Page 78 of A Pirate's Pleasure

“What?” Zephyr frowned up at me. “You’ve gone all serious.”

I stroked my fingers over the white stripe in his hair. “I was contemplating how long it would be before we leave. There are things I need to put in place here, like hiring someone to look after the house, to pay the servants, that sort of thing. I have a responsibility to them. One I can’t just abandon like I had to when I went on the run. I don’t know how long it will take me to find someone suitable. Maybe a week if I’m lucky. No more than two, I shouldn’t think.” I’d carried on talking despite Zeph’s frown having grown more pronounced, assuming it was the thought of hanging around for a couple more weeks causing so much consternation.

“Leave! Where are you going?”

“Not me. We.”

“Okay. Where are we going?”

Stupid question. Perhaps a post-orgasmic Zephyr was one who lost the ability to think properly. “Back to the ship. Back to The Navarino, the love of your life, the reason for you getting up in the morning.”

Zephyr pulled himself up on the bed so that his head rested against the headboard. “I see.” His gaze settled on my face. “And you said we, as in you intend to come with me?”

“Of course.” A flutter of alarm made itself known in my chest. Could I have gotten it so wrong? Zephyr had said he loved me many times, the last so recent that the words still rang in my ears. “Don’t you want me to?”

He laughed, the sound sending a stab of pain through me. He sobered quickly at the look on my face. “Don’t look at me like that, Lief.”

I sat up, rearranging myself into a cross-legged position so I could face him. “I thought you’d want to be with me, that we’d learned our lesson from the past, that we’d both realized that the only thing that matters is being together.”

“So you’d give up your life here? The house? The title? The servants? To do something you never wanted to do?”

I didn’t hesitate. “Yes. And it’s not fair to throw the past back in my face. I was an idiot eight years ago. I’ve already admitted that, but even an idiot can manage not to make the same mistake twice.”

“You don’t get it,” Zephyr said as he too sat up to mirror my position. “You don’t have to do that.”

“I do.”

“You don’t.” He reached for my hands and pulled them onto his lap. “Look at me, Lief.” Only once I’d lifted my gaze to his did he carry on speaking. “You don’t have to come with me to sea because I’m going to stay.”

The words made no sense for a few seconds. “Stay? Where? Here?”

“If you’ll have me.”

“Why?”

Zeph rolled his eyes. “You already said it. We made a huge mistake years ago, emphasis on the we part of that sentence. You should have stayed in Glimmerfield… I should have come with you…” He shook his head. “We could argue what should have happened until we’re blue in the face.” He held up a finger when I went to interrupt. “But… there’s no argument that we should have found a compromise, that we were stupid to throw away what we had. What we had… what we have, is not something that can be found every day. We both went eight years without finding anything even close to it. Right?”

The slight quaver in Zephyr’s voice betrayed how nervous he was to hear the answer, a reminder that we still hadn’t discussed past lovers in any detail.

“Agreed,” I said, the tension immediately leaching from Zephyr’s expression. “I found a series of one-night-stands, and you…”

“Found a murderous, obsessional harpy.”

I grinned. “I think I got the better end of the deal.”

“I think you did.”

Zeph shuffled forward into my space, letting go of my hand to stroke gentle fingers over my cheek, his gaze holding more intensity than I could ever remember seeing. Except for maybe in the prison cell in Elderborough, where believing it to be our last conversation, we’d both spoken from the heart. It was like that entire experience had unlocked something. Maybe I should be grateful to Reeve in some twisted way. Along with Lucretius, he’d attempted to take everything from us and he’d given us the world instead: a relationship that both Zephyr and I were determined to sacrifice everything for. The only issue was who got to do the sacrificing.

I fiddled with the gold hoop earring I still hadn’t removed, quite a few stares in Silkdrift coming my way for it. I’d grown used to it. I’d grown used to quite a few things in the past few weeks that I’d expected to loathe. “I’ll sail with you,” I said. “I want to sail with you.”

Zeph was already shaking his head before I’d finished. “No. I’ll stay here. I’ve made my mind up.”

We both let out a sigh, and then we started laughing.

Epilogue

Zephyr