Chapter Ten
The Wrong Man Showed Up
Jenna was given a floating palace on the other side of Octavia Prime. It was built on a slab of enormous pool noodles… or at least that was how it looked to Jenna. Aside from the unusual foundation, it was built with all the best materials. Marble floors, delicately carved walls, elegant archways, soft textiles, and entryways into the ocean in the floor in all three of the sitting rooms. Most of the time, they were blocked off to keep the water out.
Jenna had been taken to the palace after her meeting with the hipposyphis. She felt grateful that the people she was with hadn’t lied to her. Even Armen, as annoying as he was, hadn’t lied. All she had to do that day was show everyone there was one Adamis diplomat that wasn’t dead.
Now she lay sprawled across a bed that was much too large for her, holding her bathrobe and shucking the towel from her head. Armen sat in a chair at the foot of her bed.
“Remind me why you’re in my bedroom again,” she said coldly.
“I need to talk to you about our next step,” he replied just as coldly, looking at a screen in his palm.
“Yes, I agree we should have that conversation, but why does it have to be in my bedroom, and why right now? I need to rest.”
“You do not need to rest. You slept in the pod on the way here. You needed a shower after your meeting with the hipposyphis, but you’ve had it and now we need to talk about the next step.”
“No,” Jenna said quickly. “I’m hungry and I may not need sleep according to you, but I require solitude so I can process what has happened and reconcile myself to these life-altering changes. I have lived alone as an adult for seven years. I am used to alone time and I do not feel like allowing you to barge into my bedroom like this. Who let you in? Sardius, can you explain this to me?”
“The doors have not yet been programmed to keep anyone out. We’ve been here for a little under an hour,” Sardius replied.
“Program the doors to my bedroom to now allow anyone besides you and me inside for the time being.”
“You don’t have to have separate permission for Sardius. He’s considered part of you,” Armen piped up.
Sitting in the chair, Armen looked so perfect. If someone were to come in and take a picture of him sitting in her fuchsia and white bedroom, they would have thought he belonged there, that he was helping to advertise her furnishings. Or, perhaps, that he was there to promote her.
It induced the sickest feeling to roll around in her gut. Someone had said to him, ‘Do you want to seduce a powerful woman and win enough leverage over her that she’ll do whatever you want? You’re gorgeous! Just her type. You’ll be the brains and she’ll be the face. She’ll do anything you say.’ And he had said yes.
Jenna couldn’t stand it.
“Where do you live, Armen?” she asked briskly. Regardless of her unwanted underlying attraction to him, she had to distance herself from him as soon as possible. She was humiliated by the way she’d been tricked into thinking for one moment that she was falling in love with him.
Love was not on the menu and she did not want to be manipulated a second time.
“I’ll repeat myself. Where do you live?”
“Here,” he said blankly.
“Here? Oh. Because you’re one of my presents. How sweet. Do you need me to assign you a room? Is that why you’re here?”
“No. You’re not listening to me. We need to go back to Earth to find your grandmother’s stash of unused crowns. We shouldn’t even be here right now. We should go back before too much time has passed on Earth. We should have done it before we came here, but the Head of Adamis Relations believed that there were three other stashes in more accessible locations. Unfortunately, they didn’t find anything. Your grandmother’s stash is imperative. We need to find it before you can crown any other diplomats.”
“If we rush back to Earth, can we leave Lucy there?” she asked bitingly.
“What?” he asked, quite distracted by the screen in his hand.
Jenna proceeded heartlessly. “I didn’t ask for her to be one of my gifts. If she’s my possession, I choose to take her back to Earth and leave her there.”
“That isn’t a good idea,” Armen said hastily. “What if something happens to you? She’s a gift not just because she’s good company for you, but also because she’s a possible backup person, should anything happen to you. She may not have a crown, but she has strong ties to you and the diplomatic program.”
“Leaving her on Earth isn’t a death sentence,” Jenna snapped back. “She can be used as a backup for me whether she’s on Earth or whether she’s in the room next to me. I don’t want her around. I think she’s a nuisance. I have decided to play this role as a diplomat and from what I know about my family, I think they probably tried to crown her when she was a baby as well and it was unsuccessful.”
Stolen novel; please report.
“You sound like you’re not sure,” Armen asked, actually having shifted to the edge of his seat while he waited for her answer.
“I’m not positive, but I know they tried to crown my father and Lucy’s mother (because she was Marta’s daughter) and both attempts failed. I never asked and was never told about whether or not they tried with Lucy, but if she can’t be crowned anyway, then there’s little use for her as a backup.”
“If we’re desperate, we could dress her up like you and use her as a body double.”
“If you believe in a god, you’d be better off praying that no harm comes to me than fine tooling a cock-eyed plan like that,” Jenna exclaimed hotly.
“Yes, of course, that’s what we want most,” he said, but it sounded like little more than lip service to Jenna. “We just need to be prepared for anything.”
