Stars Dancing [Dreams-To-Lovers Romance]

NAYTH

Just as I was pulling out my chair at Juanna's on the Terrace, I glanced up and saw her. You couldn't miss her. A dark purple satin bandeau peeked out from a barely-there cream jacket that stopped at her elbows. The jacket had no collar or lapels, just a curve across her chest, and it ended at the bottom hem of the bandeau, leaving four inches of her midriff exposed. The cream pants matched the jacket and fell in wide trouser legs from low on her hips. Her feet were covered in pale lilac slippers, and the top part of her hair was pulled up in a twist with beads in it while long waves flowed down her back.

It was a striking entrance. Her eyes— those green, turquoise eyes— softened as she approached me. Her clothing said, "I'm not from here, and I don't care if you know it." But her soft eyes said, "I'm happy to see you."

She held her right hand to me, and I took it in my left, bowing my forehead to her hand and saying in Shurwinn, "Sunshine greet you, Dr. Nova." She stepped back, bowed from the waist and responded in Sturm, "Greetings, Minister Carmidee." Then added in Universal, "And please, call me Ryst."

First names, then. "Nayth," I replied. I gestured to the table, wondering if we were going to sit down or keep going with bowing rituals. We'd done Shurwinn and Sturm. She could probably do Floria. Then I'd do Starlend. I'd been to a lot of spheres, I could keep this up for awhile.

She must've caught the humor in my eyes because her mouth twisted to hide a smile. And then suddenly, all the warmth left her face. It was as if she shuttered her eyes and all the light in the room dimmed. I wanted the warm smile back on her face.

"Have you been here before, Nayth?"

"No, this will be an adventure, and I'm looking forward to it. Have you been here?"

"No, it's my first trip to Sturm, and I'm excited to try a prix fixe raw menu. That is, they do offer cooked foods as well—"

I interrupted her, "The prix fixe sounds great." If she wanted a two-hour dinner, I wasn't going to stop her. The server came and took our orders. When Ryst refused wine, I did too. As the courses started appearing, I turned on my minister host persona. There were limited things we could discuss since she was a Shurwinn Citizen, but I thought I could keep the conversation going without stepping on Shurwinn toes and give her some opportunities to tell me why she was really here.

"How is Sturm treating you so far, Ryst?

"Lovely. It's so different being back in a humid climate. I haven't traveled much, so being away from the desert is a shock, to be honest. But you must travel often due to your business."

And so the conversational sparring began. Back and forth across topics. Places we'd traveled. Business interests. On and on. I was quickly convinced that there wasn't a dishonest bone in her body. Everything about her was as genuine as it appeared in her videos. She might have been an excellent actress in that prank video, but the rest of her was as authentic as you could get. Conniving, she was not.

So, what was this really all about? Were we really just on a date, enjoying a lingering dinner? Discussing travel and interesting spheres across Andromeda Galaxy?

I was describing the Floria flower festivals when she interrupted me.

"Wait, festivals every six to ten days? That's an enormous amount of flowers! And parties!"

"Floria is all about tourism. It's mostly water— 87%. The land masses are really only islands, so it's all festival all the time, and the parties are considered the best places to conduct business meetings and networking."

"But, how do you keep a party interesting if it's going on every few days?"

We were on our last course, and the meal had been excellent. No bread, but everything was so good, I didn't miss it. "Every festival is based on a different flower or holiday, and each flower has a different symbolism. So, it is always something new."

"And do you have a favorite festival, Nayth?" She was asking my favorite flower and not in a flirty way. It was just an honest, open question.

"The moonflower."

She glanced at my brocaded jacket. "That's the flower on the Carmidee Hospitality brand, correct?"

I smiled softly at her, "You are quite observant, Dr. Nova."

She started smiling back, then that light went out of her eyes again.

"Why do you do that?" I asked.

Her eyebrows lifted, "Do what?"

"Shutter yourself off like that? It's like all the light dims in your eyes."

She narrowed her eyes and looked at me speculatively. "I'm not the only observant one at this table, Minister." She glanced around the room and added, "Ask any question, but some questions are better answered in other venues."

Cryptic. Was this one of those Shurwinn things? Had I unknowably stumbled into a forbidden subject? I backed up.

