Chapter Seven

"Do you, Prudence McKenna, agree to enter into a legal union with Larth as your husband for the term of one year to be extended indefinitely should you both concur?" the officiant asked.

You have a nice ass. What a male thing to say. But the small compliment coupled with the admiration in his eyes had put her in a good mood that lasted throughout the morning while they worked at the bakery. She hadn't realized how much she needed a self-esteem boost. William's betrayal had delivered a crushing blow to her self-confidence in addition to her trust.

It was reassuring that men—or at least one man—considered her attractive. At least my backside.

She was glad now she'd dressed up. She hadn't intended to, but then had decided while the marriage might not be genuine, the partnership was, so why not commemorate it? Before she'd left Terra Nova, her mother had surprised her with the cream-colored suit. "You might want something nice for whenever," she'd said, but Pru knew she'd made it for the wedding. She'd accepted it to avoid hurting her mother's feelings but had no intention of wearing it. A civil ceremony for a temporary marriage of convenience wasn't anything special.

Thanks, Mom. She missed her mom and dad, who had worried about her, and wished they could have been here. Thankfully, she had Hope. She clutched the bouquet her friend had thoughtfully provided. Krogan had been unable to attend, his attention claimed by important government matters.

She glanced at her friend. Brows arched, Hope stared at her. Everyone was staring at her expectantly—the officiant, his assistant, and Larth. Why are they looking at me?

Oh! They were waiting for an answer to the officiant's question. Her face flamed, and she shot Larth an apologetic glance. "Yes. Yes!" Sorry. Sorry.

Next to her, he relaxed. I probably scared the crap out of him. She would never jilt him at the altar, not after what she'd gone through.

"Do you, Larth, agree to enter into a legal union with Prudence McKenna as your wife for the term of one year to be extended indefinitely should you both concur? "

"I do." His voice rang out strong and clear.

"Then, as an officiant of Caradonia, I proclaim you legally bound in matrimony in accordance with the aforementioned provisions," he announced.

That's it. I'm married. We're married.

"Yay! You may kiss the bride!" Hope clapped.

Pru wanted to smack her with the bouquet. She knew the circumstances surrounding this marriage. She'd discouraged her from doing it! Could she have made this more awkward? But Larth had turned toward her. His head bent. Soft, warm lips brushed hers, lingering for an instant. His breath caressed her face.

Her stomach fluttered with awareness and an unexpected longing.

He pulled away, a bemused expression on his face.

The assistant cleared his throat. "Sign here." He thrust a tech-tab at Larth.

Her new husband scribbled his name and passed her the tablet. She signed. The officiant finalized it.

"Congratulations! I'm so happy for you both." Hope gave Larth a quick hug before embracing her. "He's such a sweet, genuine guy," she whispered in Pru's ear. "You both deserve the best, and you got it. Cosmic Mates did a great job matching you." Initially against her marrying through Cosmic Mates, Hope was all for it now.

She'd never told her friend that while Cosmic Mates had been the vehicle, the program hadn't paired them. Larth had placed a help wanted ad, she'd answered it, and he'd hired her.

The three of them left the officiant's office. The assistant called in another couple from among the half dozen waiting their turn.

"What do you have planned for the rest of the day?" Hope asked.

Pru lifted a shoulder and glanced at her husband. "Get back to work." She almost laughed at the dismay on her friend's face. True, it wasn't what most brides would wish to do on their wedding day, but regardless of what the electronic record showed, this was a business arrangement.

"Perhaps you'd like to come see the future site of the bakery," he suggested.

"I would love that."

Should she invite her friend to see it? Hope had worked at Flour Power, too. She liked to bake. Before she could offer, Hope chimed in, "It's a great space. You'll like it."

"You've seen it? "

Her head bobbed in assent. "Yeah, Larth showed me. I helped him out in the booth a few times."

Her friend probably knew him better than she did. A funny feeling curled in the pit of her stomach. Not jealousy, exactly. "Oh." She clutched her bouquet.

They walked to the vaporator at the end of the hall. "We'll take the next one," Larth said to Hope.

After hugging her, Hope boarded and vapped away.

They waited for another transport to arrive. "I didn't realize she had worked for you," Pru said.

"She hasn't recently. She relieved me a few times so I could visit Sala in the stasis pod."

Just what I need on my wedding day—to hear about his beloved dead wife, she thought and then felt uncharitable and mean. What's wrong with me?

