by Mj Fields
I wipe and flush. “Do you have to go?”
“You and I have to go find Oliver, I can pee later.”
As she pulls me behind her out of the bathroom, through the crowd back to where I left Oliver and he’s still standing there, but now with a drink in his hand looking over the crowd, I try to stop, but Stella is on a mission.
“I need to wash my hands!” I yell, hoping she’ll hear me.
She doesn’t. “Hey Oliver. Natasha needs a ride to Autumn’s. I’m not feeling well. Goodbye.”
“Stella!” I yell behind her, and I start to follow her when I feel his hand grab mine.
I look back and he finishes his drink while his eyes stare into mine. He sets the glass on the table beside us and then puts his hands on my hips. I lift mine to put them behind his neck, but he lets go of me and takes them, looking over me, not at me.
He lifts them both to his nose and inhales. I have no idea why, but I certainly can’t judge when I smell him every chance I get. When he puts one hand on his shoulder and holds the other still as he puts the one that’s free on my hip, I no longer feel chilled.
When he holds my hand up to his mouth and licks each finger, I feel heat resonate in my chest. When he sucks on it, I feel the sensation in my nipples, only felt because of cold before, not because of the heat burning through me.
“Oliver?”
“Aaron Esposito wants to fuck you,” he slurs. “Not on my goddamn watch. And fuck Autumn. You’re coming with me.”
Fifteen minutes later, I am freezing my ass off, teeth chattering, as I basically run behind him trying to keep up.
When we get to de la Porte, he passes it and walks into the alley to a door I’d never seen and punches in a code. I hear a click, he opens the door, and we walk into the building. At an elevator, he punches in another code and the doors slide open. He lets go of my hand and places his on the small of my back, guiding me in, before he gets on and pushes the button labeled P.
“The Ugly Truth elevator scene,” he slurs. “You don’t want to be kissed like that.”
Oh my god, I think as I push myself back into the corner, hoping he doesn’t look back at me.
“But if you want an elevator movie kiss, Fifty Shades is the one. Trust me, I Googled it.”
I clear my throat. “Haven’t seen the movie.”
“The rain scene kiss in Dear John, you’d get hypothermia with how easily your teeth start chattering. A hot shower would work better to play that scene out in.”
It’s too bad he didn’t start this on the streets, at least there would be oncoming traffic I could throw myself into.
“I Googled every fucking one of them, Natasha, all underwhelming.”
Or a window, I would definitely throw myself out of one of them right now.
He reaches his hand back. “Phone.”
“Why?”
“Because there’s no reception in here and if you turn the thing off, whoever you’re sharing your location with won’t know you’re here.”
“Shit,” I sigh.
“What?”
“My phone’s in my coat pocket, which is at the club.”
“Jesus fucking H,” he grumbles.
“I didn’t really have a chance to–”
“I’m not pissed at you. I’m pissed at this whole fucking situation. You shouldn’t be here.”
“No one knows I am,” I whisper.
The door opens to the penthouse, a place I have dreamed all my life of walking into, but I don’t see a damn thing when he grabs my hand and pulls me behind him.
I know the floors are marble because I hear my heels clicking on them, but I can’t be sure, it may be my heart beating fiercely against my chest.
I know the walls are pure white, unlike my intentions, and hopefully his.
I know we’re walking into a bedroom, and I know there’s a fireplace, because it’s glowing yellow.
When he stops at the foot of a king-size bed, he drops my hand, walks into the closet, pulls out a tee shirt, turns around and hands it to me. “The bathroom’s in there, go change.”
I stand there holding a tee shirt as he unbuttons his shirt while looking at me.
His body is a work of art.
“What do you want from me?” he asks and thankfully turns his back to me, giving me the courage I need to answer the question honestly.
“I want to know you, Oliver.” I step forward and touch his back and trace the weeping willow tree inked there to mask the raised scars on it. “I want to know what happened here.” He hisses as if my touch hurts him and stiffens. “I want to know how this happened.”
“It’s a weeping willow tree.” He clears his throat and continues, “Whenever I pissed him off, I had to go cut a piece of it from the front yard so he could whip me into a man.”
I place a kiss to his back and he groans, encouraging me to place more and more against it until tears fill my eyes and I move to his side.
I trace the gothic cross on his arm. “And this?”
“Salvation,” he groans as I kiss his bicep. “I couldn’t stand up to them. Not for me, not for all the fucking kids they beat. I wasn’t strong enough. I let them all down, when one phone call could have stopped it. Until Bass.”
“You were a kid, too, Oliver.” He tips his chin up and lets out a deep breath along with an almost sorrowful rumble.
I walk to the other side of him and run my hand up his arm. “And all of these?”
“All who were ever unprotected by me, I carry with me. Each symbol represents them.”
“And the words fear no evil?”
“Because I will never be afraid to do what’s right again. Regardless of how torturous it is.”
I lay my lips on each part of his ink and then stand in front of him, placing my hands on his chest. “And these?”
“Armor, built by the souls of my fallen brothers and sister in arms.”
“And these?” I trace the dogs sitting atop the face.
