by Jael Wye
She cast him a cool glance. “That’s just green. Now how can I convince you to give up on your conspiracy theory altogether?”
Cesare just laughed mirthlessly. They were finally back at the tram. They quickly climbed inside and hit the air.
“Look,” said Bianca over the hiss of the vents, “I believe you when you say you’re helping immigrants who may have been treated unfairly. That’s commendable. I can certainly believe that Arescorp and Qin were responsible for these abuses. But stories can get distorted after a few years, right?” She got her visor and hood off.
He snapped his own visor off. “Spacebabe, you’re not that naïve.”
“No, I’m not naïve enough to take what you say at face value,” she returned. She shifted away from him, running a hand through the mass of her shining black hair. Almost against his will, his gaze ran over the sweet lines of her arms and back.
“Find it that hard to trust me, do you?” he murmured.
She shot him a pointed look over her shoulder. “You and everyone else in your company have been hiding important stuff from me. I’d say no one trusts me. Everyone looks at me like they think I’m going to sprout tentacles and start sucking out peoples’ brains.”
He choked out a laugh, momentarily diverted by that colorful image.
She turned to face him. “But to answer your question—let’s just say I’m cautious around people with extensive public records such as yours.”
“Exactly what does that mean?”
She tipped her chin up. “Well, you’ve had some rather disgraceful escapades. Mostly involving beer, nudity and public brawling, if I remember right.”
“So, I’ve been a bit of a cowboy,” he said, stung. “Nothing wrong with that.”
She looked up at him, her gaze direct. “And stealing that delegate’s rover? Was that just another cowboy prank?”
He stiffened. “What else would it be?” he said harshly.
“A jack-and-joyride goes beyond scandal. It’s criminal.”
He held her dark gaze for a moment, and part of his tension eased. She didn’t know the truth about that incident. She just assumed it was another one of his royal feckups.
Somehow, that didn’t make him feel much better. Bianca disapproved of him, and it was galling. “You throw some sharp elbows, M’Ross,” he said, his jaw stiff.
She dropped her gaze, and her exquisite face filled with remorse. “I was out of line.” Her slender white-gloved hand touched him fleetingly on the arm. “I’m sorry,” she said. He gazed down at her, and her soft mouth curved a little. “We seem to spend a lot of time apologizing to each other, don’t we, M’Chan?” she said. She started to turn away.
He caught her hand, wanting to hold her still for once. She froze, her slender fingers caged by his larger ones. At once, a stunning energy arced between them. Even through the thickness of his gloves, he could feel the awareness of her flowing like fire. He looked down into her wide, gold-shot eyes, and he could see that she felt it too. Her cheeks glowed a lovely pink, her red lips parted as she drew a sudden little breath.
Last night’s feverish dreams surged into his mind. He had promised himself he would make every one of them real. He tightened his fingers a little, ready to pull her close. She suddenly tugged her hand back and turned away, busily stripping off her gloves. He could see the slightest tremor in her movements.
His hand fell back to his side. “Let’s eat lunch,” he said abruptly. “I’m hungry.”
* * *
After they had stowed their m-suits in the tram locker, Cesare pulled out the boxed lunch that Milla had sent with them. He sat down cross-legged on the floor next to it and spread out a liner sheet. Bianca knelt down across from him, a disturbing sense of his closeness brushing her nerves. Even seated, he seemed to fill up more than his share of space with his vital presence. He handed her a torta and a tube of sweetwater. “I hope you don’t mind roughing it like this,” he said.
Apparently they were calling a mealtime truce. She sniffed, trying to match his companionable tone. “Well, it’s not the solid platinum dining ware I’m used to, but I’m sure I’ll find a way to cope.”
Cesare grinned. “That’s the spirit, Spacebabe.”
She took a small bite of her torta, but she found she was too unsettled to be hungry. She stole a glance at Cesare as he unpacked the rest of the food. What was it about the man that could wreck her equilibrium like this? Their recent disturbing conversation aside, there was something about him that made her...restless.
Maybe it was just that he was so completely unlike any of the other blokes she had experience with. Not that there had been all that many. Just two, in fact. The first one was a cold-eyed particle engineer who, she had belatedly realized, wanted money and power first and Bianca only as an afterthought. The second bloke she had gotten involved with was his exact opposite—a scruffy, easygoing kit whose only ambition in life was to conquer the “Earth Attacks!” sim game.
No surprise that those two sorry intervals in her life had left her with no idea about what to do with a bloke like Cesare Chan. A bloke who looked at her with such blatant carnal appreciation.
It likely didn’t matter anyway, she told herself firmly. Whether there was a mutual attraction or not, she simply didn’t know if she could trust him. She already had to contend with the incredible things he had said about StarLine. She would be a fool to let personal feelings add to the confusion.
He looked up from his meal, and caught her studying him. That warm, dark gaze seared over her skin. “What are you thinking about, Spacebabe? You’re beginning to make me nervous.” She could almost feel the deep sound of his voice shiver through her.
