“Yes, I know. I promised.” And Nuri never broke a promise, that was half the reason he was here, in an elevator heading up to the CEO’s office instead of at home packing for the trip he’d been meant to go on starting tomorrow.
“Fair warning,” she told him just as the elevator made it to the top floor and the doors began to open, “I fully intend to kidnap you once you’re here, so bring anything valuable with you because if he wants you back, the Ignite Emperor is going to have to pry you out of my cold dead hands.”
“That’s not even remotely funny—Hello? Neve?” He blew out a breath and took a second to hang his head and inwardly swear, needing to collect himself before he made his way down the long white hallway.
Once he was sure he’d gotten his emotions under control, he stepped out, ducking his head into the side office where the team of secretaries who all fell under him worked. He said a quick hello and continued on his way.
His office was a small section in what was really the waiting area of Silver’s. There was a door on the opposite side that separated it from his main office, and that door was closed when Nuri entered. He set the boxes he’d been holding down on his small desk first, and while he did that, N.I.M. rolled over to its charging station beneath the window. Then he headed over to the door and knocked. He didn’t wait for a response, tapping the panel at the side of the door so that it would slide open for him.
When he was working, Silver more often than not tuned out the world around him, so it wasn’t unheard of for him to not even hear the sound of someone knocking on the door. Still, no one else was allowed to enter at their own whimsy aside from Nuri, a trust he’d had to build over the course of many years living together at Brightly Boarding school where they’d been sent for high school.
Sure enough, Silver was at his large mahogany desk, hunched over a tablet. He was wearing silver earbuds, a sign he was listening to something as he flicked his fingers deftly over the screen. His suit jacket had been placed over the back of his dark gray chair, the silky material a deep crimson shade. His vest and dress shirt were both inky black, and he’d undone his sleeves and rolled them up to his elbows.
Outside, the blizzard had gotten worse, thick flakes of snow blocking out most of the natural light, casting everything within the room in a somber gray. Aside from the light from the tablet, none of the others had been turned on despite the impending darkness, but Nuri knew better than to do it himself.
Instead, he came to a stop in front of the desk, clasped his hands in front of himself, and waited. After a moment of goingunnoticed, he allowed his gaze to drift back toward the wide floor-to-ceiling window that took up the entire center of the left wall.
The view was spectacular as high up as they were, a great shot of the bustling city and the nearby skyscrapers. Right now, with the storm going and only growing more intense with every passing minute, most colors had been blotted out. The ground roads were going to be a mess even with street cleaner bots plowing, and the skies…The air police were going to have a lot of accidents to deal with if they left it open much longer. Hovercars were the most popular mode of transportation, but on a planet like Ignite where it could snow fourteen out of the sixteen months of the year, most people owned vehicles that were both ground and sky operational.
Nuri wondered what the weather was like on Vitality right now; he hadn’t gotten the chance to ask Neve. Having grown up here, she knew how to handle herself in the cold, so there was no need for him to worry about her or Nate being safe. And besides, blizzards weren’t nearly as common on that planet as they were on this one.
The person he should be worried for was himself. Maybe instead of risking it, he could sleep in the office instead. It wouldn’t be the first time…
“When did you get here?” Silver sounded disinterested, and when Nuri glanced over, it was to find him still engrossed with his tablet.
“We should consider allowing everyone to leave early,” he said, not bothering to answer the question.
“Why?”
“The storm is getting pretty bad.”
“And?” Silver set his tablet down only to turn his attention to his multi-slate, the body borne device most people strapped to their wrists. The device acted as a computer andphone, connecting with the communication devices worn at the ear. It was unheard of to find a citizen ten years or older who didn’t have one. He opened his emails and began to check them as he waited for a reply from Nuri.
“If it continues to worsen, there’s a real risk of accidents,” Nuri said.
“I’m not sure how that’s my problem?” To anyone else, it might sound flippant, but Nuri had been around Silver long enough to understand that he was legitimately asking for an explanation.
There were very few people on the planet, or in the entire universe, that Silver actually cared about, and even less than that he could empathize with. Empathy just wasn’t something he was capable of, a secret kept from the public with a tight grip. The released hospital footage had been the closest he’d ever come to being exposed, and fortunately, there’d been no other events since then.
To the outside world, Emperor Silver Rien was a young entrepreneur who happened to be the only living heir to the Ignite Throne. He was a tech billionaire and had been since the age of twenty, and now eight years later, he managed to not only run the leading technologies company in the universe but also now ruled a planet. People flocked to his charming smile and friendly disposition when he was at charity events or galas.
Those who were forced to work in close proximity to him on a daily basis knew better. Hell, the whole reason Nuri had been brought on in the first place had been to help keep the unruly, and frankly violent, teenaged Silver in check. After he’d threatened to break all of the bones in his old roommate's hands if he didn’t stop snoring, the school had hit its limits. Not even being an Imperial Prince had been enough for them to keep him on as things were.
Nuri had been hand selected by the Emperor for the job, basically left there to babysit and help Silver keep his urges and his anger in check. There’d been one or two mishaps here and there, of course, but aside from those, he’d done such a good job that practically no one even recalled how Silver used to show up in the tabloids every other week for his violent streaks.
“If someone important gets hurt,” Nuri explained, “like someone working on the Midas project for example, that could cause a major setback in our schedule.”
Finally, Silver paused, considering those words before he set his arm down and gave Nuri his full attention.
As always, having that undivided attention was like having a jolt of electricity zapped through his entire body, and Nuri had to pay extra mind to keep his expression blank and his spine straight. His heart felt like it flipped in his chest and he inwardly cursed himself and his reaction.
The truth of the matter was, he was a bit shallow. Silver wasn’t the catch everyone else believed him to be, and Nuri knew it. He was difficult and self-centered and incredibly cold. It was impossible to guess what he was capable of or how far he’d push someone’s boundaries, because for him, other people’s wants and wishes didn’t even come into consideration.
Silver cared about what Silver cared about and the rest of the world could burn for all he’d notice.
Not exactly great romantic material.
And, it wasn’t like Nuri wanted to date him or anything anyway. No, he just liked the way the other man looked. Because he had eyes.
