Ambasadora (Book 1 of Ambasadora) (13 page)

Sean never brought clients here,
no women at all for that matter. Aside from Soli and Mari, who were strictly
colleagues. There were plenty of clubs and hotels when he got the urge for a
tumble. His body tingled like he was getting that urge now, either from the
stims running through his veins or because he was experiencing an emotional
fallacy. Instant attractions often resulted in false feelings for another.
That’s why when he felt this way, he usually ran in the other direction. It was
the best way to avoid using bad judgment.

When he returned to the sitting
room, he watched with a mix of interest and annoyance as she unfolded a couple
of his shirts from the pile.

“Are all your shirts
grey?” She studied the designs on each one before casually refolding them.

“Mostly. Might find a couple
of blue ones in the closet.”

“No black?” She looked
up.

“I wouldn’t want to be
mistaken for a contractor,” he said, only half-joking.

She stiffened at the comment. His
gaze took in her black hair, making him wonder.

“You don’t like
contractors?”

“Don’t know any
personally,” he lied.

“Neither do I.”

The graphic on the shirt she held
showed a blindfolded woman diving naked into a volcano, a logo for the group
whose song played through his suite.

“Are you a fan?” he
asked.

“Not really. The artwork
just spoke to me.”

Watching her carefully handle his
shirts, he felt calm return, almost a warm feeling in his fingers. Usually he
only found this peace by taking restor drops. Though, recently even their
narcotic bliss proved evasive. It was why he had withdrawn from the others
completely. Not that they would have noticed; he wasn’t exactly social to begin
with. The remoteness of his personality sometimes made it tough to live in a
society built upon social connections. His height of socialness was drinking enough
to start a fight or two at whatever bar he found himself in.

Sean’s head felt a little fuzzy,
and he fell into a trance watching the slow pulse of the intra-tat on her arm.
He followed the lights from the spiral on the back of her hand, onto her wrist,
where it disappeared briefly as it encircled her arm in an upward vortex, then
fell over her shoulder in a swirl. His gaze continued up her slender neck and
past her strong jawline to return to her lips. Maybe he crossed the line from
respectful admiration to blatant ogling, but he didn’t believe in boundaries.

She, on the other hand, was a
slave to boundaries because she worked for the Sovereign.

The thought reeled him in and
reminded him why he didn’t want her on board to begin with. She was part of the
Embassy, an enemy. The ambasadora project put friendly faces to the
government’s hidden politics while it manipulated its citizens. This woman
represented everything he despised about the system.

Maybe she knew how much he hated
the Embassy, knew of his attachment to the fragger organization. That could be
why she conveniently needed her bots reprogrammed as soon as she arrived. Was
there a Writ of Execution out on him, and she was thinking of cashing in?

“Do you mind?” He
snatched the shirt from her hands. His tone was harsh, but didn’t contain the
acid he felt in his stomach.

“I’m sorry.” She
lowered her gaze, and he thought he detected a slight flush on her olive
cheeks.

That threw him…unless she had
receptors implanted just under her skin to call the blush reflex at will. It
could be very endearing, very arousing to the right man. Well, she could forget
it; he wasn’t the right man.

A pinch at his hip reminded him
the doser was doing its job. Was it also making him paranoid? David accused him
of stim-induced paranoia all the time, though Sean had never admitted his
dosing to anyone. He may have done too many stims this week, but the feeling he
had about her motives was more than the drugs.

“I also had another
question. After watching something earlier on the Media,” she said.
“A woman had her lineage hijacked.”

“Hijacked? Was she
raped?”

Rapes were few in the system
because of the societal stigma attached to having to force your advances onto
another, but laws were ignored on occasion, even when the penalty was death.

“Not from the report. It
sounded more like she had an adverse reaction to…irradicae that were injected
to rid her body of an unwanted cyst, but they attached themselves to her
ovaries as well.” She fingered his shirts again.

“Why would that bother
you
?”
he asked.

