Page 156 of Stars on Fire

The server grinned back. ‘What can I do for you, love?’

‘I don’t know when I’ll next be back,’ Harlow hedged her bets. ‘But would the kitchen be so sweet and make me a bag to go? Please? I’ll take the triple chocolate yuzu sorbet and coconut ice cake. Plus an extra large serve of super spicy potato curls with extra garlic butter slathered all over them if you can spare them.’

Fifteen minutes later, she’d paid, added a generous tip for her fave new wait person and strolled out of House M’Osia Axuma swinging her to-go-dinner bag. They’d even thrown a free mango, Curacao orange and fresh apple mocktail into the mix.Angels.

For a moment, she contemplated taking a fly-cab home. But her apartment was just a twenty-minute walk away. So she figured a stroll on such a lovely evening would do her a world of good.

It’d help clear her head of the idiot she’d just dumped to the curb. Perhaps give her some perspective for her life journey moving forward, for Harlow was DONE. She was DONE with men and their drama.

Ziemer had been the last straw.

He was 8th, no, 9th in a string of sorry-ass, self-obsessed jackasses who’d failed her in the last few years. She’d given them all a chance to redeem themselves. But, instead, they’d lied, cheated, manipulated, ghosted, gaslit, placed her on a pedestal, and ceremoniously thrown her off it.

One had even tried to slug her physically when she’d turned him down for a hookup, which he’d rage demanded in a play to sound dominant. All within the first 20 minutes of meeting him. The entitled sex maniac had lost a few teeth and sported a broken nose for weeks. Tonight, Ziemer had been lucky to escape with just a tongue-lashing, especially after his butt-tap attempt.

Being a busy woman with a purposeful career, staff to manage and contracts to complete meant she’d not freaked out yet about the lack of a great man in her life. Yet she wondered if she’d be one of those women who’d never find a connection with a man who was her peer, who challenged her, made her panties wet and shared her slightly-nerdy interests.

She’d tried dating men outside her profession but had found most somewhat lacking in the intellectual department. She’d given her colleagues in the science world a red hot go and got disappointed. Most reminded her too much of her sperm donor; snobbish, overbearing and interested only in nubile, foolish lovers whom they could easily manipulate.

She’d then opened her experience to dating entrepreneurs like Ziemer, only to be talked down to or ignored.

However, she knew the type of man wasn’t the genuine issue. The challenge lay with her and her alone.

It had taken years of therapy to discover that Harlow was attracted to the same loser personalities as her chromosome contributor. Men who wanted to dominate and control her.

It seemed she could never throw off the ghost of her past emotional and psychological abuse, and each time she was disappointed by men, she felt the familiar rush of failure bear upon her. The disappointment that her sperm donor had tried to beat out of her for years.

Her therapist was right. At her last session, she’d encouraged Harlow to take a few months off dating. She’d even suggested an entire year away from it. Harlow agreed. She needed more work on herself to shake off her past.

Starting with tonight. Having tossed Ziemer out of her life, Harlow felt surprisingly free of the burden of trying to be with another man who didn’t accept or respect her for who she was. At least she now recognised the red flags when they started waving their sorry little signs around.

Twelve months sounded reasonable on the grand scale for her to dedicate to her transformation. Right then, Harlow Meridien made up her mind to be free and single for a year. To get her head screwed back on straight.

Her decision felt right. Even Lake Axuma agreed, blowing the most gentle of sweet breezes onto Harlow’s face.

She strolled along the lake’s edge, sipping her fresh juice and dipping a hand every so often into her to-go bag to nab one more delicious garlicky buttery curl.

The warm air, the lap of the lake’s tiny waves - and the sounds of children playing on the water’s edge as they enjoyed a balmy summer evening - was everything.

Life could not get better than this.

The air was soft and satiny. Pillowy clouds chased stars across the evening Dunian sky. Eden II sparkled like a jewel above.

Harlow meandered past trendy lakefront restaurants filled with lovebirds and spilling over with friends soaking in the summer vibes. It was hard to imagine that the chaos of a coup lay just beyond the minor city’s dome.

Her mind strayed, as did her feet, until she felt a tingling at the back of her neck.Were those eyes on her?Nothing was distinctive, just a nagging feeling that someone was watching her.

She flung a narrowed look to her left. There was no one close. She walked on but couldn’t shake the feeling someone was trailing her. Once, she feinted a stone in her shoe so she could look behind her. Besides the regular evening traffic along the scenic promenade along Lake Axuma, there didn’t seem to be any standout ‘stalker’ near her.

She returned to her food and stroll, lulled by the beauty of a warm summer night. Soon she drew up to the steps leading to her apartment block.

The Lakeside Springs development was reasonably new, within walking distance of local shops, parks, cafes, the maglev train and an abundance of local amenities. It was also just across from her work lab. Best of all, Harlow loved waking up in her tranquil home with its private courtyard overlooking the lake and expansive forest views.

She was just about to swipe her wrist comm over the security pad when she paused. She took a long breath and pointed turned her eyes to what looked like the empty wall beyond the entrance doorway.

‘Who the heck are you? And why are you following me?’

Kage

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