Chapter Fourteen

Photos Taken In the Night

Josh did his photoshoot with Sardius without Jenna present. When she tried to sit in on the session, Josh kicked her out.

He informed her rather snarkily, “Jenna, I have a ton of clothes for you left over from Favel’s photoshoot. I even have a few things that I saved in case I had to do a photoshoot for you and Ryatt… Sardius. However, do you know how many pieces of clothing I have for this boy?”

That idea gave Jenna pause. “You have nothing?”

“I have nothing,” Josh agreed.

Jenna was six feet away from Josh, so it was hard for her to lean in to have a more private conversation with him. “But what about what you said when I was on the comm with Celestina? How are you going to work your magic on him if you have nothing for him to wear?”

Josh cleared his throat with an angry rasp. “I have a plan. In a way, it’s a blessing that I can’t pose the two of you together. It will probably be faster to take the necessary pictures with the two of you apart. Normally, you guys have so much chemistry (even when he is just standing guard behind you) that it seems like a waste, but I have to generate his clothes with holograms or add them afterward.”

“You’re going to take his photos with him in the buff?” Jenna asked in mild alarm.

“He’ll still have his briefs,” Josh said in his deadpan voice. “There’s nothing to get agitated about. Honestly, it will be faster and better to do it this way. Full canvas, so I can show any patch of bare skin with whatever clothes will match yours best. I think it’s going to work marvelously. I’d ask to do your pictures the same way, except Sardius would kill me (because what I’d have you wear would be much briefer than a bikini), and then the designers who sent me their clothes would kill me for not showcasing their work.”

Jenna huffed, “And I can’t be here for it?”

The photographer grumbled some more. “If I can’t get good shots of him, I’ll call you. Otherwise, I want to get his shots and get him back into orbit, so I can do yours.”

Suddenly Jenna understood Josh’s angle. It wasn’t so much that he wanted her gone for Sardius’ photoshoot. It was that he wanted Sardius gone for Jenna’s. He remembered Sardius’ little outburst when Josh took pictures of Favel sitting between Jenna’s legs for her first set of engagement pictures, and he wanted the least amount of resistance. If he claimed he was taking both of their pictures independently, it would go much smoother.

“Okay,” Jenna said, relenting. “I’m going to go check on Rold’s itinerary and see if he needs anything.” Doing that meant that Jenna left the Sun Palace and returned to the Crescent Bell Palace and Rainmaker Palace, which were docked elsewhere. She had an empty pod waiting for her.

“As a thank you,” Josh said in an aside, “I will send you every photo I take, even the bad ones. You’ll need them… Under the circumstances.”

Unconsciously, Jenna touched the jewel in her crown. With the force field, it wasn’t like she was getting a normal wedding or a normal wedding night.

Josh went on, “I will not do the same for Sardius. I’ll prepare a normal pack for his personal use, so he’ll only get good shots, even if I don’t use them for your press packet.”

Jenna giggled and put a hand to her mouth to stop it. “You’re good. Really good. Thank you.” Jenna was delighted by that news. If Josh took any embarrassing photos of Sardius, she’d get them to chuckle over to get her through the hard times, but Sardius would only get nice photos of her. If she got all of them before the editing… She huffed out a flustered breath. It was so delightful, Jenna could hardly handle the excitement.

“I know it,” Josh said, before turning his back on her and shouting an order to the maintenance workers who were creating an impromptu studio in Celestina’s great hall.

Jenna did see Sardius come out in his briefs and boots as she exited the building. She would have liked to stay, but she had to keep her promise to Josh so he kept his promise to her.

***

Rold’s people were in no hurry to come down. They’d had permission to land on the surface of Octavia Prime for six hours and they were still floating above the blue planet. Around dinnertime, Rold got on the communicator with Jenna. He was very brief, still sucking on a cigar, as he explained that something had happened at one of his factories that needed his attention. He was planning to send Harlee down to check on Scion, but she could be sent to the surface in an Octavian pod, so that his ship could turn around and head back immediately.

Jenna could not understand what emergency could possibly need his personal attention. Most powerful people had reliable underlings they could trust to act in their stead. It was rare for her to need to be anywhere personally. What was happening that Rold needed to go? What could be more important than his visit to Octavia Prime?

