19.
CASSIE
The first thing Cassie felt when she woke up was the solid piece of man wrapped around her: Vikram's hard chest against her cheek, his large hands around her waist. It was bliss.
The second thing was the blaring of her phone that had woken her up.
She scrubbed at her eyes and looked at the flashing, vibrating piece of metal on the table.
Then she remembered everything that had happened the day before.
"Shit," she muttered, pulling out of Vikram's hold and snatching the phone. It was the director. "Hello?" she answered, panicking and pressing answer before she had thought about a proper response.
"Cassandra." The director's voice was less than impressed. "Could you shed any light on what I've read in the papers this morning?"
Her eyes widened, and she hurried to open her laptop lid, almost swearing when she realized a handful of keys were still missing from when she’d used it to fend off the knife attack. She managed to type around them and get a look at what was being printed. "Shit," she muttered. Plenty of papers were reporting her blunder. Someone had leaked it to the press, and embellished it a whole lot, as well. There were no guesses as to who might be responsible for that. "I can explain."
"Please do."
She sat in the chair at the table, embarrassed that Vikram was in the room listening to this. "The police have been withholding information about the case and torpedoing their own investigation. No one is doing anything about Archie's death."
"That's irrelevant to what I'm reading here. Making false accusations in front of a room of seasoned negotiators is unacceptable."
"I understand, sir. I'm sorry that I let my emotions get the better of me."
"That's not good enough. I'm pulling you from the conference. We'll sit the rest of this one out."
"It wasn't that bad," she protested. "Can you not send someone out to take first chair again? There are still important things that need to be said."
"They can be said by the other pro-legislation parties in attendance. You are done."
She bristled, glad that they were having this conversation by phone so he couldn't see how she was losing her temper again. It was one of the first compliments Vikram had given her, that she could control her anger, but he’d been wrong. She was spiraling out of control. "Archie had important information that needed to be used this conference. I can't leave until that information has been put to use."
"If you want to have any future within this foundation, then you will. You can't come back from this in a conference, and I won't let you tarnish our image by continuing to issue misguided statements and accusations. You're to come home and report on everything that's happened."
"Archie is dead. I can't leave until I know who killed him."
"That's a job for the police."
"Try telling the police that!"
Jensen was losing his temper now, too. "I am your boss, and you will do as I say. If the police fail, then I will send our investigators in to find out who was responsible. What won't happen is some amateur snooping around and making a fool of herself. You will come home."
"Send someone out now. Please. Carry on the conference."
"No one would be able to get there in time."
"Just please give me a couple more days."
"This is my final word on the matter. Come. Home. I want you on a ship tonight with Miranda and reporting in every hour to let me know that you're not disobeying instructions. Do you understand?"
"I understand."
He hung up and she was left staring at her laptop—her face plastered all over the article she was clicked on—and wanting to smash it against the wall.
Vikram stood up and wrapped arms around her shoulders. She heaved a deep breath and rested her chin on his forearms. "I've been called home."
"Yeah. I could hear."
"I can't believe it."
"He's being too harsh."
"No he's not. He's doing the right thing. He's got the reputation of the foundation to protect. It's about more than my pride."
"You don't have to keep apologizing for him."
"And you don't have to keep trying to make me feel better." She pressed a kiss to his arm, then chewed on her bottom lip. She could still feel the memory card in her bra. "I don't know what to do."
"Trust your gut."
"My gut is in turmoil."
He released her, turned her chair around, and crouched down so they were on the same level. He looked her in the eye. "Do you want to go home?"
"No."
"Do you want to use the memory card?"
"Yes."
"Then you've got your answer."
"It's not—"
"Then figure something out that is simple."
"I'll lose my job."
"Not if you pull it off."
"You're a terrible influence."
He grinned, dimple and all, and it was infectious. "I believe in you. I don't think you're going to lose your job when you've turned the entire conference around."
"I've never been scared of doing my job before."
"Even when you were giving aid in war zones?"
"That's a different kind of fear. It's like adrenaline and a thrill rather than this doubt. I knew I was good at that job. It was the external stuff that was scary. Right now it's just me."
