*
Khadrian Laltanca could not believe she and Roman Francon had managed to be in the same place, at the same time, for more than one night, for the first time in two months. She stared at his naked back as he lay face down beside her in bed. Over his torso, she could see the peaks of the Rocky Mountains in Colorado breaking through the horizon as snow sprinkled the frozen ground, and crystal snowflakes formed on the window. 'The best way to enjoy winter is indoors,' she thought slipping deeper beneath the down blanket, and closer to Roman's warm body.
Their relationship had begun exactly where prohibited, at a top secret international conference where they were not only representing different countries, but were also on opposite sides of the issue. Every time she had made a point in counterclaim to his delegation's argument, he would look at her from across the meeting table and grin. If his action had been a negotiating tactic designed to attract her attention, he had been right on track.
At the time, she was one of her country's top strategists, working behind the scenes to allow private companies to build technology infrastructure projects in other countries, without revealing the nation's research and development secrets. A diplomat and a lawyer, Kadie interacted with every interest group, balancing their demands against one another in search of a viable solution. Within the past year, the United Nations had asked her to take on the same role for the world, Commander of the U.N. Security Council Special Command for Cyber Security, the unit within the global security organization authorized to address and settle cross-border cyber conflicts. The U.N. role was her official post. But an obscure global group called The Alliance had solidified her professional future by reaching out, quietly as they always did, to place her among those who showed notable promise as unfaultable global leaders. Working outside official channels, The Alliance preferred to encourage people who had multiple ties to countries around the world, transitional language skills, and the ability to blend in among individuals as diverse as a medic in a refugee camp, or a donor at a ten-star charity dinner. The unseen organization was even more specifically impressed that she had independently built her skills, a natural was always an unfailing bet over the groomed. The naturals knew the life they wanted and pursued their objectives without regard to obstacles falling onto their paths. The groomed always needed a little handholding. Kadie had grown up on the flat dry lands of the upper Midwest, and worked her way through increasing levels of education, with one clear objective in mind, independence. She preferred to be her own boss, but if she had to answer to a higher ranked official, then that person had to be a broader thinker than she was, an individual from whom she could still learn. Kadie traded jobs when people failed to live up to her expectations, resigning was her way of not settling, of always extending to achieve more than the envisaged.
Roman knew the profile, and had noticed her attributes the moment he had seen her at the conference. Having studied the biographies of the participants, he had memorized her picture and resume. And once he saw her at work, he finalized his assessment. Kadie was intelligent, attentive, precise, fair, and fun, in his analysis, a female version of Roman Francon. But she was a natural, making her singularly more attractive on every level.
In contrast, Roman was the definition of the groomed, he had been born into The Alliance. His British father, Landon Francon founded one of the largest financial investment firms in the world, Francon Global, and he was The Alliance before the group was invented. Although the organization did not encourage nepotism, members did take recommendations from their own, and when Roman independently showed his promise, he was accepted into the organization soon after earning a commission with British Intelligence. Landon had married a Colombian hedge fund owner, Camilia Fernandez, who was richer than he was. They raised Roman and his five siblings, all over the world. But New York City was usually home, and the entrenched preparatory schools lining the U.S. Northeast coast were the setting for their education, at least part of the year. The rest of the time, they were learning in Europe or China or Colombia, living in the cultures and languages their parents determined were important for their future. The Francons did not shy away from relentless ambition. Landon and Camilia had no intention of allowing their offspring to fall into the middle class, or even upper middle class. They insisted the children fill their brains with knowledge, even while owning the technology allowing them to bypass memorization. They had to learn to construct with their hands, fluently translate, and solve mathematical equations without a computer. Roman had hated his parents' insistence on human brain-captured data and information, until he began to understand the life they were trying to maintain, and the separation that had come upon the world between those who paid attention, and those who did not.
In the five-star suite at the Silver Deer Lodge in Aspen the flames from the fireplace were down, but the room remained at a comfortable room temperature, 'probably too warm for Roman,' Kadie thought, pulling the blankets down to their waists. She was naked too, lying face up. As she rolled over on her side to run her fingers through Roman's hair, she caught a glimpse of his com, flashing. Grinning, she whispered, "Nice boy, you turned off the sound." But her contentment quickly faded, the com was persistently flashing, firing in red, and she of all people knew exactly the implications of the color of danger. Carefully she reached over him to pick-up the com from his side of the bed. Looking at the screen, she turned towards him with shrinking joy, and crawled on top of his body. She placed the com at his closed eyes, kissed his lips, and whispered into his ear, "Somebody wants you."