She said goodbye and the communicator went dead.

“Was it just me, Ixy, or was something very wrong with that exchange?” Jenna asked her PA.

“No, that was weird. Actually, I don’t think that was Rold on the communicator talking just now. I think that was an AI generation of his appearance. I’d be surprised if he was actually aboard the ship at all.”

“Should we bar his girl from entry?” Jenna asked.

“Uh… I don’t know. We can tell the orbital security team to take extra care, but they already know to do that.”

“Don’t just ask them to take care,” Jenna instructed. “Tell them everything we know that is suspicious.”

“Will do,” Ixy said.

She was about to sign off, but Jenna called her back. “Oh, and detach my palace immediately and send it to circle around to attach next to the Sun Palace. Maybe we can get there before Sardius goes back into orbit.”

“You don’t want to meet Harlee?” Ixy asked, her tongue clearly out of her head while she talked.

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“Nah. I needed to be here to greet Rold. He’s the one who gave me Scion and he’s a freaking arms dealer. I do not need to be on his bad side, but why do I need to meet Harlee? That’s Scion’s personal business. I don't particularly care who he marries. Besides, she’s not even going to live here. What good will my being here do? I can’t even shake her hand. I’d rather see Sardius, and not risk injuring someone like Harlee.”

“As you wish,” Ixy said, finding no fault in Jenna’s logic.

When Jenna arrived back at the Sun Palace, Celestina had taken an interest in Harlee and she had taken a pod to the Rainmaker Palace to meet Harlee in Jenna’s place.

“She wants to see if she can get any good TV out of them,” Ixy explained when Jenna arrived at the Sun Palace with no greeting from Celestina.

“Did she take Josh with her?” Jenna asked Ixy.

“She did not,” Josh said, lolling about in a dark spot of the entryway. The light from his studio silhouetted him.

“Hi,” Jenna said pleasantly. “How did the photo session go?”

“Fine,” Josh said, his hands in his pockets. “I don’t think I can keep my promise to you.” The melancholy in his voice was palpable.

“You’re talking about the pictures of Sardius? Is he still here?” Jenna wondered.

“He’s gone,” Josh said slowly. “He went back into orbit as soon as we were finished.”

Josh was being weird. He was normally quiet and reserved, but he was acting far more so than usual.

Jenna cut to the chase. “What’s going on?”

“Uh… Sardius took a bigger beating on Don Leo’s ship than he admitted. When he came in for the photos before you left, he was wearing a hologram of bare skin. When he deactivated it for me, I was in for a shock.”

Jenna steeled herself. “How messed up was he?”

“He was pretty messed up. I wasn’t aware of how much of him had been replaced. He took that beating aboard the ship where he lost his calf, but without his leg, he did worse when he fought than usual. He was hurt everywhere. He said that once he was victorious, he went back to his home world and visited a surgeon immediately. There were a lot of those marks, intentional lesions, bandaged of course, things that are still healing. I decided to use some of them for your pictures. But my vision for your press packet has changed. I think I was hoping for something more bridal, something more cheerful… It’s going to be different. Even the dresses I want you to wear. Do you want to get started now? Can we? I’m very much in the mood.”

Jenna met his eyes. Josh did most of his talking with his eyes.

“Give me the first dress,” Jenna said, putting out her hand.

Josh scoffed and stepped away from his place on the wall. “There’s no need for anything like that right now. Just come and stand in the light. If you wanted to mess up your hair a bit, I think that would go a long way.”

Jenna put her fingers in her hair and tried to give Josh the tousled look he was aiming for. “What about my makeup?” she asked.

“There’s no need to worry about any of that. Misha can’t touch you and, not to insult you or anything, but you're not good enough at doing your makeup. I’ll do it for you in post-production. Just stand there and let me move around you, taking pictures of your face.” Josh meddled with the lighting and got started.

***

When Celestina arrived back at the Sun Palace, it was after midnight. Josh had been working with Jenna for hours. He had started giving her outfits to wear, but none of them had anything in common with the ones she had worn when she did her photoshoot with Favel. Those had been cutesy Paris dresses, beach wear, and other stuff that made you think of fun. Josh had been building a story about play, travel, joy, and trying to make both Jenna and Favel look harmless.

