That flash of happiness showed again in her eyes. “You’ve done more difficult things when you really wanted to do them. Are you happy you got here so quickly?”
“Happy?” Geary sighed. “Tanya, when I walked in here and saw you, I swear for a moment there was no one else and nothing else in the universe. Just you. Are you happy to see me?”
“I—” Desjani bit off her words and started again. “If you read my message—”
“I already read it.”
“You already … It wasn’t supposed to …” Desjani looked annoyed now. “All right, then. Wasn’t I clear?”
“Not entirely, no, but I figured it out.” Even he knew that mentioning Rione’s role in the whole thing would be a very serious mistake. “I don’t need time to think it over. I know what I want. I just hope you still want it, too.”
Annoyance shaded into exasperation. “I am giving you every opportunity to rethink things.”
“Thank you. I have no need for those opportunities.”
Desjani leaned close, speaking in a whisper as Geary became aware of all of the eyes turning their way. “You’re not being fair to either of us. You haven’t had any time to really see the Alliance today. In a few months, things will have changed.”
“My mind and my heart won’t have changed.” Geary shook his head. “Tanya, I had a life before Grendel knocked me on a new course. I saw a lot of people then. And I’ve seen a lot of people now, even though almost all of them were in the fleet. There was no one like you a century ago, and there’s no one else like you now.”
“Do not patronize me, Captain Geary! I know how badly losing everything in your past hurt you!”
He spent a moment looking at her, vaguely aware that an increasing number of sailors had gathered facing away to form a protective wall between him and Desjani and the rest of the occupants of the waiting area, as well as the growing crowd outside. “It did hurt. I lost everything. But eventually I realized that I’d gained something, too. If I hadn’t come to this time, I wouldn’t have met you. Maybe that was always what was intended. It just took me a while to get here.”
Desjani stared at him. “You actually believe the living stars sent you to this time because I was here?”
“Why not? Oh, I was able to do a few things, important things, but I couldn’t have done them without the people I met here. And you have been and are by far the most important of those people to me. You give me the strength to do what I have to do. I told you that before, sort of, as best I could at the time. I can’t face this future without you, Tanya.”
She shook her head. “I think you are greatly overstating my importance to you, Captain Geary.”
“It is impossible to overstate your importance to me,” he replied in a low but forceful tone. “You don’t stand between me and my duty, you stand beside me, a strong and remarkable individual, and I swear everyone will know that.”
“You’re hopeless. Do you actually think anyone will listen?”
“I’ll keep saying it until everyone does. I’m sort of stubborn when I have to be, you know.”
“You don’t have to tell me that.” Desjani almost smiled, then turned serious again. “But there was much we couldn’t say, much we couldn’t tell each other.”
“I know. We can say it now. With honor. We can say the truth to each other.”
“And what is that, Captain Geary?”
“That I love you. I am certain of that.”
“You sought comfort during a difficult time,” she said.
“If all I’d wanted was comfort, there were easier ways of finding it.”
“I’m well aware of that. For a while, you did find it, in another woman’s arms.” Desjani’s eyes flashed with anger this time as she brought up Geary’s brief physical relationship with Rione.
He couldn’t very well deny it. “Yes, I did. It was a mistake. I never loved her. She never loved me.”
“And that’s supposed to make it all right that she shared your bed?”
“No. It doesn’t excuse it at all. I’m sorry I did that. The only excuse I can offer is that I had not yet realized how I felt about you. When I did so, it ended. I swear it.”
She gave him another aggravated look. “It would be easier to stay angry with you if you were less repentant and less honest. I’m not perfect, either. But it hurt me.”
“I know. I will never hurt you again.”
“Don’t make promises that no man, or woman, can hope to keep, Captain Geary.” Desjani shook her head. “I know who I am, and I have a pretty good idea of who you are. Even if we resolve every other issue, a relationship of you with me would be … Let’s just say it would be challenging.”
“I know it will be difficult at times,” Geary replied. “It already has been. Being in love with you, and unable to do or say a thing about it, was very hard. You may not believe this, but I don’t go seeking out ways to make my life miserable.”
Desjani’s gaze on him sharpened, her mouth set in tight lines. “Loving me makes you miserable?”
“It did when I couldn’t do anything or say anything.” Geary waved his hands in frustration. “I can’t say this right. I’m bad at this sort of thing. I’m pretty good at commanding a fleet, I guess, but I’m not nearly as good with women.”
“Really?”
“Yes, really.” Was she still angry, or was she actually making fun of him?
“Have you thought it through?” she demanded. “Believe me, I have. For the moment, we are both captains, but only for the moment. You know the Alliance will promote you back to admiral immediately. The message alerting you to your promotion has probably already been sent.”
“Probably. I haven’t read it though.”
“How long do you think you can go without reading your message traffic? Captains can date each other. Captains can be involved with each other, as long as they’re not in the same chain of command. Admirals and captains cannot engage in personal relationships.” Desjani closed her eyes, her expression hardening. “I will not be your secret, or not-so-secret, mistress.”
“I would never ask that of you. I didn’t and I won’t.”
“But what alternative is there?” she demanded, fixing her eyes on Geary again. “You’re probably already an admiral again.”
He couldn’t argue with that. “I guess that means we’ll have to work quickly, before I have to read any messages or talk to anyone who knows. There’s one way I can prove that I want to be with you and only you, and one way an admiral and a captain can have a personal relationship, and that’s if we’re married before I’m promoted. Before I know I’ve been promoted.”
Desjani seemed to stiffen, then spoke slowly. “Married?”
“Yes. Will you? I mean it. I swear I’ve never meant anything as much as I do this.”
“You’re proposing to me? On a public passenger dock?”
“Um … yes. I’m sorry I couldn’t arrange a better location.”
Desjani looked away, uncharacteristically flustered, her expression once again very hard for Geary to read. “And if I say no? If I tell you firmly, captain to captain, woman to man, that I do not want that, and I do not want you that way, what will you do?”
It was Geary’s turn to just look at her for a long moment. Had he misread every emotion he had thought he had seen in her? “Then I will ask you to reconsider, I will ask you to listen to how I feel, but if you are indeed firm in those feelings, then I must respect them. I’ll treat you from then on as a fellow professional and never raise the subject again.”
“I’m about to leave on that ship. We have only minutes left. You wouldn’t order me to stay? Order me to listen?”
He felt a vacant sensation inside, as if a tiny black hole had appeared at the core of his being and was devouring everything, but he shook his head. It might cost him the most important thing he had left in this universe, but he had to say the truth, had to answer the question without any pretense or shadings. He could not lie to her. “No, Tanya. If you truly wish to go, then go. I have no authority over your person, over your choices, nor would I ever have such authority. If you don’t believe that I’ve given you back your honor yet, I do so now, with no strings attached. You’re the captain of your soul as much as you are captain of Dauntless, but they’re different things. I can give orders to one but never to the other. I know that.”