In Enemy Territory

by M. E. Clayton

  “Stupid drunk?” she asked. “Wow. I was just looking for a couple of drinks. We still have to be responsible adults in the morning, Fee. We need to limit stupid to Friday and Saturday nights, Chickee.”

  “Fine, I’ll reserve stupid for tomorrow, but I can meet you at Mercury’s in about twenty minutes.”

  “See you there.”

  I hung up and pulled my car away from the curb. I made the ten minute drive from my parents’ house to my house that sat pretty much on the other side of town. Plus it was closer to Fiona’s, which made life that much more convenient.

  Fiona’s is what used to be All Things Alice. After I finally graduated, Alice had asked me to stay on to-what she claimed was a favor, at the time-help her go over all her financials and get her prepared for retirement. So Alice let me stay in the apartment for the next two years-rent-free again- as we prepared for her retirement. Once she was all set, she announced she was selling All Things Alice and she really hoped I’d be interested.

  I had been shocked to say the least. And scared. This wonderful woman wanted me to take over her life’s work and she had faith in me that I could.

  That’s a lot of pressure on a person.

  I finally agreed and Fiona’s First Cup was born. I hadn’t wanted to change the name, but Alice would have none of it. She wanted me to have my own success and she’s the one who actually came up with the new café name.

  I was intimidated at first when we started phasing out Alice’s pastries. I was sure the business would go under without her signature deserts, but surprisingly enough, it didn’t. And I was able to convince Alice to come out of retirement once a month and so, the first Sunday of every month, Alice dropped of an array of her pastries and the stampede would commence.

  I’ve been the owner of Fiona’s for two years now and while it may not be a huge world changing successful business, it’s my business and it’s done very well for me.

  Now, if Alice asked me to mortgage everything I owned to help her out, I would. That woman has been more of a parent to me in the ten years that I’ve known her than my own have been all my life. There’s nothing I wouldn’t do for Alice because there’s nothing she hasn’t done for me.

  It’s a sad realization to know there is a difference between family and relatives. Alice and Vicky are my family, my real family.

  One boring Uber car ride later, I’m sitting at Mercury’s waiting on Vee. I’m hallway through my beer when I see a flurry of red making its way towards me.

  Vicky plops down on the barstool next to mine as she drops her purse on the bar top. “I know a guy who can get us new identities within the next 24 hours. Let’s kidnap Alice and leave this town and everyone in it.” She threw her hand up to wave down the bartender, Hector.

  I waited for her to place her order. “Do I get to pick my new name?”

  She scoffed. “Of course. I’m not going to let him saddle us with names like Gertrude or Willomena. We’ll pick sexy names like Chloe or Jessica. Alice can be Veronica.”

  “I like.” I took a drink of my beer. “Okay, rock, paper, scissors for who goes first.”

  I won.

  After ordering another beer, I went on to tell her everything that had happened at my parents. From the second I walked in to the second I walked out and took her call in my car. Her face conveyed her utter shock. “Holy fuck balls, Fee.”

  “I know.” I could only nod at her fuck balls assessment. “So what about you?”

  She shook her head. “After hearing all that, I just realized I’ve had a fantastic day. What are you going to do?”

  I shrugged my shoulder. “I love my parents, but they’re on their own.”

  Chapter 6

  Damien – Call me a bastard, but I’m a bastard with a plan.

  I stood in my new office looking out over the view that is San Francisco. It felt weird being back on the West Coast permanently. Or maybe it’s because there was nothing left holding me back from finally being able to finalize my life’s plan.

  Come Monday, G&C Industries, Inc. will be an official coast to coast financial powerhouse. While it had taken a lot of hard work to get us to where we are, it hadn’t been as hard as it could have been. Between Will’s and my Yale educations and family names, a lot of doors had been opened to us. And once I went after my father and destroyed everything he had built, let’s just say my reputation as a man who didn’t give fuck paved a lot of the rest of the way.

