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Lila looked back, wincing at the pinkie-thin dowel rods he’d cut and stained to look as though they belonged.
The dowel rods she’d just broken.
Again.
“Stop trying to fix them. I’ll buy you a new headboard, a stronger one. One that can take our tugging and pulling. One that’s Lila and Tristan proof.”
“That’s not the point.”
“What is the point?”
“Dixon laughs at it enough already. If I carry it to the dumpster and bring up a new one, do you know how many of my people will drop to the floor in fits?”
“They’ll drop to the floor weeping. We’re getting quality sex, and they aren’t.” Lila grinned smugly and sat up. She threw a leg over Tristan’s waist and straddled him. “By the way, you broke it the first time.”
“I did not break it the first time,” he muttered.
“Did too.”
“Did not.”
“Did too.”
“Did not.”
“Did too.”
“Did not.” He intertwined their fingers. “You’re not going anywhere, Lila Randolph, you know that? I intend to stay near Tristanville for a while. I enjoy its scenic paths and—”
“I thought it was Tristonia.”
“You’re right. Damn those fickle natives. Something really must be done.”
Her palm computer vibrated on the bedside table, the thin, flexible sheet of plastic and circuits traveling across the scuffed wood.
“Don’t answer it,” he said, squeezing her fingers, not letting them go.
“It might be work.”
“You’re on vacation, and I have work for you here.” He sat up and kissed her deeply, wrapping his arms around her like a vise. “I have lots and lots of work.”
“I’m sure you do.” Lila wiggled from his arms and snatched up her palm, the bright screen bathing the room in light and shadow. A name blinked on and off.
Beatrice Randolph.
Lila sighed at the interruption. The chairwoman of Wolf Industries had left her a message. The matron of the Randolph family. Her boss.
Her mother.
She tapped the screen, and the light grew brighter.
Breakfast at eight.
Lila fell back onto her pillow, dropping the cold device between her breasts. She hadn’t seen her mother in a week and a half, and not just because she was on a forced vacation.
She had screwed up. A hacker had found out that she’d snuck into a government network and taken data, writing up the event as though it were a newspaper article. After the hacker sent it to her matron, her mother had summoned her immediately to explain.
Lila had not done well. Though the story was true, the details had been far more complicated. She had paid one hundred thousand credits for a temporary silence, all so that she would have more time to trace the hacker’s location. After all, she was the Randolph militia chief, charged with protecting every Randolph family compound. It wouldn’t do for some half-wit to bribe her, just as it wouldn’t do for Bullstow to arrest her.
