Page 35 of Bound by Stars

Jupiter

Eight days to Mars

The clacking of my dad’s dress shoes fades. The lights go out and the door shuts, enveloping us in pitch-dark silence. Far-off starlight outside the tall window between exterior docking doors doesn’t reach into the ship. Weslie yanks her hand out of mine.

A clank farther down the row sends my heart into my throat.

“Ouch.” Weslie’s voice is far away. Her bare feet hardly make a sound against the floor, but I try to follow.

The lights switch back on in sections above, revealing the inventory of bots and filling the room with an electric hum. I spin, walking down the line and scanning the rows.

Is this what my parents had been whispering about on Earth?

Did they come to Earth to steal the winning design?

My mom is ruthless, but this doesn’t seem like her brand of deception.

She orchestrates. She lines up her moves.

She expertly maneuvers, manipulating people to her will so carefully they can’t see they’re being moved like pawns.

Weslie stands at the end of a row of her bots, mouth tight and eyebrows pinched. Her scowl deepens, and she shifts her gaze from the bots to me. “Did you know about this?”

I shake my head. “Of course not.”

Guarding something behind an angry half smile, she shakes her head slowly. “It all makes sense now.”

“What does?” She can’t really believe I helped my parents do this.

“Why you wanted to help with ILSA. Why you’ve been slumming it with a dust mite. Why you lied about being engaged!”

“I didn’t lie. I told you Skye and I had a plan!” A few minutes ago, she was in my arms. I search her eyes for some spark of the girl I was just kissing, but her guard is up. She’s slipping away.

“Oh my god, the plans. That was the goal the whole time, wasn’t it? Get ILSA’s specs and turn them over to your parents’ company!” She spins back to the cargo bay door, releasing a breathy laugh and holding down the control as the heavy door creaks open. “You played me.”

That’s not who I am. My throat tightens. “You know me better than that.”

“I hardly know you at all. We’re basically strangers.” She crosses the hall, opening the exit door.

My mind is reeling for evidence. But I’m backed into a corner. I’m being trained to run this company. She has no reason to believe me aside from the time we’ve spent together, but for all she knows it was all a lie. “Wes, I would never…please…”

“You must have had a good laugh behind my back. The stupid Earther girl handing over her design, falling for a Big Six heir.” She whips around and marches away.

“I fell for you, too.” I jump on her confession, not hiding my desperation.

“I honestly don’t know how they got the plans.

” All my muscles tighten in place like cement is hardening in my limbs.

Everything is changing between us in seconds.

If I let her go, let it end like this, she might never speak to me again.

She’s halfway down the white hall, eyes forward. “Drop the act, Jupiter. It’s over.”

There’s a finality in her words I can’t accept. It pushes me forward. I have to make her believe me, but she’s already running up the stairs. “Wait!”

Passing a porter outside the arboretum, I slow, nod, and grin like everything is normal.

When I start up the lower steps of the grand staircase, she’s already near the top and ignores my pleas to slow down.

I barely catch up in the hall, feet from her door.

Reaching out, I brush her palm with my fingers like I did in the escape pod bay.

She yanks her hand away, walking faster. “Don’t touch me!”

“Please listen to me. I—”

“I think I’ve listened to you enough for one space crossing.” She presses her palm to the access pad next to her door. It slides open and she steps inside, out of sight.

I hurry to the doorway, gripping the frame. “Will you please think about this for a second?”

She crosses her arms.

“You were supposed to deliver the specs with your presentation on Mars anyway. Wouldn’t it have been a hell of a lot less work to wait instead of chasing you around this ship and convincing you to let me help you?”

She frowns, chewing on her lip. The tension in her expression softens slightly.

Relief washes over me. Thank the universe, she’s listening to me at least.

Narrowing her eyes again, she resets her shoulders, and my heart sinks. “Probably would have. But you people are known for greed, not intelligence.”

Dropping my head, I clench the doorframe tighter. How can someone be so infuriatingly shut down? One minute she’s kissing me and the next she believes I’ve masterminded a scheme to rip her off. That I’m as ruthless and cutthroat as my mother.

