Chapter 9
MAISIE
I woke up cold, which was stupid, because Kazan's house was not a cold house. The walls held heat like they were personally offended by winter, and the blankets were thick enough that I could have gotten lost under them and died there without anyone finding me until spring.
So, of course, I was freezing.
The guest bed felt wrong now. That was the problem.
It had been perfectly fine before I knew what Kazan's bed felt like.
Before I'd spent a night tucked against him, warm and safe and very much not alone.
Before he'd decided the best way to protect me was to sleep outside like some giant, stubborn idiot.
I lay there staring at the little steps beside the bed.
He'd built them for me before I even arrived. Little wooden steps so I could get into the bed without having to climb it like a cliff face. When I'd first seen them, I'd nearly cried.
This morning, they just made my chest hurt.
He'd built steps for a bed he wasn't in.
Great. Fantastic. A very normal thing to be upset about before breakfast.
I rolled onto my back and glared at the ceiling.
He'd slept in the fields again. I knew because I'd looked out the window sometime after midnight, because apparently I was the kind of woman who watched for her husband in the dark like a haunted Victorian widow.
I'd seen him out there between the rows, his massive shape barely visible under the trees.
Sleeping outside. On purpose. Because of me.
Or for me.
Those two things were getting very hard to separate, and I hated that.
If I'm near you, I can't keep my hands off you.
He'd said it like it was a fact. Like he was telling me about the weather. Then he'd taken himself out to the orchard because we had to make this look clean. Separate beds. Separate smells. No evidence that the marriage had become anything more than paperwork.
I'd agreed. I'd been the one who said it made sense.
And it did make sense.
I still wanted to throw something.
I shoved the blankets off and climbed down the steps. My feet hit the floor, and I hissed because the boards were cold. Of course, they were. Everything was wrong, so why not the floor too?
The shower was another battle. The controls were made for someone with hands the size of dinner plates, and I spent a full minute turning the wrong knob before hot water finally came out. I stood under it and scrubbed my hair. Hard.
Kazan smelled of smoke and warm wood and the soap he used after working in the fields. It had clung to my hair and skin, and washing it away felt like removing evidence of the only good decision I'd made in years.
I was being a dramatic baby.
Unfortunately, it was also true.
Back on Earth, I'd scrubbed myself raw after dates with James. Not because he'd hurt me physically, not exactly, but because everything about him left a film behind. His voice. His disappointment. The way he could make me feel dirty for wanting anything.
Now I was washing Kazan off because we had to pretend he hadn't made me feel wanted.
That was a special kind of cruel.
When I got back to the room, one of his flannels was still draped over the chair. I stared at it. It was huge and soft and smelled like him.
I didn’t put it on.
I deserved a medal.
I could keep his scent off me for two weeks.
I got dressed in my own clothes, which were less warm and less comforting and generally inferior in every way, and headed for the kitchen.
Making coffee in Kazan's kitchen involved standing on my toes, stretching across a counter built for giants, and trying not to spill grounds everywhere. I managed it with only a small mess, which I decided counted as personal growth.
I drank the first few sips standing there.
Then I looked at the counter. Specifically, the part of the counter where Kazan had put me two nights ago. My face went hot so fast I nearly burned from the inside out.
"Nope," I muttered, and turned around.
Very mature. Very dignified.
I took my coffee to the table and sat in the chair that still made me feel like a child because my feet didn't touch the floor unless I scooted to the edge. I hated that too. Not the chair. The scale of everything. The reminder that I was small here.
That Kazan was not.
That thought did not help with the counter memory. I groaned and covered my face with both hands.
Then the doubt showed up.
Of course it did. It had probably been waiting in the hallway for the coffee to kick in.
At first, it tried to sound reasonable. Kazan was keeping his distance because of the audit. He'd told me exactly why. This was smart. This was strategy. We had two weeks to survive before someone showed up to decide whether I got to keep my new life or get shipped back to James.
Fine. Great. Perfectly logical. But my brain had never met a logical thought it couldn't ruin.
We'd had one night together, and now Kazan was sleeping outside instead of coming near me.
Sure, he'd said it was because he wanted me too much. Sure, he'd looked like it hurt him to walk away. Sure, he'd been nothing but careful with me.
But James had been careful too, in his own awful way. With wording and timing. Careful to make every cold thing he did sound like my fault.
