"I have no qualms with a secret lover," Lazzaro said into the silence. "You cannot run the House of Peace if everyone thinks you are my little jewel because my father likes to indulge me. My business is my own and I do not need to show off my lover in order to feel that he is really mine. I would never jeopardize your livelihood, jewel. All I want is you."
"Let me reiterate," Celeste said, annoyed and disconcerted that Lazzaro appeared capable of reading his mind. "I am a whore. My livelihood is fucking men for gold—" He broke off as something Lazzaro had said struck him belatedly, and why was it he never seemed at his best when Lazzaro was in the room? "What do you mean, run the House of Peace?"
Lazzaro rubbed his nose with one knuckle, looking sheepish, and then said, "I had hoped to have this conversation when you were in a better mood and less inclined to throttle me."
Celeste stared at him and asked, "What conversation?"
"I forced Pio to sell me the House of Peace," Lazzaro said.
"You did what?" Celeste snarled, nearly slamming his teacup down in fury. He should be controlling his temper and some part of his mind tried to make him see that, but Celeste simply did not care. "Why in the all the hells—"
"Peace, jewel," Lazzaro interrupted. "Wait just a moment." He stood up and rang the bell pull by the door, closing his robe just as a servant entered and bowed. "Some papers should have been delivered for me this morning. Where are they?"
"Right outside here, your grace. We thought you might want them," the servant replied, and slipped away, returning almost immediately with a packet of papers. He bowed and slipped away again, closing the door quietly behind him.
Lazzaro strode back to the table and handed the bundle to Celeste. "I forced Pio to sell me the House of Peace, then drew up further papers selling it to you. I told you, I will pay any price. I believe that this will make an even trade?"
Celeste did not reply, too busy reading over all the papers. "You pawed through my paperwork, didn't you? You are the nosiest—"
Laughter interrupted his words. "I am often accused of that, yes. It is how I find myself solving mysteries and rooting out murderers. But I am also ruthless, and combined with nosy—"
"You are lucky your father likes you, because otherwise he would have ordered you executed rather than made a Duke," Celeste broke in tartly. "You are being heavy-handed and entirely too bossy. So I have to buy the House of Peace from you and in return I get to be your lover?"
Sighing, Lazzaro said, "You could look at the price I am demanding before you cast aspersions. You said you could not afford to be my lover. This ensures you can and I will not deny I am being entirely selfish, but not
just
selfish."
Celeste said nothing, merely pulled out the papers that wanted only his signature to make the House of Peace his, and it was not fair at all that it could really be so simple. He read over them, scowling when he reached the paragraph that said
sold for the sum total of one dance at the Winter Ball in the current year, to be paid in one month, and a kiss, to be paid immediately.
He threw the papers down in disgust and looked at Lazzaro, absolutely refusing to be otherwise moved by the ridiculous terms. "You are going to give me a property worth forty thousand sovereigns in real estate and jewel contracts for a dance and a kiss? Is that legal?"
"Quite," Lazzaro assured, finishing his tea and leaning back in his chair. His robe gaped open to the reveal the fine, well-muscled expanse of skin beneath and a hint of the thatch of dark curls crowning his cock. He would be distracting at a time like this, and that he could be distracting in such fashion did nothing to improve Celeste's mood. "My solicitor loves me because I make such fluid use of dusty old laws that most of his clients do not even know exist. I am fully within my rights to sell whatever I own for gold, goods, or services as I so choose. So do you accept the terms or not, Celeste?"
Celeste scowled at his teacup. "I killed a man last night. A man who was furious with you for killing the man he loved, and
that
man in turn was obsessed with me—and all of this began because you were seeking your mother's killer, who happened to be the man who kidnapped me last night because he wanted to hurt you the way you unintentionally hurt him. This is making my head hurt." He shook his head, but did not give Lazzaro a chance to speak. "All of this trouble with murderers and we are discussing whether or not I will cease to be a whore to take up as your lover? I feel we are perhaps brushing aside important matters for selfish reasons."
"I am not going to waste time and energy discussing men who are better off dead," Lazzaro said. "It is an amazing tangle of coincidences that brought me to you, that brought you into my life. The monks were not good for much, but they did teach me fate and not to sneer at it. If you want to go back to your life and live it as you want, I will not stop you. I believe a man has a right to his own choices and should not be forced into them. But I am offering and asking."
He would not offer or ask a second time—and despite all of the reasons he knew he should walk away and go back to the life he knew, Celeste could only draw a breath and say, "Only a kiss, your grace? That seems a paltry price to demand for such a fine establishment." He stood up and let his own robe, taken from Lazzaro's wardrobe, fall open.
"Then you vastly undervalue your kisses, my jewel," Lazzaro replied, tugging Celeste down onto his lap.
Celeste rolled his eyes, but a smile twitched at his mouth as he leaned in and paid his price.
Fin
Megan grew up a military brat and traveled extensively with her family. She is now firmly settled in Ohio, with two roommates and their four cats. She has always been book obsessed, and writing obsessed since she first gave it a whirl in college. Romance and fantasy are her primary obsessions, but she's game to write just about anything and enjoys a challenge. She is a sucker for stories of enemies becoming lovers. When not writing, Megan is drinking too much coffee, reading still more books, and harassing family and friends, or otherwise doing whatever possible to avoid editing.
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