by Jenna Black
“I was so worried about you,” she said, fearing that she was going to burst into tears, as she’d done when he’d first called her from the Basement to tell her he was okay.
Dante grinned crookedly. “You were worried about me?” he said. “I wasn’t the one who went waltzing into enemy territory and asked Synchrony to bomb the building she was trapped in!”
“It seemed like a good idea at the time.”
He shook his head. “I’m glad I stayed somewhere safe, like the Basement.”
Nadia could no longer hold herself back, and she practically lunged for Dante’s mouth, wrapping her arms around him once more. He kissed her back with familiar passion, his tongue dancing with hers, his hands sneaking under the hem of her top and searing the skin of her lower back.
Once again, it was Dante who drew away first. His cheeks were pink beneath his tan, his eyes dark with desire, his breathing quickened.
“Maybe we should slow down,” he said hoarsely, though every nuance of his body language said he didn’t want to. “It’s one thing for us to fool around in the Basement, when we don’t even know if we’re going to live through the night, but this is different.”
Nadia knew he was right. Society was in too much of a state of upheaval right now to care much about her reputation, but that reprieve wouldn’t last long. She had no idea what her fellow Executives would make of her time on the run, but it was possible they would ignore it, act as if nothing untoward could possibly have happened. After all, she had been far outside the public eye at the time, with no reporters capturing her every scandalous step for posterity. If Nadia was known to indulge in public displays of affection with an Employee after she’d been returned to society, it was likely to cause a scandal.
But the thing was, Nadia didn’t give a crap about social politics anymore. Causing a scandal had once seemed like an unthinkable nightmare, and yet now she saw how truly unimportant such things were. She had escaped the Executive world, and though she was now nominally back in it, she was never going to fit herself back into its narrow-minded mold.
“You’re right,” she told Dante. “It is different. So maybe we should take this discussion somewhere more private.”
The pink in Dante’s cheeks deepened. He reached out and brushed a hand over her cheek, then ran his fingers through her hair. “Don’t get me wrong,” he said, leaning forward to feather his lips over hers. “I would love to.” Another soft, feathery kiss. “But, um…”
His voice trailed off and he pulled away. “If we go somewhere more private,” he mumbled, staring at the floor instead of looking at her, “things might get out of hand. And I’m not prepared for that, if you know what I mean.”
Nadia let out a sigh and collapsed back into the cushions of the sofa. If she’d been thinking with her head instead of her hormones, she would have known that without being told. He could hardly have expected her to throw herself at him like this. What was she thinking? Her cheeks heated with a blush.
Dante smiled at her a little sheepishly. “Under the circumstances, I have to ask: is the engagement between you and Nate back on?”
She honestly hadn’t given the idea any thought. Her present was way too chaotic and uncertain for her to spend much time thinking about her future. And yet the only reason her unofficial engagement to Nate had been broken was because Nate’s father wanted to punish the two of them for blackmailing him. Nate was now Chairman himself, and, within reason, could marry whomever he wished. Nadia would still be a safe choice for him, someone who knew about Kurt and didn’t object, someone who had been his friend since they were children.
But Paxco was in a very different situation now than it had been when their parents had first agreed to the arrangement, many years ago. Then, Paxco had been prosperous and stable, its position in the world of the Corporate States secure despite the corruption that lay in its heart. In such a position of power, Chairman Hayes hadn’t needed to use Nate’s marriage as a political bargaining chip, so he had chosen to marry Nate within the state.
“No,” Nadia finally answered. “Paxco’s going to need allies, badly. Nate’s going to have to marry someone who will help stabilize our position, and that’s not me. It might even still be Agnes. Paxco’s vulnerable right now, and having Synchrony’s military stay on our side would be a major advantage.” Assuming their “peacekeeping” force wasn’t already planning to overstay their welcome.
