by Rebel Miller
Gannon added something to a bubbling pot on the stove before he turned to face me with an open smile. My heart skittered, then, fortunately, resumed a healthier pace.
“Why didn’t you just call me through my monitor if you knew I had one in my room?” I asked without preamble.
“I didn’t know.” He shrugged then pulled a large bag out from under a counter. “When you said you didn’t, I simply assumed you did, since you have a tendency to say the opposite of what I want.”
He grinned as I narrowed my eyes.
“And how do you know my call code?” I asked. The data he’d obtained from my comm provided only basic contact information.
Gannon raised an eyebrow. “Come now,” he said with a disarming smile. “Child’s play, Kira.”
I watched him turn back to the pot and it dawned on me what Gannon was doing.
“You’re cooking?”
He glanced at me before spinning in a slow circle, looking around the kitchen in awe, spoon in hand. “By all that is holy, I do think I am,” he said in mock wonderment.
Crossing my arms, I scowled at his humor.
Gannon snorted. “Turn on your lights. I can barely see you frown. For such a beautiful woman, you really do that a lot.” He stirred something with the spoon.
“I seem to have many reasons to,” I said while my skin ignited at his off-hand compliment.
He removed the pot from the stove.
“Gannon,” I said, “is there something I can help you with?”
“Well” — he hefted the pot onto the counter — “you’ve probably figured out by now that I tend to take what I want when I see it, which typically,” he added wryly, “works in my favor.”
I waited for him to continue.
“I thought we should get to know one another over a meal.” He started to spoon out a steaming stew that I instantly recognized as a breakfast dish made with eggs, vegetables and a savory sauce. He put it on a plate directly in front of the monitor. It looked delicious. He put another heaping spoonful on a plate in front of himself then put the pot back before coming back to the counter. He drew a stool under him then tucked into his meal with gusto.
I stared at him. The transmission was so crisp I felt like he was physically with me in the room. “Gannon?”
He looked up and lowered his fork, his blue eyes glittering in the sunlight. “Indulge me. You only respond to my messages about work. This is the only way that I could think of short of showing up at your home. I would have done that, but my schedule is insane.”
Then it dawned on me: he was trying to woo me! And from Dignitas One, no less. I was reluctantly charmed. If persistence was a virtue, Gannon Consul had it in spades.
I sighed, glancing at the plate at the bottom of the screen. “Do you expect me to eat through my monitor?”
He grinned. “That,” he said, using his fork to point at the plate, “is so you can see what I’m eating and know that I actually made it.” Gannon took a bite of food.
With a smile, I leaned to the side and waved a hand over my lamp’s base to turn it on. When I sat back, his fork had paused on the way to his mouth. He placed it on the counter and leaned on his elbows.
“Even rumpled in bed, you’re breathtaking,” he said with a humbling amount of awe.
I flushed and pushed my hair behind my ears. My eyes ran over him. He was wearing a pale blue button-up shirt with the sleeves rolled up. His rich blond hair was perfectly mussed and fell over his brow. I’d never seen him so casual. He came across normally as such an unyielding and commanding man, I wouldn’t have imagined that the relaxed look would suit him. But it did, and I liked it.
“I assumed you’d have people to cook for you,” I said, trying to redirect his focus.
Leaning back, he nodded and took a sip of drink. “Hmm.”
I quirked my lips. “People make a lot of assumptions about you, don’t they?”
“They do.”
“And you resent that?”
He made a face and resumed eating. “It has its advantages.”
“Like what?”
He wiped his mouth with a napkin without looking up from his plate. “Like getting your family to leave you alone,” he said before continuing to eat.
I thought about that a bit. “You don’t get along with your family?”
He glanced up, pinning me with a look. “Let’s talk about something else.”
I pulled back. He was the one who raised the topic, after all.
I didn’t need this. I had only just fallen asleep when he called, my argument with Tai earlier in the day having made me twist and turn in my sheets. I didn’t need to be manhandled by yet another enigmatic male.
I rubbed my temples. “I should get to bed.”
Gannon opened his mouth then closed it before opening it again. “I’m sorry.”
“No worries,” I said, pulling my blanket close. “When I get to work I’ll message you about the pro—”
“It’s hard to please my parents, my father in particular.” His gaze locked onto mine. “Sometimes it’s easier to simply lower their estimation of me and then surprise them.”
I blinked. “Okay.”
“Don’t get me wrong — I had a wonderful childhood. My parents love me and I love them. It’s just my father’s so intensely ambitious he doesn’t have the capacity to see what I want for myself sometimes.”
“I see.”
“Do you?”
I nodded. “You’re afraid you’ll be overshadowed by your father.”
He recoiled. Soon after, he threw back his head to laugh long and loud. I smiled at the pure pleasure driving it.
He leaned in. “How old are you? Twenty-three, twenty-four?”
“Twenty-one.”
He sobered immediately. “I knew you were young, but …”
“How old are you?”
“Twenty-nine,” he said, then, “You come across as older, wiser.”
I stiffened. “Do you have a problem with my age?”
“Not at all.” His eyes narrowed. “Does Tai?”
