Chapter 4

Zyair had had enough already. He thought this gig was going to be cool. It had sounded romantic when Trigg had passed it on to him, but Kona turned out to be a boring little backwater planet.

He had been raised in the royal palace on the powerful planet Lorr, carrying on the royal Lorrz family name. He was used to magnificence and splendor. What met him on Kona was a stark contrast. The heiress's mansion was grim and austere. It felt like every room was designed to be as uncomfortable and unaccommodating as possible.

What a fucking dump,he thought. You win, Trigg. Again. Fucker.

He had been assigned what he was assured were luxurious quarters. Compared to the rest of the mansion, they probably were. But to his Lorr standards, the place was a ramshackle downtrodden mess.

The bed was hard and uncomfortable. The water in the shower was barely more than tepid at best, and he had yet to find a bath.

He'd even tried to leave the place and find himself accommodation elsewhere, but as Layla had warned him, even without knowing it, that was harder said than done on this flea-bitten planet.

In spite of all of this, Layla intrigued him. She didn't seem the type to pull off an intergalactic theft. And if she had, why was she still around? And, Lorr, those huge, dark eyes.

Something about her made him want to take her in, especially when she started talking about her early life on Earth. They couldn't be worse than things here, he thought. But, actually, yes, they could. As a rich young one, he knew he had no idea how bad things could get. That was part of why he needed to have an extra tough exterior with her. He couldn't let her see his softness.

He'd called her in for an interview to try and resolve some of these questions and discover what she'd done with the artifact. He had no qualms about charging her with a crime, no matter how cute she was. He was sick of this dung heap of a planet and wanted off as soon as possible.

Layla sat opposite him. She looked defiant, but her cheeks were tear-stained and she was a little disheveled, like she hadn't been sleeping properly.

A small piece of his heart melted at the sight of her. But not enough to believe her to be innocent.

"Why have you brought me here?" Layla demanded. "I've told you everything I know. Continuing to talk to me is a waste of time."

She sat back in her chair and pouted, her arms firmly folded across her chest.

"I would like to know more about you," Zyair replied honestly. "All your travel details check out. The gray area, where things are unclear, comes with the supposed accommodation you booked. Then you happen to bump into Darina Indorsha and become her guest? It's all too convenient to be a coincidence."

"I made the reservation when I was still on Earth. I showed you the confirmation slip they sent me." Layla looked at him with beautiful dark brown eyes that were incredibly rare among his people. Under other circumstances, he'd probably want to take her for dinner and a drink and then finish with a wild night in bed. But she was a suspect, not a prospect.

He coughed to try to hide the fact that he was looking at her gorgeous curves, cataloging them in his mind. "Documents that could quite easily be falsified," he said.

"I'm telling you the truth. You're wasting time interviewing me. The real culprit is getting away as we speak." Layla was obviously vexed.

He had to admit it was quite an elaborate cover-up, if that's what it was. But he'd had enough of Kona already. His mind was on the RaGaR Bar back on Noxxa and that hot Noxxan chick who worked there. He was sure he was on the verge of winning her over when he'd had to leave. A quick confession from Layla would solve all his problems.

"There are just too many loose ends, Ms. Killingsworth," he said, trying to sound threatening. "Your story is simply too convenient."

"I don't know what you want me to say. Everything I've told you is the truth." Her soft brown eyes brimmed with tears. She looked small and vulnerable to the big Lorr warrior.

"Run it by me again how you just happened to bump into Darina Indorsha?"

He watched as she pulled herself together, wiping an angry hand across her eyes and taking a deep breath.

"I'd just arrived on Kona. It's my first time on another planet. Everything is different from Earth. I went to check in at the hostel, but they had no record of my reservation." She went to show him the reservation slip she'd received from them when she booked again, but he waved her away.

"You've already palmed me off with that fake document once. I don't want to see it again," he said with a scowl. "So, tell me. Why didn't you just check into another accommodation?"

"I already told you. They were all so expensive. The hostel was the cheapest place I'd found when I was booking. I wasn't going to get paid for a full Kona moon cycle. I had to make my money last."

Zyair was not happy that her story was so coherent. He needed to trip her up and get out of there. "And Darina Indorsha? Tell me again how she fits into your rather elaborate story. You tracked her down. Didn't you?"

"I didn't!" Layla protested. "I went to a bar. I didn't know what else to do. I was here alone with no friends and nowhere to stay. I had to go somewhere. Darina just happened to be in there. She heard me talking to the barkeep and said I could stay with her."

"Darina seems to think you played her. Took advantage of her generous nature."

"That's not how it was. She approached me when she overheard my conversation. I was alarmed that anyone was listening, to tell you the truth. I would never go up to a stranger and ask to stay with them. My parents would have killed me for that growing up."

Layla was getting heated. Good, he needed her to slip up and give something away.

"Why would Darina lie to me about that?" In truth, she hadn't. Darina's story had been very similar to Layla's in regard to their meeting. However, that was not the way to get a confession, and that's all he was here for.

"I don't know." Layla slumped in her seat. "I'm telling you everything. I came to the planet because I wanted to go somewhere different, but since I've been here, everything has gone wrong. I didn't even know Darina had this artifact until after I was accused of stealing it."

"Stop playing with me, Layla. May I call you Layla?" He raised his eyebrow as he asked her and she shrugged. "I'm going to talk straight with you, Layla. I don't want to be here. You don't want to be here. You may as well just confess now. I'm going to prove you guilty sooner or later. Between you and me, I've had enough of this planet. I've got business elsewhere I'd rather be doing. So let's get this over and done with, eh?" He leaned back in his chair and steepled his fingers in front of him.

"I am not going to confess to something I haven't done. You have the wrong person. Darina accused me because I'm convenient. I'm the random stranger staying with her. So it's bound to be me. Right?" Layla leaned forward, her brown eyes suddenly full of fire. "How do you know she ever even had this stone? Has she shown you?"

Zyair was taken aback. She was even more attractive when she was angry. He liked a woman with spirit, and her lips were full and inviting. He wanted to know so badly what it was like to kiss her.

She had her hands on the table and was almost on her feet. "Well, I'm telling you. You've got the wrong person. So, get that through that thick head of yours. I'm not giving you a nice, easy confession!" She threw herself back in her seat and folded her arms again.

Zyair tried to hide the smile that was threatening to break through his hostile countenance. He didn't want the suspect to know how uncontrollably the motion of her body and the toss of her hair had turned him on.