Ethan had it all – he was young, handsome, came from one of the wealthiest families in the quadrant – but he lacked a sense of purpose. Angry after a fight with his mother over the lack of direction in his life, he exceeds the recommended speed of his experimental air car and ends up in an accident leaving his face and body shattered.
After his release from the healing centre, Ethan sinks into a depression and decides to finish recuperating at the family vacation home on a distant moon. He spends far too much time brooding until the day the beautiful Bella makes an emergency landing on that same moon.
At first he’s loathe to reveal himself to her, but eventually they meet and she helps him recover both physically and, more importantly, emotionally. But Bella has a secret, one that will prevent them from having a life together. Now the race is on. Will Ethan find her before it’s too late, or will his heart be shattered?
It’s not quite finished yet, it needs a proper ending, and there’s one more scene that needs to take place a few chapters before that. This scene takes place after Ethan’s mother suggests he settle down and make something of himself. In response, Ethan throws a lavish party where he introduces a gold-digging fiancée. His mother does not stay long at the party.
Ethan was in a good mood, despite being slightly hungover, as he flew to his mother’s house the next day. His mother’s terse message that his presence was required promptly at the eleventh hour in her study was just part of the reason. Obviously his engagement had its desired effect, she was going to rescind her order that he get married and allow him to live his life as he chose.
The other reason for his good mood was the air car he was flying – it was a new, experimental model that he had used his own funds to invest in. The techs had warned him that there might still be a few bugs in it, but as far as he was concerned it was the sweetest thing he’d ever flown.
He noted the absence of Douglas’s land car without surprise. His mother wouldn’t want a witness to the rare occasion of having to back down from an argument. He made a mental note to take Douglas up in the C-47 –he’d change his brother’s mind about air cars versus land cars if it was the last thing he did. And the C-47 was just the air car to do it.
The air car touched down with a whisper and the canopy popped automatically. Ethan exited the craft and went into his mother’s house without pausing to knock – he was expected, so it wasn’t necessary.
He found his mother, as he expected, seated behind the big, natural wood desk in what had once been his father’s study. Now it was hers, and she ran the vast empire they had built together alone. Ethan almost felt a drop of compassion for her, and nearly regreted that they had been at logger heads so much over the past few months. Maybe all that would change after their talk.
He helped himself to the liquor set out on a serving cart and seated himself casually in the chair in front of his desk.“Well, mother. I’m here,” he said when she didn’t so much as look up at him.
“I can see that Ethan. Thank you for being on time.”
He could almost hear the unspoken, for a change, and frowned.
“In six month’s time I will be turning sixty years old. I find I’m beginning to grow tired, it is my desire to start passing the responsibilities of the empire to someone else.”
Ethan straightened up in his chair. Could she really be saying what he thought she was? Was she finally going to allow him to start making some of the major decisions of the company?
“You have until that time to prove to me that some of those responsibilities should go to you.”
“What?” Ethan was on his feet without realizing it.
“Sit down!” his mother barked.
Ethan sat.
“In the ten years since you expressed interest in the family business, what have you done?” She tapped a info pad and glanced down. “You’ve enjoyed living in one of the company’s apartments, rent free. You’ve had your choice of vehicles, again at the company’s expense. You’ve thrown parties, not to make contacts but for your own pleasure. And the expansions you’ve made have been to invest in the inventions and experiments of friends.”
“Some of them were good inventions, they made the company a profit,” Ethan mumbled.
“You have until my sixtieth birthday to prove to me and the board of directors that you are worthy of the Galliantro name and empire.”
“And if I don’t?” Ethan said numbly.
“If you don’t, then you will begin to pay your own way until such a time that you can prove yourself a useful, productive addition to the company.”
Ethan was on his feet again. “You can’t do that to me!”
“Of course I can,” his mother said calmly. “You know I would never make an idle threat.”
Fists clenched, Ethan spun on his heel and stalked out of the room, slamming the front door behind him as he left the house. Had he been able to see into his father’s study, he would have been shocked to see his mother sitting slumped in her chair, tears running down her face.
* ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ *
Pain. So much pain.
Ethan struggled to come fully awake but it was as though a great weight was holding him down.
Sirens, voices – too indistinct to make out individual words.
Movement, sending a fresh wave of agony through him. Ethan gave up the struggle to make sense of it all and let the darkness carry him away.
“Shouldn’t he be awake by now?”
Ethan started to swim out of the darkness, hearing his brother’s voice. I’m awake, he wanted to say, but his voice and his body wouldn’t obey his mental commands.
“Dr. Alexander said it should be any time now, but not to be worried if it takes longer than we expect.”
Mother, that was his mother’s voice. Why were his mother and brother both here? And why did they sound so worried.
“There! Did you see that?” Douglas asked, excitement in his voice.
“What?”
“I thought I saw his finger move.”
“I’ll call the nurse,” his mother said.
Nurse? Why would she need to call a nurse? Where was he?
There was a sound of movement, but before he could figure out what was happening, the pain hit again. Had he been able to, Ethan would have screamed.
“Ethan moved his finger.” His mother’s voice floated over top of the pain.
“It was probably just an involuntary nerve impulse,” a new voice said. There was a pause, then, “And no wonder. His pain blocker is wearing off. Just let me adjust this.”
Ethan felt a flood of warmth run through him, taking the excruciating pain with it.
“There, that should do it,” the strange woman’s voice said. “Dr. Alexander wants to keep him on pain blockers for another few days, to give the healing process a chance to get a good foothold, but then we’ll have to start weaning him off of them.”
“Is he going to be in a lot of pain?” Douglas asked.
“His injuries are very serious, he’s going to be a long time recovering.”
“Thank you nurse,” his mother said.
What injuries, Ethan wanted to ask. What’s happened to me? But he couldn’t break through the fog that was enveloping him. As he drifted off into the darkness again, the last thing he heard was his brother saying, “She never answered my question about the pain.”