“Let’s talk about something else.” I smirked when he sent me a look that told me he understood I was intentionally tossing back his earlier phrase.
He chuckled. “Gladly.”
Over the next hour, Gannon and I spoke of all manner of things. I learned that he had an older sister who resided with her family — two boys, a girl and a husband — on Hale Four. She and Gannon were as close as they could be considering their ten-year age difference. Since she had married and started a family, they had spoken less and less, which he was not happy about, though he understood her changing priorities. When he asked about my interest in law, I told him about my childish ambition to visit and learn about all the worlds like my uncle, who also worked at the Judiciary, though in a different division from me. He promptly informed me that I could travel with him any time. I neatly deflected his offer with a smile.
Gannon was an interesting man. He was a public figure, on a path to take over the second-highest position in the Realm, but he was actually a very private person. I suspected that the real reason he allowed others to perceive him as they wished was to maintain a distance between him, his peers and the public. He had a deep dislike for the superficial and for judgment based on anything other than one’s actions.
“You’re a stubborn man, aren’t you?” I laughed, popping another agum nut into my mouth. After about ten minutes or so of watching Gannon eat, I’d started to get hungry, so I’d retrieved a packet of the treats from my bag.
“I’ll leave that up to you to decide,” he said as any stubborn man would. Gannon smiled, but then grimaced after glancing at his comm.
“You have to go,” I said, an odd sense of absence filling me.
“Forgive me,” he said. “I have a meeting in an hour and I should probably let you sleep.”
I shook my head. “I’m wide awake now.” I promptly yawned and, surprised, sheepishly covered my mouth with my han
d.
He laughed. After a moment, he said, “I enjoyed speaking with you, Kira Metallurgist.”
“I did too, Gannon Consul.” We laughed at that.
“I’ll message you soon.” There was a sudden shift in his demeanor to one I had become familiar with through my previous interactions with him. He leaned forward, a determined set to his face, and asked, “Will you answer all of my messages now?”
I considered him then, noting the empty plates, the way the color of his casual shirt complemented his eyes and the sunlight surrounding him in his personal space. I realized that for the past hour or so, he had allowed me into a scarcely seen bit of his life.
“Yes,” I said, “I will.”
CHAPTER SIX
My Aunt Marah, Uncle Paol and little cousin Adria disappeared the day after receiving official word from the Realm that they were to be expelled. According to Uncle Khelan, when he and my parents went to visit their home to notify them of the news of their expulsion, they were distraught but said only that they would do what they had to do. He said he didn’t know what that meant until afterward.
Following their disappearance, Rhoan tried to quietly use his connections at region council to locate them, but his efforts were fruitless. Tai offered to seek information about their whereabouts, but Rhoan and I rejected his offer, not wanting to draw him further into our family’s unlawfulness. Tai informed us, nonetheless, that he would be on the lookout.
Tai was no longer sending me love notes.
Besides coded updates on his efforts to locate my relatives, he limited his messages to information about the status of our citizens and the fallout from Argon’s expulsion. In the beginning I told myself I didn’t care, and dismissed his defiant silence with a shrug. But as the days went on, my resolve started to slip. I missed him fiercely and wondered about my own culpability in our quarrel. In the end, I refused to give in. Tai wanted me but was unwilling to take a chance. I’d wanted him for more than five years. He would have to come to me, all or nothing.
Fortunately, work was a convenient distraction. I became gloriously busy, and more confident in my abilities every day. My colleagues in the Office of Exploration seemed to respect my developing competence. More and more, they were turning to me for advice on a law or project they were working on. I gladly offered to help any way I could, proud in the way they appeared to listen to what I had to say and how they incorporated my thoughts into their own work. By the day of the world ministers’ meeting, I felt like I was on a solid footing at work. It was my personal life that was off-kilter.
“Metallurgist,” Gabriel said in greeting. He stood beside me, his kohlrimmed eyes surveying the assembly room, into which the world ministers would soon arrive.
I nodded and straightened my spine.
Over the past few weeks, Gabriel and I had begun working closely with Gannon, pulling together a proposal that the high chancellor and Prospect ambassador found worthy. During that time I had only one opportunity to see Gannon in person.
On his way to another world, he stopped by Prospect Eight to meet with Gabriel and me to discuss a matter that required immediate attention. As interest in the proceedings at Prospect Council grew, the high chancellor had become rightfully concerned about the security and privacy of the location for the ministers meeting.
Gannon treated me as professionally as he did Gabriel. His demeanor was polite and his gaze remote. Actually, he hardly looked at me the majority of the time. Every now and then I pressed my lips together to hide a smile. The truth was, by that point Gannon was messaging me multiple times a day, and most of his messages were entirely nonprofessional — absolutely nothing to do with work. I was regularly informed that he was thinking of me, wanted to see me and looked forward to seeing me soon. He also wanted to know, with growing urgency, whether I was thinking of him. At one point, I had to respond that I could hardly not think of him with all the messages he was sending me.
“Everyone’s here,” Gabriel said, still studying the assembly room. “We should be ready to start in a few moments.”