  The door to my new office opened and I turned to the voice of probably the only real friend I had in the world. “Hey, Dame, I see the design company did well in here, too”

  I looked around, but I didn’t see what Will saw. The room looked like an office. It was decorated in dark woods and brown fabrics. The only floor to ceiling glass window in the room faced the back of my desk, which was part of the matching set of bookshelves, end tables and small conference table that took up the left side of the office. Two matching arm chairs sat directly in front of my desk and there was a free standing bar in the right corner of the room. There was a door that led to a private restroom that I actually had designed into a small resting area. It contained a king sized bed, a closet full of business attire and small standing shower, alongside a toilet and sink area. I often worked around the clock, so I needed a place I could take power naps, if need be.

  The artwork adorning the walls meant nothing to me. I’m sure they were expensive and tasteful, but I didn’t really give a fuck. There was only one personal item of mine in this entire room and it’s a picture of a brown-haired, brown-eyed obsession that sat on top of my desk.

  “It’s an office, Will. As long as I can work in here, that’s all I give a damn about.”

  Being my friend for as long as he has, he wasn’t put off by my remark. He plopped himself down on one of the armchairs and looked up at me. “So you’re really going to do this, huh?”

  I simply nodded. He already knew the answer, so he really didn’t need confirmation. Maybe he was still hoping he could talk me out of it.

  William Creston had been my best friend since we were ten years old. If there is anyone on the planet who knows me well, it’s him. He’s also very aware of my sick, unreasonable obsession with a particular brunette.

  When we were 16, I found Dennis Franks kissing my Fiona at a party. I’ll never forget the blinding rage that had burned me from the inside out at the sight of another boy’s lips and hands on her body. I had ripped him off of her and had it not been for Will and Jake, I have no doubt I would have beaten Dennis to death.

  The next day Will had made a comment along the lines of what did I care if Dennis popped Fiona’s cherry and I had beaten him just as badly. Will had to miss school for a week. My parents had more money than a small country at the time, so I was sure his family was going to sue me for damages or make my parents buy my way out of jail, but Will had told his parents that he was riding drunk on an ATV and that’s how he ended up bruised and broken. I’m not sure if anyone believed him, but without anyone else to dispute his story, they had to let it drop.

  His first day back to school, I had jammed him up before football practice and asked him why did he lie for me. He said he knew I had a thing for her, he just never knew to what extent and that I was his friend and he was going to help me get over my obsession with her. From that day on he rarely left my side and he always made sure we were surrounded by girls. He spent a lot of years trying to help me overcome my compulsions, but around the time we were in our third year of college, he realized his efforts were all for naught. Nothing would cure me of my need for Fiona. Nothing. There was only ever that girl.

  I knew what I did to her on graduation night ruined her, but I couldn’t help myself. There was no way I was going to go off to college and leave some other sonofabitch to take her virginity. That was mine. She was mine. What she hadn’t known was that she hadn’t been the only virgin in her bed that night. I had played around with other girls, but I had never fucked one. My first time was
hers. Everything else in my life had been hers…that was no different. Hell, I was so out of my mind with my need for her, I hadn’t even put on the condom I had brought with me. I always knew how it was going to go down, but I still had planned to protect her. When I found out she hadn’t gotten pregnant from our encounter, I had been a little disappointed that I didn’t’ have an excuse to stay in touch with her.

  It wasn’t until my sophomore year in college that I had started fucking around. In a perfect world a person saves themselves for their one true love and there’s never anyone else.

  Well, my world wasn’t and isn’t perfect.

  I didn’t fuck at random though, and any girl I was with was either a blonde, red head or very light haired brunette and skinny; no curves. I never fucked a girl who had dark brown hair or dark brown eyes. I guess it was my fucked up way of being half-ass faithful in my obsession with Fiona. And I never fucked a female without a condom save for that one and only time with her.

