He shrugged. “The district is under my protection. It’s my responsibility to maintain it to the best of my abilities.”
“And since your abilities literally are the best, this area of Castaldini is probably the luckiest place on earth.”
“It’s one of the reasons I couldn’t hate the king. He might have exiled me, but he didn’t deprive my district’s people of my services, or this place of my preservation efforts.”
“And would you offer your services and preservation efforts to the rest of Castaldini if you become crown prince?”
“I will even if I don’t. I will see Castaldini returned to its former glory. But I won’t just throw money at problems and send others in my stead. Now I’ll again be able to inspect work progress myself, to shake hands with people, listen to their complaints and work with them on solutions.”
She stared at him, her heart doing jiggles that she knew hearts weren’t supposed to do. She was almost in tears, and in stitches, all at once. “You’re not just any Castaldinian, you’re a patriot. And not only are you a social reformer and modernizer, oh, my God, Leandro, I suspect you’re a democrat, too. What will we do?”
He bounced to his feet, pounced on her, swung her high in his arms. “We’re going to keep it a dark secret, that’s what. And since you’ve wheedled all those out of me, I guess it won’t do more damage to tell you one more—a family secret.”
She clung to his neck, beamed at him. “I’ll take it to my grave. If I don’t volunteer it to the first passerby, that is.”
He pinched the buttock filling his hand, his smile widening. “I told you the complex consists of three main parts…”
“And you showed me only two! The Eddar—the administrative area—and Elkasar, where we are. What’s the third part? Is it a catacomb filled with skeletons? A labyrinth teeming with the treasures plundered by your marauding ancestors?”
“It’s a harem.”
“No way,” she squeaked. “On Castaldini? You’re kidding me.”
“Alas, no. But the pity is, it fell into disuse for over a century until my mother took a shine to it. It was abandoned again after she died. But I’ve since restored it. If you take a fancy to it, you can stay there. And I’ll stay in my quarters and fantasize about you in one of the bedrooms, shrouded by tulle screens, wrapped in miles of satin and silk of vivid reds and blues and golds, bianco-e-nero amar elaty.”
My black-and-white moon goddess. And why wasn’t she asking him to take her there right now? Take her until he finished her?
He strode out with her still in his arms. She thought she heard whispers and saw people dashing out of their way.
“And to damage myself for life, I’ll imagine you in the main chamber. The one that’s open to the elements. I’ll imagine you as you float in a hot tub, the water massaging all your secrets, or lying on a marble platform, overheated and flushed and wet, writhing as you think of me, as the sun latches hot lips on your arms and breasts and thighs, as the wind strokes greedy fingers over your nipples, up your legs, between the lips of your—”
Her lips silenced him. Stemmed the flow of torment.
She thought she heard giggles and murmurs of approval.
Suddenly he tore his lips away, put her down on her feet, whispered in her ear, “And here’s another secret.”
He walked away. And away. Turned out, they were in a humongous elliptical domed gallery. When he was across from her on the other side over two hundred feet away, he turned. She saw his lips move.
“Jaan per voi, Phoebe.”
She lurched. I yearn for you. Oh, dear God…
A whispering gallery. She’d heard about them, but never thought they could be that…effective. It seemed impossible, how his whisper had reached her across the space, as if he’d poured it into her ear. Into her brain. And she could swear it wasn’t only his voice. She felt his thoughts possessing her, his breath on her lips, his scent filling her lungs, his heat, his fingers, his tongue…
A wave of longing rushed through her, seemingly ripping things inside her as it rippled out. She was in heat. Coming apart.
All she had to do to put an end to this torture was walk up to him and offer, take. Everything.
But now she faced it. What stopped her. Dread. Dread that once they became locked in the insanity of passion again, their magical rapport would end. He’d again be the driven man who devoured her without a word, except those of hunger.
And she loved what they shared now, couldn’t get enough of the fluency of their interaction, the purity of their connection. She loved him. Like Armando had said, the love she felt now made the younger version—which had impacted her so hard she’d never been able to move on—seem flimsy, foundationless. And she feared that if she changed their status quo, all would be consumed in the conflagration. She couldn’t go back, couldn’t risk it. She had to be sure first that this would continue. She couldn’t lose him again, in any way, now that she knew for real and in detail how much there was to lose.
She had to wait. Even though it was killing her.
She leaned on the wall behind her to keep herself from collapsing to the ground, whispered, “Jaana per voi, anche, Leandro.”
Her whisper seemed to rip through him with the same force his had through her. He jerked as if under a flesh-splitting lash. And he waited. For her to follow through on her answering confession.
After about five minutes of staring at each other across the space, chests heaving, bodies trembling, he turned and strode out.
“So what is the Merraba Feast?” Phoebe shouted to Leandro over the din of galloping hooves and whistling wind. “I found no mention of it on the Internet.”
“I would have been stunned if you had,” he shouted back, his smile eclipsing the sun. Who needed the star when he lit up the world?
After that fraught face-off a week ago, he’d sought her out, apologized for walking out, begging testosterone intoxication. And even though their yearning had taken a turn for the distressful, they’d resumed their rapport, even better than before.
“It’s a feast unique to El Jamida, and it’s exactly what its name implies. A jam-making feast.”
“Oh, I didn’t know that word. Back to hitting the books for me…” She paused, frowned, sniffed. “Leandro, do you smell a—?”
His shout drowned her words. “Fire.”