He hummed. "I can understand that."
"I'm going to do it," she decided. It was a moment of clarity, and she stood up, a smile on her face. "To be honest, I don't think I really care that much about losing my job anyway. Just talking about going back in the field makes me happy. Without Archie here, I'm not sure I want to keep doing this political bullshit. I kind of hate it. Wow, that felt good to say. Okay. First, I have to go and speak to Miranda. She should be on the ship home. It's not her responsibility to lose her job because of me."
They both got dressed out of their pajamas, and wolfed down some breakfast.
Cassie felt like she had an adrenaline rush. The excitement of have made a decision was intoxicating. A nagging voice told her she was giving up, that she'd been picked because she had a talent and she could have followed in Archie's footsteps, could have changed lives, but she felt like she was taking her life back into her own hands. She'd loved working on the ground. She wanted to go back to that.
And Vikram's support convinced her there was nothing wrong with that.
She knocked on Miranda's door feeling determined.
Miranda opened it immediately, holding her tablet, which had the news of Cassie's embarrassment all over it. "I'm so sorry," she immediately gushed. "The director phoned me this morning and told me what he'd said."
"You should listen to him. You can drive a ship, can't you?" Most people had basic licenses, and Archie's ship had never been a difficult craft to drive. "You should head back to the foundation and let them assign you to someone else's team."
She frowned, glancing at Vikram, then leaning forward. "But what about the memory card?"
"I'm going to stay here and use it."
"The director said—"
"I know. But the director is solar systems away and I don't have to listen to him. This is my decision, I'm not expecting you to follow it."
"You could lose your job."
"That's my choice."
"I want to stay, too."
"You don't have to do that. I didn't come here to try and guilt you into staying with me. Really, you should go back. You worked hard for your job."
Miranda crossed her arms. "Archie was my friend, too. I want to make him proud, too. Just let me stay and help you."
Cassie allowed herself to beam, and leaned forward to hug her friend. "Thank you. I'm going to need all the help I can get."
"Are you going into the conference today?"
"No. There's no point. I don't need to be there to influence it. We'd be better off spending this time trying to get things sorted. We need to speak to Prince Qugrom tomorrow morning so he can change his mind that day and end the conference leaning in our favor."
"Okay. So, what can I do to help?"
"Will you go through and double-check that there are no loopholes we could have missed? Nothing that makes our information useless."
"Of course."
"I'm going to head back to my room and work on what I'm going to say to Qugrom. We should get lunch together."
"That would be nice."
Back in her room, Cassie took the video player from her purse. It was an old contraption that didn’t have the ability to connect to the internet, so there was no way anyone would be able to get access to the video she was playing on it.
"You should see what's on this thing," she told Vikram, gesturing for him to take a seat on the bed. "You're more involved than just my bodyguard now."
As much as he'd been itching to know what was on the card, he looked wary now as she handed him the player. He grabbed her hand and brought her to the bed, to sit between his legs.
She had to bite back a comment on how glad she was that he felt comfortable enough to do that now. That the walls had started to come down.
They watched the video together. The rebel soldier from Qugrom's army had, when interviewed by Cassie herself, admitted that Qugrom had been interfering with the Tevisian civil war to his own ends, supporting the fascist government with the intention of getting a black market trade deal handled out of the public sphere. No doubt the profits had gone directly to him rather than benefiting the Agalaxians as a whole.
It was enough to blow their whole position out of the water. To show Qugrom as not only a hypocrite to his non-interventionist rhetoric, but as a selfish ruler breaking those promises to his own ends.
Vikram watched with rapt attention as the soldier, who had been at quite a high rank before defecting due to a lack of commitment to the cause and people he was serving, bared everything to Cassie. He incriminated everyone, and most importantly, he incriminated Qugrom to an insurmountable level.
"I have documents to back all this up," she said when the video ended. "He gave us all the memos and secure communications he received from Qugrom when he was undercover on Tevisian influencing everything. I’ve caught Qugrom red-handed."
"Wow," he muttered, tightening his hold around her. "This is more serious than I thought it would be."
