Married to Krampus - Marina Simcoe Page 0,11

at all, then?” I pressed on.

He shifted in his seat, leaning all the way back.

“I see them once or twice a month,” he said slowly, “but I track their academic progress daily. I also check their health reports every morning.”

“Well, tracking their blood pressure and progress in math doesn’t exactly substitute for actually seeing them, does it?”

He narrowed his eyes at me then suddenly shoved his plate aside with force.

“Are you criticizing the way I’m raising my children?”

The fading glimmer of the sunset, aided by the soft light from the chandelier, made his red eyes appear to glow against the dark gray of his face. I sensed his displeasure hanging in the air, thick and smothering like a wool blanket. It was terrifying.

I sucked in a breath. My problem was that I could never keep my mouth shut even when it was obviously to my benefit. My tongue often ran faster than my thoughts.

“Not really,” I retorted. “I can’t criticize how you’re raising your children because you’re not exactly the one raising them, are you? From birth, they’ve been spending their days with someone else. What does ‘having a father’ even mean to them?”

“That’s enough!” He slammed his hand on the table, making me and the dishes jump. “You’ve been in Voran for less than a day, and you’re telling me how to run my household?”

Too late, I realized I’d gone too far.

“I’m sorry. It came out wrong,” I mumbled, scrunching my skirt in my hands. “I definitely wasn’t trying to sound disrespectful.”

“Well, you’ve failed at that.”

The scorn in his voice made me wish I could just fall through the floor and hide in whatever room was on the level below.

I refused to meet his frightening eyes.

“Maybe, I should just call it a night. I’m still rather tired, with the long flight and stuff...” I let my voice trail off.

My appetite was completely gone. All I wanted was to get out of this room and away from the Colonel.

“Omni will show you the way to the bedroom,” he muttered, shoving his chair away from the table.

Chapter 4

THE DINNER HAD GONE badly. Horribly. Much, much worse than I could have expected. With a gruff, grumpy man like the Colonel, one could’ve suspected things might not go smoothly. The dinner disaster, however, was all my fault. Wasn’t it?

The wise thing to do when coming to a stranger’s house—especially, the one located on a different planet—would be to stay quiet, listen, and observe first, learn the new culture as I had fully intended to do.

Nope, I had to open my big mouth and spew my freaking opinions left, right, and center...without being asked for any of them. The wellbeing of children had always been a sore topic for me, and I just couldn’t stay quiet.

Now, the already awkward situation had become that much more difficult.

Distraught, I wasn’t paying much attention where I was going, following the Omni drone up the wide, winding staircase.

When the set of opaque white double doors opened into a huge round room topped with a glass hemisphere, I stopped in my tracks, frozen in awe once again.

“Is this...”

“Your bedroom.” Another screen on a stick rolled my way.

Streaked with the fading colors of the dying sunset, the sky above us was already studded with stars on the darkening edge. A large round bed stood in the middle of the room. Supported by two ornate poles that rose from the floor, a lattice canopy hovered over it draped in live flower garlands. The same light fragrance drifted through the air, filling the room, which appeared to be created by fairies.

“This is just... Omni, this place is simply magical,” I admitted.

“Oh, thank you, Madam Kyradus.”

The sound of the Colonel’s name made me wince.

“Could you call me Daisy, please?”

“Absolutely. I can call you any name you wish. Please, let Colonel Kyradus know that you would like me reprogrammed.”

“So, you can’t call me Daisy just like that? Without his permission?”

“No. I have been specifically programmed to address you as Madam Kyradus.”

The Colonel must like hearing his name a lot.

“Alright then. Madam it is, but just for tonight.” I made a mental note to talk about this with both the Colonel and the Liaison Committee. It made no sense for me to be called and treated as his wife if we weren’t even in a relationship.

I didn’t want to give up after just one dinner, as disastrous as it’d been. A first impression was important, but it wasn’t everything. Maybe tomorrow we could find a