Felicity Stripped Bare

by Vanessa Jaye

  “Or do you make that kind of money taking your clothes off for strangers?”

  “That’s none of your business—”

  “Wrong. Anything that has to do with my son’s future is my business.”

  They stood staring at each other in the quiet darkness—mere feet apart but worlds away.

  Felicity drew a shaky breath and raised her chin. “And you want to make sure that I’m not a part of that future.”

  “I see you like plain speaking. That’s good. Let’s get to the point. I’m sure you’re a nice girl. My wife seems to have taken a liking to you and she’s usually a good judge of character.” He reached out as if to touch her, but when she flinched he shoved the hand back into his pocket. When he spoke again his voice was gentled, and his expression softened a bit.

  “I’m sorry, but you must see that you and Daniel don’t belong together.”

  Felicity’s head made several abbreviated jerks as she tried to swallow her bitterness. He meant she wasn’t good enough for his precious son.

  “I’d always hoped that he and…”

  “Deirdra?”

  “Well yes. For awhile there I thought…” He shrugged. “They practically grew up together, and her father and I sit on several boards together.” He shrugged again. Michael was the one now who seemed uncomfortable. His hostility gone now that he was sure she wouldn’t be a problem.

  Instead what she read in expression was worse than hostility. It was pity. Pity for the slut who actually thought she could have his son.

  “You know what I think, Mr. Mackenzie?” she asked softly.

  He cocked a brow.

  “I think you should go fuck yourself.” Felicity turned before he could witness the first tear fall, and walked rapidly to the bank of doors off the master bedroom.

  She slid the glass open, stepped into the room, and slid the door shut again. Michael was where she left him, staring back at her. Felicity gave birth to her pain in a low guttural moan, before rushing across the room to the closed study door. She would lock herself away in there, safe from the dream-killing gaze of Michael Mackenzie.

  She shoved the door open blindly then turned to close it, pressing her forehead against the smooth solid panel. How could she bear this unbearable pain?

  At the sound of the breathy giggle, Felicity spun around, then cursed under her breath. She closed her eyes and gritted her teeth, striving for control. But she couldn’t stop the trickle of tears. Or the mortification that this person should see her like this.

  Deirdra was perched on the edge of Daniel’s desk, draining the last of her champagne. There was a beer bottle on the desk beside her, the brand Daniel had been drinking all night. Felicity’s gaze swerved around the room in panic.

  “Daniel’s not here right now, sweetie. He went to find something.” Deirdra gestured with her empty glass. “But he’ll be back soon; why don’t you hang around? He has something to tell you.” Deirdra’s baby talking voice would have caused Felicity to suspect she was drunk, if it weren’t for the hard glitter in VD’s eyes.

  “Oh what the hell, I’m sure he won’t mind if I start things off.”

  A sense of inevitability caused Felicity’s heartbeat to slow. The intense emotions on the other girl’s face pinning her to the spot when every instinct to her to run.

  Deirdra giggled again, rolling the champagne flute back and forth across her collarbone. “Poor Felicity. You haven’t got a clue, do you?” she singsonged, then pouted.

  Her expression slowly cemented into a mask of hate. “After all those weeks of getting fucked by Daniel you still don’t realize how he really feels about you, do you?” She stood, weaving slightly.

  “Poor fucking clueless Felicity,” she sneered as she advanced. “Well, here’s a clue for you.” Deirdra pulled out the hand that she’d kept hidden behind her back, and held it up to Felicity’s face.

  A brilliant white stone, flashing fire in the low light, was on Deirdra’s finger. Two souls intertwined, soaring in love and joy.

  It was the ring. Her ring.

  The one she’d admired in the mall with Daniel.

  A taunting whisper penetrated her stunned senses, “Look what I got.”

  Felicity pushed VD aside and fled. Chased out of the room by Deirdra’s vicious giggles. Hands sliding against walls, she stumbled down the hall in a daze, barely able to see through her tears. She mumbled apologies as she stepped on toes and jostled arms holding drinks, but her only thoughts were of escape.

