Royal Surrender - chapter six
They sat together at the table and the act and ceremony of eating was, at first, too quiet. Too overwhelmed by…the rest of what was happening between them.
Or perhaps the weight of what they’d each imagined might happen.
Then again, perhaps it was only Cajetan who felt these things.
Only Cajetan who had to remind himself that he was a grown man, not a callow adolescent who had never been in the presence of a woman before.
“Tell me about yourself,” he said, and felt the fool when she smiled. “I cannot say I know much about what it is like—”
“To work for a living?” she asked, but her eyes were sparkling. Her smile a jewel. “Why should you?”
“I consider what I do work,” he said, but he found he was smiling, too. “Though I understand that is not a popular position to take.”
“Everyone works,” Noe said. “One way or another.” She pushed her plate away and leaned forward, propping her chin on one hand. “I happened into the work I do, but I have come to think of it as fate. It is a joy to facilitate communication in a world where monologues are so often the default, when it is dialogue that is most needed.”
She seemed to catch herself at that and looked down, color rising in her cheeks. “I’m sorry. I did not mean to get so…”
“Passionate?”
That word sat there, then. Like a beating heart, taking over the room. Making his own pulse shift to match it.
Her gaze met his and held. “I am not a woman of passions,” Noe said, sounding something like careful.
Cajetan did not look away. “This I cannot believe.”
“Passion is dangerous,” Noe said, almost solemnly. “My life is a monument to this danger. I am told that my parents were a great love story. They defied their family and friends to be together, no matter the odds. But in the end, the odds won and I was left orphaned, a victim of this passion, you understand.”
“Is it passion that is to blame?” Cajetan asked lightly. “Or the people involved?”
“I sometimes think the story was entirely made up,” Noe said, but in the same intense way. “Just a tale told to a lonely child so she might imagine she was made in love. Who can say if this was true.” She let out a breath. “But I have lived my life accordingly. I have never allowed myself to be swept away by anything or anyone. The steps I have taken are all plotted out in advance. I am a woman who sets goals, makes plans to achieve those goals, and then does so systematically.”
“It is no wonder you are so accomplished,” he said.
“What I am trying to tell you is that I have never…” But she trailed off and did not finish.
He leaned closer, an impossible notion taking hold.
“Noe.” Her name was a breath. “Never?”