"Yes, the moonflower is my insignia. I believe you noticed it on my jacket?" She nodded. "It's my favorite festival because it's the only Floria festival that doesn't have a daytime celebration. The festivities start after sundown because moonflowers bloom at night. It's the flower of dreams, you know?"

She looked away from the table, looking at something far away that I couldn't see. "Dreams." She repeated. Then looking back at me asked, "What do they mean? Dreams while asleep or dreams while awake? The 'stuff of dreams?'"

I smiled at her again, "If you ask ten Florians what a flower means, you'll get twenty answers."

She grinned. "And you, Nayth? What do you say?"

"I agree with the Florians, of course. It's all the dreams. Whatever it signifies to you."

She gave me that pensive look again, and it seemed as though she wanted to inquire further, but at that moment, Chef Juanna appeared and placed a single dessert plate on the table. It was a very small plate with two triangles of chocolate on it.

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

"Chef Juanna," Ryst exclaimed, "we had the loveliest meal. Thank you, thank you. It was such a delight to enjoy your restaurant." I tried to offer my appreciation as well, but Chef only had eyes for Ryst.

"Dr. Nova, I can't thank you enough for your work. Living Foods has meant so much to me, and it is an honor to serve you." Here she glanced pointedly at me and continued, "And if you need anything, anything at all while you are in Sturm, please don't hesitate to call." Chef wasn't wearing a jacket, and her right augmented arm was plain for all to see.

"That means the world to me, Chef, and please, call me Ryst. Maybe we can chat more while I'm here? I would love to get to know you better."

"Wonderful, absolutely. Day or night, anytime, you just call. Greetings, Minister," she nodded to me and was away.

Ryst smirked at me. I looked at the dessert plate and glanced around the table. No plates. Just the one. Ryst was still smirking when I looked up at her.

"This is Chef's way of telling me that she's been to Shurwinn and knows the customs. It's also a bit cheeky on her part." She was talking like she was telling me a dirty secret. Was I allowed to ask about this custom?

"The single plate is a custom? I'm not sure what I'm allowed to ask about," I said cautiously.

"Ask any question, but don't always expect an answer," she replied. Then continued, "But we can be circumspect. How often do you share a single plate of dessert at a business meeting?"

"Never."

She nodded, still with that knowing smirk. "So, Chef is being suggestive," I offered.

"And possibly sweet as well. Just reminding me of home. The chocolate is fabulous, isn't it?"

It was excellent. It was nearly gone, and I decided it was time to press on. I'd given her ample opportunities to bring up business. It was all there on the table, and she hadn't taken advantage of a single chance I'd given her to press me. "Dr. Nova— Ryst, since we're finishing dessert off a shared plate, do you have a business proposal for me?"

She let out an authentic laugh. "Well, I do, but you'd see right through it in a heartbeat."

"Do you have another type of proposal for me?" I said raising my eyebrows suggestively. Wait, what was I doing? Telling her to take me home for the night? I pulled my eyebrows down into something decidedly less bedroom and more stodgy Sturm Minister.

"I'm not asking you to marry me, Nayth Carmidee," she said with humor, looking directly into my eyes. Then what? What was she up to? What was this all about?

"What are you asking me, Ryst?"

She looked troubled. She glanced around the room again and replied once more, "Some questions are better answered in other venues."

I suddenly felt cold. Was she in trouble? Had I gotten everything wrong? Was this a young woman who needed help and had contacted a wealthy, single minister looking for a way out of something bad? What was going on? I could offer her safety. With me and my father. She would know he was a minister too.

"Ryst, will you join me and my father at LaGrange?"

Her eyes started darting back and forth, like she was trying to focus on something, but not on me. Then she looked at me squarely again, "Before I answer that question, there are some things you need to know about me." She had a wary look in her eyes, but also a determined one.

"I have a secure porter. Is that an acceptable venue?" Her entire demeanor relaxed, as if something had clicked into place.

"I'll meet you downstairs." She headed to the powder room, and I wished that she hadn't walked away. It felt like all the warmth in the room had just gone out.

RYST

I walked towards the Terrace doors just as I had done everything else since my tailor Mauren had dropped off the huge trunk at Coal Station two days ago. I moved as though in a dream, barely here and barely there, every motion guided by something I did not understand.

Was Nayth my Ahtah? I still didn't know. How would l know? I would only know by living it. My foot took another step on a path I could not see.

