Degrees of Wrong (19 page)

I paused to take an unsteady breath. Irrational as it was, I wanted to make Nicoli care about my parents. I wanted him to know them, to respect them. To tell him more than any file ever could, to show him who they were, who I was. I swallowed.

“You don’t have to say any more,” Nicoli said softly. “I can hear how painful it is for you.”

“It’s okay. I’m fine. Anyway, I heard later that everyone who attended the seminar eventually died. I took my parents home to bury them. And that’s where I stayed, trying to find a cure.”

Nicoli didn’t speak. What could he say to that, anyway? What could anyone say? I waited a few moments before busting up the settled silence. “So.”

“So,” he mimicked, unwilling to change the subject himself.

“Don’t you have a secret to tell me?” I asked, trying to absorb the awkwardness from the cabin.

He laughed. “Ah, yes. Which one would you like to know first?”

I contemplated for a moment. I really wanted to know both of them, but after my morbid storytelling, he may not ask me any more questions—I might get a chance at just one. Still, my self-importance won out. “I want to know the secret about
me
.”

“Are you sure? The other one is interesting too.” I could hear him smile in the dark.

“I’ll admit, it’s tempting. But do you promise to ask me more questions?”

“Absolutely.”

I believed him. “Good. Then I want to know the one about me first.”

“Frank Horan is in love with you.”

“Wh-what?”

“He’s in love with you. Categorically smitten.”

“Be serious, please. I answer all your questions honestly, and then you go and make up some ridiculous story.”

“Oh, but I am. Dead serious. He’s enamored, obsessed, what have you.”

I pinched the bridge of my nose. How could this
be
? Frank Horan was no more capable of affection than one of the parasites in my father’s lecture.

“Why?”
Why?

“Why?” He snorted. “I thought you’d be more interested in
when
.”

I grinded my teeth. “Fine, Nicoli. When? I suppose you’ll tell me it’s when I punched his pressure point in front of a class full of cadets.” I clamped my teeth together again.

“You’re going to sand down to the gums if you don’t stop grinding—”

“When?”

“The first day he met you.” He could barely suppress his amusement.

“The first day he met me, he made me clean the bathroom with a toothbrush.”

“You didn’t clean it. Admit it.”

“Of course I didn’t clean it.” I laughed. “Well, I did clean a spot for me to sit.”

He snickered into the darkness. “I knew it.”

I grew sober. “How do you know this? Did he tell you? Directly?”

“Oh, he doesn’t have to tell me. He doesn’t have to tell anyone, in fact. It’s obvious to all of us how he feels.”

“All of us?” The usage of the plural alarmed me. The heat of a blush seared my cheeks, despite not knowing the devastating numbers of
us
.

“Yes. All of us officers. Every single day since then, he’s shared with us every smart remark, dirty look. He brags when you make good on your pushup quota. And when you knocked him out cold, well…we all thought we’d be getting wedding invitations—”

“Oh, knock it off.” I heard him laugh softly and wondered if he was close enough to pinch. I wagged a finger at him in the dark. “I hope for your sake I don’t find out that you encouraged his behavior, Nicoli Marek.” I made it as threatening as I knew how—and was rewarded with an unsettling guffaw of laughter. “You’re a special kind of hypocrite, you know that, Captain?”

“What do you mean?” he said, not as serious as he should be, given the gravity of the accusation.

“I mean, everyone knows how Lt. Sheldon throws herself at you all the time. You’re just happy to be out of the spotlight,” I accused. “Even though
your
situation is a little more scandalous.”

“It is? How?”

“Because you’re engaged,” I informed him with an uppity tone.

“Oh. That.” He paused for a moment. “That brings me to the next set of questions. Are you ready?”

I huffed, trying to make him doubt himself just this once. But I was ready. “Go ahead.”

“Are you…? Do you…have feelings for someone? Do you have a significant other?”

“What?”

“What do you mean
what
? I’m asking you if your affections are—”

“Am I to believe this particular bit of information is not in my file?” And, was I to believe that he
looked
for it? My pulse sputtered with the thought.

“No, it’s not.” By now I knew him well enough to know his tone coincided with a frown.

“Is this question in any way reconnaissance for Frank Horan?” Because my answer depended on knowing. I could conjure up a romance if Pretty Princess needed some discouragement.

He laughed. “The man can do his own recon. This is something I am personally curious about.”

Thankful the dark concealed my widened eyes, I answered, “Then, no. The answer is no. There isn’t anyone who might have been waiting for me, if I weren’t dead.”

“Unbelievable.”

“What’s unbelievable is the direction in which this interrogation is going. Let’s move on, shall we?”
Before I go into shock, preferably.

“Actually, I’d like to continue along those lines, if you don’t mind. Unless, of course, you wouldn’t like to know any more secrets?”

He had me there. And despite the awkwardness of the questions, I was curious to see how far he would take them. “Yes, regardless of their
believability
, I would like to know more secrets.”

“Why are you put off by my engagement? No one else has ever thought twice about it.”

I believed him. Lt. Sheldon was living, salivating proof of that. How many women had thrown themselves at this man sitting mere feet from me?

“Because, Captain Marek,” I began, but he interrupted with, “Don’t call me that. It’s Nicoli, when we’re alone.”

And we had never been more alone than right at this moment, I realized. Suddenly, the intimacy of the conversation, the lack of space between us and his smell—
always
his smell—took its toll on my nerves.

“Okay,
Nicoli
,” I ground out. “My morals are not influenced by the people around me. If you’re engaged, you’re off-limits, in my book. You’ve committed yourself to a flesh-and-blood woman, someone with feelings, thoughts, passions,” I continued on, ignoring him as he tried to interrupt between every word.