  When she came to the great room, disoriented in her grief, she looked around aware of the odd whispers and attention she drew. A shift in the crowd gave her a glimpse of Daniel’s wide back stepping out onto the terrace and she went in the opposite direction.

  Holding her head down, she quickly wove through the maze of bodies. She was almost at the elevators, her outstretched arm wedging open a path, reaching for that small button, when her hand hit something that would not be moved. A hard male body.

  “Let me pass.” She tried to go around Rob, but he wrapped her in a big bear hug and held her close.

  “I will in a second, if you tell me what your hurry is.” He loosened his hold enough so he could look down into her face.

  “Please, Rob. Let me go.”

  “Nothing to see here, folks. Just something she ate.” Rob waved away the curious. “I’d avoid the shrimp if I were you,” he advised in a stage whisper as he turned and, with one arm still around her hunched shoulders, guided her to the elevator.

  She kept hitting the button, glancing over her shoulder repeatedly as she wiped at her eyes and nose. With a discreet bell the doors slid open and she tripped inside the cab.

  Felicity jabbed at the ground floor button, as Rob followed her in. “What are you doing?”

  “Maybe I can help—”

  “Rob!”

  At Daniel’s yell, they both looked back into the condo. She met Daniel’s gaze across the short distance, saw his frown go blank as he came to a halt.

  “Felicity? Rob? What’s going on?”

  “I’m leaving,” she said simply as doors closed.

  She didn’t release her breath until the declining numbers on the panel told her she was safe. Then she started to laugh.

  “He thinks I’m leaving with you.”

  “Somehow, with you laughing and crying at the same time, I’m not too flattered.”

  This time her laughter was more genuine. “As you once told me, you’re no consolation prize.” Now the tears came in earnest. Nothing could make up for losing Daniel.

  Rob made a move to comfort her, but she raised a hand to hold him off as they came to the ground floor. “I’m okay.”

  “No you’re not.”

  “But I will be.” She stepped out into the lobby and made a beeline for the double doors that led outside. Rob’s long legs easily kept pace with her.

  “Where are you going? I’ll drop you off.”

  Felicity stopped in her tracks. Where was she going? She clutched her purse to her chest. A short list cropped up in her head. Her parents? Forget it. She’d had enough insults about her morals for one day. And Cheryl probably wouldn’t be home for several more hours. That left Stuart, he had a second bedroom. But was he home?

  “Do you have a cell?” She turned to Rob, hoping.

  He handed her the phone, and she punched in Stuart’s number as she continued across the marble floor towards the exit.

  “Yo-yo.” For once Stuart’s stupid greeting was music to her ears.

  “Thank God you’re home!”

  “Felicity? What’s up, babes?”

  “I need a place to stay tonight.”

  “What happened to your psycho boyfriend?” A hint of petulance came through in Stuart’s voice.

  “He is not my boyfriend. Listen, can you help me or not?” Rob held the door open for her and she headed for a taxi parked at the curb.

  “Sure, sure, I always got room for you, baby, you know that.” He reverted back
to his smooth seductive tones. “Do you want me to pick you up?”

  “No, but I’ll need the cab fare.”

  “Okay, just get here. I’ll take care of it.”

  Felicity rang off, handing the phone back to Rob. They’d reached the cab, but Rob grabbed the handle first.

  “You don’t have to take a taxi; I can drive you wherever you’re going.”

  “I think it’s better if you went back upstairs. I just want to be alone.” Once she got into the cab, Felicity rolled down the window. “Thanks, Rob.”

  “Don’t thank me yet.” He glanced behind him. “You better get going.”

  Felicity gave the cabbie the nearest intersection to Stuart’s apartment as the car drove off.

  The last thing she saw was Daniel racing out of the building.

  “What the hell was that all about?” Daniel made a gesture with both hands, tempted to wrap them around Rob’s neck. “Why did you let her get in that cab? How could you let her get away?”

  “I think you’ve got it backwards, pal.” Rob folded his arms, supremely unruffled. “The real question is, why did you let her get away?”

