by Naomi West
And Pierce had never been so content.
Chapter Nineteen
Felice
After another day of preparation, they ran out of time for more lessons. The night of the Gala came up on them quickly, making Felice shake with nerves. She quizzed her quiet bodyguard over and over again, making sure he remembered all of their rushed lessons.
The Gala came up on them, and before Felice knew it, then two of them were dressed and at the Foundation Building, ready for a long night of dancing.
Felice fluttered her eyelashes at another of the older gentlemen who bowed her way. While everyone was dressed in formal attire for the Gala, it was the older generation that really got into it. They kissed the ladies’ hands and curtsied or bowed to one another, like actors in an old-fashioned play. Felice liked the harmless flirting of the old men, not only because it made her feel beautiful, but also because of the half-serious, jealous looks that Pierce kept shooting their way.
With all of his tattoos covered and his sexy, muscled body wrapped in a very expensive and excellently-fitted set of tails, Pierce actually looked like he belonged here. He bowed and winked at the women, shaking hands with wealthy businessmen from all over the city like he belonged there. And Felice got to hang on his beefy arm like a jewel for everyone to admire. Men and women eyed them longingly from every corner of the ballroom, and Felice drank it in, her head reeling like she’d down half a bottle of Cabernet Sauvignon.
Felice was happier than she’d ever been at one of these events, and she knew it had nothing to do with her new glittering dress, the absence of her mother, or the glass of wine she’d drunk on the way over in the limo; no, it had everything to do with her date.
She’d always gone with her brother to these types of events until she’d met Clay, then she’d gone with him. They were always dull partners, never wanting to chat about anything interesting or dance.
But Pierce was game for nearly anything, from nearly charming the pants off of every woman in the room to having polite discussions with the men. He was delightful, attentive, and pleasantly possessive throughout the evening, and Felice was aglow with the feeling it gave her. They had dressed up, she was going to pretend that Pierce actually belonged in her world. It made her happy to see him mingle so effortlessly.
“Of course, if the world continues to insist getting its news from social media and pseudo-news websites, we’re going to continue to have a problem,” Pierce said, his beautifully carved face intent and smiling. If he was even a touch nervous, he didn’t show an ounce of it.
“Here, here!” an older gentlemen, Baron Roderick, agreed. “Whatever happened to people reading the newspaper?”
Felice nearly rolled her eyes at Baron. Who on earth read the news from a paper anymore? The idea was positively medieval. But she smiled at him instead, blinking her huge, emerald eyes at him. “I can’t stand the smell of newspapers,” she answered after a moment’s pause. “My iPad doesn’t smell like it just came out of a press.” She giggled a little, playing up her silliness to take the edge off of the comment.
“I suppose you’re right, my dear,” Baron admitted, his wrinkled face glowing from a smile. “Did I hear right that they are auctioning off a real Jasper Johns painting from the 1950s?”
Felice smiled again, wrapping her arms closer around Pierce’s arm. She glanced up at him for just a second, to fill her eyes with the sight of him. He smiled down at her, his eyes glowing with something that turned her stomach into a butterfly exhibit. “It’s very real. I couldn’t believe it myself. It was donated as an item by Mrs. Beth Carey’s will when she passed away this year. Without her generosity, the Gala wouldn’t be quite so amazing this year.”
Everyone inside of their little circle bowed their heads for a moment in memory of the incredibly wealthy and generous Beth before conversation resumed. They chatted with that group for a little while longer before going over to refreshment table and selecting a few choice tidbits to nibble on. Felice caught Pierce swallowing an entire glass of wine in a single gulp; under all that charm, he must have been just as nervous as Felice felt for him.
“This evening has been so perfect, though.” Everything was going so well, and Felice couldn’t seem to keep her eyes off of Pierce for long. Everything else faded away when he was around, everything but the electricity between them that filled her belly with embers.
Caught up in the memories of the pleasure of his body and the more immediate pleasure of his company, Felice almost completely forgot about Clay.
But once she noticed him in the background, it was hard not to notice him again and again; his beady little eyes followed her all over the room. He sat alone, his date long since abandoned him for more lively company, drinking himself into a sloppy mess in the corner. Clay vacillated between looking like a kicked puppy and looking furious whenever Felice’s eyes found his corner again.
She thought she would feel vindicated seeing that look in his eyes. That she would feel warm and fuzzy at his obvious desire to have her back. But instead, she felt nothing. No regret, no pity, no remorse. Just a feeling of slight relief that he wasn’t currently part of her life.
But that wasn’t right, was it? Had Pierce driven Clay so completely out of her mind, body, and soul with merely his company and a couple of sessions of mindblowing sex? Was that all it took to forget someone you were hung up on? Pondering the mysteries of her own feelings, Felice didn’t notice as Pierce continued to stare her, his eyes filled with a soft and serene feeling that defied words.