Dante shook his head ruefully. “After everything that’s happened, we’re no closer to being a democracy, are we? Still stuck back in the middle ages with this arranged marriage crap.”
“We’ll be closer with Nate in charge than we would be with Dorothy or with Nate’s father.” Nate had never been much of a revolutionary until very recently—certainly nothing like Dante and Bishop—but he had changed. And in time, he would change Paxco, she was sure of it.
“Nate might have to marry for political gain,” Nadia continued “but I won’t. I’m through with being an Executive. From now on, my life is my own, and I’m going to do what makes me happy, even if other people don’t approve.” Including dating an Employee who had once been a servant in her household.
Nadia could tell from the look in his eyes that Dante was still skeptical. He probably thought that once her world was restored to some semblance of order, she would drift away from him and they would each settle into their old, familiar places in society. She looked forward to proving him wrong.
* * *
Thanks to her concussion, the doctors had not cleared Agnes to travel yet, so instead of inviting her to his place and playing host, Nate visited her in the presidential suite of her hotel. She was waiting for him in the suite’s living room when he was shown in, and he did a double take at the sight of her.
Gone was the mousy brown hair in its unflattering bob. She’d dyed it a rich auburn and had it cut in a fashionably asymmetric style—very short on one side to help camouflage the swath that had been shaved off to stitch her wound, and chin-length on the other. She’d also done away with her usual baggy wardrobe and was wearing a close-fitting camisole top and a pair of sleekly tailored pinstripe trousers that rode low on her hips.
When she saw the way he was looking at her, Agnes smiled and turned around, giving him the 360-degree view.
“Who are you, and what have you done with Agnes?” he asked, shaking his head.
“How do I look?” Her little-girl voice hadn’t changed, and there was still an aura of shyness that clung to her, like she hadn’t quite grown into her new look yet.
“Fantastic,” he told her honestly.
Another thing that hadn’t changed about her was her easy blush. But at least this time she was blushing because he’d said something nice. She reached up and patted her hair as if to remind herself what it looked like.
“I’m having a little trouble getting used to it,” she admitted. “But everyone tells me I look better this way, so…” She shrugged. “But please, come on in. Sit down. Can I get you anything?”
“No, no,” he said, taking a seat on the sofa and gesturing for her to do the same. “I’m fine. And you need to stay off your feet.”
She rolled her eyes. “I keep telling everyone I feel fine, but no one seems to believe me.”
“Concussions are nothing to mess with.” As great as she looked, it was hard to miss the line of stitches the fuzz on her scalp wasn’t yet long enough to hide.
“So they tell me,” she said, finally accepting his invitation to sit down. “But if they don’t give me the all clear soon, I’m staging an escape.”
Nate raised an eyebrow at her. More than just her appearance had changed. Defiance of any kind had seemed impossible for her when he’d first met her.
“But you must have an impossibly busy schedule, Mr. Chairman,” she said, “and I doubt you stopped by to trade small talk.”
He made a face. “Please, Agnes. You don’t have to call me that. Not after everything we’ve been through together.”
/> “But you’re here on official business, aren’t you? If it’s official business, then you should use your title even with your closest friends.”
He thought about it a minute, then shook his head. “If we get around to talking anything that resembles business, then you can call me Mr. Chairman if you really want to. But right now it’s just Nate talking to Agnes. Okay?”
Her expression turned faintly quizzical, and she cocked her head at him. “Okay. So what is it you want to talk about that isn’t strictly business?”
Nate sucked in a deep breath and let it out slowly before he started to speak. “First off, I want to apologize for the way I treated you when we first met. In all the drama, I don’t know if I ever came right out and said that to you. I was a total dickhead, and I’m sorry.”
Most Executive girls would have been offended by his language; but then most Executive girls hadn’t spent time hanging around in the Basement. Agnes just smiled.
“You’ll get no argument from me,” she said, and Nate thought that perhaps now he might be blushing. “But we were both different people back then, and you had your reasons.”
