Sherry had been one of those. Not that he knew it at the time, of course. She’d led him to believe she was his age when he met her, and he never thought to ask for documentation. Why should he? He trusted her.

  He should have known her education was too far advanced for being a mere thirty years of age. Now she simply needed the social connections—which she gained through his family. It disgusted him that he was once impressed with her prowess in bed. Now he knew that over the span of her lifetime, she’d had literally countless men to perfect her technique.

  “Sherry.” Even now, his voice was mocking. The wait staff all seemed entranced with her beautiful elegance, but all he saw was a viper in disguise.

  “Darling.” She rose and protocol demanded that he bow to her. But the real reason she rose was so that he—and everyone else present—could have the full effect of her beauty. His bow was brief, no sense in having them both standing around attracting attention. They sat quickly.

  “How have you been?” Her fingers fluttered the napkin as she brought it out to cover her lap.

  Years ago, he would have thought her charmingly nervous. Now he knew it for what it was—contrived skills to appear younger. Her eyes looked at him sharply, the wisdom behind them contrasting with her fumbling and demanding that he appear convinced of her artfully faked age.

  He wouldn’t give her the satisfaction. “Let’s get this over with, Sherry. I’m irritated that I even have to be here in person. We could have handled this over the phone.”

  Her eyes blinked with sudden tears, and she tragically turned away as a waiter approached to take his order. Jason waved him away, ignoring his reproachful stare.

  She looked happier when she turned back to him, even with the well of tears filling her eyes and threatening to overspill. She’d gotten what she craved. The sympathy of the waiter. Not that he had anything to offer her except for a one-night stand with a hard body full of stamina. But he didn’t know she’d suck him dry and would move on, probably to his best friend.

  She blinked the tears away. “Jason,” she said, leaning forward far enough for her perfect cleavage to show. “I’m at the top of my career. You’re at yours. Think of what we could accomplish if we could just join forces.”

  Of all the things he expected, this wasn’t it. He leaned back in his chair, incredulous. “Are you fucking kidding? Haven’t you taken enough?”

  “You misunderstand. Money isn’t the object. I have my own. I’m willing to sign a prenup.”

  Of course, money wasn’t the object now. She was right, she was on top of her game. Otherwise, she couldn’t pay for the expensive upkeep of her youth. If she needed money, she would be sitting here looking like a shriveled husk of a person, a mass of wrinkles and dried, flaking skin. The image of what she should truly look like made him grin.

  “I’m not,” he whispered. Her face froze.

  He had nothing more for her to take. She, on the other hand, had invested his funds well before they were signed over to her in the divorce. If he didn’t sign a prenup, all those monies that used to belong to him would be his for the taking.

  Her eyes narrowed, but even at that, she shrugged. “I have more money than I can ever spend on myself. And Jason, I want my husband back.”

  Hell, he was the only one of her husbands who hadn’t yet died of old age. She wanted what she could never have. She was used to having everything she ever wanted. He was the one exception to the rule.

  He leaned in. “I could never be with someone who witnessed a person’s abduction and didn’t help them. A person who had a hand in it.”

  She shrugged, looking like she was honestly bewildered. “What is your fascination with this kid? Some sort of paternal craving? Look, if it’s that important to you to be a father, I have some eggs frozen—”

  “You’re aware she’s no longer a kid,” he said quietly.

  Her face darkened. “Are you admitting that you have an interest in her now that she’s adult? That’s unhealthy, Jason. I could get you help, perhaps some counseling.”

  “I love her,” he said simply. “Keep my money. Enjoy it. Keep yourself young as long as you want. I’d rather grow old with Lily.”

  Her face—the true face she hid from the world—was ugly, twisted with jealousy. “Why? Why her?”

  He leaned in, keeping the cruelty away from his face and voice. “Xeno Sapiens don’t have birthdays. She’ll never be eighty-eight. She’ll never remind me of the crone I married.”

  THE DRIVE BACK WAS brief. He couldn’t wait to get back to Lily. He bounded up the steps of the main hut, headed toward the hospital wing.

