Amara anticipates his kiss, pushing herself up onto the desk so she can wrap herself around him, but even though lust is at risk of drowning out all her other senses, she can tell he is holding back.

“What?” She places her hand flat on his chest.

“It was the way he spoke about you.”

“What did he say?”

Philos lays his hand over hers, pressing it against his heart, as if that will stop the words from hurting. “He ranted on about how much he loved you then called you an ungrateful whore. A woman any man might seduce, because so many men must have used you. That, however innocent you were once, you are irredeemably tarnished now. I don’t really want to repeat it all.”

“That’s not what you think though, is it?” Amara says, wondering why Philos looks so upset.

“Of course not! But for him to say all those terrible things, I don’t know how much longer he will want to keep you, what he might do.”

“I’m sure we can set his mind at rest. Given you’re the one who will be telling him what I’m up to.” Philos doesn’t look entirely reassured, and so she kisses him again, hoping to distract him that way instead.

“Doesn’t it bother you.” He stops her from drawing him even closer. “That I’m reporting to him about you?”

Amara understands the question he is asking. Whether she minds the power he holds over her life. She runs her fingers through his hair, leaning closer, removing the space between them so that he instinctively tightens his grip on her waist. “No, it doesn’t bother me,” she says, her forehead resting against his. “Because I trust you.”

If feels very different being intimate in the daylight, while the house is awake, even though Amara has often imagined how it might be. Outside the semidarkness of the bedroom, Philos looks more real, and somehow more vulnerable. She breaks off from kissing him, so she can see him better, stroking his face. He leans his cheek into her caress. “I suppose it’s fortunate he doesn’t consider me a man,” he says. “Otherwise, he’d never risk leaving me here with you.” He means it as a joke, but Amara can hear the anger in his words, and worse, the shame.

“I know you are a man,” she says. They look at one another. He kisses her again, gently, because he is always careful how he touches her, and Amara knows without question that whatever she did, even if she betrayed him, Philos would never use his body to hurt her. She wants to tell him all that he means to her, but she cannot find the words. Instead, she wrestles her tunic up her thighs, forcing him to move from where he is leaning on it, and pulls the garment over her head. He looks shocked by her sudden nakedness.