Alien Diplomacy Read Online Free

either, though.”
    “Oh. I don’t like him.”
    “Why not? Has he been a jerk like the people we just left?”
    “No. He just…he makes me nervous. He’s always watching us.”
    I turned around. Buchanan was indeed watching us. He didn’t seem fazed by the fact that I was looking back at him. In fact, he winked. I felt my cheeks get hot.
    I turned around, and we kept moving while I worked to stop blushing like an idiot. These days I wasn’t used to anyone but my husband making me blush.
    We walked on and reached the parking lot Eugene used in a couple of minutes. He drove himself. I would have, but the A-Cs were against it for a variety of reasons, the biggest being that A-C reflexes were so fast that they couldn’t actually drive, fly, or use other human machinery safely.
    I wasn’t an A-C, despite the lovely parting gifts that having our daughter, Jamie, had given me. We’d done the mother and child feedback thing, and since her daddy was a mutated alien thanks to some of our many enemies, Jamie had shared some mutated alien genes with me. I could still drive and fly. But as the Co-Chief of Mission, no one wanted me to.
    I was used to it. When I’d been the head of Airborne for Centaurion Division, Tim Crawford had been my driver. Tim had my old job now, and, from what he told me, he was having a great time. It wouldn’t be hard to have more fun than I was having, I had to admit.
    Of course, we hadn’t found a human driver I clicked with yet. And since I was already miserable, Jeff was going out of his way to try to find someone, anyone, to make me a little happier about our major job changes and their required location. So far, not a lot of luck, but then again, there was only one Tim, and he was busy saving the day and kicking evil butt.
    Normally Eugene dropped me off at the A-C Embassy. I got to avoid upsetting the latest human operative who’d been given Driving Miss Kitty duty, and it gave us more time together withoutanyone else telling us we sucked. But today there was a gray limo at the curb, parked, with the motor idling.
    A big, tall, droolingly handsome man with rather broad features and dark brown eyes under a great head of dark, wavy hair was leaning against the side of the car. He was in a black Armani suit, crisp white shirt, and black tie, with a black overcoat on. He gave me a wide smile.
    I ran and jumped into his arms. Jeff pulled me to him and kissed me. As always, his kiss was amazing, and it washed away any thoughts about my inadequacy, the horrible high school reenactment we’d just gone through, or other men. As also always, my thoughts instead happily turned to getting our clothes off as soon as possible.
    He ended the kiss slowly, eyes smoldering. “How’re you doing, baby?”
    I sighed. “Much better now. What brings you here?”
    He shook his head. “The two of you are giving off suicide-level depression,” he said in a low voice Eugene was unlikely to hear. In addition to his other talents and with the assist from some drugs he’d been unwittingly given by those aforementioned enemies, Jeff was the strongest empath in, most likely, the universe. He always monitored me, and, again due to the mutation said drugs had caused, he could read much of my mind. He’d started monitoring Eugene, too, because Eugene was with me when no one else Jeff trusted was.
    Jeff kept one arm around me and put his other hand out to Eugene, who was politely waiting nearby. “How’s it going?”
    Eugene shook Jeff’s hand. “It’s going as well as it ever does.”
    “That bad, huh?” Jeff shook his head again. “You two can’t be doing that poorly.”
    “We suck. We’re trying hard not to care, but it’s true. And Lockwood wants to disavow all knowledge of us at the President’s Ball. Do we have to go?”
    “Yes,” Jeff said firmly. “Both of you.” He gave Eugene a commiserating smile. “It could be worse.”
    “How?” Eugene asked. “I certainly don’t want to humiliate