Briana laughed.
“What is it?” her brother asked.
“You!” she grinned at him as he sat across from her. “Look at you! So lordly…receiving trade shipments from around the empire…a father-to-be…and now you’re eating olives and drinking wine!”
“What’s wrong with that?” Einion said, unable to hold back his own smile.
“You used to hate olives and preferred beer to wine.”
“Since meeting Lucius and Adara, I developed a taste for them.” He winked.
Adara smiled and looked down to the end of the table where Lucius had seated himself to eat across from his son.
Phoebus would not look at his father, and when Lucius reached across the table to touch his son’s hand, he pulled it away quickly.
“Phoebus…please… Let me explain.”
“What’s to explain?” the boy said loudly.
Gwendolyn’s women, Caja and