  My life’s plan had always been to come back for her. Will knew this…even if he thought it was a bad idea. That’s how we came about having an East Coast home office and now a West Coast home office. Will and I were equal partners and he was going to be in charge of G&C East and I was going to oversee G&C West.

  I perched myself on the edge of my desk and crossed my arms over my chest. “I’m taking tomorrow off and heading down to Smithtown in the morning.” Luckily for me, Smithtown was only an hour’s drive southeast of San Francisco.

  “I wouldn’t be your best friend if I didn’t at least try to talk you out of this one last time, Dame.”

  I smirked. “I wouldn’t expect anything less.”

  “I know it’s been ten years, Dame, but there’s a very realistic chance that she still hates you.”

  “It doesn’t matter if she still hates me or not. She doesn’t get a choice in this, Will. She never did.”

  He stood up and walked over to the bar to pour himself a drink. I didn’t blame him. I can’t imagine how hard it is to know that your best friend and partner in business is fucking crazy. “Just do me a favor, okay? Before it gets to the point where you’re going to commit kidnapping and false imprisonment, call me first. Give me one last chance to save you and everything we’ve built. You know, as a courtesy.”

  My laugh wasn’t humorous at all, mostly because if things didn’t go as planned, kidnapping and false imprisonment weren’t necessarily off the table. “Fine. I promise to call before I flee the country with her.”

  Will grimaced. “Jesus, I wish I didn’t know you were serious.”

  It all started the first day of kindergarten. Fiona had walked into Miss Julie’s class and one look at her had me feeling things I couldn’t comprehend at the young age of five. There were a lot of feelings I didn’t understand at that age. And up until I had laid eyes on Fiona, the feelings I was mostly acquainted with were anger, sadness and helplessness.

  See, I had lived in a dollhouse growing up; a very rich, elegant, fake, perfectly imposturous dollhouse. If there was a candlestick out of place or a dinner not cooked to perfection, there was hell to pay, usually in the form of my father smacking my mother around. I can’t begin to explain what it does to a young male mind to grow up watching your father beat on your mother. You’re supposed to be growing up to become a man, but your only example of that is anything but.

  When I first saw Fiona walk into Miss Julie’s class with her shiny brown hair in identical curly ponytails and dressed in a pink shirt under blue overalls rolled up at the legs, I remember feeling like I was suffocating.

  I watched her run around making new friends and when I first heard her laugh, I just remember feeling such anger at her happiness. Sure, the other kids in class laughed and played, but none of them sounded like she did. None of them glowed like she did.

  The day she approached me offering to color with me was my undoing. I had avoided being close to her because she had made me feel strange, but when she stood in front of me that day and I looked into those hypnotizing chocolate orbs or hers, I had never felt so scared. She had made me feel like I was big enough and strong enough to run home and protect my mother from my father. She made me feel powerful and frightening. She had made me feel like all the scary, bad guys in movies; guys who killed anyone who got in their way. She had made me want to drag her behind me and let no one near her. Ever. Fiona had made me feel like the protector I knew I wasn’t at five years old.

  As the years went by, I had perfected the art of being Damien Sebastian Greystone III, perfect son to Grace and Damien Greystone II, straight A student and star athlete. The only variable in my life was Fiona. She was the only thing on the planet that made me feel or do things that weren’t part of the role that was my life. She made me feel…well, everything.

  I felt envy at her contentment with having just one friend. I felt disgusted that she was forced to wear secondhand clothes when she should have been draped in silks and satins. I felt shame every time she cowered at my bullying instead of rising in strength. I felt anger every time she gifted some asshole with one of her signature smiles. And I felt unbridled rage every time a guy mentioned her name.

  But as we got older…lust, lust is what I felt most when I looked at her. When we reached our puberty years, it’s a wonder I didn’t end up in juvenile hall for all the things I almost did. Fiona started filling out and being cruel to her was the only way I knew of to keep myself from hauling her off and just taking her. She grew into an hourglass figure and every goddamn day it seems as if her hair got shinier, her eyes got brighter, her skin got softer and her body got hotter.

