Chapter Ten

The First Husband

Jenna knew when she’d let Sardius look at her for long enough. He did not want her to leave, but since he could not touch her, it was better if he didn’t look at her any longer. After picking up the pink diamond ring and changing the placement of Favel’s pearl ring, she blew Sardius a little kiss and went back to the geometric pod.

“You’re going?” Sardius said, jumping to his feet the way athletic men do.

“Yeah,” she said with a sigh. “I’m sure you know how to patch yourself through to Ixy so you can whisper sweet nothings in my ear. Otherwise, I have to get back to the surface. If I stay here much longer, I’ll start shredding your clothing with my forcefield in my desire to get close to you.” She got in the pod.

He leaned against the doorframe. “Hey, you didn’t say if you liked my blue eyes.”

“Sardius,” she said, feeling cold. “I’m not thinking about your eye color in particular because the change in color has nothing to do with superficiality. I still want you, desperately, so I’m playing ball, but you must know that I’m not super happy with all of this.”

“We’ll get your crown thing worked out. It’s a tech problem. I’m good at that sort of thing. I’ll get to work on it and after I’ve done some research, I’ll make some plans to get around it. It’s not a big deal.”

“It’s not about that,” she said, feeling colder still.

“Is it about picking your engagement ring off the floor? I know a lot of women would not enjoy that, but… I wasn’t the one who suggested it.”

She couldn’t help the eyeroll she gave him. “I’ve been treated like a villager in a plague town for months. I’ve been scooping everything off the floor. That’s not what’s bothering me.”

He gave her a funny look and shrugged his shoulders for her to go on.

“This isn’t about me. You didn’t come here with an army for me! You know I would have married you as a third husband as soon as you introduced yourself. Whatever consequences that had, I would have been happy to go down in flames with you. You put me off and guess what? It really hurt my feelings. Now you’re here, having satisfied yourself that you can take the first husband position. I can see now that you plan to be the universe's biggest bulldog. I’m happy for you. It’s amazing, but my love for you did not require all this.”

Sardius’ jaw was set again as he listened to her, but he didn’t say anything. He was a tough man and he could take everything she had to throw at him and more.

“The thing is,” she said, standing up as close to him as she dared. “The part of you that is going to be my first husband, the rebel, the warlord, the terrorist, you don’t want that part of you to have anything to do with me. You have separated that part. You encourage me not to read about anything you’ve done, thinking that I’m so innocent that I couldn’t understand the things you did that put you in jail. You think the gap between that part of you and me is too large. Is that what your love is going to be like? I have to be half idiot to be with you? Everyone else is going to know who I married, but not me?”

Sardius ran two fingers over his lips. Jenna wasn’t sure if he was trying to conceal a smile or if he was merely using the pose to concentrate.

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“What?” she continued. “You’re planning on replacing the AAMC. It sounds like you’re going to change the face of the universe and I’m part of that, but I’ll never be part of that.”

“Jenna,” he said gently. “I’ll be replacing the AAMC on a few planets here and there with my security company, but it doesn’t take much to annoy them, especially not when you’re involved. There isn’t going to be anything worth hiding from you. It will mostly be mundane details. Right now, the Bonemen I’ve brought with me are gutting this space station so we can crack it into smaller parts like an ice cube tray. I’d explain all of that to you if you wanted to listen. You’re the one storming out of here like an angry goddess. I’m assuming you’re doing that because I cannot satisfy your romantic sensibilities right now, but you are right. I couldn’t stand presenting myself to you as a third husband. I couldn’t do that to myself and I couldn’t do that to the people who put all their trust in me during the revolution. They believed in Sardius Veritacalus and if I turned myself into your plaything, it would have hurt them. Do you know what those people were doing when I flew in on Don Leo’s ship?”

Jenna shook her head in the negative.

“They were doing nothing. Scads of excellent, talented people were going to waste. Not everything is about you and me. I saw them and formulated a plan. Everything is working out beyond my wildest dreams, but my luck doesn’t usually stretch that far. If you were available for me to haul off into a darkened room to fulfill the rest of my physical desires, I’d have to wonder if something was seriously wrong with the regular workings of the universe. Nothing is ever easy, so this last moment with one more stumbling block between us feels natural to me. Even the fact that you’re angry and storming at me is natural. I love it. It feels so real.”

Jenna felt her anger cool. “I still wish you had married me back then. You could have. I had a wedding certificate all ready to go.”

He shrugged. “We wouldn’t have been able to keep it a secret. If we had been able to do that, I would have done it.”

“You’re a tech expert. I’m sure you could have found a way if you’d wanted to,” she said, letting her last drop of scorn fall between them.

“You’re absolutely right,” he said, giving her another world-winning smile. “I wanted more. I wanted to settle the score and come back here to claim my position as your first husband with something to offer you and I did it.”

He said she was right, but hearing him say it was not as satisfying as it ought to have been. It was a part of their negotiations and he wished to compliment her. That meant something if not the thing she wanted most.

“I’ll figure out a way to get around your forcefield,” he reassured her.

“Shall we wait for you to do that before we wed?” she asked, her voice sounding like marbles hitting each other.

“No,” he said with a smack of his lips. “A first husband is a political ally and not necessarily a lover. I’ve been filming our conversation tonight with drones. I’ll put together a tiny film reel to send to Celestina for her to add to whatever she wants to release to announce our wedding. It needs to go out quickly. After all, I already fired the orbital security team. Quite a few people will be interested in how that came about and curious about what will be replacing them in the future. Besides, I want to be with you always. I want to declare that noisily.”

“Okay,” Jenna said, agreeing with him and feeling a bit of the tension leave her shoulders.

He stepped away from the pod entrance. “If you want to go, you should probably get on with it. I’ve got boatloads to do, and I don’t need you distracting me. You have a lot to do too. I think an engagement party is required. Do you think you can arrange for one?”

“If you want one, I suppose I can do that,” she agreed.

He gave her a look. “It’s not just me. It’s us. We need an engagement party. After the photoshoot you did with Favel, we have to do something. An engagement party is the bare minimum.”

“Do you want a photoshoot?” she asked.

“Yes, but I can’t touch you. I have to take what I can get… and right now, that isn’t much. Tell me you love me and I’ll let you go.”

“I love you,” she said instantly.

“And I love you,” he said, tapping the door to the pod and making it close between them.