Atone By Treaty (Qui Treaty Collection Book 8) by Stonor Kayla

Author:Stonor, Kayla [Stonor, Kayla]
Language: eng
Format: azw3, epub
Published: 2017-09-26T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter Nine

Gabrielle sat cross-legged in the middle of her huge bed and peeled a yellow barbed opru fruit Cale had procured from the ship’s supplies. She licked juice from between her fingers, moaned, and then sank her teeth into the sweet, tart flesh.

Damn, opru came close to sex.

Uncurling a leg, she slid off the bed and pushed a wall closet open with her elbow, still munching her breakfast. The last ship bulletin estimated three days to reach Dralexi, long enough to launch a charm offensive on the First Lord of Katar. Oltu brought Gabrielle to Dralexi to rescue her brother and the Qui Empress had widened the brief to secure the release of all humans from enforced labor. If she didn’t improve Oltu’s mood, their mission would start at a disadvantage and that would be her fault. Plus she owed Saiorse and Yulla the effort. Both tributes believed their worlds in jeopardy because of her.

She pulled out dark slacks, selected a shirt and then swapped it for a V-neck shirt generous on the cleavage. Her door chimed. Pulling her silk robe around her, she called enter. Cale walked in, dressed in black camos and T-shirt. Gabrielle eyed him carefully, senses ultra-aware. He hadn’t shaved, his jaw shadowed, and every muscle in his body looked taut.

“We need to talk.” He managed to sound evasive.

“Is something wrong?”

Coal black eyes pinned her down. “Before you do something stupid and things get outta hand.”

He looked at her with hunger and her heart hammered. She knew this look. “Cale, I–”

“Gaby, please, let me speak.” He approached, stopped three feet away, giving her his undivided attention in a way he hadn’t since before they broke up. “You said if I changed my mind...”

Gabrielle’s hands shot to her mouth.

“... and last night, I couldn’t bear seeing you in so much pain.”

Last night? What about the night he left her? And the days and nights after that? Weeks of empty misery! “Cale, you caught me on the rebound, that’s what you said.” Her voice rose, painful memories flooding back. “That it wasn’t fair, to me, that you couldn’t live with yourself after what you did to Jaden.” She’d slept on the kitchen floor with an empty bottle of moonshine. Her father had just been elected President of the United Regions and was caught up in twenty-four hour talks with former President Johnson, Jaden had been sacrificed to the Qui, and Cale had dumped her like she’d turned radioactive overnight.

“I was messed up. What went down with Jaden–”

Gabrielle waved off the excuses. Oh, she got it. Cale too mired in guilt over Jaden to cope with a grownup relationship so he had broken her heart. She’d hidden the worse of the damage, but his crisis was over now and she was done with pretending. She jabbed the air. “Marriage scared you off. The moment I mentioned it you started to back away. That’s what happened. You didn’t love me. The timing was bad. We finished something that was never going to work.

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