Maybe I am a fool, she thought. She forced a smile. “I doubt that anything in the Sol could make you nervous, M’Chan,” she said.
“Not much,” he genially acknowledged. “So, what were you thinking about?”
He really expected her to answer his question. She cast about for something to say, because she definitely wasn’t going to tell him the truth. “I’ve been wondering something,” she blurted out. “Do you truly enjoy mining?”
He looked a little surprised. “Of course. I was raised for it from the crèche on. Both my parents are miners. Everyone in my family going back generations was in mining.”
“You’re a trueborn duster,” she said with a smile.
“Ay. I belong out here,” he said, gesturing toward the endless rugged landscape beyond the viewports.
And she...didn’t. They really were so very different, she thought with a small pang. She shook it off. “So, you never wanted to break from family tradition? Do something other than mining?”
“Na. I left the rebellion to my brother Angelo.”
She let out a muffled laugh. “You don’t consider yourself a rebel?”
“I consider myself a bloke who knows how to have a good time. It’s just a talent that happens to get me pinched a lot. You wouldn’t understand. You’ve never done anything worthy of getting pinched your entire life, I’d bet.”
“I have too!”
“Ay? What?”
She thought for a minute. “Once I dismantled the driver system on an elevator car. Wrecked the whole elevator departure schedule for days.”
“Huh. That is an impressive bit of mayhem. I stand corrected.”
“I wasn’t trying to cause mayhem,” she admitted. “I was trying to figure out how the car worked.”
“But did you get pinched for it?”
“Well...no. My father was very busy with plans for the Earth elevator at the time, so he never quite got around to sending me to my room.”
He looked at her quizzically. “How old were you?”
“Nine.”
He shook his head. “Nine years old, and already a little queen of
the elevator. I can just picture it.”
“What can I say? I was born and raised for the family business, like you. Eris is all I ever wanted.”
He looked skeptical. “Really? That’s all you want?”
“Ay, of course it is. Eris is the most beautiful, perfect combination of science and design in the entire Sol. Living there, being a part of it—it’s like living in a dream for an engineer. Eris is everything to me.”
“You talk about that space station like it’s your one true love.”
“You love your mines,” she said, a bit defensively.
“Well, I’m not in love with them. They’re just buildings and places, not people. They can’t love you back.”
“People don’t necessarily love you back either,” she pointed out.
He cast her a keen glance that had an unnerving hint of pity in it. She thought about the affection he obviously shared with his mother and brothers, the easy camaraderie he traded with everyone around him. No, Cesare wouldn’t understand the concept of someone not loving him, she thought irritably. She might in fact be the only woman on Mars who didn’t.
Trying to get back on stable ground again, she said, “Anyway, I didn’t think a proud cowboy like you would have much use for romantic notions of true love and so on.”
“Ah, you got me there. You’re right. Just like with the rebellion, I left the falling in love bit to Angelo.” His face darkened as he spoke, and his gaze turned distant. “It didn’t turn out well for him, though.”
“That’s...too bad,” Bianca murmured, not knowing what else to say.
Cesare pulled his gaze back to her and grinned ruefully. “Maybe you’re on to something with loving an inanimate object after all. At least they can’t dump you.”
“True enough,” she said, returning his smile.
There was a pause. He eyed her for a moment as he took a drink of his sweetwater.
“Now you’re starting to make me nervous,” she said, sounding a little more sincere than playful. “What are you thinking about?”
“I was wondering why you never wear any color except gray. Most spacers like to wear mad fashions, but not you.”
Bianca looked down at her c-suit, startled. She had absently programmed it to a deep pewter that morning, she realized. “I suppose gray just comes across as sober and professional.”
“That it does.”
“You make it sound like a bad thing. Besides, I didn’t think you cared about fashion,” she said, gesturing toward his own plain black suit.
He shrugged. “Just don’t understand why a chic as fine as you would only wear gray.”
Flustered, she decided to respond to the safe part of his comment. “I have some color programs I use, sometimes.”
“Show me one.”
“Right now?”
“I can’t think of any reason why not. Can you?” His eyes sparkled. Daring her.
“All right,” she said, taking up the small challenge. She brought up her fashion selections on her cuff, and touched on one of her favorites. The new color began rippling at her feet, a deep, velvety black. The black shifted to dark red as it moved up her body, growing brighter and more intense, until it ended in a juicy crimson at her collar. Underlying the graduated color was a subtle, ever shifting pattern, like scrolling leaves, or the hieroglyphics of a lost language.
“See? Color.” She stood up and turned in a circle, feeling at once dashing and slightly silly. When she turned to face him again, she found that he had lounged back on his braced arms to watch her, his long legs stretched out in front of him, one big, booted foot crossed over the other. His dark eyes positively caressed her from head to toe and back, with a long pause at her breasts along the way. A slow smile curved over his generous mouth. Her heart began to pound.
“Ay. You look incredible,” he said softly.
