Jenna sat in the dining room with Scion. She was having dinner alone with him. Well, not completely alone. Sardius stood like a totem pole behind her while she sipped on a line of multi-flavored shot glasses Vash had prepared for her. Scion had asked to have the same dinner as Jenna, but it was obvious he regretted his choice immediately.
“You can order something else from my chef after we’ve had our talk. By that point, you may or may not feel like eating,” she said with an ironic little grin.
He nodded, more polite than anything as he downed a yellow drink that made his face twitch.
“I want to know your feelings,” she said, leaning forward in her black and white dress. “Do you want to be a diplomat?”
Scion had a good face. He was too young, much younger than anyone else Jenna had crowned. He didn’t seem anything like a crafty old goat when he spoke. “To be honest, I didn’t realize what a big deal this was before I came here. I thought it was a simple assignment with simple rules. I didn’t understand that my actions would have cosmic consequences.”
“Does that scare you?” Jenna taunted.
Scion wouldn’t be taunted. He flexed the muscle in his jaw and replied smoothly. “It doesn’t scare me, but it does worry me. No matter what my father said, I can see that I’m a person you never would have chosen for the post due to the other people you have chosen. Two doctors, a TV personality, and a person who was already a diplomat. I’m from the opposite end of the spectrum. I have a suspicion that this is a farewell dinner.”
“I didn’t treat Voguen to a farewell dinner,” Jenna pointed out. “I just put him on a pod. I am still open to the idea of crowning you, but we need to come to an agreement about a few things. Firstly, we need to control the media about you. So far, you’re very unpopular. Did you see the stats from when Celestina aired your interview?”
He shook his head in the negative.
Jenna didn’t pull any punches and explained. “You were unpopular, but you don’t need to worry about that. Rennett and Voguen were unpopular too.”
“Which one of us was the most unpopular?” he asked curiously.
“Rennett.”
“Yet, you sent Voguen home first.”
She took a swig from an orange shot glass. “Yes, well, my decision was not based entirely on what the popularity charts said. If I’m going to turn your image around, I need your cooperation. What I want from you is a particularly hilarious gag.”
“You want me to humiliate myself in front of trillions of TV viewers?” Scion asked with narrowed eyes.
“Not at all,” she said, waving her hand and his suggestion away. “Here’s what I want from you. When we go on TV together, you can say whatever you want about whatever you want, but no matter what, you must also say how much you adore me.”
Scion’s eyes went wide. “Excuse me?”
“Yes. You must always say how much you respect me and value my opinion. In exchange for this, I will do the same. No matter what jacked up, flat-out insane thing comes out of your mouth, I will repeatedly insist that we are the best of friends and we can always hang out, drink shots, tell each other what we think of each other and the night ends with us laughing. We must stress that we are besties. How does that sound?”
“It sounds crazy. No one will believe it.”
“Yes, they will,” Jenna affirmed. “We’ll make them believe it because we will never say anything else. You will say how welcoming I was to you and I will say how much I enjoy having you around. We will respect each other in public no matter what the other does. We will wear matching bracelets and pretend to kiss each other’s cheeks whenever we meet in public.”
“How does that work?” Scion asked, baffled. “I’ve never even seen that kind of a relationship in real life.”
“Air kisses. Mwa, mwa.” Jenna gave an example, kissing the air.
“No one will ever believe that came naturally to me,” he complained, touching the hair on his face like it had been there for less than twenty-four hours.
Jenna smiled at how wet he was. Maybe they could train him to do more than just give kisses. “Even if that seems like a reasonable answer to you, Ryatt assures me that no one will think it is unreasonable. Everyone who knows you will think it’s amazing that you get to be so close to me.”
Scion’s eyes almost reflected the scenario playing out in his mind. From the way the corners of his lips curled, Jenna thought she had him.
Jenna continued, “You don’t have to kiss me the way I just did it. You can do it your way. Maybe a hand kiss? You can also say that you changed when you met me because you’d never met anyone who lit a light inside you the way I did.”
“We don’t know each other,” he said, outlining the roadblocks that still existed in his head.
“We will never know each other if you can’t do as I instruct,” Jenna retorted. “Do you want to leave? If you say you’re opting out of the program and would rather not be an OA diplomat, I’m fine with that. Is that what you want?”
His face fell.
Jenna took that as an answer that he wanted to stay and went on. “You need the PR boost and I am the only diplomat willing to help you. If you can be grateful for what I’m willing to do for you, all of the good feelings we pretend to have in front of the cameras will one day become the truth.”
Scion leaned back in his chair and stared at her like she was a crazy woman. “You must need more from me than just that. What else?”
“You have to forgo having a personal assistant. For reasons that I can’t get into, personal assistants are incredibly hard to come by right now. I can’t get you one even if I trusted you to the moons of Octavia. You have to agree to go without. In exchange, you may have an extra person on staff who will act as a personal assistant for you.”
Scion clearly didn’t understand the difference in scope between a personal assistant who hung by your elbow with a tablet in their arms and someone like Ixy because he said immediately, “I can agree to that.”
Jenna went on listing her conditions. “You will not be allowed to receive packages from outer space. If your mommy wants to send you cookies she has to send her order to a company here on Octavia Prime and have them deliver them to you. Any package sent from outer space will be confiscated by the Octavian police in orbit, threat assessed, and then disposed of. No matter what is sent, you’ll never see it.”
Scion’s well-groomed eyebrows came together. “Does that mean they’ll fire it back into outer space?”
“That’s exactly what it means,” Ixy said in Jenna’s ear.
Jenna nodded for Scion’s benefit. “The last thing you’ll have to submit to is the recording of all your personal transmissions.”
“That’s insane!” Scion said, rising to his feet.
“Do calm yourself,” Jenna said, rolling an empty shot glass around in her hand. “This precaution has nothing to do with you. When I first got here, all my conversations were recorded and transcribed. It’s not about your allegiances. We want you to be here to represent your people, whether they are warmongers, or the AAMC, or whoever. That’s all fine. The issue here is that we need to protect our diplomats and if I crown you, that will include you. Capish?”
Scion slowly sat back down. “You were recorded?”
“Yes. Every move I made was watched, even when I was naked. Try to understand, the diplomats are the most important thing here. We need to open a channel of communication with the Octavians and if you are going to be a hindrance, I can send you home now. What do you say?”
“Can I speak to my father before I agree?”
“Yes, just so long as you understand that the call will be recorded.”
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