  I lost count of how many faces I busted before kids at school finally got the message to not mention Fiona around me. I spent a better part of my high school years dancing back and forth between rage, lust and possessiveness.

  It’s a wonder I didn’t lose my fucking mind.

  Ten years later, I’m back to finally make her mine. A small part of me had hoped that once I had left for college and she was no longer in my face every day that I’d move on from her, but I didn’t. If anything, being away from her just drove me crazier. The need to get back to her is what drove me to work around the clock and get G&C to need a West Coast home base and now that I’m here, nothing is going to stop me from having Fiona.

  I took pity on Will. “It’s going to be fine, Will. I’m pretty certain she still hates me, but I’ve got a plan for that.”

  The corner of his lip lifted in disbelief. “Yeah, I just bet you do. I’m sure it’s foolproof too.”

  I reached for the glass of…well, I don’t know what…that he poured for me. “Have you ever considered that she may have feelings for me, as well?” I took a drink. Ahhh, whiskey.

  “I’m sure she feels all kinds of things for you, Dame. Rage, disgust, regret, anger, rage…”

  “You mentioned rage twice,” I pointed out.

  “It needs to be mentioned twice. You tormented that girl for 13 years, Dame. Count them…13.”

  “Yes, I did,” I agreed. “I’ll be the first to admit I was horrible to her, but why would a girl who I bullied and hurt for 13 years give me her virginity? She kissed me back that night I fucked Dennis up and she let me climb into her bedroom window the night of graduation and gave herself to me. Why would she do that if she didn’t feel something for me, Will?”

  And here came the reason we’d stayed friends for so long. “Oh, I don’t know, maybe because she was a young, dumb and horny teenager and you were available?” he suggested. “Young teenage boys do not have the market cornered on horniness. If we did, all girls would be virgins until their wedding night.” Will down the last of his drink before saying, “Don’t kid yourself into thinking that just because she didn’t have any boyfriends that she didn’t have any desires that she needed to be fulfilled.”

  My stomach lurched at his words. In my world she was with me because she had feelings for me, I wouldn’t have it any other way. “Be that as it may, it was stil
l me who had to wash her blood off my dick when I got home that night. I don’t care what her reasoning was back then. She still let me be her first.”

  “Jesus Christ, Damien. I didn’t need that visual.”

  “And I don’t need you trying to steer me down another path.” I finished my drink and placed the empty glass on my desk. “Everything I’ve done and everything I am right now has always led up to her. That’s why G&C is set up as unconventional as it is. If I crash and burn, you’ll still be protected financially,” I reminded him.

  Will narrowed his eyes at me. “I give two fucks about the money, Greystone. I’ve always had it and I know how to always make it. If I ever find myself on the street eating out of a paper bag, so be it. What I care about is your fucking sanity. You’re my best friend, dude. If this doesn’t work out, I fear for your sanity not our fucking money.”

  I’d hug him, but I’m not a bitch. “Duly noted.”

  I could see his chest rise and fall with the last of his advice. “Alright, I’m going to head back to New York and let you get on with your plan of pillaging and beheading.”

  “Thanks, I appreciate it.”

  He walked his way towards the door. “I’m only a call and a couple of thousands of miles away.” I just nodded because I knew he was serious.

  After he shut the door behind him, I walked around my desk and sat down the ridiculously expensive leather desk chair. I reached across the office phone and picked up the framed picture of Fiona I had sitting on my desk.

  It was one of the many pictures the PI I had on her had taken over the years. It was a picture of her working behind the counter the first day Fiona’s First Cup opened. It was a picture of the woman who held my entire life in her hands and she didn’t even know it.

  Chapter 7

  Fiona – The devil never really ever leaves you alone.

  The day was almost over, thank God! Normally I loved coming to work and doing what I do, but yesterday’s disaster with my parents still had me in a funk. Lost count of how many beers and a couple tequila shots later had done nothing to erase the incident from my mind.