“You have yelled, too.”
My own temper heated at this accusation.
“Because you yelled first!”
“You’re yelling at me, right now,” he observed, infuriatingly calmly.
“Fuck,” I cursed under my breath. Hiding my face in my hands, I inhaled deeply, willing my agitation to subside.
Normally, it would take a lot to set me off. The Colonel had managed to do it within seconds of his arrival.
“I would also like you to reconsider exposing our domestic situation to the Committee this week.” His voice sounded strained, the calm in it forced. “I don’t want any government organizations to stick their noses into my private life. What happens in my household is entirely my business.”
“Not entirely,” I objected. “Not when I’m a part of your household too. For now, anyway.”
“Daisy.” He heaved a breath, moving my way.
I scooted all the way to the opposite end of the mattress as he came closer and sat on the edge of the bed.
“Only a fraction of males in Voran ever have the opportunity to get married,” he said. “Mine was presented to me at a state-wide ceremony, with our high officials and a large part of the city’s population present. I was not the only one who waited for your arrival on our planet. If our marriage works, many more Voranian men would get a chance to have a human wife.”
“But it’s not working...” I shook my head slowly.
“Maybe,” he agreed. “But if my highly anticipated wife takes off mere days after her arrival, it’d cause a highly-publicized scandal that I may never fully recover from.”
“A scandal?”
Was that what he really worried about? His reputation?
“So, you’re concerned about what strangers may think of you?” I squinted at him. “You want to present yourself in the best light possible to the city, but you don’t care at all about your behavior at home?”
He winced.
“I don’t care what strangers think about me, but I am concerned about the future of this program.”
“Are you now?” That the Colonel cared about anything at all was news to me. “Then why didn’t you tell me that before? Why have you not made any attempt at a courteous conversation with me until now?”
“I, er...conversed,” he objected.
I shook my head and rolled my eyes in exasperation.
“What we had weren’t conversations. Even before the yelling started, there’d been just grunts, single-word answers, and strained arguments.”
Did he really believe those were all parts of a loving relationship between a husband and wife?
“I saw—” He stopped then corrected himself, “I see no reason to act as someone different than who I am. With anyone, not just with my wife.”
“So, you’re saying that’s who you are? You’re always the miserable fuck you’ve been for the past four days?”
He made a face.
“For a woman, you sure swear a lot.”
“And as a typical man, you bring that out in me,” I retorted.
He lifted one thick eyebrow, but didn’t say anything.
I was really impressed by his self-control this morning. So, he could hold his anger back when he really wanted to, even though he looked rather stiff and uncomfortable. It must’ve cost him a huge effort to control that explosive temper of his.
I did my best to remain relatively calm, too. A little too late maybe, but we finally were having a real conversation here.
“I need to warn you,” I said. “I’m not particularly good at socializing with governors. I’ve never met one before. I’d have no idea what to say or what to do.”
“You won’t have to do anything, just be yourself.” He shrugged.
“Be myself?” I snorted a laugh. “Be careful what you ask for, Colonel.”
His expression had smoothed out somewhat.
“Even if you end up doing something out of the norm, no one would hold it against you. You’ve come from another planet. Some oddity in your behavior would be understandable and even expected.”
Thinking of myself as an “oddity” made me smile.
“And you think you’ll be okay showing up in public with the ‘odd’ alien woman? People will be staring at us, I’m sure.”
“Oh, they will.” His beard suddenly parted with a smile, too. It was small, barely there, but it broke through nevertheless. “Let them stare. If anyone dares to do more than that, they’d have to deal with me. You’ll have nothing to worry about.”
The easy confidence with which he’d taken on the task of protecting me from the crowd was appealing.
I drew in some air. The morning seemed brighter now as if a storm had dissipated. I decided to use the moment before it was gone.
“If I do what you’re asking from me, would you let me go?” I wasn’t fooling myself. The Colonel had decided to be reasonable this one morning just because he needed something from me. I had to use this opportunity to clarify a few things.
Just like that, the smile disappeared off his face, his expression shut down.
“You can’t leave.”
I dug in my heels. “But I can’t stay. If you keep insisting, you’d be holding me here against my will. The Committee—”
He groaned, raking his fingers through the fur on his head.
“Leave the Committee out of it.” Leaping off the bed, he paced in front of me. “Do you really hate it here so much?” He stopped abruptly, facing me.
I crumpled the sheet in my hands, clutching it to my chest. It wasn’t the place I hated. My decision to leave had everything to do with him, not his house or this planet.
“I can’t see myself spending the rest of my life here, with you,” I said, being brutally honest. “We are too...”
Similar, it dawned on me.
I’d wanted to say that we were too different, but I suddenly realized that the opposite might be true. We were too similar to get along. We both had a temper. Except that I’d never even realized I had one until now. The Colonel had brought it out in me. He proved to be capable of getting my blood to boil with a word or even a glare. In addition, both of us had the tendency to act or say things first and think later.