“That doesn’t make what I did right.”
“Maybe not, but it’s still a thing of the past. In other words: apology accepted.” She smiled at him again, and there was no hint of lingering anger or resentment in her eyes.
“Thank you.”
“Now that that’s over with, shall we talk about the elephant in the room?”
Nate blinked, not used to Agnes being so direct. But he should have known she would guess why he had come by to talk to her.
“Have you already spoken with my father?” she asked.
He shook his head. “No. Obviously I’ll have to if you say yes, but you’re a legal adult now, and you can make your own decision. As you and Nadia both pointed out to me, I wasn’t such a prize catch before, and I’m even less of one now. But even though you never signed any paperwork, I’m willing to honor our fathers’ agreement if you still think it’s a good match.”
The words weren’t easy for him, and his pulse quickened with the first hints of panic. Not at the prospect of marrying Agnes, but of marrying anyone. His heart belonged to Kurt, and it always would. And though he’d been through a lot of changes recently and had finally come to accept the responsibilities that were his by birth, there was no way he was giving Kurt up. Which was not going to make for much of a happily ever after in the marriage department. However, a marriage of state was a business transaction, not a romance, and at least Agnes was someone he knew—and who already knew about his relationship with Kurt.
Not that there was any guarantee Chairman Belinski still wanted this arrangement. Marrying into Paxco in its current situation might be more of a gamble than Synchrony was willing to take, and it was possible Agnes could do considerably better.
Agnes peered closely at his face. “Is that what you want?”
“This isn’t about me. It’s about you.”
Her smile held a tinge of irony. “We’re talking about a marriage of state. It isn’t about either one of us.”
He let out a half-laugh, half-sigh. “True. But we are the ones who would have to live with each other.” And produce an heir. The very thought of it made him shudder. Not because sex with a girl was completely repugnant to him—he’d managed it a couple of times in an effort to camouflage his true nature—but because of what it would inevitably do to his relationship with Kurt. But he was getting way ahead of himself.
“Well, my answer would be the same either way,” Agnes said. “I suspect my father would be happy to stick to the agreement. Paxco may be in turmoil, but one way or another it will recover, and if you and I marry, the next Chairman of Paxco will be my dad’s grandchild. That’s a pretty good deal.”
“So it’s on then?”
To his surprise, Agnes shook her head. “No. Believe me, it’s nothing personal. And I haven’t talked this over with my father yet, so I’d appreciate it if you don’t say anything to him until I have a chance to.”
Nate wasn’t sure how he felt about the rejection—other than confused. “May I ask why not?”
Agnes licked her lips. “Because as you said, I’m a legal adult now, and I can make my own decisions. I like you, and after everything we’ve been through, I’ll always consider you my friend. But I’m in love with Evan, and he’s the one I want to be with.”
“Evan?” Nate asked, wondering if Agnes’s concussion was more severe than he’d realized. “Who the hell is Evan?”
She grinned at him. “You know him as Shrimp.”
Nate opened his mouth to say something, but no words came out.
Shrimp? Really?
“When the doctors clear me, I’m going to join him in the Basement,” Agnes said with quiet certainty. “We were constantly in danger, with the future looking so horribly grim it was hard to think about it, and yet I was happier there than I’d ever been in my life. No parties, no media, no gossip, no public speaking.” She sighed wistfully. “I don’t want my old life back.”
Nate still didn’t know what to say. It was true that Agnes had seemed more relaxed, more comfortable in her own skin, when they’d been in the Basement. And it had been impossible to miss the connection between her and Shrimp. But Nate had thought it was no more than a harmless flirtation. The scandal that would arise when the media found out was unthinkable.
“Your father’s never going to let you do that,” he finally said.
“Legal adult here. He can’t stop me. Not if I don’t care about not having any money.”
It was true that withholding family funds was the most popular way for Executives to curb dependents who tried to stage rebellions. Now that Agnes was eighteen, Belinski would have no legal right to forbid her to do whatever she wanted.
