Keeping calm was Meri’s life, making others feel it was her job. Loving a Negotiator was her destiny.

Meribeth has been the assistant to a few Alliance personnel, but Negotiator Kao is her latest boss. At his insistence, she had gills installed to enable her to accompany him on wet assignments, but his ulterior motive was not clear until he is out of the armour and his own body is finally exposed.

Vehn Kao has spent years encased in armour as a Negotiator, but the moment he comes out and sees Meribeth with his own eyes he knows that she is everything that he has ever wanted in a woman. She is intelligent, witty, attractive and has a tremendous passion just below the surface that he wants to bring out in an explosive release.

Meri wants to be good at her job and Vehn want to take her calm and shake her up.

Excerpt:

Meribeth was sitting alone in the dining hall and poking at her salad. What had been a calm acquaintance had turned into a twisting morass of conflicting emotions. He was angry with her, curt, and she could swear that he was glaring at her behind the shield of his faceplate.

She didn’t know what to do. Meri was running out of time as his assistant, and he wasn’t helping her to look for her next position like her previous employers had. Her talent was so peculiar that it was hard to quantify. Keeping folks calm was usually a by-product of a projecting empath. Meri was a one-trick pony, and she knew it.

“You aren’t eating.” Kao sat next to her at the table.

“I don’t have much appetite when my mind is spinning.”

“You haven’t eaten for days.”

“You seem to enjoy it when I eat, so I have decided that it is a gift I will not offer you.” Meri pushed her food aside.

“Your colour is pale. Are you tired?”

His concern set off warm flutters in her belly, but she knew that his emotions could rotate without warning, so she said quietly, “I am fine.”

He shifted in his seat. “I…I mean would you…I am being decanted this afternoon and I wish for you to be there.”

Meri sat up and stared at him. “What?”

“I went in alone. I would like someone to be there when I come out. Will you?” He did something she had never heard him do. He cleared his throat, though the vocalization was translated by his suit’s systems.

She sighed. “Of course I would. When is it happening?”

He turned his head, and she saw the medical specialists gathered in the doorway to the dining hall.

“It is happening now. I made them wait to see if you would come with me.”

She smiled weakly. “Well, then, we had best not keep them waiting.”

Meri got to her feet, and Kao stood next to her. She heard his whisper as they walked and almost tripped over her own feet. For the next two hours she would wonder if she really heard what she thought she heard.