Chapter 38
I stood in the control center of my ship, looking at the monitors.
The room was adjacent to the primary staff operations section of the ship, and I had the ability to override anything that the staff did anywhere on my ship.
My personal control center was connected to my bedroom and was one of the most difficult-to-access places on the ship.
It would take a full-scale boarding party hours to break into it if they were even able to get through to my soldiers.
I looked around the central nervous system of my ship.
It wasn’t my ship anymore.
It was hers.
No matter how I felt about things or what her intentions were towards me, I wasn’t going to go back on my word.
This ship was hers. Before I handed it over, I needed to make sure she knew how to run it.
It was going to take a while. It wasn’t the simplest system to learn, and I wasn’t even sure if her translator chip would help her read in our language or if she would need to learn it instead.
That is, if she was even willing to learn.
I didn’t know what to think about her.
I’d already realized that the idea I had of her in my head was completely different from who she really was. I thought she was the kind of woman to love me for who I was. Instead, she was the kind of woman to leave a man behind in the dust in exchange for monetary gain.
Her heart had to be closed off behind a cage of steel to do that.
Even so, I would keep my word.
A notification on the main monitor let me know that my steward, Braxlarth, was requesting entry to the command center. I acknowledged his request and let him in.
“She is settled and happy?“ I asked. A coiled mess of conflicting emotions wound around my heart, twisting tighter with my own words. I shouldn’t care if she was happy. I needed to shut her out of my heart.
Letting her in had been a mistake.
Thinking she could love me was a delusion.
“Yes, Your Highness,” he replied. “She is waiting by the door to your bedroom as instructed.”
My ears flattened, and he shrank back.
“What do you mean, ‘waiting’?“ I asked. “I told you to bring her to my chambers. She has access to let herself in; she just needs to be shown how to operate the door. You told her to wait?“
“I didn’t understand, sir,“ he stammered. “No one has ever been granted access to your chambers before.”
“I am giving her the ship,” I informed him. “She has access to anything she wishes. She is not to be impeded or held back in any fashion unless she is about to send herself out the airlock without a suit - do you understand?”
“Yes, sir, of course, it will be as you command, sir,” he said. “I will go let her know she may enter your chambers.”
I shook my head.
There was no chance she was still there.
She was not the kind of woman who would wait for anyone.
“I can guarantee she is not waiting,” I growled out. “I will find her. You will go and find who will be best to serve in a new position as her steward. You must find someone who is proficient in sign language.”
“Sign language, sir?” He asked.
I sent a command to the operation center to begin travel.
This was the state-of-the-art flagship of my fleet - the acceleration was barely felt by those on board. Unless there was an emergency, moving about the vessel on foot could be done at any point in the journey.
I looked up her location on my console.
Her biometrics were already registered with the system.
Within moments, my assessment of her character was confirmed. A flood of affection rushed through me as I realized that even though she wasn’t who I wanted her to be, she was exactly who I knew her to be.
She wasn’t a woman to sit idly by at the whim of another.
“Are you questioning me?“ It was a rhetorical question. Of course, he was questioning me. My steward didn’t get his position because he was a quiet yes man, but at the same time, I was wondering if that was the best idea for someone who was there to serve my needs.
I didn’t wait for his reply as I exited my command center, my steward following close behind.
“I will get right on it, sir, “ he said as he dashed away, likely sensing the direction of my thoughts.
I didn’t give any more to him.
Instead, my thoughts swirled around my little hoomon.
I shouldn’t want her.
She had shown herself to be exactly the type of person I never wanted to be with - someone who was only interested in wealth and position, someone who threw away her previous relationships on the slightest chance for personal financial gain.
So why was I running to her now?