# # #
Pierce
“This evening has actually not been a complete disaster.” Or at least based on the looks that Felice had been shooting him all evening it wasn’t. Pierce tried his best to remember to be charming and witty, leaving behind his old, crude life for this new one of glitter and manners. It was strange, talking to people about subjects Felice had just been teaching him mere days or hours before. He had several practiced lines he could throw in for any given conversation. Pierce felt like a telemarketer with a selection of canned responses at ready. It was hilarious that these parties were so predictable that Felice could share with him all of the conversations they would be having before they even had them.
Keeping his hands locked on Felice’s shoulders protectively, Pierce regularly surveyed the room, keeping in mind he was playing the bodyguard boyfriend angle. But it was sometimes hard to remember that he was just playing at this role instead of actually filling it.
Felice would look up at him with her big, doll-like green eyes lined with thick, black lashes and smiling like nothing else mattered in the world, and Pierce would forget whatever he was in the middle of doing. What was it about this woman that seemed to turn off the whole world around them like a lightswitch?
Pierce noticed Felice’s asshole ex, hovering at the edges of their conversations. He looked like a toddler who was envious of someone else’s toy. Pierce could feel his anger rising every time Clay looked at Felice like he owned her. Never in his life had he ever wanted to murder another human being as much as he wanted to kill Clay. But he pushed that urge down, keeping his hands on Felice instead of around Clay’s selfish little neck.
No, he wouldn’t ruin this night for Felice for anything. Keeping himself in check was hard, but he could manage.
And the light in Felice’s eyes was worth every second of it.
The night wore on and Felice’s brother, Matt, approached them. He’d managed to catch them in the middle of one of their rare moments outside of conversations with some of the other patrons. He had a stupid smile across his handsome face that Pierce didn’t like.
“I’m the brother, Matt,” he said, his face filled with a kind mischievousness that Pierce didn’t like. He was too old for the types of pranks he was playing; what grown adult bet his sister money over her newly broken heart? Not a kind one, Pierce thought as he inched closer to Felice.
“I’m Pierce,” he answered stoically, placing a protective hand over Fel
ice’s shoulder. “You must be the fool with the deep pockets making bets with Felice.”
Matt laughed, a very unpleasant sound. “Yeah, man. And she got so worked up that she actually took the bait. And you are losing, little sis. Don’t forget it!” He walked away, smiling at everyone he walked by. There was no an ounce of empathy anywhere inside of that man’s body; he must have been one of the successful, ruthless psychopaths who make their money through the misery of others.
The bastard even walked right over to a very drunken Clay, smiling as he chatted with him, probably about the same thing he had with Felice.
Furious, Pierce had to bite down on his anger, keeping it in check even as Felice muttered curses under her breath in Matt’s direction.
Surprisingly, however, it wasn’t Matt or even Clay that managed to ruin the evening completely. No, that honor was reserved for Pierce himself, despite his best behavior and killer suit.
But despite Clay and Matt, the evening was going quite well. Until the cops showed up.
When the police entered the ball, people scattered to the walls like marbles rolling away, leaving the center of the Gala completely bare. Pierce stared them down, feeling his muscles tighten involuntarily, as if his body was preparing to flee without him. Felice clung hard to his arm, her fingers digging deep into the flesh of his elbow. But he barely felt it over the waves of horror that flooded him as the police swept the crowd with their eyes.
They were looking for him, he was sure.
Holding his breath, Pierce watched them as they looked from face to face, dismissing each before moving on to the next. It wouldn’t be long before they came to him.
“I almost forgot tonight that Felice’s world wasn’t meant to have men like me in it. I suppose this is my punishment for forgetting that I can never be part of her world with her.”
So when the police came forward, their hard eyes locked on him, his name on their lips, he didn’t resist. He didn’t fight them. But most importantly, he didn’t look back. He wasn’t sure he could handle the devastation on Felice’s face and the smirk he knew would be on Clay Patterson’s.
Chapter Twenty
Felice
Jennifer was holding hard onto Felice’s hand, but she couldn’t even feel it. Even when her bones creaked under Jennifer’s too-tight grip, she still didn’t feel it. Felice couldn’t really seem to feel anything except the gaping emptiness that threatened to swallow her whole. She knew she’d become attached to Pierce, but this massive black hole in her body seemed to speak of something deeper than she’d ever imagined.
Caught up in those thoughts, Felice barely noticed as Kenneth Vanderbilt finally came into his office. There were deep, black smudges under both of his eyes, and his tie was on wrong, like he’d loosened it and tied it back several times. His clothes were wrinkled like he’d been wearing the same suit for days. And given his state of mind, Felice was convinced he had.
“I’ve told yah before, I can’t help with your friend and his legal troubles,” Kenneth said for the third time. “I can’t even help myself right now, yah know?”
Jennifer made an exasperated noise in the back of her throat. “You told us you were being watched; we’re not asking you to do anything illegal. Just looking for some protection from Pierce getting locked up and lost in the system. You know none of those cops are going to look further into the case because he ran from them.”