  “Jason! Get in here,” Robyn called. The vidcam was on in the main hut. Several Xeno Sapiens were glued to it. He approached, shocked to see an image of his ex-wife as she spoke. Hell, he’d just left her. She had to have had this pre-recorded just in case he refused her.

  “Lily Xeno Sapien is still a citizen of Earth. Her abduction was covered up and she was transported back to Xenia. Why? Why have we not seen her, if only to relieve us of our terror? Down at heart, we’re parents. And little Lily is our baby. We need to know she’s safe. But instead, my sources say she was smuggled in to avoid anyone knowing.”

  “Who, Counselor Becker? Who would have brought her home silently?”

  The treacherous bitch sighed as if she hated revealing the secret that gleamed in her eye.

  “My ex-husband. Jason Becker of Iota Nine.”

  Cameras clicked. “Are you sure?”

  “Of course,” she said, holding up a picture. “This was dropped off with my office.” The camera zeroed in on the photo she held. It was black as night, but the night-vision cameras picked up on the glow of Jason’s pupils as he hurried into Xenia, carrying a blanketed Lily. “Now, of course, we can’t prove this is Lily, but we need to know. We demand to know that she is safe. Therefore I am filing charges against Jason Becker for harboring a kidnap victim. He obviously left the world searching for this child while she’s been holed up safely behind her own gates this entire time.”

  “Charges? Is that a lawful violation?”

  “If he did it for the reason I think he did...yes.” Sherry Becker took a huge breath, her hand with her perfectly manicured nails fluttering to her throat. “Some people have...deviant tendencies. He took this innocent child who trusted him, her guardian, a hero-worshipped figure in a position of trust. He held her away from own people for who knows how long. A young girl, terrified from her recent kidnapping, has no business in the keep of a grown, adult male—alone and at his mercy. He’s keeping this quiet for a reason. I doubt if the Xeno Sapiens are even aware that he held her for an unrecorded amount of time before returning her to them.”

  “But we have no proof that Lily is alive and returned. Or that she was abused in any way.”

  “Not yet,” Sherry said grimly. “But these charges will demand that Lily herself tell us if she is all right—healthy and happy.”

  Jason’s vision clouded with uncontrolled rage. That bitch. That conniving, manipulative, grudge-holding bitch. She had something to do with Lily’s kidnapping and now was trying to force Lily into the limelight to defend him—knowing it would instill fear in everyone to see how quickly she’d grown to adulthood.

  He clenched his hands into fists. He’d never had such an uncontrollable urge to hit and destroy something.

  Someone snapped off the vidcam.

  “If I understand correctly, Lily needs to come to the media to say Jason hasn’t molested her?” Renegade asked.

  Jason’s voice was a growl. “Sherry knows Lily’s physical maturity level was breached. Lily remembered hearing them talk of her in the laboratory. She’s trying to force her onto television so the world can see and fear the changes occurring in the Xeno Sapiens.”

  “Robyn?” Renegade said. “Is there any way her charges against Jason won’t go through?”

  Robyn had already pulled a hologram of a keyboard out and was furiously searching. Her eyebrows were knit together. “She has some clout,” Robyn finally admitted.

  “There must be another way,” Amanda said. “Is there any way to mess with the footage so the visual of Lily won’t show?”

  “They’ll be expecting that. Besides which, they’ll demand still photos from a photographer. And the people at the podium will see her.”

  “Can we turn it around? Show that Counselor Becker had something to do with this?” Renegade asked.

  “Maybe...we can show her jealousy.”

  “What do you mean?” Jason asked.

  “Let’s come out with a version of the truth. Lily was kidnapped and forced into an unnatural maturity. It was terrifying. We’ll tragically claim she may have been cheated out of years of her life, playing her up to be more of a victim. In the meantime, as an adult, she and Jason have fallen in love. Sherry now looks like a simple jealous shrew, her powerful status as Counselor smacked down to a vindictive ex-wife status.”

