“It’s putting yourself in direct competition with Haversham.”
“Medical and weaponry. Kind of a conflict of interest if you ask me,” he said with another smile, squeezing my hand slightly, not threateningly, just nice.
I took a deep breath. “You don’t do weapons tech?”
“Me, personally? We call it defense, not weapons.”
I laughed. “So, it’s weapons when Haversham does it, but defense when you do?”
“Of course. Most people would be dismayed to hear that they’re working for a villain because most don’t have your charming acceptance of the role. What do you want for lunch? I have a cooler in the back. We can pull over and eat while we watch video of Jezebel. The guys back at the camp are streaming it with only a slight offset to cut out anything Nix thinks makes us look bad.”
“Like lunches?”
He gave me a wry smile. “I brought sanitizing wipes and everything.”
“You’re not going to offer your spit? I might take you up on that if you did.” What a lame line, but he only kissed my hand, the one he had so firmly in his grasp.
“There you go. You look beautiful today. I particularly like the contrast of your blue eyes and your pink hair, but I like everything about you.”
Such small words, but the way he said it, the way he looked at me, it made me feel all adorable and idiotic.
We stopped for lunch on a large butte, and when he said he had sani wipes, I expected sandwiches in a cooler, but lunch was already spread out for us on tables covered in pristine white cloths, and a waiter was standing by to make sure rabbits didn’t run off with it or something.
I sat opposite Dirk with my delicately steamed vegetables and flaky fish, feeling positively underdressed in my jeans and t-shirt. “This seems excessive,” I said.
“Good. It isn’t though, not remotely. The Prescott bride should have every advantage, including proper silverware and a chair.”
“Ooh, silverware and a chair? However will I get used to such advantages? What’s the catch?”
“Nix wants you to play your cello wearing a pale pink dress that blends with the rocks. The cello is black. Are you in the mood?”
“If Nix wants me to play my cello, I guess that’s what I’ll do. All of this was hardly necessary to persuade me. He’s the boss.”
He pointed his fork at me. “He is the boss, but I’m your husband, and I don’t make requests without buttering you up, even if I’m asking for someone else. How did you get more beautiful in the last five minutes? The longer I look at you, the more stunning you are. It must be the shifting light, throwing you into new portraits of loveliness.”
I cocked my head. “Now I’m getting nervous. What else are you buttering me up for?”
“The campfire scene. It’s streamed out to viewers of all the racers around the campfire after the first day’s racing. I want you in my arms during that scene.”
“You want me, or Nix?”
His eyes never left mine. “Me.”
I took a bite of fish while I struggled with the feelings, the fluttering in my chest, the delight spreading through me, making me want to spread my arms wide and spin recklessly until I tumbled off the cliff’s edge. “Since you asked so nicely, I suppose that will be acceptable.”
“Excellent. I’ll look forward to it.” He flashed me a grin that made me feel like we were in on a joke together, part of something no one else needed to understand.
Wait a minute. What was the joke? Why did he want me to be up here playing my cello with the world to see? My grandfather would see.
“International live streaming,” I said while some of my happiness faded. “You want everyone to see us together,including my family. Does that help you with your defense deals?”
He took a bite, chewed and then gave me a nice smile that I didn’t trust, but it was still so pretty. Maybe I didn’t care what he did to my family. To me. That was love, right? Stupidity, obsession, a complete embrace of all kinds of humiliation. Of course, the love would eventually fade, and I would destroy him. It would be better if he destroyed me first. Particularly when it felt so good.
“My mother. I want her to see me publicly, shamelessly married to Dani Divine, the commercial cellist. You should have told me that she had kidnapped you. Two million to stop seeing me? Maybe two hundred million, but was she trying to insult you or me? We can settle on both. I apologize for her, because she is never wrong.” His eyes grew hard for a moment before he smiled gently. “I’m glad that you could overlook my family when deciding to marry me.”
“We can’t help who we’re related to.” Philippe, for instance, but also my grandfather. He’d raised me to be someone I wasn’t sure I could be. Maybe my body would continue its revolt forever, and I’d have no choice but to live exactly the life I wanted. Forever. I looked up at Dirk, and an agonizing aching went through me, fixed on that one point in space, the one person who always made me feel safe, whole, content. I shouldn’t get used to those feelings, but I wanted to. I wanted to pretend that my feelings weren’t as destructive as my inability to pull the trigger. Then I would. I got to do what I wanted, and I wanted to pretend that we were just a couple in love, newly married, with nothing but hope.
The concert to the empty landscape was windy, and the dress had long floating silk panels that spun around on the gusts. After a few minutes, I forgot the reason I was up on a rock with my cello, and just played to that vista stretching out intothe distance, free of the constraints of time, space, logic, or duty. I knew Dirk was there, watching over me, protecting me, and I loved that as much as I loved playing to an audience of mountains and sky.
