Page 42 of Frequency of Attraction

He didn’t reply. Quinn had conceived of this public relations scheme to rescue his reputation as the Partying Pilot. Vadim should be the one thanking her.

An hour later, he and Harv sat at the front of the circus-sized tent full of Victory residents struggling to cool themselves off. He spotted a woman using a diaper as a fan.

Quinn had a photographer wandering the periphery, a videographer arranged right in front of him and Harv and another one at the back of the tent. Apparently, they were live tweeting for their followers. Quinn’s marketing team, whom he hadn’t met before today, had mics ready to hand out to people with questions. Tate, standing to the side with the rest of his C-suite, sent him an encouraging smile. Vadim fought a sigh. Talking to people wasn’t one of his top five skills. But he’d do this for Quinn.

She kicked off the little event by thanking everyone for taking time out of their day to give OrbitAll’s astronauts,theirastronauts, a chance to tell their own story.

Some of the questions from the audience were to be expected. “What did you find most surprising about space?” was the first, and one only Harv could answer. “You can’t always see the stars. The sun comes into play up there, too, and you need good viewing conditions just like on Earth.”

“What’s the hardest part of being an astronaut?”

Vadim took that one. “Waiting.”

That garnered a laugh.

A little boy asked if he had to be a pilot to be an astronaut. “At OrbitAll you do,” Harv answered. “But not for NASA. You just need to be smart and healthy and ready to learn.”

“Why leave this Earth?” an elderly woman asked. “When God put us here where He wanted us?”

Vadim saw concern flick across Quinn’s face. Like they didn’t know better than to leave religion out of it.

He answered, “Maybe our ability to get there is a gift from God.” So maybe he would mention religion. “No one can appreciate the fragility of this planet and its gifts like someone who has viewed Earth from outside. I believe going up there gets us closer to God. To truth.”

The woman nodded, looking satisfied.

Another woman popped up then, one Vadim recognized. He smiled. Lisa, from the bar, in scrubs again like she was heading to work. She smiled back. “What’s with the tattoos?”

“Hey,” Harv interjected. “How come no one ever asks about my tattoo?” He held up a forearm, where one nautical tattoo had bled into his aging skin.

The audience tittered.

Vadim felt Quinn’s eyes on him. Vulnerability, she had said. “I grew up poor. My siblings and I didn’t think we’d ever leave our village. Each time I did, and everywhere I’ve been since, I mark the occasion.”

“Got a favorite?”

His mind went to Quinn’s new habit of tracing the stained-glass saints on his neck with her tongue and teeth. “The bridge in Toulouse. The first place I went outside of Russia. On my stomach, if you were wondering.”

Lisa sent him a wink, which Vadim returned.

Harv answered lots of questions about his five trips up. Vadim told them what he most looked forward to. People wanted to know if anyone famous had bought tickets already. A little girl asked how fast Stratos could fly. One grumpy man asked if he’d get extra lottery ticket entries as reparation for listening to the noise of their airstrip. Someone asked Harvey to describe being in space in one word. He chose “beautiful.”

“What would you be doing if you weren’t an astronaut?” a teenage boy asked them both.

“Sitting on a beach with a daiquiri,” Harv answered immediately. “T-minus one year until retirement for me.”

Vadim had been about to say he’d be flying still. That he belonged in the air. But the families with kids in the audience, toddlers crawling over their parents and standing on laps to see better, nudged at his heart. In Spain, his life had been work and women. He wasn’t so sure he wanted to go back to that. “I’ve never wanted to be anything else. No more backup plans for me.”

More questions came, more answers were given. Vadim actually enjoyed himself. He even opened up about Star City with some caution. People seemed fascinated by his training and theHunger Gamesedge to it all. More than one person asked if Vadim was dating anyone. Harv smoothed that over with more jokes. At the end, Quinn wore a wide smile. That was all Vadim cared about. Professionally. He only cared about making Quinn smile professionally.

Sharing her first orgasm didn’t affect him. Their evenings together didn’t have him thinking about her in new ways, like what she might look like in the morning or if she dreamt in French. If she liked kids. No, he only cared about making her happy in business. And since her orgasm situation was a professional arrangement and not a relationship, that counted as business.

Later that week, with a newly installed mirror on the ceiling above her, Quinn came on his tongue.

Consistency. Vadim cared about that, too.

21

The buzzing of Quinn’s phone pulled her out of a vivid dream about her Boston brownstone. She’d been redecorating in her sleep and, for some reason, had chosen a different color shag carpet for each room. She was sure that had to do with the stress of waiting for the private investigator to call with an update about Vadim’s daughter.

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