“The hounds of hell I released, and because of it they died.” He looks down at my lips. His hand cups the side of my cheek and his thumb rubs across my lip, my scar.
My God.
He leans down and I close my eyes and wait for the kiss I know I’ve been waiting for my entire life. When he kisses the top of my head and inhales, I run my hands down his chest and let them rest on his hips.
“I need to know how you fucking captured the scent of the ocean breeze and lavender scent that surrounds you.”
“Oliver.” I press my body against his and I lift my chin slowly, our eyes meet.
It surprises me when he steps back. He takes my hands from his hips and kisses the back of each before placing them on his chest.
“Kiss me,” I beg in a whisper.
He holds my hand and traces the angel wings on each dog. “These dogs were my father’s pride and joy, hunting dogs.” He lets go of my hands and turns his back to me. “He also used them to torment the only girl I ever thought I loved.”
I walk around him so he can see me, the girl I know he’s falling for, the girl who has already fallen for him.
He closes his eyes. “Oliver, look at me.”
“Every time I do, I see her.” His whispered words are filled with pain. “They scared her, bit her face, she has the same fucking scar as you do.”
He opens his eyes and I see pain, I see agony, I see everything I now know he has hidden from me every time we’re in the same room.
“When I look at you, I see Grace.”
Chapter Thirty-Two
Oliver
Monday morning I’m sitting behind my desk when the door flies open and crashes against the wall.
“Jesus Christ, Autumn.”
“I want you to know, I hate you.”
I look back down at the report on my computer screen. “Newsflash, you’re no actress, I’ve known that for some time.”
“Oh, I hate you to the depths of hell, you pig bastard.”
I look up at he
r and see the rage, but I’ve seen worse. I look back at my screen. “Okay.”
“Okay! Do you care to explain what I walked in on Saturday night? Natasha being there,” she points up to the ceiling. “Natasha, my Natasha, in that fuck pad?”
“I don’t care to explain a damn thing and for your information, I haven’t fucked anyone up there.” I point to the ceiling as I stand and walk around the desk to the door. “And you should be thanking me that I brought a drunk underage girl home from a bar instead of letting her go with that punk who would have taken advantage of her.”
“Pot, meet kettle.”
“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
The question is stupid, I know what she means, I was loaded.
“It means,” she walks toward me, “That you were fucking past lit, you were a blown bulb. When I came here to get her, you were lying face down like dead Bill the vampire. I tried to wake you, to have it out with you right there and you didn’t move, not one inch. Then Natasha begged me to leave you alone and she and I fought. We don’t fight!”
“She’s finally growing her own balls and might not need Auntie Autumn and Mommy to–”
I’m cut off when her hand connects with my face. And when I’m about to put her in her place, she begins to sob.
I fight the urge to console her, to tell her it’s fine, because it’s not.
When she looks up at me and her face starts to harden again, I hold up my hand. “As a devout feminist, I refuse to tell you that you hit like a girl. But you hit me again and I will.”
I’m shocked when she fists my shirt and begins to cry into it.
“She’s falling in love with an asshole.”
“I’m really not comfortable with this conversation.”
“Well, tough shit.” She shakes as she sniffs. “This is all your fault.”
I pat the top of her head. “Need I remind you the whole, hey, this is Natasha’s boyfriend, came out of your–”
“Shut the hell up.” She leans against me. “Just shut up, Oliver.”
Holy fucking shit, this woman is nuts, but hey, the heroine in this tale certainly has the ability to make us all that way.
“I don’t know if I want to hire a hit on you or give you a pat on the back for not touching her.”
I silently thank God that nothing happened.
“Well, you’ve already hit me so–”
“She was on the couch curled in a fetal position when I came in. Her face was stained with tears, Oliver.”
I don’t remember a thing after telling her she looked like Grace, her kissing my scars, and me pulling away from what I know would have been the best kiss I’d ever experienced, knowing I couldn’t resist her much longer. She covered her face with her hands as she sobbed. I felt like a part of me died, in order to give her a chance to live… to love.
She went to the bathroom and I paced waiting for her. When she came out, she crawled in my bed and I told her I’d take the couch. She begged me to just lay with her. Told me she had mistaken this, motioning between us, and wanted to forget it ever happened. She was on the verge of tears again and she had just regained her dignity, I couldn’t take it away, not again… not ever.
So, like every time she’d ever asked me a for fucking thing, I couldn’t tell her no.
“I hope you’re happy.” Autumn sniffs, bringing me back to the here and now.
“I never take joy in hurting someone,” I sigh.
“Could you at least act like you’re consoling me? Jesus, I can’t even go cry to my best friend.”
“Because this is as much your fault.”
“No shit, asshole.”
I wrap an arm around her and give her a squeeze. “Better?”
“Fuck you.”
“Well, you need to pull your balls out of the estrogen pot they’re soaking in, so we can sell this to the board, so they can make her shine as much as she deserves to.”
She looks up at me with hopeful eyes. “Do you love–”
“Jesus Christ, Autumn, really?”
