Passion Model Read online

  “And you just happened to find out where I live. Who I really am.”

  “I didn’t just happen to. I searched for you.”

  He ran a hand through his hair. His face looked bleak, his cheeks scruffy and eyes red rimmed. “I don’t blame you for not wanting to be with me.”

  I took an involuntary step toward him. “How can you say that?”

  He pointed at his chest, and disgust twisted his face. “Now you know the truth. I’m mecho.”

  “Didn’t I tell you scars don’t bother me?” I tried to smile, though his attitude was making it tough. “Declan, I’m more surprised to learn you’re an Adar.”

  Now he finally looked at me for the first time since my arrival. “Gemma, I’m not proud of that, either.”

  I reached out a hand, but the way he stepped back made me drop it back to my side. “I wanted to meet you. I got caught up in a job. When I got to the park, you’d gone. I waited for you to contact me, but you didn’t. So I started looking for you.”

  He laughed, though he didn’t sound amused. “Sure you did. I waited four hours, until I got the holonote.”

  I hadn’t had time to send a note. “I didn’t…”

  Again, he didn’t wait for me to speak. “I should have died in that accident, but I didn’t. And when I finally decided to pick up the pieces and try to gain some semblance of a real life, I didn’t realize how hard it would be. People…they look at you differently if they know you’re mecho. You can be metal, you can be flesh. You can even be enhanced. But to be mecho is something else so completely different. It shouldn’t be, but it is.”

  At his words, hope stirred inside me. “I understand.”

  He fixed me with a glare. “You can’t possibly.”

  “Not about being part of the most powerful, wealthy and influential family in Newcity, no.” I tried to force him to meet my gaze, but his eyes skittered away from mine.

  He sat on the couch, face in his hands. “Gemma, the night I met you was the first time I’d slept with a woman since the accident. I’ve been out for over a year, but I’ve never gotten that close before. When you mistook me for a Pleasurebot, I figured it was some sort of irony. But then…”

  “Then what?” I prompted him.

  “Then I couldn’t stop thinking about you.”

  I sat next to him and put my hand on his shoulder. “I couldn’t stop thinking about you, either.”

  His back shook beneath my touch as he let out another series of humorless laughs. “I saw your face when you noticed my scars. I know how people feel about mechos. I don’t blame you for being disgusted.”

  Before I could tell him my own secret, he pushed away from me and began to pace the small room. When he finally whirled to face me, the look on his face made me cringe. “What I don’t understand is how you can do this to me?”

  He’d left me behind. “Do what? Try to find you? To explain why I missed you that night?”

  He lifted his chin and gave me a cold grin. “You had to do some pretty fancy research to figure out who I am. I’ve been damned careful.”

  “Not that careful,” I shot back. Now I was getting angry. I stood and met him eye to eye. “You’ve left viddy records of yourself all over the place. Anyone at all could’ve figured out who you are, and anyone with half a brain could have figured out you didn’t die in that accident. It doesn’t take a genius to put two and two together, Declan. Mecho technology is everywhere. Nobody talks about it because nobody wants to admit they’re prejudiced, that’s all.”

  “So what will it be?” he asked me, once again making me pause to think what he meant. “Money? I can get you that. Rank? I can help you there too.”

  “You think I want a price to keep my mouth shut?” My throat burned with the sting of bile as I fought not to be ill.

  “It’s why you came here, isn’t it?” He ran his hands through his hair again, giving me the cocky grin I hated and loved. “It’s just too good to be true, right? Caldyx Adar isn’t dead, he’s mecho. What do you want?”

  “I didn’t come here to blackmail you.” I kept my voice low to keep from screaming.

  “Why did you come here then, Gemma?” His voice went low too. Smooth. Cruel.

  I couldn’t tell him my reasons. Not now, after his accusation had clawed me to shreds. I shook my head. I refused to allow even one tear to slide down my cheek in front of him. His face blurred and I blinked rapidly to force away the tears. I kept my voice firm through force of will when I answered him.

  “I think you want to be discovered. Living out as a mecho is better than living as a prisoner.”

  “What do you know about it?” His sneer did me in. I couldn’t tell him anything, now.

  I spun on my heel to leave. “Goodbye, Declan.”

  Two secbots greeted me as the door closed behind me. “Egress denied.”

  I had no patience for protocol. “Get out of my way.”

  Their pincer grips snapped down on my wrists. “Egress denied. Your presence is required.”

  “By who?” I demanded, wisely not struggling in their impossible-to-break grip.

  Both bots replied in metallic unison: “Howard Adar.”

  I didn’t tell Howard Adar to kiss my ass, though I dearly wanted to. Instead, I stared back at him as steadily as he stared at me. Watching him watch me made my palms moist. Howard Adar wasn’t someone to mess with.

  He sucked the liquid nicotine from the flexible rubber tube at the end of his holocig. Clouds of holo smoke wreathed his features, turning him into sort of a monster. He thought he was being imposing. I thought he was merely showing his true colors. Monster he seemed and monster he was.

  “What sort of fool comes here, to my private abode, looking for my son?” he asked finally and put the holocig aside.

  “What sort of monster keeps his own son hidden away from everything just because he’s different?” I’d said the word. Monster. If it offended him, he gave no sign.

  “I’ve looked up your files, Gemma Ellen Trah. You of all people should know why Caldyx chose to remain in hiding.”

  I lifted my chin, unused to hearing my full name but not surprised he’d learned it. “Somehow I doubt he had much choice.”

  Howard lifted his hands in a mock-innocent gesture. “Every Newcitizen has a choice.”

  “He might as well have died in that accident, with the life you gave him.”

  “You speak of my son as though he were still a child.” Howard took another swig of his holocig. “Yet I know you’ve experienced him as a man.”

  The thought of the man in front of me witnessing the lovemaking Declan and I had shared made me sick. “You had him followed.”

  Howard laughed, the sound merry and genuine. “Of course. You don’t think I’d let him out there alone, do you? When what he is could cause such a scandal?”

  “You let him return to the world.” It became clear as Howard’s face contorted in bemusement. “You allowed it, but you had him followed, to stop him if…”

  “If he did something foolish?” Howard waved through the holosmoke. “Of course. Your profile didn’t lie about you, Gemma. You’re extremely smart. Tell me, sweet girl, were you always so brainy or did the computer chips the doctors slipped into your head help you out a little bit?”

  “I’m not ashamed of what I am.” Even as I bit out the words, I knew he sensed the lie in them. “It’s better than being dead.”

  “Not everyone would think so.” Howard slipped his finger over the bottom of his cig to seal it and put it down in a metal holder on the table next to him. “Caldyx didn’t.”

  “Then why allow him on the street at all?” I tossed the question at him, and he caught it neatly.

  “Because I love my son, Gemma Trah. Because I couldn’t stand to see him wasting away like he was.”

  “You could have sent him Offworld.”

  Howard made a tutting noise. “Offworld is for vacay or hard labor. Offworld is not for living. Not to mention that in the o