Subject: Mrs. Beauchamp
Margaret,
Today I got a copy of the scene from our movie debut in North Carolina. It’s safe to say you would look beautiful in any decade. You did an awful job sewing that handkerchief, but I think it actually made the scene more charming. Truth is I miss Ambler. It felt like everything was perfect there. Part of me wishes I could turn back the clock and stay in the moment. What do you think would have happened if we hadn’t come back?
Ernest Beauchamp, a man with too many regrets
Date: Tues., June 20th
Subject: God, I hate Mondays.
This morning I could have sworn I heard you call me, and I rolled over and sure as hell I fell of my bed. I lay on the ground completely stunned before laughing at myself. As you can see, I’m not at all as put together as I seem. In fact, I think on the inside I’m a total mess. Today more than any other day. Today was my mother’s birthday. But I’m pretty sure my birth father thinks it’s mine because yet again this year I got a gift from him. He’s in Bangkok. So he sent me one of those large hats the people use to block the sun. I’ll save it for you to figure out what to do with. I was tempted to fling it out the window.
Anyway, I hope you’re doing all right and at least finding one thing to laugh about, even if it’s yourself. No one out here is really any better than you in there.
I wonder if that’s comforting news?
Theodore
“Mind if I sit here?”
Theo stood beside me with his shoes off, his feet buried in the sand.
“I don’t know, my boyfriend could get jealous.” I smirked when he sat down.
“Really, a boyfriend? You sound serious about him.”
Rolling my eyes, I nodded. “Yeah. I keep trying to walk away from him because he’s a little too perfect for me. I keep wondering, what if I screw up his life as much as I’ve screwed up mine? I’m also scared of what would happen if he realizes this and leaves. So I do what I do best and run. But he’s a runner, so he always catches up to me.”
“He sounds serious too. What does this guy look like? Handsome? Tall? Highly intelligent—”
“Now you’re just fishing for compliments!” I laughed.
“You can’t blame a guy for trying.” He grinned.
Placing my head on his shoulder, I closed my eyes, exhaling deeply. “You’re one of a kind, Theodore Darcy.”
“That’s the second time you’ve said that.”
So he’d heard me the first time. “I meant it both times.”
Theo
Placing the blanket over her, I turned off the bedside lamp. I headed out of my bedroom as the front door to my penthouse opened and Arty came in, still holding his motorcycle helmet.
“When I gave you the access code, I didn’t me for you to come over whenever you felt like it,” I told him, rolling up my sleeves.
“What the fuck is wrong with you?” he snapped at me. “Why in the hell would you say those things to Mom?”
“Don’t yell. Felicity is sleeping—”
“Who gives a fuck about Felicity—”
“I do, and if you can’t get over that, it’s best you leave now,” I replied. “What is wrong with you? Why are your eyes—Arty, you better not be on that shit again.”
“You’re worried about me?” He laughed, shaking his head. All of him looked like he was shaking. He was pale and sweaty. “Don’t fucking worry about me! Worry about yourself! You’re the one who’s dating an insane chick. Like certifiably insane. I’m talking about the Mom you know, the woman who raised you for over twenty years! You’re her golden boy, right? Then why did you bring her to tears yesterday when you ripped her and Dad a new one?”
“Arty, I’m not doing this with you. Not when you’re like this. When you need help—”
“I’m fine. I just want to understand how you met a woman who came to a party looking for a sugar daddy, who turned out to be crazy, and then decided she was the most important thing to you? Screw your family. This girl, yeah, she’s the one? Mom was worried—”
“Lorelai was worried about her image! The Darcy image, the same thing she has been worried about since the day I came into this family. What do you want me to do? Go back and apologize for telling her the truth? I don’t care—”
“You should! Who the hell are you right now? I get it. All your life you’ve been the brooding, silent, suffering Theodore. You’re pissed at Mom for looking down at people when you do the same goddamn thing to her and all her friends for being rich.”
“It is not the same,” I snapped, closing the gap between us. “It’s not the money that bothers me, it’s the contempt she and you and everyone else seems to have toward people who aren’t in the same tax bracket. If you call her crazy or insane one more time, I will knock your teeth in.”
“Screw you, Theo. If you don’t want to be part of this family, fine. Just remember pity isn’t love.”
“Funny, the last person you were in love with was Violet, wasn’t it?” I said, and his eyes widened. “You think I didn’t know?”
He clenched his jaw and narrowed his eyes at me. “I don’t know what you think you know, but you’re wrong. If only you were as dedicated to her as you are to Felicity. She just wasn’t damaged enough for you, was that it? Or aren’t you using Felicity as penance for the fact you weren’t with your mother as she died?”
“Get. Out,” I hissed through my teeth.
“You disgust me. You’re not even a man and you’re insane—”
Like I’d promised, I pulled my fist back smashed it into his nose. He stumbled back, gripping the bridge of his nose before wiping the blood from it.
