“Second, my name is—”
“Mr. Grey!” interrupted a harsh voice behind him.Ugh. Patmore.“We have a meeting scheduled that should have started four and a half minutes ago. You are late!”
Lucy sent a quick, passionate look his way. He was mesmerized, but the trance broke when she dropped her hand from his shoulder and untangled their fingers.Pity.“Sorry to make you late,” she whispered, looking deeply into his eyes. “Sort of.” She darted a quick look at Patmore and he saw a bit of alarm in her eyes.
“You didn’t make me late, darlin’.” He winked at her. “I’d never let any foolish meeting stop me from dancing with a beautiful girl.” Her eyes narrowed as if she’d never heard the words “beautiful girl” before.Crazy.
He could feel Patmore starting to breathe even harder down his neck.Ugh.
“It was very nice to meet you, as well,” she said. “And also, good to dance with you.” Her cheeks flushed a vivid rose as she turned and scurried away, pausing after only a few steps to look over her shoulder. He caught her gaze, trying to wordlessly make it clear he wished they were still dancing. She blushed an even deeper hue before she turned and left the area.Stunning.
“Are you quite finished, Mr. Grey?”
“No. But it looks like you’re going to keep me from doing what Ireallywant to do, so what’s up, Director Patmore? What’s this meeting about? Is it the exact same thing we always talk about when you arrive? Hey, you’re here, just like last month.” Axel didn’t hide his sarcasm, but it appeared to be lost on Patmore.
“Well, yes and no.”
His brows furrowed, and he wished for that shot of moonshine even more. “What is it? Yes or no.”
“We have…well, a situation.”
“We?” Axel had no doubt Director Patmore had any number of “situations” going on, but Axel didn’t want to be a part of the “we” in his drama. The man loved a good drama.
If he had to guess, Axel figured someone “important” had made a prohibited request, a dubious request or a flat-out illegal demand and the director didn’t know how to say no, so he was searching for an Alienn, Arkansas, Big Bang Truck Stop employee to take the blame for disallowing whatever the ask was.
It wouldn’t be the first time that had happened.
Director Patmore began to explain his “situation” in tedious detail, but Axel’s mind wandered back to Lucy.
He’d never seen her around town. Alienn had thousands of residents, but he knew all the families. She would not have escaped his attention. That meant she must be from the recently docked cruise liner. Plus, she seemed to recognize Patmore when he interrupted them.
His new love interest had been dressed very casually. He guessed she worked for one of the wealthy families that spent time on luxury cruises endlessly exploring the galaxies as they dined and lived in, well, luxury.
Her manner had been shyly inquisitive instead of imperiously entitled like many of the ultra-rich passengers he’d met who frequented this particular cruise liner. Some passengers spent more time on the luxury cruise liner than in their high-end homes back on Alpha-Prime.
The only other monthly spaceship stops the Big Bang facility hosted were from the barge company that shipped recently convicted and recently released prisoners between Alpha-Prime and the gulags sprinkled throughout the galaxies.
Lucy couldn’t be off one ofthoseflights. Besides, their regular runs were never scheduled anywhere close to the Royal Caldera luxury liner visits. And that wasextremelyon purpose.
Lucy, with her thick, dark blond hair marked with wildly vivid streaks of red and her lovely sea-green eyes, had fit nicely in his arms. Tentative at first, she had relaxed and followed his lead after their first couple of steps. She smelled nice. She had a jubilant giggle that made his soul flip over in joy.
Axel couldn’t wait to see her again. He hoped he could discover what family she worked for and perhaps send her a message later today. He could then find out when she had time off and if she’d be interested in more dancing or dinner or perhaps an actual date with both dinneranddancing. That would be perfect…
“Are you even listening to me?” Director Patmore asked.
Axel snapped out of his daydream. “Sort of.”
“What did I just say?”
Axel had no earthly clue. “Okay, you got me. I haven’t been listening. Tell me again and if I could get the digest version this time, that’d be great.”
“Have you or have you not seen the latest Interstellar Weather Report?” The director’s exasperated tone had little impact on Axel. He did not want to discuss the weather with Patmore. He certainly wished he hadn’t given up dance time to discuss it, not even the interstellar weather report.
“I have not.”
“Well, read it and get back to me. The passengers might need to return to the airship tonight for an early morning departure instead of two days from tomorrow.”
“You’re leaving early?” Guess that meant no date with the green-eyed mystery girl this trip.
