Married to Krampus - Marina Simcoe Page 0,8

“Your tests and formulas aren’t that great then, are they?”

“What is the divorce rate in Voran?”

He lifted a bushy eyebrow.

“Only one in ten men in Voran gets a chance to have a wife,” he said slowly, staring at me intently. “One wife. One chance at marriage. Every husband would do anything to keep his wife. Absolutely anything. Divorce is so rare in our country, it’s practically non-existent.”

I dreaded to clarify what exactly he meant by “would do anything.” It could be as in “giving her anything she desires to remain happy in marriage,” or “doing anything possible to physically keep his wife, including tying her up in the basement.”

“What if...” I started carefully. “Sometimes things don’t work out between two people, you know.”

“There is always a way to work things out,” he said, dismissing me confidently. His tone left zero chance for arguing. So, I didn’t.

Instead, I stared ahead through the glass of the spacecraft again.

“Listen,” he said after a while, betraying that he kept thinking about the topic of our conversation even after we’d fallen silent. “My time was limited,” he explained. “They gave me thousands of pictures of alien women to choose just one. Yours stood out. And that was it.”

Chapter 3

“THIS IS HOME.” THE Colonel tipped his beard at the cluster of glass domes and spheres on top of a skyscraper.

“The entire thing?” I leaned closer to the glass of the aircraft for a better look.

The building was so tall, I couldn’t see the street below as we hovered near its top. Glass bubbles covered its walls, as if they had been sprayed with foam. The bubbles were the glass-enclosed patios and balconies of various sizes.

The Colonel watched me closely.

“No. The building isn’t mine,” he said. “I occupy the top three floors only.”

“Only?” I exhaled a laugh. “Your place must be the size of an amphitheatre.”

The main dome alone seemed large enough to enclose a coliseum. Several others surrounded it, only slightly smaller than the first.

“It’s...breathtaking.” I stared in awe at the glass glimmering under the late afternoon sun of Neron as the Colonel maneuvered the aircraft closer to the nearest dome.

The glass slid open, letting the aircraft glide inside. It landed on a green platform covered with a neatly trimmed grass. The side panels of the aircraft lifted, and I climbed out. The kitten heels of my Mary Janes sank into the lush indoor lawn, so unusual to see under the paling light of the setting winter sun.

“Is this real?” I turned to the Colonel who was walking around the aircraft to me.

“The grass? Yes. It grows year round, just like the rest of the plants.” He gestured at the planters lining the walls and the hanging baskets dripping with garlands of flowers.

“What a gorgeous patio.” I slowly turned around, taking in the luscious greenery generously sprinkled with the bright colors of flowers. “It would be so lovely to have tea here in the morning.”

“You want to have breakfast in the garage?” The Colonel lifted an eyebrow at me.

A garage?

Of course. Where else would he park his vehicle?

“Well, it’s the prettiest garage I’ve ever seen...” I mumbled.

He kept making me feel like a complete idiot. How was I supposed to know that live grass and gorgeous flowers belong in a parking garage in Voran?

“There is an actual breakfast patio on the other side of this floor.” The Colonel led me to a set of opaque glass doors that slid open as we approached. “In the morning, the view is better there than here.”

I had no chance to reply. My breath caught in my throat from delight when we entered the next room.

It was perfectly round with a checkered tile floor and a ceiling so high, I had to tilt my head all the way back to see the glass hemisphere of the skylight. Green and yellow plants grew everywhere. Vines hung from the ceiling, draped along the walls, and climbed up trellises. Some of them bloomed with large, vivid flowers, adding splashes of color. A fresh, sweet fragrance wafted through the air.

“Oh, my goodness...” I exhaled in awe.

Pressing my purse to my chest, I strolled around the room, admiring its beauty.

“Do you like it?” The Colonel asked.

His thick eyebrows drew into a frown, though I didn’t believe he was angry with me at the moment. He just didn’t seem to have many facial expressions, other than frowns of different depths. It was unbelievable that a grumpy man like him would live in a place resembling a