She paused. “Just imagining
how she must feel, facing something like that. They said she never even found
out until months later when she was going through a security scanner at the
Hub.” She was almost whispering now.

Something was off and it had
nothing to do with the drugs in his system. “That story’s a fake.”

She nearly jumped out of her
seat. “What?”

“Treatment with irradicae is
illegal, plus you would need specialized equipment for implantation, or even
detection. Only Embassy med facilities have that kind of tech. The Media airs
fake stories all the time, just to get a reaction like yours, get people
talking and scared.”

“You’re probably
right,” she said, though her expression said otherwise.

She seemed genuinely afraid. That
sent him into a protective mode. After Bullseye, Sean became drawn to human
suffering in a way only the penitent man ever can be. It messed with him, made
him want to curl into himself and pretend the rest of the world didn’t exist.
Hard to do when it came knocking at his door.

“You have good taste in
shirts.” She spoke loudly, bringing them both out of their thoughts.

Did the silence bother her? Sean
hated it, too. Maybe if he had a quiet mind…but his thoughts were just too
loud.

He took a deep breath.
“Here’s your reporter. Already programmed for the ship. Won’t take me long
to program your suite codes.” He pushed aside the shirts and sat down next
to her. She smelled liked the garden at his childhood home.

“Are you sure you want to
change your scentbots?” Gently taking her hand, he slipped the reporter on
her wrist. She could have done it herself, but in spite of all his concerns,
Sean wanted an excuse to touch her. He didn’t want David to be right, about the
paranoia, about brooding alone, about a lot of things. That would mean Sean had
lost his perspective, and he couldn’t afford that.

“Actually, I was hoping you
could get rid of them altogether,” she said. “I never had any
before…I became an ambasadora.”

She caught him looking at her,
and he caught her involuntary pupil response. It made him lean in a little
closer.

That could be faked too.

It shouldn’t matter if it were
real. Sean refused to be ruled by those DNA sharing impulses. Yet, here he was
holding her hand and close enough to kiss her, all because she seemed a little
upset and looked at him a certain way.

He cleared his throat. “Ever
use one of these before?”

“No.”

“Easy to master.” He
turned her hand over palm-side up and rested the bracelet’s silver node just at
her pulse point. Her heart rate was a little elevated. He pressed the node to
activate her reporter, but kept hold of her hand. A blue light zipped across
the olive skin of her hand, a menu scrolling along it.

“Touch a finger to your palm
to activate the menu.” He dragged his middle finger down her palm and
noticed the flurry of violet erupting on her other arm.

Damn. That was a lot better
than a blush
. And he was only touching her hand.

Sean’s stomach tightened as he
imagined what would happen if he kissed her neck or ran his hands down her back
or over her breasts. And what would it be like if he were docking her?
Actually, he’d been wondering about that since he first saw her.

“What’s this mean?” she
asked, her voice a little breathy.

Sean realized she had leaned a
little closer, too, so their heads were almost touching. He forced his gaze to
a message blinking on her palm, but was acutely aware that she still looked at
his face.

“There’s a message waiting
for you, welcoming you to the system. From someone named Rainer Varden.”

“Oh.” That one little
word broke the spell. She pulled her hand away. “Embassy business. I
should probably get back to my room and respond. Maybe we can take care of my
scentbots another time?”

“Sure.” He walked her
to the door, telling himself it was because he wanted a final read on her.

After she left, the scent of
roses remained, as did his heightened emotions.

“Rainer?” Sara suddenly
regretted responding to his earlier transmission, but she would need her nerve
to coerce him.

“That was faster than
expected. Actually, I’m surprised you responded at all.”
His
expression said he was pleased. That was fortuitous, but somehow uncomfortable.

“I was going to contact you
anyway. I need…your help.” Just asking humbled her.

“With what? You need some
tips on charming the Armadan?”

She ignored his taunt. Now that
the time had arrived to present her plan, she felt sick in her stomach. If
Rainer refused and went to Simon with her betrayal, she was finished.
Sterilized and as good as dead.