“Look, Jennifer, sweetheart, I know all this. I still can’t help yah,” Kenneth made a weird gesture of helpless, exaggeratedly swinging his arms around at the office. “I’m gonna lose my office this week, so I have to start packing. It’s hard to pay your bills when half of your business disappears overnight, yah know?”
Felice, her eyes swollen from lack of sleep, stared at him, her expression empty and cold. “How much?” she asked, her voice sounding robotic and icy.
Kenneth looked at her like he didn’t recognize her. Perhaps, right now, I wouldn’t even recognize myself. But she continued to stare at him, unblinking.
“How much for what?” he stammered in reply.
“Your lease. How much do you owe the landlord?” Felice whispered, her voice quiet even in the silence of the office space.
Looking nervous, Kenneth glanced at Jennifer, who shrugged. “About three grand, but that’s not — ”
Felice reached into her purse which was nestled on her lap, pulling out a small stack of hundred dollar bills and threw it onto his desk. The motion scattered the money like a draft through an open window. Kenneth stared down at his desk, his eyes so wide, she could see the whites all the way around his irises. He looked like a frightened horse that was ready to buck his rider and run in the opposite direction.
“Now, will you help Pierce?”
Kenneth opened his mouth and then closed it several times, like a fish trying to breathe air. Then he closed his mouth, picked up all of the money Felice had given to him, and walked out of the door with it. He was only gone for a few moments before he returned, a big smile on his face. “Well, I get to stay in my office, my rent’s all figured out for awhile, and I happen to have the next two days off. I had been planning to use that time to move my office to my house, but I’m gonna use it to help your boyfriend out of jail now.”
For the first time since this whole thing started, Felice felt her heart swell a little in her chest. The void seemed to shrink a little, and then she took a deep breath and steadied herself. Some like hope kindled in her, setting fires in her veins. “Then let’s make a plan to make sure that Pierce gets out of trouble. Whatever it takes.”
Jennifer was worried, but looked a little happier now that they seemed to actually have something of a plan. Kenneth looked like Felice had smacked him over the head with a two-by-four. Secretly, Felice felt bad for him. Had no one ever done anything nice for this poor slob in his whole life?
Kenneth looked at her, his eyes still too-wide. He still looked stunned as he said, “So, start from the beginning, Felice. And tell me everything.”
# # #
Pierce
Sitting in the back of the transport van, Pierce stared down at the handcuffs around his wrists. It had been years since he’d been arrested last, and the memory wasn’t a fond one. Jail had been like a cage for him, pressing in closer every day until the walls squeezed him like a juicer.
The world felt like it was tilting a little, and he wanted nothing more than to run. Break out of this van and run as fast as he could. But that’s what got you in this deep in the first place. I never should have run in the first place. I never should have left my people.
But never running would have meant never meeting Felice. And even if he spent the rest of his life in jail, he would remember that week living at Felice’s white mansion in the desert as the happiest of his entire life. Being with her had taught him so many things; he wished he’d been someone else when they met. Someone completely unlike himself.
The van continued to rumble on, the roads bumping up through the world’s worst shocks and jarring Pierce’s spine. He was the only one in the back of the police van; the only criminal being transported to the East Coast from Nevada, he supposed. It would be a very long and lonely ride with nothing but his memories to keep him company.
“I hope Felice is okay. I hope Felice takes care of my bike for me. I wonder if Felice is thinking of me right now.”
Every thought of Felice was like a shank to his ribs, pain lancing through him. But every thought was about Felice. In the short few days they’d known each other, she’d turned from a mystery he couldn’t touch to his everything. The whole empty world didn’t matter without her in it.
“How did someone like her become so important?” It didn’t make sense; it was like some kind of Disney movie where the big bad beast falls in love with the pretty girl. Even though he knew she could never love him back. Pierce wondered if Felice thought about him now at all, or if she just shrugged him off and fell back into the arms of her ex.
No, h
e realized with such certainty that it shook him, she wouldn’t have. In spite of what happened at the Gala, Pierce knew that Felice had feelings for him. She wouldn’t have jumped back into Clay’s arms.
Although his hands were bound and the benches in the van were not exactly designed for comfort, Pierce managed to lie down somewhat comfortably. He hoped to at least get a bit of sleep. If he was going to make it out of this, he would need his wits and to be ready for whatever the interrogators threw at him.
He slept fitfully, his dreams clogged with memories of Felice’s skin, her laugh, and her house that somehow now felt like home. Or it felt more like home than the Boston he was heading back to.
In the long hours back to the east coast, Pierce tried to build a plan in his mind. He stared at the sides of the van for hours, its ugly white walls looking like they hadn’t been cleaned in decades. After a long hour of thought and a heavy sigh, he said, “I need to do what Felice wants me to do,” to the walls. He wasn’t expecting a response, but saying it out loud helped to quiet some of his thoughts. “I need to do what would make Felice proud.”