“If you leave within days after your arrival,” the Colonel explained. “I would become the subject of public resentment and most likely a government investigation. Despite being a public figure, I am a private person, Daisy. I’d like to avoid the scrutiny and intrusion into my home and my personal life.”
“You understand that is not enough for me to stay married to you?”
“Possibly,” he tipped his horns in a nod. “But would you reconsider leaving immediately?”
I mulled over his request for a moment. When asked nicely, I’d always had a hard time saying no.
“Is it that important to you?”
“Yes,” he replied, his expression open and sincere.
I heaved a sigh.
“Why wouldn’t you talk to me like this before? Why yell and toss things?”
He slid his gaze aside, looking if not exactly ashamed then at least somewhat remorseful.
“Hard day at work and inherently bad temper,” he confessed then admitted, “the lack of full understanding of the situation, too.”
I huffed a short laugh. “Well, I’ve always found honesty an admirable quality in people.”
“Will you stay, then?”
“Will you sign the dissolution of the marriage contract?”
He paused, his mouth pressed into a stubborn line.
I folded my arms across my chest. “That is the deal. Your reputation and the future of the liaison program in exchange for my freedom.”
“How long are you willing to stay with me?” he asked in turn.
I still felt uneasy in his presence. However, this conversation gave me hope. The immediate future no longer seemed that scary or bleak.
“I suppose I could stay until the end of the month when the ship of our deleg
ation is scheduled to depart.” There were no other ships leaving for Earth until then, anyway.
“That’s too soon,” he shook his head energetically. “The contract stipulates at least a year.”
“It depends on how things go.” I stood my ground. “Daily shouting matches may make even a month seem too long. A year of that may drive me to jumping off one of your glass domes rather than staying a moment longer under the same roof with you.”
“Don’t jump.” His frown deepened as he sat on the bed again, this time on my side of the mattress.
“I’d prefer not to.” I drew my legs up under the covers, to make more room for him. “Let’s just try to talk first, yell second. You and me, both. Okay?”
He tipped his horns with brief nod.
“Will you come to the Ball tonight, then?”
I heaved a breath. “Is it important for you that I come?”
“Yes. The Governor is not just the head of our country, he is also a very good friend of mine. I’d love to honor his request.”
“Well. Since that’s kind of a part of the deal we’ve just made, I’ll come.”
“Thank you.” He got up from the bed.
Smoothing the fur over his temples with his hands, he then adjusted his uniform and said in a rather formal tone, “I’ll pick you up right after work. Be ready.”
I THOUGHT ABOUT THE Governor’s Ball all morning. Now, that I’d agreed to go, I wanted to do it right. After breakfast, I asked Omni to show me some pictures of past Governor’s Ball events.
Apparently, the head of the Voranian government loved to party. There were not one, but three balls at his palace, in the last year alone. The one the Colonel and I were going to tonight seemed to have no other purpose but to honor the Colonel and to display his new human wife to Voranian society.
I understood now why the Colonel had made an effort to ensure my appearance there. He couldn’t possibly show up to the gathering of people who had come specifically to gawk at an alien from another planet without said alien on his arm.
That meant I’d be the center of attention, no matter what I did or wore. However, if everyone was about to gawk at me, I wanted them to at least do it for all the right reasons.
I studied the dresses of the few women in attendance at the previous events, then went to my closet in search of something similar but even better. I wanted to make myself look amazing for the occasion. After all, I was coming to the event as the wife of the man in charge of the entire Voranian Army, and I’d agreed to play the part.
Thankfully, my well-stocked closet offered plenty of suitable options. After trying on a number of stunning gowns, I finally decided to go with one in blush chiffon with pink-gold embroidery on the bodice, cup-sleeves, and a flowing multi-layered skirt. Its style was elegant enough for such a high-profile occasion as the Governor’s Ball promised to be, yet also sweet and breezy to appeal to my personal tastes.
Close to dinner time, I changed into the dress and did my make-up. Omni managed to curl my hair for me, after I had explained to him exactly how it had to be done. I even had a suitable barrette in rose gold encrusted with tiny crystals and pearls. And I found a pair of gorgeous, crystal-studded sandals on one of the shoe shelves in the closet.
By the time Omni informed me of the landing of the Colonel’s aircraft, I was completely dressed and ready to go.
With one last quick look in the brand-new mirror that had replaced the broken one, I rushed out of the room.
A light flutter of anticipation lifted my spirits. A party always meant fun, didn’t it?
This could be an exciting night after all.
GREVAR
“Welcome home, Colonel Kyr—”
“Where is she?” he cut the AI off.
Since Daisy had taken up the residence in his house, coming home didn’t feel the same. A female presence under his roof in general had been foreign to him. He’d even programed his AI as male. Having an actual woman living here was an entirely new experience.
Before her, coming home meant time to relax, unwind, and even be lazy for a while. Now, everything inside him heated up and buzzed with excitement the moment he crossed the threshold.
