Chapter 18
18
Buzzing, smiling, and supremely satisfied, because he’d been right—Joshua was quite good at wooing—I’d barely drifted off to sleep when the whoosh of a door sliding open had me bolting upright.
The senator released a bone-weary sigh as she entered her suite, slipping out of her heels, kicking them off next to the door. After reaching back to unzip the top few inches of her skirt’s zipper, she pulled a pin from her hair, running her fingers through her raven-black waves until they settled over her shoulders.
“Welcome home, Senator. How was your meeting?” My voice sounded wrong: tight, awkward, guilty .
With a sharp inhale, she clasped her hand over her heart. “ Gods above , Sunny. You startled me.”
“I’m sorry. Long day?”
“An understatement.” She dropped her hand. “How was Sai?”
“An absolute angel,” I replied, trying my level best to sound normal, look normal, be normal. “Perfectly behaved.”
Sonia huffed a knowing laugh, sitting on the chair across from me. “He’s always on his best behavior for anyone who isn’t one of his mothers.”
“Especially once Freddie came over to make cookies for him,” I admitted in a rush, wanting it all out on the table. Well, not all of it, exactly. “Sai assured us you wouldn’t mind.”
Her attention homed in on me. “Freddie came?”
Not yet, I thought with a lopsided smile—that Sonia snatched right off my face when she raised a pointed, knowing brow at me. “I called him in for reinforcements,” I explained, cursing the heat rushing up my throat. “Sai wanted cookies, and I…can’t bake.” I can’t bake? That was the best I could do?
Sonia’s slow nod up and down said bullshit . “I see.”
Not knowing what else to do with them as she stared me down, I folded my hands in my lap.
“You know,” she said, leaning forward. “I do like that Freddie. He’s smart. Capable. And rather handsome. Don’t you think?”
It was definitely time to leave. Sonia was as skilled as a Portisan when it came to reading minds. “I should go,” I said instead of answering. “Let you get some sleep.”
But before I stood from the couch of shame, Sonia said, “Stay, Sunny. For a moment.”
Settling back against the cushions, folding my hands back in my lap because…why not, I said, “Of course.”
“I know your time is precious. But there’s something I’d like to say to you.”
I nodded as gravity reasserted itself, the memories of those weightless moments on the couch pulled down to some more appropriate level of consciousness.
“You’d asked me at the Fire Ball why I was traveling on this ship,” Sonia said, a resigned expression moving across her face. “As much as possible, I try to keep my professional and personal lives separate. But I would not be where I am today if I didn’t have a keen sense of when to ask for help.”
“Do you need my help?” I asked, gravity doubling.
Running two fingers up and down the bridge of her nose, she said, “I fear—no, I’m quite certain that my family is in danger. Tell me, Sunny. Have you heard of Proposition 2126?”
I shook my head, my attention snagging on two words: family and danger.
“What I am about to tell you is highly classified information. Can I trust you to keep this between us?”
I wanted to tell her yes, but it was impossible. “It depends,” I said. “One of my duties is to keep everyone aboard this ship safe. If what you’re about to tell me compromises my ability to do that in any way?—”
She waved me off. “You’re right. Of course. I shouldn’t have asked.”
My mind rewound to the bistro, to what Tig had told me. If the senator’s family was in enough danger that she was about to share highly classified information with me, I needed to tell her what Tig had found. “Senator, our IT specialist found something distressing the other day. Someone off-ship has been hacking our system to access our guests’ itineraries.”
So quickly I almost missed it, her eyes flared with something like alarm. “That’s troubling.”
“These security breaches started around the time you and your family came aboard. Do you think this has anything to do with your proposition?”
Curling her fingers around the armrests of her chair, she said, “Perhaps.”
It wasn’t much, but it was all I needed to hear. “I would like to help you, but I need to know what’s going on. And I need to be able to share that information with my crew.”
After a tense moment, a muscle in her jaw flickered, and she sighed. “Very well. I have committed myself to introducing a”—she paused briefly—“ controversial proposition at the upcoming KU joint sessions meeting on Portis. Certain information regarding the proposition has been leaked, although I’m not certain how. Nevertheless, my comings and goings have been a source of much interest of late, and my security officers—who are also guests aboard the Ignisar , although you won’t uncover who they are unless they want you to—devised this plan to travel to Portis on this very crowded, very public ship in efforts to dissuade any attacks on me or my family before we reached the meeting.”
I sat up straight. “Is my ship in danger, Senator?”
“We do not believe so,” Sonia said, leaning back in her chair. “The negative press of anything happening on the Ignisar would make the risks too great.”
This was an odd statement. Who, aside from LunaCorp themselves, would care about the negative press of something happening aboard one of LunaCorp’s ships? I wanted to ask what the proposition entailed, but the thumping of little feet down the hall put an end to our conversation.
“Hi, Mom,” Sai said, rubbing his eyes. “What are you two talking about? You woke me up.”
Sonia rose to her feet and walked to her son, picking him up and swaying him from side to side. “Sorry, bubs,” she said, kissing his cheek. “I’ve missed you. Did you have a good time with Sunny and Freddie?”
Sai squeezed his arms around her neck. “We made cookies.”
Sonia laughed and set Sai down, then turned back to face me, all business again. “I’m certain you’ll need to discuss what I’ve told you with Chan, and I realize that it was unfair of me to ask you not to. All I can do is request your entire crew’s discretion in this matter.”
“Of course,” I said, getting to my feet. Straightening my top, I said good night, then watched Sonia lead Sai back to his room before seeing myself out. And heading directly to Freddie’s pod.