Jenna got up off the bed and made her way to the dressing room, which was a paradise she couldn’t have designed or decorated better if she’d done it herself. There wasn’t much on the shelves or hanging from the racks yet, but there would be. She took a raspberry wrap dress off the rod and held it up against herself in front of a mirror. It was a reproduction of a dress she’d admired on Pinterest.
This was part of her prize for holding it together as the hipposyphis suction cupped her head and let her body dangle over the water. She had been terrified and it was a great secret she had to hold within herself that she was very grateful they had let her scream and cry, and they praised her for not running away, when actually… she couldn’t have run away if she wanted to. Her legs had stopped working just then. Besides, she knew that running away would not have changed a thing.
Even if she ran away on an interplanetary scale, there were still assassins trying to hunt her and every octopus in the galaxy would be on the lookout for her. She’d make more enemies than ever that way.
Her grandfather had taught her that if it came to this, she had to do what was necessary and it would be frightening, but it would also be rewarding… like stopping Hitler in 1938 by shooting him in the head before anything terrible happened.
Her reward for doing what they needed was this dress she held in front of her. It may have been made even better than the one she saw on Pinterest.
Methodically, she put the dress back on the closet rod and scoured a cabinet of tiny drawers for underwear.
If it was a perfect exchange, she wouldn’t just have a beautiful house and beautiful clothes, but she’d also have a lover waiting for her in the bedroom. He wouldn’t be sitting in a chair. He’d be slipping out of his clothes, racing to join her in the shower, helping her choose clothes in the dressing room, or helping her out of her clothes wherever she was.
She stopped to study Armen through a gap in the door. He was engrossed by the screen in his palm.
Crushing her pretty new underwear in her hands Jenna sat on the floor next to a very beautiful pink rose chair. Leaning against the wall, she felt her feelings bubble up. Looking at Armen hurt her terribly.
Had she secretly been waiting for a man from outer space to come and take her away? Was that why she had turned down every man on Earth? Was she hoping that her dream man would be so out-of-this-world that she had to be as perfect as possible to be able to deserve him? Was that why she had lived so meticulously? Because she wanted to do everything she could do to bring herself up to a standard where she was worthy of such a man?
If that man was Armen… her dreams were shattered.
“Jenna,” Sardius breathed like a whisper in her ear. “I don’t want to bother you, but you seem almost on the verge of tears. Do you need to cry? Should I leave you alone or would you like to talk through it with me?”
Jenna had forgotten she wasn’t completely alone. “Sorry, Sardius. I… um… can we work out some sort of code that I can say that will let you know I need a few minutes alone?”
“Of course. I can back off for as long as you want, but I have to ask you to please not remove the earpiece just because you’re feeling low.”
She thought of what he’d told her regarding the last person he’d been assigned to assist–Arvantis. He died and maybe that was partially because he had been afraid that Sardius would learn about him. That he’d be his Achilles’ heel.
“Sardius,” she suddenly said. “What if I’ve changed my mind? What if I don’t want a code word for when I want to be alone? I’ve been alone a lot, and I don’t know that being alone or working through things alone has ever helped me. What if, instead of that, I told you how I was feeling? Would you keep my secrets?”
“I would keep all your secrets,” he said earnestly.
“Forever?” she asked, wondering if he could clear her hurdle.
“Forever,” he replied. “That’s what I’m here for.”
She chuckled. “This is going to be weird. I normally keep everything bottled up. And what about you? Will you tell me everything about you?”
“No,” he replied simply.
She gawked. “Why not?”
“The terms of my employment state that I’m not allowed to,” he said with a sigh. “I’m allowed to tell you about myself only in the narrowest scope. Your speech isn’t recorded, but mine is. If I say certain words, there are consequences.”
“What sorts of words?” Jenna gawked in disbelief.
“I’m not allowed to say them.”
“How much longer are you going to be in there changing your clothes?” Armen called noisily from the bedroom.
Jenna stood up, dropped her robe, and pulled on her panties. “I hate that guy. Any ideas on how I could get rid of him?”
“It’s only temporary, but there was nothing wrong with your earlier suggestion that he go pick up Lucy and take her back to Earth. Everything you suggested was in your purview. If you go back into the bedroom and phrase it as a command, he has to comply. He’s refusing to obey because he doesn’t agree with you and he’s trying to take advantage of your newness.”
“Do you think I should get rid of Lucy?” Jenna asked curiously.
“I have no opinion.”
“Because of the words you can’t say?”
“Nah. I can give you my opinion on whatever is currently happening, but I have no opinion on Lucy. You know her. If you want to get rid of her in a non-criminal way, that’s up to you.”
“What if I wanted to get rid of her in a criminal way?” Jenna asked through the side of her mouth. “Would you help me?”
“Maybe,” Sardius drawled. “If she was enough of a problem? Sure.”
Jenna laughed, completely uncertain as to how serious he was. “Okay, let’s send Armen to Octavia Three.”