The whole dinner had been as surreal as everything else in the last 48 hours. Nayth, with kind eyes and soft smiles. With thoughts that escaped his mind of kissing my bare shoulder and something else that was all humor. He was soft smiles on the exterior, but inside he was full of some secret joke that I didn't know but that kept me smiling too.

My inner self kept wanting to wrap around him, around all that chocolate skin. But I couldn't do that— not yet. Not until I knew for sure. And how was I going to know for sure? At what point would I know?

Should I just drop the protective curtain around my mind completely? Should I try to laser my way into his brain? Could I merge with this Galactic Minister and find out the truth? I shook my head, no. Disaster lie that way. Mentally assaulting a dual-Niner Minister was not the way forward. There was nothing else for it then. I had to just start talking and tell him the truth—though I had no idea where the truth would lead.

As I stepped out onto the Terrace, I found Nayth waiting, very publicly. Every camera nearby had to be capturing all of this. He opened the door to his black porter. It was different from the porters I was used to on Shurwinn. Instead of flat rectangular straight lines, this was a sleek, black, almost bullet-shaped porter. It looked like it belonged out among the stars instead of down here on the city streets. The door opened upwards, and Nayth gestured.

"Here goes," I thought and slid onto the bench seat and across to the far side. Nayth followed and the door snicked closed. The porter advanced.

Trying to keep my breath steady, I plunged in: "Nayth, thank you for meeting me for dinner. I want to tell you some things that you won't be able to find in your recon. The true reasons I left Starlend and how I wound up relocating to Shurwinn. It started when I unwisely married someone who wasn't good for me. That ended very poorly after only three months, before the one-year public notice. The reason it was never announced publicly is that I chose to have the details of the court proceedings redacted as far as it related to me. Officially, I divorced my ex-husband when he was convicted of attempted murder, with me as his target."

Nayth stiffened. I was looking past him, over his shoulder, and I kept going.

"Darwin is on the prison sphere Atraxis 7, and I'll never see him again. It took me awhile to recover. I had a skull fracture, a brain bleed, and a broken arm and collarbone. I woke up in the hospital after three days in a coma, and I've never been the same since."

"The first thing you need to understand about me is that even though medica has cleared me— I'm 100% healthy according to recent scans and blood tests— I still struggle sometimes with relapses. That's why I changed the way I eat. I'm better eating this way, but a couple of times a year, I get ill without explanation. And I need a quiet, peaceful life. I need to look after myself."

"The big city was difficult for me. That's why I went to Shurwinn in the beginning. Because I had too many headaches and couldn't tolerate the loud noise of Jensen. So, I never really know when I'm going to suddenly fall ill and need a few extra days of rest to recover. My life is quite unpredictable."

"The next thing you need to understand about me is that Shurwinn is my home, and I consider the people there my family now. They have walked with me on a very difficult journey and have supported me as their own child and sister."

NAYTH

My eyes searched Dr. Nova's face. She was not frightened. She didn't look like a vulnerable woman asking for help. What was this? An ex-husband— Darwin on Atraxis 7? Rahel would find him in minutes. Puzzle pieces started clicking together as my eyes roamed across her face. Rahel could find this Darwin.

Madrano— Madrano was better than Rahel. Madrano— had already found the Darwin on Atraxis 7. Madrano— not a dancer. Not a martial artist. A weapon. A man who loved Ryst like I loved Freya— she was his sister. Everything in their videos was as genuine as it had appeared, except I'd seen behind the dance to the knife that he was. He was a knife because he would protect the woman who was his sister in all but blood.

She was not scared of Darwin on Atraxis 7. So, why was she here, telling me all her hidden secrets? The untold stories behind the cameras?

This entire conversation was ephemera, like a dream long forgotten. I knew what I would say next, before I said it.

"Dr. Nova—Ryst, why are you really here?"

It came out more challenging than I'd intended, but then, it was always going to, wasn't it? I already knew what she would say in response, and I knew how I'd reply.

She looked me squarely in the eyes, and with conviction in her voice declared, "Four years ago I had a dream—"

The whisper left my lips as I had always known it would. I'd whispered it months ago, hadn't I?

"Lovers are never separate."

"Ahtah!" Was it anguish or was it joy? Both? I didn't know for she was in my arms and nothing else mattered. Finally.