“Is it with the
irradicae?”

Tears filled her eyes and she
hoped he couldn’t see them through the transmission. “Yes.”

“I didn’t know he would
break our mores for his own gain. Behavior modification was one thing, even if
he would have killed you outright, but hijacking your lineage went too far,
even for the Sovereign.”

Rainer shocked her; he was openly
criticizing the most powerful man in the system. Still, her words came out
tinged in anger. “You have an odd value system. No problem with murder and
torture, but let someone mess with this society’s breeding traditions and
you’re suddenly a crusader.”

That rant may have cost her his
help. She waited for the retort.

“It’s not the people in
the society that matter as much as their traditions. History tells us how to
live, what works and what doesn’t.”

“Now you sound like an
archivist.” She evened her tone.

“Sometimes even
archivists don’t follow the History.”

He was obviously referring to
Simon’s former title.

“Does that mean you’ll help
me?”

“Tell me what you need
first.”

Sara passed through the crystal
trees on her way to the gangway. Thankfully, the passengers of the
Bard
didn’t seem bothered to be staying at Shiraz for an extra half-day, and only
David questioned why. Sara’s vague response about an Embassy meeting hadn’t
quite placated him, but he didn’t force the issue. He was obviously just as
suspicious of her as she was of him.

“Heading out?”

Sean’s voice. Sara would
recognize that low pitch and soft timbre anywhere.

“Embassy meeting,” she
said, remembering the instant attraction she had for him earlier. Seeing him
again reinforced her first impression. There was absolutely no polish to him,
but that meant he had nothing to hide. She found that to be a very attractive
quality. It helped that she found the rest of him attractive as well.

“Share a transport? I have a
client to see near the Hub.”

Sean’s offer threw her because
she had hoped to sneak away. He motioned her down the glowing gangway. Excuses
ran through her brain, then she spotted the voyeur waiting for her outside. Of
course the Media would want any chance to report on the ambasadoras, especially
the one they knew little about. She was sure Simon was watching her, too.

Being with Sean Cryer might
provide a distraction until she could slip the cameras and get to the tunnels
for her meeting with Rainer. If asked, she’d convince Simon that this was part
of her plan. She had yet to decide what to do about David. If this trip went as
anticipated, she wouldn’t have to worry about it.

Upon exiting the gangway canopy,
a pair of voyeurs flew into orbit around them, casting short shadows in the
midday sun.

“Parasites,” Sean said.

Several airscreens along the
platform echoed,
“Parasites,”
and showed Sean’s face on a
split screen next to Sara’s. Then the image cut to them standing beside each
other, only the forced angle implied more of an intimacy.

Sean’s irritation made her
self-conscious, like her life was spilling over and affecting others.

“Still want to ride with
me?” she asked.

“Gotta get there
somehow.”

Media commentary followed their
walk to the transport station. Sara caught snatches of it among the dock’s
perpetual airship and boat traffic, live musical groups, and chattering
citizens either passing through or spending the day among Shiraz’s amusements:

“…Scientist Sean Cryer,
a fellow passenger aboard her ship.”

And,

“It didn’t take this most
secretive of ambasadoras long to find a potential amour, though we expected her
sights to be set a little higher, like maybe her Armadan pilot. He’s a retired
fleet captain….”

If Sean were insulted by the
Media banter, he didn’t show it. In fact, he placed his hand at the small of
her back to guide her through several passersby that gathered near them. Three
young girls hurried up to Sara just as the transport pulled in.

“Excuse me, ambasadora, can
we get your print?” The bravest one asked, while the other two watched the
pulsing of Sara’s bio-lights.

Sean pushed his palm against the
transport door to keep it open. A man looked out of the front train car, but
didn’t say anything, most likely because of Sean’s challenging stare.

Sara pressed her index finger
against the girls’ digital bracelets, allowing them to capture the time, place,
and a holo of their encounter. Her digi print would verify it all for bragging
rights later.