“I know it will cause a big scandal,” she continued, “and my father will be furious, at least at first. But in the Basement, I’ll be out of the media’s reach, so there’s only so long they’ll be able to keep the story going.”
“Keep in mind that Shrimp’s home and everything he owned went down with the red tower. If you go back to the Basement, it won’t be to the comfortable apartment we spent time in.”
“And the place is completely devastated,” Agnes agreed. “Mostly ruins, with we don’t yet know how many dead. It’ll need a lot of rebuilding. I can help with that. I have an idea what I’ll be facing thanks to the time we spent with Bishop. And I still think my life there will be better than my life here.”
Nate felt humbled by her courage and conviction. Would he have had the courage to reject everything that was familiar and comfortable about his life, to throw himself into danger and deprivation for the sake of love? He honestly didn’t know.
“If you and Shrimp ever need anything, you can call me,” he said. “I’m doing a pretty good hatchet job on my personal funds already, but I owe you—Paxco owes you—more than we can ever repay. I’m going to do everything I can to make the Basement a better place when we rebuild it. And I suspect I won’t be getting a whole lot of marriage offers in the near future, so if you change your mind, let me know. Odds are I’ll still be available.”
Agnes smiled and patted his hand. “Thank you. If I did have to do the whole marriage of state thing, you’d be an excellent choice. You are officially no longer a dickhead.”
Nate couldn’t do anything but laugh.
CHAPTER THIRTY
Nate collapsed into bed, facedown and fully clothed, too tired and stressed and frustrated to bother with formalities like undressing or brushing his teeth, or even getting under the covers. Kurt, who had followed him into the bedroom, sat down on the edge of the bed and started prying off one of Nate’s shoes. Nate mustered as much energy as he could find to jerk his foot out of reach.
“Stop it,” he protested. “You’re not really my valet, and I’ll take off my own damn shoes in my own damn time.”
With the level of hostility Nate was already facing
from the public, he hadn’t dared make his relationship with Kurt known, so he’d once again hired him on as a valet so they could have private time together. But just because he had to pretend to the outside world that Kurt was his servant didn’t mean he would treat him as such, at least not in private.
“Another tough day at the office?” Kurt asked, unruffled by Nate’s snappishness. He grabbed Nate’s leg again. “I’ll sit on you if I have to, so hold still.”
Nate groaned but didn’t have the energy to fight off Kurt’s second attempt to remove his shoes.
“Wanna tell me about it?” Kurt asked, tossing first one shoe aside, then the other.
Nate turned over onto his back so he could see Kurt’s face, needing to look into a pair of sympathetic eyes. All day, he’d been faced with anger, and stubbornness, and condescension—even downright hatred—and he’d been fighting to keep himself contained, to project an aura of competence and control.
“I’m in over my head,” he admitted, though in truth that was the least of his problems. “I don’t know how to be Chairman even under good circumstances.” Because he’d been the world’s shittiest Chairman Heir, spending all his time and energy on petty rebellion and having fun instead of learning how to govern.
“Give it time,” Kurt said, patting his leg absently.
“I have been giving it time!”
Kurt rolled his eyes. “What has it been? Ten days? I think it takes longer than that to learn to be Chairman.”
Nate sighed and closed his eyes. It was true that ten days wasn’t a lot of time, but as each of those days had passed, Nate had become more and more certain that he was not the right person to lead Paxco out of these dark times. And it wasn’t just because of the learning curve, either.
“You’ve seen the news,” Nate said. “The protests. The calls for my resignation. Or arrest. Or execution.”
Nate wanted to tell Kurt the whole truth—that an attempt had been made on his life today, and that it hadn’t been the first—but that would only make Kurt worry. Nate was already doing enough worrying for both of them. Two attempts in ten days was not a good sign, and if someone competent were to try it …