I meet her cold stare. “There’s a part of you that knows you’ve got this wrong because you know me. You want a reason to think I’m not on your side because that makes it easier. But this was never going to be easy, Weslie!”

Her face is stone. “Then let me simplify it.” Hand raised, eyes locked with mine, she hits the door button, and it slides closed between us.

I squeeze my fists and eyes tight, pressing my knuckles and forehead to the thick metal between us. Pushing off, I head for my family’s quarters. At first speed-walking, but by the end of her hall, I’m in a full sprint.

When I burst into the living room, my mother stands next to the fireplace, staring into the holoflame.

“Why the hell would you do that?” The words burst out of me before I can find better ones.

She calmly turns to face me as the door slides open behind me again.

My dad pats my back as he passes. “Jupiter, there you are. Did Gianna hunt you down?” He says it like he wasn’t just at the bottom of the ship checking in on their stock of bots.

I stand opposite the fireplace, gaze flicking between my parents. “How could the two of y—”

“You’ve had your fling, Jupiter. It’s time to get serious now.” My mother puts down the empty glass in her hand and squares her shoulders.

I frown. What is she… The announcement. It feels like so long ago after the escape pod bay, the cargo hold, and Weslie shutting the door in my face.

“The girl needs to know the reality of the situation.” Her tone stays infuriatingly even and matter of fact, like she’s reminding me about a tutoring lesson.

“It didn’t have to be like that. You had me lead her into a trap.”

My father pauses between us.

I point at each of them. “And worse, you two sto—”

“You are my heir. Even Earthers understand what that means.”

“You didn’t have to hit them with the announcement without warning like that, Sabine.” Dad raises his eyebrows.“Besides, even if Jupiter never married, the company wou—”

“Be serious, Jason, it’s time to get him back on track. This little crush has been a distraction for long enough.” She purses her lips, staring into the flickering holoflame.

“It’s not just about a crush, Mom.” I take a deep breath.

This is it. I opened the box and now I have to lay it all out.

I don’t want your life. I don’t want the company.

Lies. Theft. Ripping off Earthers. No wonder they want us to stay on our own planet.

I don’t want to be a part of what they’re doing.

“The moment you return to your normal life, it’ll become clear that she has no place in it.” She glares at me. “You are too important.”

Important? The company would keep going without me. With anyone else at the helm. No, I’m not too important. I’m too valuable . Something for her to offer up to create another alliance for the Dalloway corporation. Currency in a game of power.

Something twists and burns inside of me. I swallow it back. “You don’t know what I’m feeling. You’ve never even asked.”

She laughs, picking up the glass from the mantel and swirling the remnants of dark red liquid in the bottom. “I know better than you think.”

“You’re forcing all of this on me, the company, the engagemen—”

“I’m not forcing anything on you. This is your life. You are the heir now.” She stares into the glass in her hand, her voice going quiet. “There is no one else.”

“Hale is…” The thought slips out of my mind and past my lips before I can stop it. It’s not the right time. This is all wrong.

She lets out a laugh. “Hale is too immature.”

No turning back now. “He has a decade of training before he’ll have any real responsibility anyway. He wants this. I don’t. Doesn’t that count for anything?”

“He has a point, Sabine,” my dad says, still holding the back of the couch.

She slams the glass down on the marble mantel. “I will not cede the entire company to my sister because our son wants to draw trees and waste his life with some poor Earther girl!”

I narrow my eyes. “That’s what it’s really about, isn’t it? You’re not concerned about my future. It’s your legacy you need to protect. If Hale is the Dalloway heir, you won’t be in full control anymore. Of the company. Of all of us.”

“I won’t listen to this.” She turns back to the holoflame, gripping the mantel.

“Andi lost her life and you’re taking mine. She was the one built for this, not me.”

“That is enough.”

“You can’t make me into her. I can’t be her!”

She composes herself, rolls her shoulders, and looks me dead in the eye. Her icy expression and cold tone cut through me. “I know.”