Even though Lucilla Irvin’s complaint was nothing more than a mild indigestion, Belen didn’t get back to the Bridge until late. Lucilla had seemed to want to talk, as she often did. Belen sometimes wondered if Lucilla’s underlying condition had more to do with loneliness than any real health issues. She lived alone, had not been granted any children and had no romantic partners that Belen was aware of. Lucilla spent her time directing her various business interests and that was all.
By the time Belen walked back into the Captain’s suite on the Bridge, all evidence of the dinner party had disappeared and the lights in the sitting room turned to a dimness that was just enough for her to navigate through the room without tripping over anything.
Tony was already in bed, sprawled across the center of it and deeply asleep. Deep sleep wasn’t something he enjoyed very often, so Belen crept around the room, changed into more comfortable clothes and took a blanket out to the sofa. There was little enough left of the night. She would let Tony sleep in peace, especially as she didn’t think she could sleep at all.
She did lie down, but didn’t even try to close her eyes. She rolled onto her side and stared into the dark, her thoughts chasing each other in frantic circles.
Was she such a weak person that the idea of Rex loving someone else was enough to make her question every decision she had ever made as an adult? She had lived more or less happily for twenty years without him in her life. Why was she now wondering if she had made the right decision?
She had first met Rex when she was fourteen. He had been two years away from his own emergence and already had the heavy frame and physique of a typical groundman, although he preferred watching tankball to playing it. “I can see the patterns they make better when I’m watching,” he’d explained to her. “If I’m playing, I can’t see beyond the next move.”
It was his uncanny ability to anticipate patterns that had held her interest, even though it had been his body and what it did to her own that had first caught her attention.
Belen had already known she wanted to be a medic, to serve the ship in one of the most honorable and ancient professions. She had been working hard to meet the necessary scholastic achievements for the medical institute to even consider her application. Meeting Rex had jolted her focus completely.
He had lived in the Aventine for most of his life, until his parents had bought the house next to the park belt in the Palatine. Belen had heard about the new neighbors but had paid no attention to the news…until she had gone hiking in the park and found Rex sitting on a tree trunk, staring at the branches overhead.
He had teased her that day, as if he found her amusing, while Belen had shivered and realized she was experiencing physical arousal for the first time in her life. She went home and laid restlessly in her bed, recalling every aspect of him, from the strong jaw to the thick muscle in his bare arms and the green of his eyes, which seemed like the only soft part of him.
Rex had been sitting on the same log the next day, too. It had taken a week of such accidental meetings for Belen to wonder if he was deliberately waiting for her to appear, despite his indifference and his teasing.
He never said anything personal or intimate. He never spoke any of the soft romantic words that Belen dreamed about him saying. Even so, she couldn’t stay away. She wanted him too badly.
Her fifteenth birthday had come and gone when she learned that he could see patterns in the leaves he stared up at, when he wasn’t making her feel foolish and too young to be taken seriously.
Belen sat on the trunk next to him and looked up at the leaves herself. “They’re just leaves.”
“Can you see pictures in them?”
“Everyone can.”
“Do the pictures tell you about how other things work?” he pressed. His tone was casual.
Belen looked at him, startled. It was a profound question, yet he made it seem as if he didn’t care about the answer…only, he had to care, to even ask it in the first place. People didn’t go around figuring out how things worked. They just worked.
That made Rex different. That made him even more interesting.
“I think it’s only you who can see more in the leaves than animals,” Belen told him.
Rex’s gaze met hers and it was a perfect moment. He wasn’t teasing. He wasn’t making her feel foolish. He was looking at her. Really looking at her.
If he had touched her then, she would have melted.
He didn’t touch her for another two years. By then, Rex had emerged to adult status and she was seventeen and had already earned a place in the medical institute. She just had to finish her education with suitable grading and reach emergence to be formally inducted.
They were more than good friends, by then. Belen’s family tended to speak of Rex as her permanent partner, as if they had accepted the inevitable, even though it had not yet happened. Rex’s parents treated Belen with the same affection as they did Rex. All Belen’s and Rex’s friends, who were all busy starting their adult lives, also linked them together. Even Tony, who had grown up next door to Belen, spoke of Rex with resentment, as if he was jealous of something that did not yet exist.
Belen wished she could be as certain of Rex as everyone else seemed to be. Her doubt and worry over his silence built, until she could no longer stay silent herself. At the next tankball game, while the Legends were being slaughtered, among the screaming and clapping and the rocking of the seats as others in the row jumped and squirmed, the question pushed from her, impelled by the pressure of needing to know.
“Do you love me, Rex?”
His green-eyed gaze moved to her face. He studied her and for that long, long moment she no longer heard anything around her. Sound was muffled, locked on the other side of the little cocoon that surrounded just the two of them. She could hear her own heartbeat, loud in her head, as she waited for him to speak.
“Of course I love you,” he said, his voice low. “You didn’t know that?”
“How could I? You’ve never said….” She trailed off, biting her lip. She wanted her heart to soar, yet her doubt was a live thing, tearing through her. “I mean…do you love me?”
