She hadn’t planned on that—in fact, she’d been convinced Domitian would drop her altogether now that so many other women would be competing for his Imperial favors. But Domitian hadn’t looked at anyone else yet. And when Marcus Norbanus had been so rude to her, so utterly shriveling . . . well, Domitian had looked like a more appealing prospect. Better to have a lover I can control than one with a mind of his own.

Domitian wasn’t Rome’s only prince, though. Marcella thought about that as Domitian pinned her down across the pillows and began kissing her breasts. “Have you met with your brother yet?” she murmured, arching back into his mouth.

“When he arrived.”

“He’s terribly popular,” Marcella said artlessly as Domitian wound his hands through her hair. “You should have heard the cheers in the Forum yesterday. When will your father formally announce him as heir?”

Domitian scowled, rearing back. “Titus might be named heir, but Nessus says he’ll never have any sons. So it’ll be me who gets the crown, and they’ll call me Lord and God. They’ll call you Lady and Goddess.”

“Fortuna, how grand.” Marcella looked at the gray light coming through the window. “Can it be dawn already?”

Domitian had swept her away for a week at one of his newly acquired Imperial villas in Aricia—and really, his timing could not have been better. Marcella knew her three fellow Cornelias were quite put out with her; it would be better to give their tempers time to cool. Later she might visit her sister and cajole her back into good humor. Cornelia was surely too swamped in wedding bliss to hold grudges, and anyway they’d never had a serious fight about anything in their entire lives, since the days they were children squabbling over dolls. Lollia, well, she was too flighty to stay angry with anyone, and Diana too dense to remember any quarrel past the next Reds win. They’d all forgive her soon enough. But in the meantime, Marcella told Gaius she was visiting a friend, ignored his sputtering, and went to Aricia with Domitian.

She’d never had anyone so mad for her. Quite diverting, really. There were whole days Domitian wouldn’t let her out of bed, and even outside lovemaking he always had a possessive hand on her arm or the nape of her neck. He gave her jewels and then threatened to take them back, he mocked her writing and then begged forgiveness, he grew furious when she wandered out for an hour’s walk and accused her of meeting another lover, then dragged her to bed swearing he’d make it all up to her. Marcella quite enjoyed it. And she talked a little, here and there, about Titus.