"Why did you advertise through Cosmic Mates, then? Why not hire Hope?"

"She's not interested in full-time employment. She only did me a favor. She attends a lot of political functions because Krogan is governor-general, so she can't commit to a regular work schedule. Besides…unlike you, she's, um…very sweet—"

Unlike me? Her jaw dropped .

"But"—his voice lowered—"she is not as capable as you. Even after a year, our tech confounds her. She can barely vap on her own. She overcharged or undercharged customers when I left her alone in the booth. You picked up on the tech right away, processed transactions correctly immediately, and figured out the appliances on your own. Hope probably would have set the kitchen on fire." He winced ruefully. "You're smart, capable, efficient—"

Warmth bloomed in her chest. She hadn't fallen short in the comparison. Just the opposite. She loved Hope like a sister and knew her to be a capable individual—they'd worked together for years—but technology wasn't her strong suit.

The vaporator opened, and he gestured for her to enter.

He thinks I'm smart, capable, efficient, and I have a nice ass. With a little strut, she boarded.

* * * *

Jittering with anticipation and nerves, Larth led Prudence into the third-floor space of the future bakery. Overnight, her opinion had come to matter to him. The shop didn't look like much yet—just an empty space with construction dust coating everything—but, in his head, he could picture it perfectly.

"The robo crew is due to finish the construction of the cabinetry by next week, then the appliances can be installed," he explained. "There will be a counter with see-through cases here." He gestured to a spot on the floor while walking toward the back. "A wall will separate the sales floor from the work areas.

"A panel will go here, sectioning off a small office." He pointed to the left, took a few more steps, spread his arms, and turned in a circle. "The kitchen! Most of the commercial appliances in the apartment will be relocated here, but new stuff is on order, too."

"It's a big space," she said.

He nodded. "We'll have double the ovens and mixers, with space for more as the business grows." He pointed to the back wall. "Cooling racks will go there."

"Island in the middle?" she asked.

"Yes, a huge one."

She spun around, surveying the vacant room as if envisioning its completion. Her brows drew together in a tiny frown.

"What's wrong?" he asked.

"Can two people handle all the baking for a shop this size? "

"I'm hoping we won't have to. I've applied for a loan to buy a full-service robo. The kind we need is a little expensive." Astronomically expensive. Sometimes he broke into a sweat thinking of the debt he'd incur. He couldn't expand the shop without the robo, but, until the business grew, he couldn't afford the robo. He'd decided to take the leap because, in the long run, having an android would save money.

"A robo will free us up to handle the customers and do the creative stuff. It can be programmed with the recipes, and it can bake all night. While it does the basics, we can bake the special orders and experiment with new recipes." He gave her the same argument he'd been telling himself.

"That's a good idea!"

"It's not a done deal. I'm still waiting to hear if I got approved for the loan."

"Let's hope so. Fingers crossed." She held up her hand and then moved to the window, looking into the corridor that went around the perimeter of the offices and shops centered in the cloudtopper. The cloudtopper exterior walls were glass. There was nothing to see except the opposite building, but they were high enough that they weren't staring at graffiti. "We're putting in tables by the window, right? "

"Tables? No…why would we?"

"For customers! We can create a little café. They'll come in, sit, eat a sweet roll, smell the bread baking, and leave with a loaf or two or a pie, already available. It shouldn't be too much extra work."

He blinked. "I like it! There wasn't room for a café at the cozi, but there is here."

"We can sell coffee, too. I can have it imported from Terra Nova."

He made a face.

"Okay, you don't like coffee, but humans do. And they can't get it on Caradonia. They'll come for coffee and will bring their husbands. They'll buy baked goods."

"That might work," he admitted. He had doubts coffee would be a hot seller, but the café itself was a great idea.

He should have thought of it himself. Smart, quick, Prudence had a good head for business. The fact she was pleasing to the eye came as a bonus. Perhaps he shouldn't have been noticing, but he was a man. He found her paleness exotic, her blue eyes striking, her freckles fascinating. Her ass, remarkable. Her presence would be a draw. He couldn't have picked a better partner .

Her hesitation at the ceremony had almost caused him to go into cardiac arrest. For a heart-stopping moment, he'd feared she'd had second thoughts and intended to say no. In a flash, his ambivalence had evaporated, and he'd realized he very much wanted to marry her, for business reasons, of course. Perceptive and pleasant, she would be a tremendous asset, and he liked her.

