Page 10 of Bound Enemies
Leontina had never had much cause to be particularly idealistic.
They even discussed sex.
“That night at your brother’s wedding was not my finest hour,” Pau told her, sounding apologetic.
Leontina had immediately wanted to murder him for saying that, possibly with her hands, because her memories of that night were all fine. More than fine. “Which hour?” she asked, and smiled sweetly when he lifted a brow. “There were so many hours, as I recall.”
“I understand that pregnancy takes a toll on the body,” Pau said, with a great solicitousness that in no way eased the murderous urge inside her. “You will not need to worry about any demands on my part. We can revisit such things after the child is born and we can be assured that all is well and healthy.”
What could she do but smile back at him, with that meekness that had never settled into her well? “How kind,” she murmured.
Pau gave her a wing of the house to use as her own. And despite the fact that she had grown up in a literal castle, she had significantly more space in Pau’s home. He did not have a central library but, instead, there were books in every room. Any place that books could be stacked or shelved, there were more of them than could fit neatly in any of those spaces. Even more intriguing, the books were all clearly well read—even loved. There were cracked spines on old and tattered paperbacks, some of them taped up as if the reader could not bear to part with them.
She knew how books like that looked. She had more than a few of those she’d loved so well herself.
It was quite a difference from her father’s showy and impersonal library, clearly installed because people of his wealth and consequence were perceived to be the sort to have libraries, so therefore he needed one. Not because he cared about books, or reading, or the sweet dislocation of looking up from the pages of a book that was so immersive that the reader had forgotten that she was reading at all. She’d beenthat deepin the story.
The books all over this old monastery suggested a very different approach to books and reading. And possibly therefore also life in general, she thought, and Leontina wanted very much to ask Pau about it. She wanted to understand. Was this a house where people read as a matter of course? Where reading was less a strange pastime that always seemed to provoke comment and was simply…a thing that people did? Like eating or sleeping?
A biological necessity, in other words.
This felt like a revolution inside her, but she did not talk to Pau about such things.
They had talked only of practicalities, notlife philosophiesas related to books.
And the more she thought about his talk of sex—or rather, his talk of no sex despite the night that had brought them here—the more she found herself feeling guilty. Pau was widely renowned to be a man of great virtue, but she had set out to seduce him.
Not only had she succeeded in seducing him, she was now living in his house and planning to marry him. She had known that he would be that kind of stand-up, dependable man. She had been certain that was who he really was, that it wasn’t any kind of act.
Now she almost wished it was, because despite the fact that she wouldn’t change a thing, she found herself feeling a kind of shame that it had all worked so beautifully.
How was that any different from her father’s nasty little plots?
The trouble was that Pau was being nothing but kind and honorable when she knew full well it had been no accident. How could she sit with the knowledge that she’d schemed her way into both her pregnancy and his proposal and then sit him down and discuss…his reading habits and possible bookworm status?
Obviously she couldn’t.
That would make her something much closer to a monster, she thought. A bit too Umberto for her tastes when she’d thought that she’d gone to excessive lengths to make certain she was nothing like that man.
Nothing at all… And yet here she was, living what was essentially a lie because it suited her.
She didn’t like the comparison.
Leontina drove down into the coastal city of Tarragona one day to do something about the entire lack of a wardrobe she’d brought with her. At first she found herself defaulting to choosing the sorts of clothes she normally wore, but then she stopped herself. Because it occurred to her that maybe—no matter how she’d gotten here—she didn’t have to hide any longer.
It was a revolutionary thought.
Maybe this new life she’d snatched out of the dark hole of her previous one was her opportunity to be…whoever the hell she really was. Whoever she’d buried away long before anyone could come along and see the truth of who she actually was inside.
Whoever she might have been if she hadn’t had to spend the whole of her life hiding. Usually in plain sight while she pretended she couldn’t hear the things that her father and his groupies muttered about her on the rare occasions they noticed her at all.
What if she didn’t have to be that Leontina any longer—or ever again?
The real truth was, Leontina wasn’t entirely certain that even she knew who she was if left to her own devices. Because she had only ever experimented with it the one time. The one night.
The night she’d dressed with seduction in mind—and she hadn’t thrown together a few things and hoped for the best. She had studied Pau Calixto. She had gone to great trouble to find pictures of any woman who had ever been in Pau’s vicinity to try to see if there was some common thread she could pull and she’d found it. She’d assembled an outfit that was elegant and form-fitting. She’d kept her makeup subtle. She’d twisted her hair up and had worn her mother’s jewelry because it was exquisite without being showy.
And she’d known the moment she’d approached him that she’d gotten it right.