He seemed to be almost puzzled as he looked at her.
Fear made her tremble.
He turned in his seat so he was facing her properly. “You don’t see it, do you?”
“See what?” she whispered.
“The shape of it…of us.”
She shook her head. She couldn’t speak. Her throat was constricted by an invisible hand that was squeezing hard.
Rex touched her, then. He brought his hand to her face and ran his thumb over her cheek, high up under her eye. It was a soft touch. Her trembling grew. Now the sweet-sour ache of need was added to it. Her breath evaporated.
“I can see everything from here,” he said, his voice low. “I saw it that day in the park. We fit together, you and I. You will cover yourself in glory and I will provide for us both. You know how to think, Belen. I can think, too, only differently. We will be together until we both die, because we’re so right for each other.”
“If that’s what you can see, then why haven’t you said anything?” she demanded. Her voice was strained.
“I thought you knew. I thought you were waiting, like I am.”
“Waiting for what?”
He kissed her then. His lips were hot and so incredibly soft, yet there was a firmness behind them, that in her incoherent state, Belen thought might be his indomitable will. Heated need stole any other thoughts and she clung to him, holding him there, holding his lips to hers.
When he finally let her go, Belen gave a shuddering exhalation.
Rex was watching her with a hot look in his eyes that matched her insides.
“I don’t want to wait any more,” Belen told him.
Rex didn’t wait for the end of the game. He didn’t wait for the end of the period. He got to his feet and picked up her hand and tugged her upright. He didn’t let go of her hand until they reached his little house in the Esquiline, where he finally made Belen his and she began to understand, just as he had known all along, how perfectly they fit together.
* * * * *
Belen’s life with Rex in it would have been perfect, except that Rex became obsessed with money.
His ability to see patterns and how systems worked had always been something he could use for fun. He could anticipate tankball plays and even predict which team would be the year’s winner.
Gradually, though, he started to apply the same systems analysis to what he called “success”. He had always gambled on tankball games, which he said wasn’t gambling at all, not for him. Belen watched him take a handful of credits and build them into enough money by the end of the tankball season that he could buy his own house. His first house.
By then, Tony was working in the administrative wing of the Bridge and living in a cramped apartment in the Esquiline, which he called paying his dues. When Rex bought a second house and rented it out, Tony was scathing in his criticism. “What next?” he asked Belen. “He quits his job and lives off the money people pay him?”
Belen had flinched, for that was exactly was Rex had been talking about lately. “By the time you emerge, Belen, I won’t need the salary anymore,” Rex had told her. “All the revenue streams will make up more than I earn. You’ll get to pick which house you want to live in…or we can buy whatever house you want.”
Belen couldn’t explain why such talk made her feel almost nauseous. She loved Rex. She had no doubts about that at all. Only, his single-minded focus upon the acquisition of money jarred her internal gyroscope about right and wrong.
She understood that Rex could see how money ebbed and flowed. He could see how to shift the pattern so it favored his ventures. No one else could do that. Only, it felt wrong to her.
Two years after she emerged, Tony and Rex had their final, fatal falling out. They had always been uneasy around each other, friends only because Belen insisted upon it. She had grown up with Tony and she admired his ambition as much as she appreciated Rex’s drive. Both men were aiming high and she had no doubt that both of them would achieve their goals. She only wished they could be real friends and not just tolerate each other because of her.
In the end, it was because of her they let go of even that superficial pretense.
Tony had never hidden how he felt about her. Even when Rex was completely a part of her life, he would often drop comments about his love and devotion for her, making them sound like jokes. Yet there was a look in Tony’s eyes that made Belen wary, even while he was joking.
Because they both worked in the Aventine, Belen often met Tony for lunch. She confided in him simply because Tony knew Rex better than anyone else besides herself. With Tony, she could vent all her frustration and uneasiness about Rex’s singular drive toward success, as he defined it.
Tony listened for a while, nodding in all the right places. Then he leaned closer. “Belen, why are you sticking with the joker? Can’t you see that he’s wrong for you?”
Cold touched her middle. “I love Rex. He loves me.”
Tony nodded again. “I can see it in his face every time he looks at you. He’d sell the ship itself if it would make you happy. Just because he loves you, though, that doesn’t mean you should stay with him.”
“I love him,” she repeated flatly. The cold was spreading now.
“You’re one of the most principled people I’ve ever known,” Tony said. “Rex…just isn’t. It’s chewing you up inside. How long do I have to sit by and watch him drain the life out of you?”
She stared at him. The cold had enveloped her completely. She felt as though she had turned into a block of ice. She couldn’t speak.
Tony reached over the table and picked up her hand. His trembled. Against her skin, his flesh was hot. “Most people are afraid to walk away from someone else because they don’t want to be alone. You, though…you wouldn’t have to be alone at all.”
She tried to speak. Her mouth wouldn’t cooperate.
