“No, not just fun.” Sabina pulled the pale-blue palla closer around herself. “But what did you think would happen, Vix? Were you going to marry me? It’s not even legal, patricians and plebeians. Even if it were, if I’d said I wanted to marry you, you’d get that shifty look you always get when you feel cornered, and you’d probably be gone by morning with your cloak under your arm. That’s why you left Britannia, isn’t it? Some girl wanted to marry you?”

I ducked that one and shifted onto firmer ground. “You used me.”

“For my enjoyment—just like you used me for yours.” Her voice was maddeningly calm. “Do you regret it?”

“It’s the last enjoyment you’ll ever have.” I yanked her against me, one hand digging deep into her hair and the other roughly claiming her breasts. “You think you’ll get anything like this from Hadrian? It might shock you to know, Lady, but the only way you’ll ever interest him is from the back.” I spat it out at her, the conclusion I’d drawn the day I met Hadrian. “I’ve seen the bastard eyeing the slaves when he comes to call on you, and it isn’t the girls he likes to look at. I even got a glance or two myself, when I had my tunic off. Your Hadrian likes boys.”

Sabina snorted. “I know that.”

My hands dropped from her as I did my best not to look like a fish.

“Of course I knew, Vix. Calpurnia told me early on that Hadrian keeps a lover: a boy singer, to be exact; twenty years old and much prettier than me.” Sabina seated herself on the marble bench again. “Why do you think she and my father were dubious about Hadrian as a suitor in the first place? They wanted me to find a husband who’d love me, give me children. But I don’t want children, and I don’t need love from a husband. Hadrian will take me traveling by day and leave me alone at night. We’ll be good friends, and that suits me well enough.”

It dropped like a stone into my stomach, the answer to the question I’d been pondering on and off ever since the night a senator’s daughter had first dragged me into her bed. “That’s why it was me, wasn’t it? You picked me. Hadrian for a husband and me for a stud—”

“Hadrian for a husband,” Sabina corrected, “and you to love.”

“Don’t even bother trying that on me.” I started my pacing again, hands wrapped through my belt so I couldn’t reach out and throttle her.