  “People may be appalled with how Jason went from her babysitter to lover thing,” Amanda said.

  “Then we make him a victim also but keep the focus Lily. We’ll never mention that she was kept mentally immature. As far as the world is concerned, she was robbed of her youth. Ten years of her life were stolen in the blink of an eye. Then Lily can sob about how she’s loved him forever and a day, and always knew he would be hers when she grew up. How that’s the one silver lining from her kidnapping. She may have lost her teen years, but she gained the love of her life.”

  “It could work,” Amanda said. “Especially since Jason has a secret about Sherry.” She pointedly turned to him.

  He stared at her, bewildered. “I can’t tell anyone that!” The Xeno Sapiens looked confused. “I’ll be sued if I reveal it,” he said. “There are privacy violation laws in place.”

  The Xeno Sapiens continued to look confused. Then Robyn’s eyes rounded. “Because she’s your ex-wife? She’s protected under...” she clicked a few buttons on her keyboard. “Marital law. Oh, no. I get it. Is she a rejuvenated doll?” A term used for those who defied age.

  He nodded.

  Robyn turned to the Xeno Sapiens to explain. “Rejuvenated dolls is a secret society of wealthy women who have suspended the aging process indefinitely. The oldest woman is a hundred and thirty-nine. She looks twenty-nine. It’s a highly controversial series of secret procedures. Even to this day, no one is quite sure how it’s done—how each woman is frozen in time.

  “There’s a law that covers certain things ex-spouses can and can’t reveal about each other. The size of one’s financial wealth. The fact that someone is a card-carrying member of the rejuvenated dolls program.”

  “A stupid law,” Amanda said. “She tricked Jason into marrying her. She made him think she was his age. Now he would get thrown in jail for revealing what she deliberately hid from him and stole from him.”

  “A law,” Robyn said slowly. “That’s it. There should be a law...in which a party must disclose certain privacy issues before a marriage can occur. A gender change. Or one’s age. Or the fact that they’re a member of the rejuvenated dolls.”

  “But there isn’t a law in place,” Jason said, confused. “And there wasn’t one when I married her.”

  “No. But we are suddenly going to push for a law to be enacted. We’ll be the strongest proponents of human rights. The world will suspect you’re pushing for it without revealing that’s why you divorced Sherry. You won’t be charged with violating her privacy. And her biggest secret is right there, splayed out for the world to see.”

  “And then she still files charges against Jason for keeping Lily away from Xenia?” Renegade said.

  Robyn shrugged. “It now shows diversion. She’s diverting the push by us to enact the law. It shows retaliation. It simply takes away her power.”

  “But we never stood behind a law of truth exposure,” Jason said.

  Robyn raised her eyebrows. “Didn’t we? I’m sure we did...months before we were rescued in fact. I seem to remember your office contacting mine. I’m sure if I”—she coughed—“hacked around, I could find the petition.”

  “But this will still call for Lily to go on display. The humans will be more scared than ever when they see what we can do.”

  “No. It’s not what we can do. The humans are going to be terrified when they see what was done to Lily. Because her aging process will be inexplicable. Lily was kidnapped, remember? And the rejuvenated dolls have inexplicable youth. We’re not going to say it, but people will assume that youth is stolen from people and given to the wealthy—to the dolls. Lily will be living proof. There will be an uproar. People will protect their children from going to any of the floating cities.”

  “Good goddess,” Amanda said. Her voice was incredulous. “You’re going to take down the entire society of dolls. Names could be revealed. Secret procedures, medications and black market transplants could come crashing. But in the meantime, people will be terrified that it’s some sort of youth-stealing magic that could happen to anyone.”

  “Sherry messed with one of ours.” Robyn was direct. “Two of ours. She sold out Lily—and she took everything Jason owned. Now, we’re taking it back. We’re taking down everything Sherry loves.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  Lily waited for complete silence before she spoke.

