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“My family were...”
“I thought you said you had no family. No family name.”
She shook her head. “Well, I didn’t. After I was left on the street, I had no family. And anyway, my people do not have family names.”
“You are one of the people who live in the old ways,” he said.
“Yes.”
There were those who had resisted the move to modern technology in Monte Blanco. Those who had resisted the monarchy. Who had preferred to live as they always had, in large extended family groups governed by themselves. His father had done everything he could to stamp them out. For in these groups there were often whispers of revolution. And anything his father could not control, he hated. These people were beholden only to each other. They cultivated their own ground, they made their own economy. It left them difficult to govern.
A fact that did not bother Matteo, but they had been heavily persecuted under the rule of his father.
“You never said.”
“I do not like to think of it, for what is more important to those of the old ways than family? It is who we are supposed to be governed by, in allegiance to. Above the King. But I was left. So...”
“Yes,” he said.
“Anyway. There was not ample food. Not always. It was finite, and there was not really currency exchange. We bartered and traded with others like us, and we grew our own food, farmed our own animals and hunted the woods. Feast or famine, that’s how it was. But there was no refrigerator to simply open and find within it food of infinite varieties. Still, it was luxurious compared to the time I spent on the streets. I have never forgotten that. That moment when... Food, whenever I wanted it, whatever I wanted, simply became available to me. I love food.” She laughed, the sound expanding something in his chest. “I really do. I love bread.”
“I am pleased to give it to you.” And he found it was true.
He had given women diamonds and been on the receiving end of less gratitude. She still thanked him for bread.
It made him want to give her more. To shower her with things that he never had. Their relationship had always been...different. She had never been strictly his employee. But of course not, for she had been his advisor in many ways. He felt that all kings needed one, someone that they had some sort of accountability to. And while his brother served, in part, that position, what he had always liked about Livia was that she was not part of their toxic upbringing. She came at things from an entirely different perspective than they did, and he found that to be beneficial. But the fact remained that theirs had been a professional relationship. Sort of. They had not sat like this, and he had not personally given her things. Not personally chosen a dress for her or sat in an intimate dining situation. They talked always in his office, with the exception of that night. And with the exception of their trip only a month ago...
“Think of all the other things I could give you access to,” he said. “Think of that change. Being able to open the fridge and have food whenever. Being Queen would give you doors you could open that you cannot possibly imagine just sitting here now.”
“You act as if I might be swayed by the offer of power.”
“Not power. Opportunity. I know you well enough to know power does not appeal.” The rest of the meal came, and it was as divine as what had preceded it, and they quit talking, just sitting together in a companionable silence while they ate.
When they were through, knowing that there would be coffee and dessert coming soon, he looked at her, and he made the determination that he would continue this, as he would with any woman he had taken for a date. “Shall we dance?”