Tony shook her hand, his dark eyes steady upon her face. “You don’t have to say anything. Only, I know this isn’t a shock to you. You’ve always known how I feel about you. I just didn’t say anything until now because, well, he does love you. He’s not good for you. The way he uses money….” His voice was rich with disgust.
Finally, she found her voice. “And you would be good for me?” Her voice was hoarse.
“I won’t make you feel the way he does. I won’t make you sit with a friend and cry the way you are right now.”
She wiped at her cheeks quickly and pulled her hand out of his.
Tony sat back. “Just think about it,” he said softly. “That’s all. Think about it and know you have someone to turn to, when he becomes too much for you to handle.”
When she arrived back at the tiny apartment they were living in, in the far opposite corner from the Bridge, Rex was sitting at the table with nothing in front of him, not even a screen.
“You’re waiting for me?” Belen asked.
“I saw you with Tony today,” Rex said. His voice was even.
“We met for lunch.”
Rex shook his head. “You were crying, Belen. He was holding your hand. It was more than lunch.”
She bit her lip. “You’re right. We were talking about you.”
Rex looked startled. It wasn’t an expression she saw on his face very often. He was that sure of himself. “Me?”
She drew in a breath, bracing herself, then sat at the table next to him. “You’re making me unhappy, Rex.”
He flinched. “How…?” he demanded, his voice hoarse. His eyes glittered in the low light.
“You really have to ask? You? You see everything.” The bitterness escaped with her words, despite trying to hold it back.
“I see you perfectly,” he said. “I see your beauty, your intelligence, your determination to help others. I love what I see.”
“Do you also see how much I hate this obsession you have over money?”
He blinked. “I’m not obsessed.”
“It’s all you think about!” she cried. “You don’t have any ambition at all, except to make more and more profits. It’s indecent!”
Rex’s hand curled into a fist. “I’m ambitious,” he said. “More than you know.”
“You’ve never spoken about a career, or a profession, or even serving the ship. You’ve never spoken of wanting anything from life that wasn’t something you could buy.”
“You, Belen. I wanted you.” His gaze was steady.
Her tears escaped. “Then why do you spend all your time trying to make more money? It’s all you talk about! You have me, Rex. I’m yours!”
Rex got to his feet and turned her chair out, away from the table, moving it as if she was not still sitting in it. Then he got to his knees in front of her and picked up her hand. “I do it for you,” he said, his voice low. “It’s what I can do, the only thing I can do well, while you’re brilliant and dedicated and every time I look at you, you make me even more determined to give you everything you could ever want. I love you, Belen. That’s why I do it. If you want me to stop, if you want me to…to…do something honorable and good and worthy, as you do, then I will. Just give me time to work it out. Please.”
She threw her arms around his neck and held him, sobbing hard. “All the time in the world,” she cried, “if you’ll only try.”
And he had. That had been the best year of her life, for she and Rex had spent nearly all their time talking about his future, for hers was already set. “You’ll be the head of the Medical Institute one day,” Rex told her. “While the only thing I know how to do well is make money. I suppose I could play tankball, except I should have started ten years ago.”
She kissed him. “Whatever it is you end up doing, I don’t care.”
“You don’t mind being poor?”
“Not in the slightest,” she said. “I always figured I would be poor because I always knew I was going to be a medic. If you’re with me, I really don’t care.”
It was just after the end of the year Tankball Association soiree when Tony stopped by the apartment. He had kept his distance since she and Rex had resolved their issues, not even meeting her for lunch. “Forget everything I said that day,” he told Belen gruffly. “It never happened.”
“Except it was because you said something that Rex and I worked things out and I will never forget that,” Belen told him.
Tony shook his head, his shaggy black hair falling over his eyes as he did it, shadowing them. “I’d rather forget. All of it.”
Belen let him keep his distance. She was too happy to care for right now, anyway. Besides, Tony was busy with the team campaign for the next elections. She suspected he was throwing himself into the work, although it was work he loved.
Now he was here on her doorstep. He looked haggard, as if he had not been sleeping lately. When she invited him in, he stood in the little open area in their cramped living room, his hands at his sides, looking ill and defeated.
“What has happened?” Belen breathed, gripping his arm. Even Rex looked concerned, as he parked himself on the edge of the table.
Tony tried to speak. He swallowed and tried again. “I…I’ve been offered a child.”
That explained the blank look in his eyes. He was stunned. Anyone would be, Belen thought, with a tiny touch of envy. She mentally shook herself for such a negative reaction. “That’s wonderful, Tony,” she said firmly. “It is an affirmation of everything you hold dear. Your values, your principals…it’s why they chose you, I just know it.”
He blinked and looked at her. “You don’t understand,” he said slowly.
Rex drew in a sharp, hard breath and lurched to his feet. “No!”
Tony shifted his gaze to Rex. “I’m sorry.”
“No. It’s a mistake,” Rex said, his voice hoarse. “It has to be.”
Belen’s heart squeezed as she began to understand. She just didn’t think she could encompass the whole, horrible truth.
“I spent the last hour going over it with them,” Tony said quietly. “Belen is the child’s mother.”