“Thank you.” Her knees wobbled as she sat back down on the floor, his hungry stare following her. Not knowing what else to do, she took a big bite of her torta.
“I don’t think ‘sober and professional’ at all. I think, ‘that c-suit would look mag tossed on that console over there.’”
Bianca nearly choked. Quickly she took a sip of her sweetwater, trying to think. It’s all a game. He’s a cowboy, a player.
So...why not play along, just for a little? Like their encounter in the café on Eris, this was a moment stolen out of her real life. A moment when she could be...bad.
“You have a keen interest in clothing for a man who answers his vidcom in the nude,” she said sweetly.
His deep chuckle sounded through the car. “Ironic, huh?”
* * *
The sun was just past meridian, starting to edge down toward the distant canyon walls. Time to head back, Cesare thought with a strange sense of reluctance. He slowly bundled up the remains of their lunch inside the liner sheet and stuffed it all into the recyc. Then he turned back toward Bianca.
She was standing with one hand on the back of the passenger seat, looking out the front viewport. In her newly red c-suit, her figure was a slender flame against the picture of the icy lake outside.
She must have sensed him watching her. “I wish you could meet my father,” she said suddenly. She turned toward him. Her expression was remote and serious once again, he saw with a flicker of disappointment.
“I did talk to him. Briefly. He more or less gave me the dust off.”
She brushed that aside. “He does that to everyone. If you really knew him, you’d understand how cracked it is to think he would conspire to commit a human rights crime. He’s just not capable of it.”
Cesare could see the absolute conviction hardening her face. She truly believed in her father. Maybe he needed to approach this from a different angle. “What about Victoria?” He moved a few steps toward her. “Do you think she’s so pure?”
Her mouth twisted a little. “I wouldn’t say that. But she couldn’t have done what you’re accusing her of. She’s my father’s wife, after all.”
Cesare laughed dryly. “I don’t know why Victoria’s marital status would matter to you. It doesn’t matter to her.”
“What do you mean?”
“The chic kept trying to jump on my rod the whole time I was up on Eris. Said I could have a few more shares of RedIce if I drilled her good and green.”
Outrage flashed over her face before she quickly got control of herself. But, he noticed, she didn’t seem all that surprised. “Can I assume you declined?” she asked, her voice frigid.
He shrugged. “I didn’t feel like standing in line.”
“Noble of you,” she said waspishly.
So she didn’t much like the thought of him rolling Victoria. Interesting. He grinned. “Even us cowboys have a few standards.”
“All right. So Victoria’s a total huli. That doesn’t mean she’s a slave trader,” Bianca insisted. She suddenly looked a bit lost. Fragile. What he had to tell her about her company and her family must have been hard for her to hear, he realized. Even harder for her to believe. It would take more than just his assertions to make her see the truth.
“What if I could show you evidence to back up what I’ve told you?” he said slowly. “Dates, names, codes, memos—all the solid proof you could need.”
Her black lashes veiled the subtle gold of her eyes. “Are you saying you have this data?”
“If I did, would you be able to look at it objectively?”
“Of course I would,” she said. “I’m an engineer. I’m persuaded by fact, not by emotional appeals.”
So rational. So poised. He had a sudden overpowering urge to muss her up. He moved a few steps closer to her. “Just cold, hard facts, huh? You can’t simply take me at my word?”
This close, he could see the sudden thrum of her pulse in he
r throat, a telltale glow beneath her alabaster skin. “I...I would like to, Cesare. But that’s no way to conduct business...” Her voice trailed off, trembling a little.
She truly wanted him. He could feel it charging the air around her. It hadn’t been his imagination, that flare of attraction between them when he had touched her. But she still quivered uncertainly, as if ready to take flight at any moment. He eased closer, careful not to startle her. “You called me Cesare. I like that.”
“I...” Her voice caught.
He bent his head down, his lips only centimeters from the soft waves of her hair. He scented a fragrance as sweet and clean as pure water. “Say my name again.”
She went perfectly still. “Cesare,” she whispered.
Before she could escape, he closed the last bit of distance and kissed her. She took in a shallow little breath, and he felt her hands flutter lightly onto his chest. Jagged bolts of desire instantly shot through him, blazing across his skin where his lips pressed hers, where her slender fingers touched him.
“Ciel,” he murmured against her. His hand came up to span her delicate throat and jaw. He tilted her head up to him and kissed her more deeply, his tongue stroking against hers. She made a little sound low in her throat and melted against him as slow and sweet as liquid sugar.
His hands found her lithe waist, and he pulled her tight against his body, crushing her softness against him. He could hardly believe he was getting so excited, just from a kiss. He wanted to move his hands over her. He wanted to strip off her c-suit. He wanted...
Dimly, over the pounding of his blood, he heard a high, sharp chime. The transport had a com coming in.
For a wild instant, he considered smashing the vid to pieces. But somehow, he broke the kiss instead. He looked down into her dazed eyes for a heartbeat, his lips still hot from her. Then he fumbled for the vid and tapped on the audio.