The Future Chosen [was Anti-Dynasty/Extraordinary]

Broken Chapter 12

They were late, but he didn't care.

The thing about Lourdes's regimented schedule was that at any given time, there would have been at least three parties who were aware of her location. The family was paying for the "nurse," not knowing that he had infiltrated that particular area. They had their usual security, but even those guys couldn't access all parts of the hospital compound. Callemara was known for its in-house privacy measures and it wasn't unusual that a "patient" went dark and inaccessible to their own bodyguards.

Still, this was pushing it.

But the conversation was too important.

He knew too much about Santiago Castel as it was. He was in the news lately, something about his family's company creating a more efficient kind of car. He had his own public relations agenda, and he liked branding himself as "the future" of things. When, too soon after Lourdes called it off with Andres, Santiago's PR was publishing news of them as the "power couple," Andres wished more than once to give that guy a black eye, in the present.

So apparently they really were in a relationship. He was hoping it was a staged one, but she admitted that she did treat it like a relationship, except one that she didn't choose for herself.

"Do you love him?"

She rolled her eyes. "You wait until I get to ask you that question. He's...he's fine. It's not the worst choice if I had to marry someone."

"He's making himself rich and famous off the names and work of other people."

"That's what we do too. That's what everyone does."

Andres was getting a headache. He'd just made his best memory of anything atop a kitchen counter, and now he was getting the worst headache. "What exactly are you saying, Lourdes?"

She frowned, and turned away from him, her legs pulling the rest of the blanket they'd been sharing to her side. He caught the fabric and yanked it gently, back closer, hoping it kept her on the bed.

"We're talking about this," he said.

Lourdes was biting her lip. "I don't love him. But I can marry him if they need me to."

"You don't have to marry anyone."

"You don't have to go to parties with your beautiful girlfriend, but you do."

Another thing that people who weren't like them couldn't understand; how they could fight like adults and kids, at the same time. They were expected to know better, but their tempers weren't as advanced.

"It's different with Zamara," he told her.

"Really? How? Does your tongue go to the right when you stick it in her mouth, and not the left?"

"You're hot when you're jealous."

She groaned.

"Zamara is...she's a friend. She knows what this is. Her family isn't invested in this. She has her own career."

Lourdes was beginning to get it. "But she...she has to care about you. Doesn't she?"

"I think she does, and I'm still an ass for doing this to her. But it's not the same, not like what your family has in mind with the Castels. They're not going to let you go."

"I know." She sighed. "My family is announcing our engagement when I get back."

His headache became, officially, a pounding. "The hell."

"Something about my viability as a candidate now under question. Am I too much of a risk, am I even healthy. They want to send a message that I'm back and the scare tactics didn't work."

"They'll do this how?"

"Probably a big party. Or a press conference. Or both. It'll happen whether or not I want it to, Andres, you know that. I only get to decide if I smile for the photos or not."

She could be the most powerful person in the country, in the future, and this was how she was being treated now.

"I don't know how long you can fight for this," she said, "but the eyes on me will double. Triple. I don't know how we can keep this up outside. Don't you have the problem with your city council also?"

He was taken aback. "What do you know?"

She blinked. "I guessed. Your city's filled up and they're all going for re-election. Who are you bumping off now that you've decided to change strategy?"

Andres couldn't help but shake his head, not that it made the pounding ease. The messages that were coming into his phone, from his "team", his family, they were all about that. While they thought he was at Emil's place partying like a young bachelor, they were making deals in the home district, making sure the path was clear for when he stepped up to run.

Lourdes placed a hand on his arm, felt his bicep. "You're not as invisible as you think you are. You're not going to be able to sneak around like this when we're home."

When we're home. It sounded like a threat, a place that was unwelcome. He refused to believe that home was no longer where he wanted to be, and that the closest thing he could get to it was stolen time in a house no one ever lived in.

But how.