That was the key of what he had been trying to create—a vision of harmlessness.

When Josh put the first dress on the table for Jenna, it was a white thing that looked like barely more than a bag. It was just white linen.

The second dress was a light aqua dress that looked like it was from the same family, but instead of looking crisp, the color looked like it had been pressed into it by accident.

The third dress was brought over by Misha. It was the black dress with the blue underlay that Jenna had worn to that wretched dinner with Fallcet where he ate the mushroom. Josh had been there and he had seen it as the couple's outfit she and Sardius wore that showed them as a unified front.

Misha stayed and watched an hour or so of Josh’s work before she yawned and excused herself. Josh was not entertaining while he worked. He said little and consulted screens Jenna couldn’t see more often than he ever had before. Jenna guessed that was because he was going to need to coordinate his shots of Sardius with hers. She stood patiently and breathed.

The fourth and last dress was a white ball gown that gave the impression of a wedding dress. Naturally, Jenna had not chosen her wedding dress. She explained that to Josh, who wasn’t listening to her at all. Rather than getting noisier, she got quieter and did as she was told. The man was in the zone and she wanted the pictures to be good, even if she wasn’t getting the special ones he’d promised her.

It was just as well. Josh knew she didn’t want a bunch of photos detailing Sardius’ injuries. Such a thing would only hurt her.

By the time Celestina returned, Josh had put Jenna in a strapless bodysuit the same color as her skin.

Celestina was not shocked when she entered the hall and saw what was going on. Instead, she came up behind Josh and started scrolling through his pictures while his back was to her. When he saw her, he turned and gently cupped the side of her face.

“I’ll join you in bed. I swear,” he said, before turning his camera back on Jenna.

Celestina gave Jenna a weird smile, sliding her tongue over the diamond cluster in her canine. Then she disappeared into the inner chambers of her palace.

At two in the morning, Josh said he had what he wanted, he sent Jenna to get dressed and when she came out, he was gone.

Conrad was in her ear. “Josh has gone to bed. He says you can go.”

Jenna was tired too. She crossed the back deck and made her way over to her palace. “Did you see the photos he was taking of me?” she asked Conrad quietly as she walked under the stars.

“I did.”

“What did you think?”

Conrad hesitated. “I think few people have someone that clever to take their photograph.”

“Did you know about the affair that Sardius had with Madeline, the great photographer?” Jenna wondered. It wasn’t cool of her, but she wanted to know if Conrad knew more about that than she did.

“I didn’t know they had an affair.”

Jenna scrunched up her face. “I guess Ixy didn’t say that they did. She said that Sardius spent two weeks at her place. She took pictures of him and he left.”

“You should ask Sardius about this if it’s bothering you. I’m sure he knows what he’s been up to.”

“Very wise of you, Conrad,” Jenna sighed. “How did it go with Scion and Harlee?”

“That’s not really something I would keep tabs on. I’ve been on the line with the orbital security team. They’re annoyed by the way Rold’s ship behaved and they’re annoyed they have stranded Harlee here. She was only supposed to stay as long as Rold. They feel like she’s a time bomb waiting to go off. I think Sardius has gone to the space station to do a further analysis.”

“So he’s not free to chat if I want to talk to him?” Jenna asked.

“No. I think not.”

Jenna swung the door open to her palace and entered her empty bedroom. It was awful that night to find the room empty. The moon cast rectangular light on the bedspread that turned to fall onto the floor.

Jenna did not want an empty bedroom that night. She wanted her angsty bodyguard taking up space in her bed.

“Hey,” Jenna suddenly asked. “What happened to the new bodyguards Sardius brought me? Why didn’t they come to walk me back from the Sun Palace?”

Conrad laughed. “Well, actually, I was meant to talk to you about that. You left them at the Rainmaker Palace when you ordered Ixy to detach and well… They’re still there. Want me to detach from the Sun Palace to go pick them up or send a pod?”

“No. Leave them there. If everyone is so spooked about this Harlee girl then we might as well leave the bulk of our boys there. Don’t ya think? Wire that info to Sardius and tell him if he takes issue with that, he can issue new orders.”

“Will do,” Conrad said before Jenna went into her dressing room to change her clothes yet again.