never stop digging. I was a puzzle he had to piece together.
“Can’t it be enough?” I asked, meeting his eyes. “Just being together physically.”
“You tell me.” His eyes blazed with heat. “I’m not the only one who wants questions answered.”
I nodded slowly. “You’re right. I am curious about you, Hadrian. Why were you at The Mansion if you weren’t there to spend your night with a woman? Why do you live on an island off the coast of Shetland when Lerwick looked absolutely adorable and is clearly remote already? Why is your home built into the side of a mountain? And how do you have so much money that you can throw it away on a girl you don’t even know?”
Silence reigned between us and then he suddenly smiled.
I did not like that smile. It was a smile of victory.