  All the anger drained out of Daniel. Why had he let her get away?

  But he would go after her. After what his father had told him on the terrace, Daniel was willing to do whatever it took.

  “Then after I confronted her with the truth, she actually claimed she loved you.”

  “Wh-what?” Daniel’s heart had stilled at the words. Even now, just remembering them, strangled the breath from him.

  “She claimed to be in love with you. A blatantly pathetic bid for sympathy, of course.”

  Daniel had spun on his heel and left his old man, afraid of what he might have done if he’d stayed one second longer.

  He’d gone through the master bedroom, but there was no sign of her. As he strode back to the main room, several guests said, yes, they’d seen her pass by and she’d been visibly upset. If it hadn’t been so important for Daniel to find Felicity, he would’ve returned to the terrace, and God knows what he would have said to Michael Mackenzie.

  When he found her in the elevator with Rob and she’d looked straight through him with those dead, red-rimmed eyes and said, “I’m leaving”—the words had ripped out what was left of Daniel’s heart.

  But he would find her. He’d get her back.

  “Did she say anything? Tell you where she was going?”

  “Nope.” Rob shrugged. “But it sounded like she was going to stay with a friend for the night.”

  “A friend? Did she say who?”

  “That’s all I heard of the conversation, buddy. Sorry.”

  “What conversation?” Daniel ran both hands through his hair to keep them occupied, otherwise they’d be twisted in Rob’s shirt, shaking some answers out of his unusually reticent buddy.

  Rob waved his cell phone in Daniel’s face.

  Daniel snatched it out of his hands, studying the buttons.

  “Hey, careful.”

  He elbowed Rob back and pushed redial.

  The phone picked up almost immediately. “Hey, babes, I got the pillows all fluffed on your side of the bed, waiting for your pretty little head. Everything okay? Felicity?”

  Daniel snarled and flung the phone away.

  “Aw, no! No, no, no!” Rob went lumbering after the cell. “I said ‘be careful’, as in ‘have care’.”

  Daniel ignored Rob, ignored his party, and started walking down the street, headed for nowhere, with his father’s mocking voice in his head. “What else was she going to say?”

  But why the hell did she have to say that?

  Chapter Twenty-one

  By the time Daniel got back home, only three guests were left. His mother buzzed around the catering staff, helping with the clean-up. Rob was sprawled on the sofa, throwing grapes up in the air and catching them in his mouth. The last one bounced off his chest when he saw Daniel step off the elevator.

  “Hey, bud. You okay?”

  He nodded, throwing his jacket over the back of a bar-stool at the kitchen island. He raked both hands through his hair. The walk had done him some good. Cleared his mind a bit.

  For the last few months his life had gotten out of control with working at the law firm, putting hours in with Rob, fighting his father, and then there was Felicity…

  But first things first. He worked his loosened tie completely undone with a couple of yanks, staring across the room at the solitary figure out on the terrace.

  “Honey, we’ve been worried.” His mother came up to him, her face heavy with concern. “Did you—did you speak to her?” she asked in a hushed voice.

  “Speak to her?” Daniel’s mouth twisted and he shook his head. Her was with Him. “No. She’s currently reconciling with her ex, I doubt she’d welcome the interruption.”

  His mother frowned. “What nonsense. Felicity wouldn’t go back to that schmuck.” Then her expression softened and she placed a hand over his heart. “It’s you she loves, Daniel.”

  “She told you that?”

  “Well, no. But it’s obvious.”

  “Then I must be the densest poor bastard for not seeing it all along.” There was no irony in his voice. Hindsight had that effect. Now Felicity’s every word, every touch, every glance came back to haunt him. That’s what desperation could do to a man, make him blind to the possibilities right under his nose.

  Daniel rubbed his jaw, the bristly rasp of new growth rough against his palm. Once again his gaze drifted outside. “Besides, I think Dad trumped us both on this one.”

  His mother shot a quizzical glance at her distant husband.

  “She told him she loves me.”

