Naomi ate her food, kept up her idle chit-chat. Her gaze would sometimes stray across the room, snag on the way Mel’s hand rested on Cole’s forearm. The softness of her smile as she looked at her husband. Naomi felt a brief pain, dulled by two years. Something like yearning, like relief. Naomi was not the woman she thought she would be when she married Cole. She was someone else. Not better, not worse. Different.

The waiters cleared the tables after the meal to ready the ballroom for the dancing. The guests clustered along the balcony, gazing out at the sunset over Avalon. Glasses of champagne, murmured conversation. Naomi slipped between it all, listening so she could report back to Valerie later. She sensed excitement, resentment. Many, she was sure, thought Valerie’s goal would crumble and they’d relish the fall. They’d still pretend to support her vision. They’d run the Earth right into the ground, shrug, and live up on a privately constructed space station, gazing down at the world below them and sigh “isn’t that a shame” before spearing another hors d’oeuvre and taking another glass of bubbly. She was annoyed at how much Hawthorne needed these sycophantic vultures to have a chance at their goal. To save everyone, not just the rich.

The glitzy attendees streamed back into the ballroom as the stringed music began. Naomi took her time, nursing her drink, a wallflower near the rose-coloured walls. People paired off, the women’s skirts belling as they swirled.

Cole and Mel danced, his hand on her waist. A night away from their child. Had they even been out since the baby’s birth? The sitter or nanny would almost certainly be staying overnight, so this might be their first uninterrupted night’s sleep in months. Or their first chance at privacy. She skittered away from that thought.

A year ago, seeing them would have ripped Naomi apart. Attraction still bloomed between her and Cole. It maybe always would. For all their faults, the physical connection had been one uncomplicated area of their marriage. When Cole met her eyes, she knew he felt it, too. She gave him a sardonic little salute, smirking when he was the one to look away first.

Valerie came over, bringing Naomi a new glass of champagne.

“Well done,” Naomi said. “They’re eating out of your hand.”

Valerie surveyed the ballroom and gave a long, satisfied exhale. “They are, aren’t they?”

By the end of the night, thanks to Valerie’s charm offensive, there would be another round of investment. Mission accomplished.

They clinked glasses.

CHAPTER SIX

32 Days After Launch

94 Days to Mars

217 Days to Cavendish

The greenhouse was both the heart and the stomach of the ship.