Chapter 9 #2
"Well, Devon says James didn't just throw a rich-boy tantrum after you left. He lawyered up hard. The breach-of-promise thing isn't just him being dramatic. He has an entire suite of lawyers working on it."
My fingers went cold around the mug.
Chloe kept talking, faster now, like if she got it out quickly enough it would be less awful.
"They’re corporate contract guys. The expensive kind.
They file everywhere, bury people in forms, and keep going until the other side gives up.
Devon said something about an off-world agency network.
I didn't understand half of it, but it sounded bad. "
"I know," I said.
She blinked. The image froze for half a second, then caught up. "You do?"
"It's already here. He sent a bounty hunter to try and bring me home and now there’s some auditor coming."
Chloe went very still. The lag made it worse. I could see the moment the words reached her.
"Maisie."
"I know."
"No, I don't think you do." She leaned closer, and her image fuzzed at the edges. "What’s an auditor going to do?”
I shrugged. "Decide if the marriage is valid. Decide if I get to stay."
"Or if they send you back."
I didn't answer. I didn't have to.
Chloe covered her mouth for a second. When she dropped her hand, she looked furious and scared, which was one of her default settings when James came up.
"Okay," she said. "Then you have to do whatever it takes to stay there."
I hated those words immediately.
She didn't notice. Or the delay didn't let her notice.
"These people are not normal bad guys," she continued.
"They're rich bad guys. That's worse. They have lawyers and time and too much money, and James is petty enough to spend all of it just to drag you back and prove he can. Maybe you should jump on a shuttle to somewhere even further away. Abandon this whole matchmaking thing and just run.”
My spine went stiff.
"Chloe."
"I'm serious. I know he's nice. I'm glad he's nice. Really, I’m thrilled the giant farmer is apparently a consent king or whatever. Truly. I love that for you. But it's been a week."
"It’s been a very complicated week. You don’t–"
"It's always complicated. That's how they get you."
I flinched.
She saw it and her face crumpled. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean—"
"It's okay."
"No, it's not. I just mean..." She dragged both hands over her face.
"Keep a door open. That's all I'm saying.
Keep something back. If this goes bad, if the auditor rules against you, if your guy changes his mind, if any of this falls apart, I need you to have somewhere to land.
Don't go all in because the first man who treated you gently happens to be huge and hot and owns an orchard. "
I almost laughed.
I didn't.
Because the words had landed wrong.
Not because Chloe meant them wrong. She loved me. She'd put me on that ship and had lied for me, packed for me. She’d hugged me so hard in that parking garage I thought my ribs would crack.
But ‘keep a door open’ felt too familiar.
Keep something back.
Don't need too much.
Don't trust too much.
Be ready to leave.
I'd lived like that for four years. One foot out the door, one eye on the exits, one hand wrapped around whatever tiny piece of myself James hadn't managed to claim yet. I'd thought that was being smart.
Maybe it had been for a while. Maybe it had kept me alive.
But it hadn't made me free.
"Maisie?" Chloe asked.
I looked at her flickering face. "I love you."
Her eyes narrowed. "That sounds like the start of a speech I'm not going to like."
"I love you," I repeated. "And I know you're saying this because you're scared for me. I know that. But I can't do it."
"Can't do what?"
"Keep a door open."
She stared.
The delay stretched between us, long and ugly.
I put my feet on the floor. The boards were still cold, but I barely felt them now.
"I've been doing that for too long. Staying ready to leave.
Staying small. Keeping something back so it wouldn't hurt as much when it got taken anyway.
" My throat tightened. Damn it. I was not going to cry into an interstellar holo call before lunch.
"It didn't save me, Chloe. It just made me lonely. "
Her mouth opened, then closed.
"Kazan isn't James," I said. "He's sleeping in a freaking field because if the auditor shows up and decides we've been too intimate too fast, I could lose everything. He'd give me up if he thought it would keep me safe."
"That doesn't make it less terrifying."
"No. It really doesn't." I laughed once, and it sounded terrible. "But I'm tired of making choices based on terror. I came all this way to stop living like James still gets a vote."
Chloe's image flickered. For a second, her face broke into squares, and I thought the call would drop.
Then she came back.
"You're really in love with him," she said.
I looked toward the window.
Out past the glass, the rows of trees glowed faintly in the morning light, heavy with violet fruit tipped in gold. Somewhere out there, Kazan was working with his back to the house, keeping his distance because he thought that was the right thing to do.
The stupid, noble, infuriating right thing.
"Yeah," I said. "I think I am."
Chloe pressed her lips together.
I braced myself for another warning.
Instead, she nodded.
One sharp nod, like she'd decided something.
"Okay," she said.
"Okay?"
"Okay. Then fight." Her voice cracked a little. "Fight dirty if you have to. Win. Do not get on that ship back to Earth. Do not let James have you. And call me the second it's over, or I swear to God, Maisie, I will find a way to get up there and make this everyone else's problem."
That time I did laugh. It came out wet and shaky, but it was real.
"I believe you."
"You should. I'm extremely unstable when motivated by friendship."
"I know."
"And if giant farmer hurts you, I'm learning how to use a space gun."
"He won't."
"You don't know that."
"I know enough."
She didn't like that. I could tell.
But she let it go.
"Where are you going?" she asked, because I'd already stood up.
"Out."
"Out where? Maisie, we are still having a serious conversation."
"I know."
"Don't you dare cut me off. The lag makes that extra rude."
I looked through her flickering image to the window again.
Kazan was out there somewhere, probably being honorable and miserable and convinced he was doing me a favor.
Men.
"I have to go find him," I said.
"Maisie—"
I ended the call before the rest of the warning could cross the galaxy.
Then I went to get my boots.