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“Sorry, but yes. Their farm is bigger than yours.”
“Well, certainly it cannot be nearly as nice,” he muttered. Though I had no right to feel it, I latched onto the bolt of pleasure that went through me when I realized he was jealous over me.
“Definitely not as nice,” I told him soothingly. “Anyway. Massimo was… Well, just about as entitled as a rich Terratribe II guy could be.”
“You… Tell me you did not love him,” Fallon said hoarsely.
“No! Absolutely not! He was a fucking snake. He spent the entire meeting with my mother and me telling me all the things I’d have to change about myself before we got married. And then he grabbed my ass and squeezed it like I was nothing but a fucking cow – bracku – to be graded.”
“He did what?”
Never had I heard Fallon’s easy, gentle voice turn so dangerous, so hard. Goosebumps rose all over my body in defiance of the heat. I turned my head back to look at him. His eyes were white lightning, his next words thunder.
“Is he on that ship? With your mother?” He bared his fangs in a hissing gesture I’d never seen from him before. “Because if he is, I may have yet another murder charge upon my head before the day is out.”
For the first time, I could believe the stories Fallon had told me about his youth. I hadn’t exactly not believed him, of course. I trusted him and didn’t think he’d lied. But now, I got a glimpse of the fury he was capable of. The kind of fury that could end a man.
For me.
Oh, that should not have felt so nice. That my sweet, golden retriever of a husband would turn himself into a wolf for me.
“He isn’t,” I said quickly. “The warden said it was just my mother and her pilot.”
Fallon gave a grunt that sounded like it should have come from grumpy Garrek, not from him.
“What did your mother do,” he growled, “after you told her of that filth’s unworthiness?”
“Told her? She was there,” I said with a bitter laugh. “She was sitting on the couch watching the whole damn thing! She didn’t say a word. She was still all gung-ho about me marrying him. Only problem was that after the whole ass-grab situation, I was so stunned, so offended, that I slapped him across the face. He was furious. He called the engagement off immediately.”
I went quiet for a long moment, reliving the chaos of the scene. Massimo roaring that he’d never marry such a “frigid fucking bitch” and storming from the room. Then my mother leaping from her place on the couch and demanding that I go and apologize to him and repair things.
“Get down on your knees if you have to,” she’d said, her nails digging into my wrist. “But you will fix this. You will marry him.”
“Absolutely not!” I’d told her, wrenching my arm out of her grip.
The fiery anger had gone cold and brittle as ice.
“Then don’t bother coming home. If you don’t fix this, you are finished. You’re almost thirty and you won’t get another shot. Do you know how much work it took to arrange this match? How much I have done for you? If you’re going to throw everything I’ve sacrificed for you in my face then that’s it. You’re cut off. From our lives, our house, our estate. All of it.”
Those were the last words I’d heard from her.
Until today, apparently. Now, her narcissistic ass was back for more. Lucky me.
“I see now,” Fallon ground out, “why you are not pleased at the prospect of seeing her.”
“Yeah.” I sighed, exhausted. “Like I said, I wouldn’t go at all, but she’ll just stay in orbit pestering the warden with signals, or land and camp out outside his station, until she gets whatever audience she’s looking for.”
I’d never gotten any real closure when I’d left to participate in the bridal program. I’d never said goodbye. Never told my mom anything like, “Yeah, well, cut me off all you want. I don’t want what you have to offer.”
I guessed this was my chance.
My chance, though, seemed to come all too quickly when the warden’s station eventually appeared. Anxiety latched onto me like a vengeful crab. My stomach filled with acid, and I realized, astounded, that I hadn’t noticed my usually ever-present sour stomach the past couple of days.
Maybe I didn’t have anxiety. Maybe I was just allergic to being around my mother.
Or, more likely, Fallon had created such a safe place for me in our time together that I’d finally, slowly, been able to start to relax. To breathe.
The warm solidity of his body behind me kept me grounded when I saw my mother’s sleek shuttle beside the warden’s building.