I hated that my mind went there.
I hated that he still got to live in my head rent-free after I crossed literal space to get away from him.
I was twenty-six years old, and I had almost no idea how any of this worked. I had survived a relationship where affection was rationed out like emergency supplies. I knew how to make myself smaller. I could ask for less and pretend it was enough.
I did not know how to be wanted by a man like Kazan.
Kazan, who'd fought in pits and led rebellions and made grown men look at the ground when he walked by. Kazan, who could have picked any woman off that ship and probably had half the settlement ready to trip over themselves for the honor.
And he'd picked me.
A human with a bad contract, a worse history, and enough emotional damage to qualify as a public safety hazard.
Now he was outside in the dirt.
I set my mug down before I squeezed it too hard and broke something. Probably my hand. The mug looked sturdy.
I made myself breathe.
In. Hold. Out.
Kazan had taught me that on the cidery floor when I was halfway to panic and trying to pretend I wasn't. Long, slow breaths. Count them. Feel the floor. Stay in the room.
"This is the old crap," I whispered to myself. "This is James crap."
Because it was.
I knew the difference between a man pulling away to punish me and a man pulling away to protect me. I did. My body knew it, even if my brain was being a dramatic little traitor.
Kazan had knelt in front of me like I was something precious. He'd told me the paper didn't get to decide what I was worth to him.
He'd meant it. Knowing that helped.
It did not magically fix me, which was rude.
The holo chimed before I could spiral any further.
I nearly knocked the chair over getting to it.
Chloe's frequency flashed over the table, and relief hit me so hard I had to grip the edge of the chair. Chloe was my best friend. She was real. Chloe had seen me before James, during James, and after James.
Chloe knew where the bodies were buried emotionally, which was probably good, because if actual bodies ever got involved, she'd also bring a shovel.
Her image flickered into place, small and hazy over the table. Her dark hair was piled on top of her head, and I could see the familiar cracked wall of her apartment behind her.
The signal stuttered.
Then her face sharpened.
"There she is," Chloe said. "Alive. And weirdly shiny. Are you glowing? Why are you glowing?"
I sank into the chair and pulled my legs up under me. "It's the fruit. I think everything here glows a little. Maybe it's contagious."
"What kind of place did you land on?" It wasn’t a serious question.
I smiled. "Hi, Chloe."
Her expression softened. "Hi, babe."
For one second, neither of us said anything. The delay stretched it out and made it worse.
Then she clapped her hands together. "Okay. I have been patient and supportive. I have been a saint, frankly. Now tell me about the husband."
I groaned. "Chloe."
Her eyes got wide, and she made an almost vulgar gesture. "The giant husband."
"Don't."
"The seven-foot alien farmer husband who carried you off into the sunset."
"He did not carry me off."
"Did he carry you at any point?"
I opened my mouth and closed it.
Her grin widened. "Oh my God, he did."
"I hate you."
"No, you don't. You love me, and you owe me details because I drove you to the spaceport and cried in a parking garage while you abandoned me for a man with horns."
“What is it with you and horns?” She’d practically vibrated with excitement when I showed her the brochure for Ceres-9.
"So he's ugly?"
I snorted. "No."
"Ah." She pointed at me. "That was immediate. Not ugly. Noted."
"He's good," I said, and the words came out before I could make them less pathetic.
Chloe's teasing expression shifted.
I looked down at my hands. "He's really good, Chlo. He built steps so I could reach things. He notices when I'm scared and doesn't make me feel stupid for it. He..." I stopped myself before I said too much and melted into a puddle on the kitchen floor. "I like him."
The delay gave Chloe a second too long to stare at me.
"Oh, Maisie," she said softly.
"Don't use that voice."
"What voice?"
"The voice where you're happy and terrified at the same time."
"That's just my voice now. You moved to another planet."
"Fair."
She glanced away from the holo, and when she looked back, the teasing was gone. "I have to tell you something."
My stomach dropped. "It’s James," I said. It wasn’t a question.
"Yeah." She winced. "James."
Of course.
I rubbed my forehead. "What did he do?"
"I did some asking around. Quietly," she added when I opened my mouth. "Very quietly. Through Devon. You remember Devon? He worked reception at Kerrin & Holt for like three minutes and somehow still knows everyone?"
"Unfortunately, yes."