"I wouldn't be going in against someone as powerful as Qugrom if I didn't have something to back it up."
"I know. But this is big. He's going to be mad about this. It's going to put you in serious danger."
"I'll survive."
He tightened his hold on her. "Well, I certainly hope so."
She smiled. "I won't be in too much danger. Changing his stance on something like this is nothing compared to me outing him for this. I have no intention of going to the press once he's agreed to chance his opinion. I want to keep my word on this. I just want him to change his mind on this conference."
"Will that really be enough for him? How will he know you're not going to keep the information forever and use it again if you have to? He's not going to want the risk of a permanent advantage over him."
"I'll let him watch me destroy the evidence. I'll give him the evidence myself and let him destroy it."
"And expect him to just believe that you've not kept a memory card just in case?"
That was the problem. If it had been Archie, there would have been a level of mutual respect, and Qugrom would have believed him when he said he was destroying the evidence, that this was the end of it. "I wish Archie was here," she said, running her hand over her face. "He knows how to handle these things."
"I'm just worried for you."
"I know." She took his hand in her and squeezed. "I think I can rely on Archie's name to make him believe me. I hope so, anyway."
"This guy on the tapes. The soldier who gave you this information. What did he think you were going to do with it? Will he be satisfied with it being destroyed and never coming to light? Putting himself in danger by giving up his face to Qugrom without the public ever finding out?"
"We told him what we planned to use it for and he agreed. He'd been forced to torture people or face torture himself, and it broke him. He came to us wanting this to be the outcome."
He nodded, and kissed the crown of her head. "That's good."
She wanted to protest that she wouldn't take advantage of someone like he'd been suggesting, but she let it go. It was a natural assumption. "You really think Qugrom wouldn't let me go after this?"
"I think you have to consider it as a real possibility that he wouldn't just let you go."
"Part of me believes that Archie never even cared about that. That he just knew he had to do the right thing whether it meant he was in danger of the rest of his life or not."
"Then he was an idiot. You can't run for the rest of your life and still be happy. He had a wife and he was willing to risk that?"
"He wasn't an idiot," Cassie snapped defensively. "He was passionate."
Vikram didn't back down like she'd expected him to, though. "If it was just him, then fine. He can choose what he wants to do in his life. But when he's married, it's selfish to put his life, and his wife's life, at risk like that. You can't throw your life around when you're married to someone."
"You don't think the lives of thousands of people is more important that one?"
"If I loved the one, then no."
They met at a stalemate, both staring at each other, open honesty on their faces. Vikram wasn't budging. He knew where he stood. He was solid in his conviction.
Cassie was torn. She knew it was easy to objectively say that thousands of lives were more important than one. Of course they were. That was how it worked, it just was.
But here, looking at Vikram, she wondered how much she was really willing to sacrifice. If she could have given a thousand lives to bring back Archie, would she? If she knew Vikram was going to be in danger tomorrow because of her, would she change her mind about it all?
She shook her head, breaking their stare. "I don't know. It's so complicated."
"You're going to be making the decision tomorrow."
"I don't have a wife. It's not the same thing. It’s just me I have to look out for."
He tucked a piece of hair behind her ear. "Really? Because last night you told me you wanted me to love you forever."
Her cheeks flamed. She didn't even remember that. She couldn't deny it, though. She wouldn't have even considered turning him away if he'd offered that. "Oh," she murmured. "Well."
He laughed, breaking the tension and pressing a kiss to her forehead. "I'd be upset if you were hunted for the rest of your life by a lizard man who had too much power for his own good. That's all I'm saying."
What they really needed to do was have a serious conversation about where their relationship was actually going. They needed to talk about whether the possibility of them loving each other forever was real. She had limited time, though, and she'd already spent an hour cuddling in bed with him and ignoring her duties. Their serious conversation was going to have to be scheduled for another day.
She put aside her fears of being chased for a lifetime by Qugrom. Vikram might have been right, but Archie wasn't scared, and Archie was the best man she'd ever known.
This time, she was going to trust her instincts, and her instincts in the political game had always come from following Archie's lead.