Page 102 of Peasants and Kings
Memories of my mother assailed me. Not even the crisp sea air that teased the hair at my temples or the lush beauty surrounding me could divert my thoughts.
Her smile, somehow open yet mysterious. Her golden-brown eyes that flashed like lightning when she was angry. The way she’d start yelling at me in Italian and then switch to English mid-sentence. The way men had always stared at her wherever we’d gone. Not even the lines of exhaustion and years of arguing with me had marred her natural beauty. It had only enhanced it, lending a certain fragility to her. It tacitly called out to men to protect her, but she’d never let them. She was stronger than any of them anyway, they just didn’t know it.
I heard the faintest sounds of Midas’s trotting hoofbeats, and Hadrian appeared next to me. A sigh of appreciation escaped my lips before I could stop it. His stern expression and the way he handled his mount had me shivering in appreciation.
When he looked at me, his eyes were fierce and brooding.
“You’ve been having nightmares.”
His words jarred me out of my fanciful mood. “What? No. I don’t have nightmares.”
“Aye, you do.”
“I think I’d remember having nightmares,” I countered. “I don’t even remember dreaming, Hadrian.”
He raised his brows. “Do you think I’m lying to you?”
“No, but—”
“You thrash and mutter in Italian. The moment I pull you into my arms, you go limp and you whimper. Do you know what you whisper against me?”
I shook my head, suddenly so afraid that my throat began to tighten.
“Mama.”
“You think I’m crying out in my sleep for my mother?” I asked bluntly.
“I don’t think. Iknow.”
I looked away from him to stare at the waves lapping at the sand.
“I told you about my mother,” he reminded me.
“You did,” I agreed.
“Very few people know about her. I don’t ever speak about her.”
“We have that in common, then,” I said.
“You could tell me. About yours.”
“No.”
“What do you think I’m going to do with the knowledge, Eden? Use it against you?”
The only thing he’d used against me was my own desire, and I couldn’t really be mad at him for that.
Had I used Hadrian’s past against him? No. It had only made me understand him better. It had made me yearn to know him even more. It had split something open inside of me, a canyon of need and want, but the legacy that was in my blood and the ripple effect that my mother’s actions had caused had to remain a secret.
“Eden?”
His voice was soothing, like the gentle purls of ocean waves. I let it swell over me.
“She committed suicide,” I said softly, forcing myself to say it out loud.
“Jesus,” he muttered. “Did you—were you the one who—”
“No,” I interrupted. “I wasn’t the one who found her. I got a phone call.”
