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Marek frowns. “What did you hear?”

Ugh. Maybe I shouldn’t have brought it up. “I heard she died before she could make it to the ship? The same day you saved me you were dealing with that. It must have been… awful. I’m so sorry.”

Marek frowns and pulls his hand from me. I miss the contact instantly, and I feel a stab of worry that I’ve offended him. He doesn’t look happy.

“There is something you should know.”

Uh oh. His tone makes me nervous. “What’s that?”

He sighs, a look of resignation on his face. “Can I ask for your discretion? As you told me your secret, I will tell you mine.”

My heart flips. He’s going to tell me a secret? Does that mean… what does that mean? “I promise I won’t tell anyone.”

“The rumors that my partner died getting to the ship are lies. She did not die.”

Oh no. I nod, trying to keep from showing any emotion. I have no right to be jealous, to feel anything at all about who he may or may not be partnered with. It’s not my business.

But it’s no use. As we sit, knee to knee, our fingers interlocked, our attention solely on each other, I can’t make myself believe my own words.

It may not be my business, but a fierce jealousy stabs at my gut as the truth of his words settle into me like a poison.

“So you… you have someone else.”

I pull away. Of course he does. I was a fool to believe otherwise.

* * *

10

MAREK

“The first day or so we all pointed to our countries. The third or fourth day we were pointing to our continents. By the fifth day we were only aware of one Earth.”

– Sultan Bin Salman al-Suad, a Saudi Prince and former Royal Saudi Air Force Pilot

* * *

I suppress a groan as I run a hand through my hair. I have inadvertently betrayed her trust and now I have mucked it all up in trying to explain.

Her expression is heartbreaking. I cannot let her be sad over a lie.

I knew eventually I would have to account for why I had no partner assigned. I just did not expect it to be here. Now. With her. The woman who risked her life--and mine--to save a tree. The woman who stole my heart that moment, and all the moments since. The woman who does, in fact, have a partner assigned to her. A man who is not me.

“No, there is no other,” I say. There never will be. I do not speak that aloud, but I feel the truth of it. I prefer the cool logic of the mind, but my babushka raised me to trust my gut as well, and I cannot deny what I feel.

“I don’t understand,” she says.

How could she understand what I myself do not? I am being frustratingly obtuse, even to myself. “That is my secret,” I finally say. “I do not have a partner. I never did.”

Her eyes widen and she sits back. “But. I thought all the billionaires had to have a partner assigned if they didn’t already have one? To maximize boarding capacity or something.”

“I worked around that. I took a smaller room and used my spot to allow another onto this ship, one who would not have otherwise been invited,” I finally admit. I did not plan on revealing quite so much, but Azalea has a way of making me expose truths about myself I never intended to.

Her eyes narrow. “So no one died?”

I shake my head. “No one died.”

Azalea purses her lips. “So. No partner, alive or dead. Instead, you skirted your own rules to sneak someone onto Mars despite having pretty much total control of the guest list and crew?”