Especially if it worked out completely to Erik’s liking.

“Come in,” he called, moving to the table and pouring two glasses of merlot. He heard footsteps move into the room, but did not look up until both glasses were poured full. “I hope you enjoy red,” he said, placing the bottle back in its cradle and lifting a glass to his guest.

Tassa Kay accepted it with raised eyebrows and a shrugged nod.

The female MechWarrior was doubly attractive to Erik—and likely to most men, he assumed—being both a warrior and a beautiful one at that. While she tasted the wine he drank in her curled-back red hair and the arched slant to her eyebrows, green, inquisitive eyes, and her full, hard-bodied figure. Yes, this could go very well indeed.

“Not bad,” Tassa said, cradling her wine glass expertly in a cupped hand. “When your man asked for a meeting between us, he did not mention that it would be a social occasion.” Her smile did not quite touch her eyes. “I would have dressed more appropriately.”

Erik shrugged. “I see no problem with the way you are dressed.” Tassa’s everyday uniform usually consisted of a leather jacket with steel buckles, worn open, jeans, and a shirt of breathable cotton. This evening she wore dark gray jodhpurs and a black, collared blouse with red buttons up the front—like the bright warning markings on a poisonous snake or spider. Her earrings dangled a few inches below her lobes, flashing red-enameled spiders. They played up wonderfully the red highlights in her dark hair. Erik shrugged out of his uniform jacket and threw it over the back of a nearby chair. Lifting his own glass, he said, “To casual comfort.”

They both drank. The wine was a dry variety, tasting of blackberry and currant with the barest proper hint of charcoal. Erik breathed deep the heady fumes.

“Let’s sit, shall we?” He led her over to the open-plan living room, holding out one hand to seat her at the couch but properly taking his seat across from her in a deep-plush chair.

“You are an incredible warrior,” he told her. “Honestly, I doubt I’ve seen your like before, and I think it’s safe to say that without your help, the Republic militia would not still be functioning.”

“Well that is a lot to lay on a girl on your first date.” Tassa Kay sounded amused, though she did not exactly deny Erik’s compliment.

“You know it’s true. That’s how you managed to hold out against Colonel Blaire on that first day, knowing that he needed you and your Ryoken.” He sipped his wine. “It is a handsome design.”

Tassa’s smile turned down a few watts. “Which is why you wanted to confiscate it before the arrival of the Steel Wolves?” she asked.

Careful. Erik busied himself with a long taste from the glass, feeling the light smile curling at the edges of his mouth. “I believe it was Legate Stempres who originally tried to secure your machine, and obviously with good reason. If you had been working hand-in-glove with the Steel Wolves, I doubt we’d be sharing this wonderful wine right now.” A wary tightness around Tassa Kay’s eyes gave her away, as if she steadied herself from revealing anything. Erik grasped for what it might be, failed, and pursued his original proposal. “In fact, given your value to the local militia, I’m surprised that you have not renegotiated your original deal with Blaire.”

Tassa shrugged. “I gave my word on the matter. As, I believe, have you.”

“I can appreciate that.” Appreciate it, but never agree with it. “Still, if my reading of the regulations are correct, I concur with Raul Ortega’s original assessment in that you could demand a bond of somewhere in between twenty-one and twenty-four million Republic bills for the continued availability of your BattleMech and your skill.”

“You are very well informed about what went on inside the militia command post,” Tassa said, eyes narrowed.

“I am very well informed about everything—and everyone—on this world.” Erik could not sit still. He rose in a fluid motion and began to pace around his side of the room. “Everything, that is,” he said then, “except you. Who are you? Where do you come from? What are you doing here?”

She shrugged. “I thought men liked a touch of mystery in their lives.”

Erik laughed into his glass. “Sandovals prefer to keep the secrets, not have secrets kept from them.” He sipped carefully. “Although in this case, I might be willing to live with the mystery. Especially,” he said with a frank stare of interest, “if it were on my side of the line.”

Stretching back into the sofa’s comfortable embrace, Tassa kicked her feet up onto the glass-topped coffee table and lounged in a more relaxed posture. “I’m listening.”

Erik leaned over the back of his vacated chair, amber eyes staring unblinkingly at his guest. “Twenty-four million,” he said bluntly. “In Republic Stones or in a Federated Suns account. I’ll give you the deal that Colonel Blaire wouldn’t—a fully bonded contract for your services on Achernar, to be used for repair or replacement as necessary. And when you leave, you can keep ten… twenty percent of the balance for services rendered.”

Tassa considered it and Erik watched as her eyes blurred for a moment as she seemed to be looking back at something. She gazed down into the red pool swirling about in her glass. “You are very generous,” she finally said, and softly, barely more than a whisper.

Erik began to pace again, circling the room now in long, slow strides. “When it’s something I want, I don’t haggle over the price. I think you’re worth it, and I’m willing to pay.”

Tassa continued to stare into her wine. “Quite the compliment. You know. For a woman like me.”

“I never believed there were women like you, Tassa Kay.” Erik stopped behind her, reached down with one hand to trace the back of one finger along the warm curve of her ear, and across her flawless cheek. He heard her sharp intake of breath, felt the slight hitching tensions. Was she choking back sobs? Erik leaned down behind her. “We could be very good for each other, you and I,” he whispered.

That was when she finally started to laugh.

Not a nervous titter or an appreciative chuckle. No. Tassa threw her head back in a full-bodied, riotous laugh warm with her amusement and complete rejection. “Oh. My. You know, Erik, I thought I could hold a straight face through all of this. I really did. But it was too much.”

She rocked forward, slipping out from under his touch and coming to her feet with the grace of a hunting animal. “You are completely without any sense of honor or shame, except possibly where it impacts your public-relations campaign, and you’re a poor judge of character. You think you can buy me as one of your ‘Yes-my-lord’ people, both on and off the field? You are impetuous, self-centered, and, perhaps worst of all, impatient.

“Good for each other?” she scoffed, coming around the end of the couch at him. “I doubt I could trust you not to dampen your uniform the first time I whispered in your ear.”

Erik had known refusal, even defeat, in the past. But never—ever—had anyone torn into him in such a manner. His ears burned with an embarrassed flush, and his fingers felt numb with a kind of distant cold.

“That was a mistake,” he promised her, voice flat and dark.

Tassa looked ready to dash the rest of her wine into his face, then reconsidered, but not because she feared him. Her sorrowful glance made it clear that she wouldn’t waste good wine on him. She drained off the merlot, then tossed the fragile glass over one shoulder.

“I’ve made others in the past,” she said to the musical accompaniment of shattering crystal, “and I’ll make more in the future, I’m sure. But I’d rather make mistakes than have no idea what I am doing. You don’t, Erik, on or off the field.” She turned for the apartment’s foyer, dismissing him as easily as Erik might a servant in his uncle’s home.