She steps back and slaps away her tears. “Fine. Whatever. Stay away from her. I’ll fake a break up on FaceTime–”
“Contrary to what you believe, she’s capable of handling this herself.” I step further away from her. “And the more you and her mother keep coddling her, the more she’s going to lean on you, so for fuck’s sake, let her off the tit, for her own good.”
“Have I mentioned I hate you?”
“Yes, now go get to fucking work.”
The board at de la Porte watched a presentation of Natasha’s winter line. Each picture was met with an audible ooo, or ahhh, or gasp followed by a complimentary phrase. They gushed over it. Then a picture revealed a young girl sitting with a sketch pad on her lap in la Placard. The sound of shock filled the room. When the next slide revealed a young woman’s back holding a sketch pad in la Placard, the whispers began. And when the last, a front view of the same picture, came up and revealed… her, silence filled the room.
When Angela and Bass were prompted back onscreen to answer any questions, they were bombarded with them.
I took it as long as I could before I stood, abruptly, and then they begin pelting me with questions.
My voice shakes in anger when I shout over them, “Need I remind you who owns the majority in this company?”
Silence.
“Need I fucking remind you the man who designed the majority of this company, affording you designer clothes and filling your belly with food, and that still pads your pockets, is dead, and you’re still eating, because of them!” I point to the monitor.
“Need I remind you that this young woman has spent more time in that fucking closet than anyone in this room, possibly more than anyone in this building, and definitely more time in that closet than Jean himself, is the one your questioning?”
I start pacing, “You sons-of-a-bitches even know the name of Coco Chanel’s biggest rival?” Silence. “Well, she does. Because this,” I wave my hand at the photos on the screens surrounding the room of her designs brought to life. “Is what she has lived. This is where she escapes. This was all swimming around in her head when she could have been drowning in her own self-pity like you assholes are. This is what she loves. And,” I laugh maliciously. “She went to a high school with a focus on design, and is studying design in London, yet still you question her. You with your Ivy league degrees in what? Secretary fucking!”
I hear the words playing favorites mumbled and I am about to go over the table at one of the greasy well-fed fucks when Autumn stands and rushes in front of me.
“I agree wholeheartedly with what Mr. Josephs is saying and to whichever one of you thinks this has anything to do with favors or favoritism, I will tell you, these designs were fished out of a storage box by the man who knows the runway and the fashion world better than anyone in here. Bastien owns this company, he was entrusted with it by his father, and was offered millions by his father’s biggest rival to bury the name. He could have sat back and wiped his ass with Benjamins and you could have all been tossed aside.”
“They still can be,” I warn them.
“He,” Autumn interrupts me, “believes in the de la Porte name. He has a keen eye for class and elegance and a business degree. He believes in staying loyal to those who stay loyal to him, and–”
I interrupt, “He expects you to sell this to your contacts in the fashion world like your livelihood depends on it, because it fucking does.”
“It certainly does,” Bass adds and I look up and see him on the screen and I know he’s trying to control his temper. “And I don’t want to hear another word about it.”
“Unless it fails,” A smug voice quips. I whip my head around and see Courtright’s self-righteous face.
“Failure’s not a goddamned option, heart attack.”
“Okay, Oliver.” Autumn turns and pushes on my chest, trying not to laugh. “Chill out
“You son-of-a-bitch.” Courtright, w
ho in fact just recovered from a heart attack, starts to stand.
“And this is the reason he has so many exes,” a voice calls and I turn and see his son, Eric, walking in the room. “Father, Johnson is waiting to take you home, you still need to rest for recovery.”
“I’m fine. You’re just trying to take my place.”
“No, I’m just trying to make sure all eight of your kids continue to be fed.”
“I’m not playing games here, boy.” Courtright points a fat finger at his son.
Bass interjects via the video monitor, “And last I checked, I haven’t asked Eric to step down as your replacement, old man. So, you thank your son for picking up your slack and make your way out of the building before Oliver finds the quickest route.”
“Are you threatening me, son?”
“I’m not your son, old man, and fuck yes, I–”
Angela cuts him off, “No, he’s not. Oliver could call security and have you escorted.”
“Listen here, you–”
Bass cuts him off, “You speak to her in any way other than respectfully, and I will defy space and time to snatch all four of those fucking combed over hairs on that oddly shaped head of yours and drag you out myself.”
“And take the joy away from me?” I ask, trying not to laugh.
The room is radio silent when Courtright exits and I look up at the screen just as Natasha comes on it. Her eyes meet mine briefly and then find Autumn’s.
“Uh, hi everyone.” She clears her throat, then bites her lip, and closes her eyes briefly.
You’ve got this, Little Warrior, I think as I sit, trying to not look affected by her appearance, but I am.
“Um, this was supposed to be two way so I could answer any questions, but I think we’re having connection issues. So, I guess I’ll just say, I am… am...” She stops and closes her eyes.
Come on, Natasha, I silently root for her.
She smiles, shakes her head, and laughs, “I’m really glad this is happening here with you all and not during one of the interviews Mom and Bass already have lined up. I mean, you’re all kind of like family.”
