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“You look like hell.” Karma ushered Kismet into her suite.

“Thanks.” She’d cried for half the night in her lonely, too-large bed. She’d expected Jaryk to follow her after she stormed out, and, when he didn’t, she felt worse. Then she overslept. By the time she’d gotten up, he’d left for the day without her.

The gulf between them stretched as vast and wide as a river—and she didn’t know how to cross it. She sought out the one person she could confide in.

“Did something happen between dinner and this morning?” Her sister, still in her jammies, eyed Kismet’s jeans and sweatshirt—Earth attire.

She nodded.

“Would you like some bittersweet while you tell me about it?” Kaldor didn’t have coffee beans—but a native herb called bittersweet brewed a surprisingly coffee-like tea.

“A gallon of it, please. Thank you.” Her eyelids had swelled to balloons from weeping, and she felt hungover.

Her sister fixed a cup from a pot on a tray, handed it to her, then curled her legs under her on the sofa. She patted the seat. “Sit. Come tell me about it.” She picked up her own cup.

Kismet sank into the sofa and gratefully took a drink. “Jaryk has a girlfriend.”

“What?” Karma leaped to her feet, spilling bittersweet all over herself.

“Are you all right? Did you burn yourself?”

“I’m fine. It was barely warm.” She wiped at her chest. “You mean, he’s seeing Alia?”

“No. I guess I should say, he had a girlfriend he wished to marry. That’s the real reason he avoided marriage to Alia. But the king didn’t approve of Charday . I’m guessing he figured marriage to a human would make Charday acceptable.”

“What a dog!”

“Yesterday, when we returned to the palace, between public venues, he disappeared for a while. I thought he had other official business—but he’d snuck off to see Charday.”

“The pig!”

“He went to break off their relationship.” Supposedly. Or did he still intend to see her?

“Did he now?” Karma fumed on her behalf. “How did you find this out?”

“He told me.”

“If he was sneaking around, why would he bother to tell you?”

“Because, apparently, Falkor knew all about it.”

“The weasel! Of course, he did—but what difference did that make?”

“Remember when the men didn’t come to the library right away? Falkor had pulled him aside to ask about Charday. When we got to our suite, I asked him about it. I put him on the spot, and he broke down and told me the truth.”

“Stinking polecats!” Karma said.

“Polecats?”

“I’m running out of animals low enough to describe them.”

Despite her anguish, Kismet laughed.

“He said he loves me.” Those were the words she’d longed to hear—but not the way she had, not as an apology, an excuse, an attempt to smooth things over. How could she believe him now?

“Too little, too late. The jerk!”

Her sister’s words echoed her own feelings, but the vehemence caused her to wonder if maybe she judged him too harshly.

What if he had meant the I love you? He hadn’t seemed like the kind of man who would fling the L-word around as casually as he removed his socks.

He had said at the start he’d intended their marriage to be temporary and platonic—he just hadn’t offered up the whole story.

But, why would he? They’d been strangers set up by meddling siblings.

Then they’d gotten to know each other. She could tell he genuinely enjoyed her company. The relationship turned physical. Emotionally, they’d grown closer.

His recent behavior didn’t seem to indicate he had feelings for another woman. W hat if he really does care for me? Maybe I shouldn’t have rushed out last night. I should have let him explain. She wished she’d had a chance to talk to him before he left for the day. Why did I have to oversleep!

“I need to talk to Jaryk,” Kismet said. “I may have leaped to the wrong conclusion.”

“It won’t do any good. We should go back to Earth,” Karma said. “End the charade now.”

“That’s rather drastic, isn’t it?” Her marriage was not a charade!

“Not if he’s a pig-dog-polecat.”

“He’s not a pig-dog-polecat!”

“From what you’ve said, he seems to be.”

“I overreacted. He and I need to talk this out.” Her sister was always willing to listen, always sympathetic, but they didn’t see eye to eye. She didn’t know Jaryk the way she did. “Thanks for the ear and the bittersweet. I’m going to try to find Jaryk.”

* * * *

As Kismet left the suite, Karma blew on her fingernails and polished them on her pajama top. “My work here is done.”

Besotted, Jaryk had gazed at her twin like she owned the moon and the stars. No man had ever looked at either of them like that. The man was a keeper, and she refused to let her twin screw up a great thing.

Unfortunately, whatever she said, her twin would disagree with and do the opposite. If she’d defended him, Kismet would have been convinced marrying him had been a mistake. So, she’d dissed and criticized him. The reverse psychology had worked like a charm. It always did.

She couldn’t guess at the whole story involving Charday and Alia, but she was a great judge of character. Jaryk was a prince in character as well as title.

Falkor, on the other hand, was a pig-dog-polecat. It was hard to believe two siblings could be such total opposites.