“Do you need anything?” I asked, conscious of my inadequate preparation at the last Council meeting.
He eyed me. “No. I believe I have everything I need.”
I gave him a tight smile and watched as he went to take his seat. Over the past few weeks, Gabriel had become aloof in his interactions with me. He was never unkind, but he seemed to hold himself apart, his humorous quips making an appearance less frequently. I wondered at his mood as I settled into my seat, directly facing him.
Gannon had decided to use a larger assembly room in a smaller building behind the Judiciary building. It was a wise choice. The room could be entered only by code, and to find the building itself required, in my opinion, an advanced skill at solving mazes. The room was just as imposing as the assembly room in the Prospect Council building, but this one had lecture-hall-style seating across from the stage, on which we had set up a long table and chairs for a panel of thirty to forty people. In addition to the high chancellor, ministers representing each of the Realm’s remaining thirty-two worlds would be seated on stage. Invited subordinates and members of the media would sit across from them.
As I pulled out my tablet, I searched for Gannon. Instead, I found Tai entering the room, with three other protectors behind him. A familiar yearning bloomed inside me. He didn’t see me immediately, so I took the opportunity to look my fill. His imposing presence couldn’t be dimmed by the tense set of his shoulders and fatigue shadowing his eyes.
I thinned my lips, wondering whether he was being truthful in his messages to Rhoan and me. It would be like Tai to hide information that he thought would distress us. My concern outweighed my residual anger at him. I stood and was about to go to him when I saw Gannon at the door. He spotted me immediately and, after a few words to a fellow senator, started my way.
“Are you ready?” he asked when he stood in front of me, eyes sharp.
I pulled my gaze from Tai. “Yes, I suppose so.”
“It should go smoothly. We have my father and your ambassador on our side already, which means we have the votes of all your seven worlds as well as those of Dignitas.” He was cool as he made his assessment. “It’s Hale and Septima we’ll have to watch for, but my father knows how to handle them.”
I noted his resolute countenance and posture. He was a warrior in that moment, ready to face a den of lions. This was an environment he was intimately familiar with, and he reveled in the challenge that lay ahead. I was drawn to him and wanted to reach out to wrap myself in his innate self-assurance.
He caught my gaze and held it for a moment. “After the meeting,” he said, “there’s a reception for the ministers and their delegations. You’ll come with me so we can celebrate.”
I balked. “I wish I had your confidence.”
“You do — you just don’t know it yet.” He looked across the room. I followed his line of sight: the high chancellor and ministers were arriving and starting to seat. Gannon turned to me. “I’ll be seated close to the podium, across from my father. I’ll find you once we adjourn,” he said and gave me a reassuring smile before striding away.
The meeting began shortly thereafter. Throughout the proceedings, a lump of coal sat buried at the bottom my belly. It was exhilarating that a piece of work I had contributed to was up for discussion, but my pulse thudded as time to discuss the most contentious aspect of our proposal drew close. It had become terribly important to me that the ministers approve our recommendation to include subordinate representation on the task force.
Initially, I had simply cited the law because it was my job to do so, and because the councillors should be aware of it. But now, the longer the whereabouts and well-being of my family remained unknown to me, the more I feared losing faith in our system and its adherence to governance and law should our recommendation not be accepted. Even more, I feared losing hope for my family. I had my disagreements with our system’s rigid, widespread sancti
ons and our predetermined roles in it, but surely the system would listen when someone gave strong voice, even if that was to contrary opinion.
When the time came for the discussion of our proposal, I sat forward, gripping the edges of my tablet. It was a wonder the thing kept its shape. As expected, the conversation flowed easily around standard matters related to timelines and process but faltered when it turned to the composition of the task force. As time passed, the conversation became a debate, with ministers jockeying for time to counter or support each other’s claims. Many were mystified that such a law even existed. Others, who had been aware of it or perhaps were indifferent, didn’t see reason to make use of such a prehistoric law. The high chancellor chaired the discussion well, managing to maintain civility as voices became more impassioned.
As the meeting progressed, more and more ministers moved away from our recommendation. Gabriel was able to keep a few other Prospect ministers on board, but only barely. My disappointment warred with burgeoning frustration. Many times, Gabriel deferred a point to a countering minister with only a slight frown as a show of his own opinion.
I sought out Gannon and found him focused on the panel. He appeared cool and somewhat removed from the rising tension in the room. Anyone would guess that he didn’t care either way what the outcome of the meeting was. But I had seen that look before. I glanced at his hand: it was clenched in a fist at his thigh, confirming my suspicion. He was irritated.
When Gannon had come to meet Gabriel and me about relocating the meeting, I had seen him assume that exact expression and posture. It happened when Gabriel broached a sensitive topic: whether to invite members of the media. Gabriel was against the idea, citing privacy concerns, but Gannon thought giving the media some access rather than simply cutting them off would stave off their voracious attempts to acquire information and claim conspiracy. After a tense back and forth, Gannon leaned back with a cool gaze, fist clenched, before asking Gabriel what exactly he had to hide that he didn’t want the worlds to know. Gabriel drew back, affronted, and changed the subject.