But maybe she didn't feel the same. "Do you still have doubts about this?"

"No. I'm confident the bakery will be a huge success now that I know we might have a robo to assist. I wondered about how we would manage to get all the baking done. I saw how much is required to stock the cozi. If you hadn't had the batter and dough premade, the cases would have been empty this morning. I was worried about how we would stock enough baked goods for this place."

"No, I meant about what we are doing. Us. Our marriage. At the ceremony, you paused when it came time to take your vows."

Pink tinged her face. "I, uh, got distracted."

"Distracted?"

"By what you had said."

What had he said? "I don't know what you mean. "

"About my ass."

"You were thinking about your ass?"

"I was thinking about you thinking about my ass."

He stared.

She shrugged her shoulders. "I know we have a business arrangement, but it gave my confidence a needed boost that you find something about me attractive, even if it is just my rear end. William's rejection hit me hard," she admitted.

"You are attractive all over," he said. "Exotic."

"I wasn't fishing for another compliment."

"It's true though. You are a beautiful, exotic woman." Her blonde hair seemed to capture the light, turning even more golden. She smiled with her whole face, her eyes crinkling. She had a delicate chin, a cute nose, and adorable ears.

"Well, thank you."

"Tell me about him," he said. He was curious about the man who had undermined the confidence of such a remarkable woman. "If you don't mind talking about him. You don't have to."

"The first day of school, he asked me to be his girlfriend." Her mouth twisted with a sad smile. "We were inseparable. He was an ever-present fixture in my life. I never dated anyone else. I always believed we would marry. It never occurred to me he had changed his mind. He never said anything. He blindsided me, didn't have the decency to tell me to my face. He messaged me only minutes before the ceremony. Why couldn't he tell me the truth?"

"Because he was a selfish coward. He cared more about avoiding any discomfort to himself than minimizing your pain."

"In hindsight, I recognize there were signs he'd lost interest. We spent less time together. We weren't uh, intimate, as often. He hadn't said, ‘I love you' in a while. I attributed the distance to us being preoccupied with planning a wedding. On occasion, he wasn't where he said he'd be, but I had no idea he was seeing somebody else."

"Someone else?"

"He fell in love with some bimbo and eloped on our wedding day."

A double betrayal. Her no-good ex had led her on and cheated on her. "He is worse than a coward. He does not deserve you." It was wrong to mislead one woman while loving another. No decent man would do such a thing. "I'm sorry."

"William humiliated me in front of the entire village. Everybody knew he had jilted me. I couldn't face the stares, the whispers, the pity. I wanted a fresh start where nobody knew me and what had happened."

"I'm happy to provide you with that fresh start," he said. "We will be able to help each other."

"How long were you and Sala married?" she asked.

He was reluctant to discuss his previous marriage, but he'd opened the topic with his questions about William. "Seven years total. We were married five years before the pandemic hit. She fell ill within a couple of weeks of the outbreak. Then she spent two years in the stasis pod before she succumbed. A month later, the treatment became available." If she had just hung on one month more. If the cure had come out a month sooner. If, if, if.

Some people blamed Krogan for not finding a cure sooner, but Larth believed the governor-general had done everything in his power. His scientists had begun working on a cure as soon as the first cases broke out. He'd brought in the stasis pods. Most of the women in the pods had survived.

Prudence pressed a hand to her throat. "That's devastating. I'm so sorry."

"She was the only woman I ever loved. I can't imagine loving anyone else like I loved her. This bakery is my tribute to her. Since the cozi lease is expiring and I must vacate, I can't call the shop Bakery at the Cozi 2, so I'm renaming it Sala's Bakery!"

They had argued over the name. Unable to come up with something they both liked, they'd compromised on a mundane descriptor until they could agree on something better. And then the pandemic hit. If he'd had an inkling of the future, he would have let Sala call the bakery anything she desired. No, he would have spirited her off the planet before she'd become infected with the nano-virus.

"A fine tribute," Pru said with a slight smile.

"Speaking of bakeries, we should get back to the cozi." He shied away from further confidences, filled with a vague sense of guilt, like he'd said something wrong.

"Sounds like a good idea," she readily agreed.

He locked up, and they vapped over to the cozi, but the guilt and discomfort lingered.