  Her mouth made an “O” as her face lit up and she grabbed Daniel’s arm. “Why, darling, that’s wonderful!” Then her eyes narrowed. “Although how Michael managed to get that information— Oh, never mind, this is—”

  He pressed his fingers against her lips.

  “Felicity left me. She left because I all but told her to go earlier, because I thought we’d come to an impasse. And because I was full of shit.”

  “Oh, Daniel.”

  He swallowed and said the hardest part. “But most likely she wanted to leave, was going to, anyway.” He gave his mom a little nudge on the chin. The kind she used to give him, along with a pep talk or two, when he was a kid.

  “She might have cared for me. But it wasn’t love. If it had been she’d never have left. She would have fought a little harder.” Daniel sucked in a deep painful breath that couldn’t even begin to fill the emptiness inside him.

  “One thing we can both agree on is that Felicity is a fighter. She does whatever’s necessary to get what she wants,” he said bitterly. “She just didn’t want me.”

  His mother’s gaze filled with compassion, she covered his fingers, pulling his hand from her jaw.

  “Uh-uh,” he said when she started to argue. “Give me a few minutes with Dad, okay?” He pressed a kiss to her forehead and she held onto his shirt.

  “Daniel?”

  “I’ll behave. Promise. Now go have a last drink, put your feet up, and stop Rob from scratching and sniffing all the magazines.”

  It couldn’t be that bad, he reasoned, if he could joke about the things Felicity had left behind. Just too goddamn bad he was one of those things.

  As he passed Rob on the sofa, they did a high-five hand clasp. “Sorry about the phone, guy.”

  “No worries. I jacked-off on your laptop a few minutes ago.”

  Daniel burst out laughing and cuffed Rob in the head. This was his good bud, they didn’t get any better. “I love you, man.”

  Rob held up both hands. “Whoa. The seminal emission was revenge, not a love letter.”

  “Not that there’s anything wrong with that.” They both said at the same time. Daniel moved on, his smile fading the closer he got to the terrace.

  He stepped outside and paused to taste the summer air. It tasted different. It lacked some
thing. He approached his father. Standing beside him, Daniel leaned on the cold metal railing and stared out to where the dark waters and fathomless sky merged into a seamless inky mass.

  “To think you would choose a cheap—”

  “Shut up, Dad.” Daniel looked at the man whose name he shared, and felt something hot and ugly, growing and coiling inside him. He’d wanted to make peace, not go down the same road again. He took a deep breath. “Just listen for a sec.”

  “I knew there was something about her. I told your mother. No class—”

  “Shut up, Dad. Don’t say another word. Not another fucking word.” Daniel had never felt closer to violence where his old man was concerned. He paced away a couple of steps and tried to get his emotions under control.

  The view was magnificent. The neighboring condos and office towers checkerboards of light and below, the diamond trail of the Don Valley highway continually glittered with moving traffic. But Daniel’s gaze was drawn to the absolute inky solitude of the lake.

  “Tell me again, what she said,” he asked softly.

  “What? That she l—”

  “No. Don’t say it like that. Say it like she said it.” He held his father’s gaze. “Say it like you mean it.”

  There was still anger deep inside of him at his father’s part in running off Felicity, and he wasn’t sure he’d be able to forgive him for that. He wasn’t sure he could forgive himself, either. Ever.

  But he could make new start. Take the chance to make things right. A chance he never had with Felicity. He wanted to gather the people he cared for closer now that he’d lost the woman he loved, all due to careless words, suspicion, intractability. All the things that marked the situation between he and his dad.

  His eyes were burning now and he watched the muscles work in his father’s throat. The old man’s face slowly went slack. “She said, ‘I love Daniel’. Then she said it again, more slowly ‘I love yo-your son’.”

  Daniel hung his head, squeezing his eyes shut. He couldn’t swallow the emotions that bubbled up inside him fast enough and the tears leaked out. But he savored the words, imagined them coming from her sweet mouth. He scrubbed the heels of his palms over his eyes.