  She stood waiting on a raised platform, behind a wall of Jason’s people, the military guard he’d introduced to Xenia. She was dressed in a long, simple black dress with a black veil. Amanda said the color signified mourning and that was exactly the impression they were trying to convey. Lily was mourning her lost childhood.

  Pfft. Truth be told, she’d wanted to grow up. She didn’t want Jason to have to wait for her.

  The veil was annoying, covering her face and hair in black lace so intricate, only the green color of her hair peered through. She couldn’t wait to peel it back from her face so she could view the world normally again.

  Finally, her human wall of guards parted and one leaned forward, offering his arm to help her up to the podium. Even though she was a full-grown woman, she wasn’t much taller than she had been as a teen.

  She felt a natural, righteous anger roll through her. Perhaps her height had been unnaturally stunted by the experiments to make her age. For all she knew, she could have been a woman of five eight, or ten. Now she was forever stuck at five feet, two inches. And those two inches were a stretch.

  The microphone was adjusted by the same guard, dropped to a more suitable level for her height. Then he stepped away, leaving her alone and vulnerable. At least, she felt that way.

  “My name is Lily Xeno Sapien.” She paused, giving a moment while the cameras clicked wildly. “I feel I need to introduce myself because of my changed appearance. I’m not the same girl everyone remembers. I’ve stayed out of the public eye because of this.” She swept a hand down herself. Then, pausing for a moment, she grasped the edge of the veil, took a deep breath, and raised it over her head. The two guards standing on either side of her stepped in protectively, taking the edges and smoothing it behind her.

  Several people in the crowd gasped. The flashing of cameras flickered on and off.

  “When I was kidnapped, my captors forced my body into maturity. I remember pain, horror, and despair. I woke to find my youth stolen. My brief childhood, which I had been enjoying, gone in the blink of an eye.”

  “Lily, did you know who exactly?”

  “Is it the missing executives from Crested Ute?”

  “What did they put you through?”

  She held up her hand to pause the barrage of questions. “Most of the time I was kept drugged. But yes, I’m aware of all who were involved.” She leaned forward. “It was painful. Imagine someone forcing growth onto you. It is unnatural and unwanted and I will, unfortunately, have to deal with the consequences of the torture my entire life. But I ask that you look at the whole picture, not just my story. There was a reason for choosing me. That reason was that someone funded this project of horrors. Someone wanted me to be used for the experiment. I wasn’t taken because I was convenient. I was taken because I meant something to someone.”

  There was complete silence as everyone waited to hear more.

  “Hell hath no fury such as a woman scorned. And when someone’s husband rejects her, leaving her to fend for herself, this woman will do anything to destroy his life. It’s not enough to take his assets. His earnings. When he’s happiest getting away from you and establishing himself in Xenia, you still look for a way to pay him back. What better way than to take the child he loved?”

  Several reporters in the crowd looked at each other, knowing who she was speaking about but afraid to voice any names.

  “Jason Becker loved me from the first moment he saw me, a gangly, green-haired teenager crying because she saw herself in the mirror and couldn’t find her ears.” She snorted. “Crying. When so many other Xeno Sapiens had horrible transgressions done to them. But he protected me and taught me that I had inner strength just for being alive. He decided I didn’t need ears. He decided I’d pierce my nose. But he was also the biggest role model I had because as the adult, he had to be the one to say no when I wanted to pierce everywhere else—my belly button, my eyebrow, my lip, even my toes.” She paused, smiling as snickers rolled through the crowd. “’I’m furious that someone had the audacity to have a public hearing and suggest something inappropriate between us. Jason Becker is an honorable man, one who swore to protect the Xeno Sapiens. All of us. He followed through on that promise and rescued me, a teenage girl who was nothing but a pawn in this game of feminine vindictiveness. He didn’t have to. He knew hatred—he experienced the venom of his ex-wife. But he did anyway because it wasn’t fair to leave me as someone’s prisoner of war, a tortured experiment. I love Jason Becker with all my heart. I always have, as a child and now as a woman. And to his ex-wife Counselor Sherry Becker? I have one message for you.”