Dark Choices - I. T. Lucas Page 0,1
his love and care for her were responsible for how radiant she looked, and not her newly activated immortal genes.
If only Rufsur’s so-called relationship with Edna could be that easy.
He sighed. “I guess I should change.”
“You guess right.” Jacki pushed off Kalugal’s lap.
“Do I need to wear a suit?”
“No, but a pair of slacks and a dress shirt would be nice.”
“No tie.”
She laughed. “No tie.”
Kalugal rose to his feet. “I’ll go now. Did you check with Atzil that everything is ready for Carol and Lokan?”
Jacki nodded. “I did. Atzil has outdone himself. It’s going to be a beautiful dinner. I also made sure that their room is ready.”
Rufsur wondered what Lokan’s visit was all about. The guy wouldn’t fly over from Washington just to spend an evening with his brother and congratulate his sister-in-law on her transition, which was the official reason he’d given.
Lokan wanted something, and Rufsur knew that Kalugal was well aware of it.
The question was, what?
“Are you coming?” Jacki asked.
“Yeah, in a moment.” He pulled out his phone to check his emails.
“Anything from Edna?” She walked up to him.
“Not today.”
It was embarrassing to admit how many times he’d checked whether she’d replied to his last email.
Jacki patted his shoulder. “Three more days to go, and then you’ll see her again.”
As if he hadn’t been counting the hours.
Since there was no new email from Edna, Rufsur resorted to reading the last one he’d gotten from her the day before.
“Come, my love.” Kalugal took Jacki’s elbow. “I need your help to choose what to wear tonight.”
Right, as if his boss needed fashion advice from anyone. He was probably planning a quickie before dinner.
Lucky bastard.
Rufsur sighed. Long-distance relationships sucked.
He hadn’t expected to go through such torment. The separation from Edna was like a constant ache that wouldn’t go away, and it had only been twelve days.
He often wondered if she’d been right to limit their communication to emails. Would hearing her voice on the phone or seeing her face on the screen have lessened the pain or made it more acute?
The problem was that the woman was stingy even with her emails, returning one to every three or four of his, and not saying much in her short answers either.
Why the hell had he chosen such a difficult female?
Except, he had a feeling that the choice hadn’t been his.
It had been made for him.
Those damn Fates that the clan believed in had decided to play a cruel joke on him and Edna, pairing two incompatible people who had no way of making it work.
Not only that, but it also seemed that he was the only one feeling the pain, while Edna had retreated into her tortoiseshell and was perfectly fine.
No, that wasn’t true.
She hadn’t been okay before he’d pushed his way into her life, and she wasn’t now, which was one more reason for his obsession with her. He needed to fix her, or rather whatever was keeping her from living a full life.
Edna’s entire world was her dual job as a judge and councilwoman. Her only interactions with others were work-related, and she had no close friends and no social life.
It wasn’t lack of confidence or a personality flaw that had made her a recluse. She was an assertive woman, and even though she was pragmatic and strict, she was also compassionate and pleasant to be with.
Her isolation was self-induced, a result of some tragedy that had befallen her a long time ago, an injury so severe that she couldn’t recover from it on her own.
Rufsur was just the guy to help her heal.
But the problem was that Kalugal needed him more than Edna did. Not to run his business or to help him take over the world. His boss could do that without his help. But someone needed to keep an eye on Kalugal in case he slipped into insanity the way his father and grandfather had, and that someone could only be Rufsur.
Kalugal trusted him, which made Rufsur the only one who could stop him from doing crazy shit. Like his grandfather, who’d destroyed half the ancient world in a fit of anger, or like his father, who was enslaving an entire island to his will.
Leaving Kalugal was not an option.
The only way Rufsur could have a life with Edna was if she left the clan and joined him.
As if that was going to happen.
Even though the stubborn woman needed him more than he needed her, she wasn’t obsessing about their separation the way he was.
Rufsur was