Dalia laid her head on his shoulder. “You don’t think it’s possible to love more than one person?”
Pierce was silent so long she’d begun to wonder if he would say anything at all. “I don’t know.”
“Humans do.”
“No, they don’t. Some of them only love themselves, and some of them love someone, but none of them love more than one female or one male at the time.”
“So ... what you’re saying is you think it’s possible, but only one at the time? If you love one person and then begin to love another person, you have to stop loving the first one in order to be able to love the second?”
“I guess. You don’t see humans taking on two partners, except when they’re cheating on each other.”
Dalia sighed. “Maybe I feel this way because I’m not human, then.”
Pierce swallowed audibly. “You just told Reuel you loved him. You’re saying, now, that you love me?”
Dalia sat up and looked at him. “Don’t do that.”
“What?”
“Don’t compare. If you don’t believe me, or you don’t want to, or you just can’t, then I’ll try to understand, but I know what I feel. I sought you out when we were on the ship because I knew you would take care of me, unquestioningly.”
He sighed. “I was that obvious.”
“No. I thought you might like to be more than friends, but I wasn’t sure. I just knew you were my best friend and that I could count on you.”
“I don’t want to be your friend,” he said harshly.
She caressed his cheek. “It would hurt me indescribably if you stopped being my friend. I want you to be my partner, my lover, and my friend. If you chose someone else, I’d die every time I saw you with her.”
He frowned. “Well maybe you understand a little better how I feel.”
She shook her head. “You’re wrong if you think I don’t. I understand completely how you feel. What would you have me do?”
He slipped an arm around her shoulders. “We could leave.”
“A year from now. I have to choose a partner within the next six months.”
He swallowed. “Then choose me, Dally. We can leave before you have to choose another.”
“I love Claire. I couldn’t leave her.”
“We’ll take her.”
She shook her head and scooted off his lap. “I love Reuel too much to do that to him. Any way I look at it, I have to hurt somebody that means a lot to me. I’m beginning to wish Reuel had just killed me when he caught me ... or that I hadn’t woke up when the tech was about to.
“I’ll contract with both you and Reuel. Or I won’t contract with either of you.”
Chapter Twenty-One
Dalia was absolutely petrified when she, Reuel and Pierce entered the records office and signed a family unit contract. She could well imagine what the clerk thought of it, for both Reuel and Pierce looked more like condemned men at an execution than happy partners.
It was some relief to discover that they were the fourth party to do so. Dalia didn’t think she could have handled it if they’d had to endure another ‘first’ ceremony.
The three of them had finally sat down together and worked up partnership rules they felt like they could live with. Dalia could display her affection for either partner, in any way she chose, at any time, and neither of the other partners could express or display anger either during or afterward. If they didn’t like it, they could walk it off, but they were not to deliberately provoke each other either by word or deed in regards to possessiveness or jealousy.
Any disputes arising from any other source, or for any other reason, would be settled however they wanted to settle them, outside, and never within view or hearing of the baby. For Claire, or any other children they were fortunate enough to have, they would present a unified, civil, reasonably content family unit.
The three of them would continue to have their own room. The baby would sleep in the room with whoever was supposed to keep her on any given night until she reached a stage in development where she could have her own room.
