Page 81 of Seduced By the Mermen
Boden moves toward the door but stops. I shake my head, and he doesn’t move.
“Don’t I, Driftwood? You can’t blackmail two Mason pod members with the same project. You’re going to need to be more original. Besides, I make ten times the profit level fromthe humans. I only do business in the city because it looks good. You don’t want the best steel in the world? Fine, use some inferior product. I don’t care. I do, however, care about Blair Portsmouth. I’ll get that on record. And what about you, Axel? What are you going on about? Say it.”
“We want her too. And we’re not letting you or the Portsmouth pod stop us.”
“I’m not concerned about what you want,” I say.
“You should be.” Axel crosses his arms over his chest.
“No, not in the least. The only person I’m concerned about is Blair. What she wants and what she thinks.”
“We can give her so much more than the Mason pod. Seven males for a human? That’s too many.” Torin points to Axel. “And you have podlets at home. She’s not going to want to raise a podlet, not when she has an adult daughter.”
“You don’t know that. She might want podlets,” Axel says. “She’s young enough. She could have her own podlets.”
I’m watching them like a tritonaxis match, my eyes wide. Axel’s words reverberate in my head. But then, my parents had a surprise podlet in their forties. I have three older brothers, then me, then my sister, and then one more brother eight years after my sister. My dad always said he loves my youngest brother but he’d never known the kind of exhaustion he experienced the first ten years of my brother’s life.
“That’s not for you to decide,” I say. “Rotten shrimp shells, have you even talked to Blair? Had a conversation with her?”
“No, Mason, I haven’t. Because I haven’t had a way of getting close to her,” Axel says, leaning into me.
“She can’t consider every widowed pod in the city.”
“Like you said, Mason, I don’t care about others. I only care about myself and the Pontides pod. We will have our fair chance. Stay out of our way.”
“And you’ll stay out of our way,” I say. But I don’t mean it. The reality is that while I might lose an order of steel for the Tinom dome, Axel could hurt my business more. He runs with some of the same suppliers in London.
“I’ll see you around.” Axel moves to the door. “Maybe in London.” He’s out into the hall.
Torin’s left staring at him and then me. He furrows his brow.
But I don’t respond. I can’t let Driftwood know that Axel Pontides, Koralli and CEO of their second largest business, could bring me down. The last thing I want is the two of them working together.
“Have a nice day, Driftwood,” I say finally.
“You do the same,” he says, and I don’t believe a word.
The doors close behind Torin, and when I’m sure he’s gone, I turn to Boden. “Get me set for a week in London.”
“Leaving tomorrow?” Boden asks.
“No, no. I have to make cookies first.”
Boden looks at me like I’ve lost my mind.
“Next week.” I grip the side of the door into my office. I normally take asolo. Pilot myself to Greece and then take a plane from Athens. “And find me anauto pelagic voyager,a good one. Make sure it doesn’t smell. New mattress, clean kitchen, fully stocked. Fuck it, buy me one—a new one. Top-of-the-line force field.”
“Okay...” Boden says.“Pelagic voyager. Got it. A new one?” He recoils. A new one costs what he makes in five years.
“Yes.” It will be worth it. “And have my London apartment deep cleaned.”
“Sure . . .”
Because I’ve got an idea that I know the Portsmouth pod and Sterling are going to hate. But Blair? Blair might just love it.
Chapter 33
Blair
