"Do you understand what that means?" Gen asked, those blue eyes fixed upon me with a steadiness that made my chest tighten.
I drew in a slow breath.
"I do," I said carefully. "But deciding after a single night would be unfair, Gen."
A muscle ticked in his jaw.
He rose from his place before me and began to pace the room, one hand rubbing thoughtfully over his jaw, smooth and bare where Garrick's had always been covered by a beard.
It was still unnerving to look at him. He resembled Garrick so closely that, at times, it stole my breath. Yet everything else was different. The way he carried himself, the way he spoke, even the way he looked at me.
"I am merely asking for time," I continued. "Let word spread further. Let people hear that you have found me. That I have no memory of who I am or where I came from."
Gen stopped beside the fireplace, staring into the flames.
"When I found Cadoc and Brenin dead," he said quietly, "I wondered whether I had been a fool."
My stomach clenched.
Slowly, he turned toward me.
"I wondered whether you belonged to the Romans."
I forced myself not to react. Not to think about Marcus, or the Roman soldiers who had helped him. To the small time we've spent together in that darkened corner.
"If I were a Roman spy," I asked carefully, "why would I allow myself to be found unconscious and hurt, beside your altar?"
"That is precisely the problem."
His gaze sharpened.
"Nothing about you makes sense."
The room fell silent.
"You speak differently. You know things you should not know, yet claim not to know who you are." His eyes narrowed slightly. "And then tonight, the moment you vanish, two of my men end up dead."
My fingers tightened in the folds of my dress.
"I have spent my life protecting these lands," he continued. "Everything south of here passes through my territory. Trade. Livestock. Messengers. Grain."
There was pride in his voice now, but also exhaustion.
"The Romans wanted control of it for years. They have taken enough from my people already. And yet they still did not leave."
For a moment, he looked every inch the lord his people depended upon. Not merely a man pursuing a woman, but a man carrying the weight of an entire region upon his shoulders.
And when his gaze returned to me, the hardness of it all softened.
"When you disappeared tonight," he admitted, "part of me suspected you."
His eyes traveled over my face.
"But another part of me realized how furious I was at the thought of losing you."
My breath caught.
Gen crossed the room and lowered himself onto one knee before me once more.
"You must wonder why I am so determined," he began as his hand found mine, warm and steady, "when I should be wary of you."
His thumb brushed across my knuckles, as his gaze held mine. "Because if you do belong to the Romans..." he said quietly, "then perhaps the gods have a cruel sense of humor."
My lips parted at his words.
For a moment, neither of us spoke.
The fire crackled softly between us, casting flickering shadows across the room. Gen remained kneeling before me, his hand still wrapped around mine as though he feared I might disappear the moment he let go.
His gaze drifted over my face, searching.
Studying.
I frowned. "What do you mean?"
A faint smile touched his lips, though there was little amusement in it.
"That after spending my entire life fighting Rome, resisting Rome, losing the people I care about to Rome..." His eyes lifted to mine. "The woman I cannot stop thinking about may belong to them."
The admission hung heavily between us.
Then, before I could think of a response, he rose to his feet.
My pulse quickened when he leaned down, pressing his forehead against mine. Just as Marcus had done many moments ago. Only, this time, it felt wrong.
Simply wrong.
My pulse quickened. "Gen—"
His hand came to my cheek.
Gentle. Far gentler than a man like him had any right to be.
"I know I should keep my distance," he murmured. "I know I should be questioning you."
His thumb brushed softly against my skin.
"But every time I look at you, I find I care less about what I should do."
The confession stole the breath from my lungs.
But before I could answer or push him away, he leaned down and pressed his lips to mine.
The kiss was brief, tender. Almost reverent, as though he were afraid I might vanish if he held on too tightly.
When he finally pulled away, his eyes remained fixed on mine, but something had shifted in them. The warmth that had been there moments ago had faded into something darker.
His expression had gone still, and the sight of it sent a chill through me.
It reminded me of the look on his face when he had stood above the bodies of his fallen men. Silent, haunted and impossible to reach.
The look of a man promising vengeance.
I moved to stand, gripping one of the wooden bedposts for support, but he caught my wrist before I could rise. The gesture was gentle, yet firm enough to stop me.
With a light pressure against my shoulder, he guided me back to the edge of the bed while he remained standing over me.
"Gen...please," I said, unable to keep the tremor from my voice. "What are you doing?"
He didn't answer.
Instead, he lifted his hands to the veil woven through my hair. Carefully, he removed the pins securing it in places. One by one, the fabric slipped free and my hair cascaded down my back.
"Beautiful," he murmured, yet there was something hollow about the way he said it.
I placed a hand against his chest and pushed lightly.
"Gen."
He didn't move.
My pulse quickened. "What are you doing?"
For a moment, he gaze traveling over my face, lingering on my lips.
The room felt suddenly too quiet. The crackling of the fireplace no longer seemed comforting, but oppressive.
Slowly, he leaned forward, his knees pressing firmly between my thighs, locking me in.
I instinctively leaned back, falling against the bed, my eyes drifting down to his chest, unable to meet the intensity of his gaze. My hands clenched into fists on the sheets beside me, muscles taut, bracing for whatever he was about to do to me.
The edge of the bed pressed against the backs of my knees.
His jaw clenched, eyes darkening. Not with anger, but with a fierce frustration that quickly hardened into relentless determination.
I swallowed hard. "Gen."
His fingers reached out, brushing a loose strand of hair behind my ear.
The gesture should have been gentle, tender even. But instead, it twisted my stomach into tight knots because it felt wrong. It was wrong. This wasn't how it was supposed to be.
"You are frightened of me."
His voice was low, a dark statement rather than a question.
I hesitated, caught between truth and denial.
"I am sorry," I bit out, eyes fixed on the rise and fall of his chest. "I...I could not."
His jaw clenched, the tension in his face deepening into something fierce and dangerous.
Before I could react, he closed the distance.
His lips crashing onto mine with a fierce urgency that silence my protests. The world narrowing into the searing heat of his mouth, the relentless pull of his hands around my waist, pulling me against him to claim me in a kiss.
He lifted my skirts, spreading my legs apart beneath him. The cold air kissing my bare skin, sharp against the fire blazing through him, burning a hole deep into my soul.
I clutched the sheets for dear life as a part of me shattered, retreating into hollow silence, watching from a distance as his blue eyes darkened with a desperate hunger twisted into something dangerous.
His weight pressed down on me, overwhelming and inescapable. His breath gasped against my lips when I finally felt him thrust into me, an unyielding claim that shattered the fragile boundary between us.
So I dissolved into the shadows of my own mind, where he could not follow. I thought of Marcus, of warm hands and stolen kisses, of a love that was worth every wound it inflicted.
Pain and longing intertwined until one became the other, and I clung to the memories with desperate determination, allowing them to carry me somewhere far away from this room. Far away from Gen, far away from everything that felt unbearably wrong.