“Elyse.
Elyse
. ELYSE,” he almost shouted. I stopped.

“Yes?”

“Are you—? Can it
really
be possible that—? Are you saying you’re not aware of the circumstances surrounding my engagement?”

“Circumstances?” My question confirmed my ignorance.

“Yes. That my father’s political…endeavors…greatly influenced my decision to marry?” he said delicately.

The information didn’t absorb. It just wouldn’t take. Had to be mistaken. “What are you saying? Are you saying you’re in an
arranged marriage
?” I almost couldn’t say it—it was that outrageous.

“Yes. Yes, that’s exactly what I’m saying.” He seemed relieved of the burden of explaining it. “More or less.” Then, after a few moments, “Elyse?” He even reached out, scooted over to me.

I jettisoned away from him, pressing myself against the cool wall of the pod. I didn’t need him muddling my thoughts with his arms, or his soft voice, or his devastating scent.

“Say something,” he said. “Anything.”

The pause wasn’t on purpose—I just didn’t know what to say. I decided on, “People do not enter into arranged marriages anymore, Nicoli. It doesn’t happen.”

Silence followed. He was probably trying to figure out how to make it sound better. He was wasting his time. “We come from very different worlds, Elyse. In my world, it happens. It happens every day.”

“What world do you come from, Nicoli? What kind of world still forces people into marrying someone they’ve never even met?”

“We’ve met. We meet on scheduled occasions to be seen by the public.”

“And you
agreed
to this? You agreed to marry someone you hardly know, to advance your father’s political agenda? That doesn’t sound like you, Nicoli. Not at all.” Well, at least it didn’t sound like my
idea
of him.

“I was fulfilling my duty to my family, Elyse. It’s just
not
as uncommon as you make it out to be. In the political arena, it happens more than you think. You don’t know what happens behind closed doors. In fact, you’d be surprised whose marriages were actually arranged and whose were not. Even in the western nations, even in the United States, it happens all the time. Ever wonder why the wife always decides to stand by her errant husband when his affair goes public? Because she knew about it in the first place, that’s why. It’s an accepted part of the arrangement. Marriages based on political convenience are as old as government itself.”

In view of my near ignorance in politics in general, I admitted that could be true. And the fact that he felt he was fulfilling an obligation to his family did agree with what little I’d learned about his character. It was, by any measure, an act of great self-sacrifice.

Still, the idea of binding himself to a complete stranger repulsed me so much that I fought against it. “Western nations? Where are
you
from, Nicoli? That’s a secret I’d very much like to know.”

He exhaled in a gust, maybe in exasperation. “That’s not a secret either. My family is Egyptian. My father is, anyway. My mother is an American. They live in Egypt. How can you not know this?”

“Well, I’m very sorry, Nicoli, but I don’t have access to your
file,
remember? And if you’re referring to the fact that it’s public knowledge because your father’s some Egyptian politician, well then you must be forgetting that life on Peleliu—that’s my island, but of course you already knew that—forged on without the need to know of such inconsequential things. And, since you issued the order yourself, you might recall that I’m prohibited from any contact with the outside world while aboard your ship.” By now my voice pitched to a tone even I found unpleasant.

“Why do I have the distinct feeling we’re fighting?” he asked heatedly. “That’s the last thing in the world I want to do with you, Elyse Morgan.”

“We’re not fighting,” I said, stunned that he’d used my full name. “It’s just that— Well, the idea is more disturbing than I can really say. What if—what if you found someone else—?” I hoped he could discern in my question what I couldn’t put into words.

“That would cause a lot of trouble.”

“So, if you found someone you wanted to be with—” But I couldn’t quite finish it.

“Then she would have to understand,” he said quietly.

“
Understand
? Understand that she would never be anything more than your mistress? Than an affair?
The other woman
?”

His continued silence answered my questions.

“Well, good luck with that.” I snorted in disgust. “I mean, I know there are plenty of women out there who would, Nicoli, but…” I shook my head, knowing the inky black hid my effort.

“But you aren’t one of them,” he finished, surprising me.

It wasn’t a question. I tried to hear something in the way he said it. Disappointment? Anger? Amusement? No, none of those. No emotion at all. Either he deliberately masked his feelings about this fact, or he simply felt none for it.

“Absolutely not.” I tried to keep my voice as neutral as his. “Not if you’re engaged—no matter the circumstances surrounding that engagement. And not if you’re married. You, or anyone else.”

“Anyone else? Who else are we talking about here?” His tone slipped from impartial to almost mad.

“No one. Or everyone. Ugh! Not just you. I’m talking about anyone. I didn’t want to offend you,” I stammered. “What I mean is, it’s nothing personal.”

“Let me be sure I understand. I am engaged to a complete stranger—”

“You said you met her. She’d be an acquaintance then, wouldn’t she?”

“Fine. I’m engaged to an acquaintance. A
business
acquaintance. Because of this engagement—this
business
transaction—you would consider it immoral for me to pursue anyone, or to allow myself to be pursued.”

“Because you are engaged to a
person
, I would consider it immoral. Marriage is
not
a business transaction. It’s really not that difficult a concept to grasp.”

“So you’re saying that…if I were to pursue, say…
you
, for instance…” he said huskily.

“Then you must like the idea of rejection,” I told him without hesitation and with more confidence than I felt. My stomach fluttered at the surreal turn in conversation. In a hundred years, I would never have imagined myself having this discussion with Nicoli Marek. My cheeks burned with a heat more magnified than the sun.

“Because of my engagement, you’re completely
impervious
to me?” he asked, his voice filled with mischief concentrate.