Although Daisy seemed to be keeping mostly to the bedroom, even in his absence, she left traces of her presence throughout his space—from re-arranging the hanging plants on the breakfast patio to allow for more sunlight in the area where she must be taking her tea late in the morning, to having a lot of still-shots of the life in Voran saved in Omni’s memory.
Even the smell of the baking ingredients in the pantry now reminded him of her.
And the feeling didn’t end the moment he left for work in the morning. His thoughts tended to drift to her throughout the day.
He found office work irritating, and often more challenging than even facing an attack of fescods on a battlefield. Overall, working from an office, of course, was safer than fighting on the frontlines on Tragul, the planet where fescods still remained active. He had taken the safety of the office into consideration when accepting the promotion. He had a family, and his sons needed him well and alive.
Living in the city also allowed him to remain close to his children’s school. He liked being just a short flight away from them, at all times.
“I told her to be ready.” He stomped into the main room. Irritation stirred under his skin. The fucking meeting had taken longer than he’d planned. There was no time left now to wait for a woman to powder her nose for hours.
“I’m ready!” Daisy’s clear, melodious voice sounded from the top of the stairs.
He blinked, letting his jaw drop, as he took in the vision of rose chiffon and bouncing curls that was his wife running down the stairs to him.
The skirt of her dress billowed around her in a voluminous wave. The embroidered bodice tightly hugged her enticing curves in all the right places. The neckline was low enough to display the delicate swells of her breasts in an extremely appealing way, yet high enough to be appropriate for the event he was taking her to.
Her gray-blue eyes twinkled with excitement. Her bright, light-orange hair framed her lovely face like sunshine.
“I’m ready.” She stopped on the last step, catching her breath. “Do I look okay?”
“You are...” He let his gaze travel down her entire figure in admiration, then fought the sudden urge to reach for her. He wished to know exactly how her body would feel in his arms if he hugged her just the way she was, wrapped in the fabric of the dress. “So...” The words seemed to have deserted him.
Then, his gaze fell on her shoes. On her toes, actually. That was what he recalled those short appendages of humans were called. They proved to be the most bizarre thing about her, even more so than the lack of horns.
Disproportionally shorter than the fingers, the toes were squished together by the bejeweled straps of her sandals. The bright red color she had painted the toe nails with—identical to that on the nails on her hands—made them look even more like disfigured fingers.
Grotesque. Even creepy.
“Um...” Obviously catching his stare, she shuffled her feet back, hiding them under the hem of her long skirt. “I probably should change...”
“No.” He realized belatedly he hadn’t guarded his expression while staring at her feet. “Don’t change a thing. You look beautiful.”
He reached for her.
Shaking her head, she backed up the stairs, away from him. The spark of happy excitement faded from her eyes.
“I’ll be right back.” She spun on her heels, dashing back up the stairs.
“Daisy!” he called after her, hating himself. “You look stunning, I swear! All of you.”
With a flash of pink chiffon, she disappeared behind the bedroom doors.
Chapter 8
“DAISY.” THE COLONEL shifted jerkily as we both sat in the aircraft, soaring through the sunset sky.
“I’m fine. Everything is cool.”
Saying it didn’t make things “fi
ne.” I knew that. I just really couldn’t take another argument at the moment. My capacity to cope with yelling had overflowed long ago.
Not that the Colonel looked or sounded like he was about to yell again.
“It’s not fine.” He tapped something on the control panel then turned to me.
He took my hand in his unexpectedly, sending all my thoughts in disarray.
“Don’t you...you know, need to fly this thing?” I mumbled. Snatching my hand from him, I waved at the lights of the control panel.
“It’s a self-flying aircraft.”
“But didn’t you steer it before? On our way from the spaceport to your house?” I glanced down at the tall glass structures of Voran floating by below. The aircraft didn’t appear to be losing altitude or whirring off course.
“I needed something to occupy my hands with at the time.”
“Why?”
“To help me deal with being...” he winced, not meeting my eye. “With being nervous.”
I struggled with the idea of the Colonel ever feeling nervous, he seemed so unshakably sure of himself at all times.
“Did I make you feel that way?” I stared at him incredulously. “People don’t usually get nervous around me. I’ve been called easy-going and down-to-earth—all those things people say about someone who makes them feel comfortable, with whom they don’t have to watch what they say or do. You know, someone like a close family member—that one harmless, bubbly cousin everyone seems to have, the one who never gets offended for long and just smiles—”
He reached for my hand again, interrupting my blabbing.
“You look beautiful, Daisy. I mean it.”
I shoved my feet deeper under my seat.
Back at his house, I’d changed from the open-toe sandals into a pair of white, ankle-high booties. Their wedge heels even gave my feet a hoof-like appearance.
“The dress is perfect on you,” he insisted.
“Okay. Thank you.” I worried my hand would start to sweat any minute now, clasped in his big, warm palm. I tugged at it, but he wouldn’t let go.
“And the sandals were beautiful, too. You didn’t need to change.”
Married to Krampus (My Holiday Tails) Page 7