“I warned you, didn’t I?”
“You son of a bitch!” he muttered then charged at me. He got one good punch at the side of my face right next to my eye, sending us both backward over the couch. Flipping us over, struggling on the surface of the couch, we landed back on the glass. However, I didn’t care. I pinned him to the ground and he struggled, grabbing my arm as I held on to his throat.
“When have you ever been able to beat me, Arty? Huh?”
“Theo! Let him go,” Felicity yelled, running up behind me and pulling on my arm. “Look at his face! He’s turning blue!”
Urgh! Getting got up off him, I put as much space between us as possible. “Get out or I’ll throw you out, Arty.”
Felicity tried to help him up, but he smacked her hands away. I was tempted to go back and smash his head off. Felicity took a step back, blocking my path.
“This is all your fault.” He sneered at her, snatching his helmet on the way out.
“It’s always someone’s fault, Arty, never yours!” I yelled. The door slammed. Running my hands through my hair, I took a deep breath. Damn him! Reaching into my pocket, I took out my phone. “Nolan, my brother just left. He’s impaired—yes, thank you.”
“Your hand is bleeding.”
Felicity returned from the kitchen with a first aid kit. I looked down at my hands and sure enough, they were bleeding from the broken glass.
“Sit,” she commanded, opening the box.
“I’m fine—”
“It’s either me or a doctor, Mr. Darcy, but you really need to get the glass out.”
Sitting across from her, I leaned against the windows that overlooked the city.
“How much of that did you hear?”
“All of it, I think,” she replied, staring closely at my hand with a pair of tweezers between her fingertips. “I was just going to ignore it when I heard the glass break. Good thing too, because it looked like you were going to kill him.”
I might have.
“This is what Arty does. He gets better, then he gets worse, then he finds me and we fight, and then he tries to pick the pieces of himself up all over again. I’ve tried to help him, but he doesn’t want that, he just wants to fight me. No one else, just me.”
“I’m not sure if I’m happy or sad that you make it your mission to try an
d save everyone, not just me,” she muttered, and I winced at the glass. “Sorry.”
“I’m not trying to save him. I’m trying to….” I drifted off because in a way, I was seeking to save him. I wanted him to move on from whatever it was that was hurting him so badly. “Don’t compare yourself to him. With you, it’s not like….”
“It’s not like I’m doing it on purpose. I didn’t make myself this way.” She smiled, finishing my thought, and I nodded. “I don’t think Arty is trying to do it either. I knew an addict once, and he said drugs are the doors to wonderland. Nothing seems real, but everything is beautiful in that one moment, and it becomes a fun escape until you want to leave and you realized you’re trapped.”
“What happened to him, your friend?” I asked as she dabbed the alcohol on each one of my scars gently.
She paused and glanced up me. “He’s somewhere in Santa Barbara with his wife and son. He made it out of the rabbit hole and now works as an illustrator, which is great because when we worked at Disney, he was an awesome Beast.”
“So you’re saying while you worked at Disney, crushing young girls’ princess dreams, the Beast was working through his drug addiction?” I tried not to laugh. The happiest place on Earth didn’t seem that happy anymore.
“What can I say, everyone is a little bit messed up.” She rolled a bandage over the palm of my hand.
“Did they teach you this at princess training?”
A sad smile spread over her lips. “My mother used to break things when she got upset. I learned watching her nurses help her.”
“I went to see your dad,” I said, and she didn’t stop working on my hand. It was almost like she didn’t hear me.
“Let me guess. He told you couldn’t watch me end up like her?”
I nodded.
She sighed and finished with my hand. “I remember him telling me that over the phone. He told me he loved me so much he couldn’t bear to watch me suffer, and if I needed anything to call, but I should just stay at Crossroads.”
Now I wished I had hit him when I’d had the chance. I rested my head on her lap. She ran her hand though my hair.
“Growing up, I felt bad for not being by mom’s side when she was sick. But I don’t want you to think that’s why I’m here with you.”
“I know. I trust you. I don’t think I love you, I know I do,” she confessed, and I stared at her completely shocked, fighting the grin on my face.
“Say it again.” Reaching up, I cupped her cheek.
“You couldn’t just let me slip it in there?”
Shaking my head, I grinned. “Sorry. I’m going to make a big deal out of it.”
She made a face but then smiled. “I love you, Theodore Darcy.”
Rising to my feet, I reached down, not caring my hand ached, and lifted her off the floor. She wrapped her arms around my neck, a grin on her face.
“It’s been a while, you think you can still keep up?”
“I’ll manage,” I said, flipping her over my shoulder and smacking her ass. She giggled, twisting in my arms.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
No One Listens…So Time’s Up
Felicity
8:39 p.m.
He threw me in the center of his bed, his eyes glazed over with lust. This was the look I’d missed. Getting up on my knees, I cupped him through his pants. He leaned into me, allowing me to kiss him so hard he moaned into my mouth. Our tongues danced over each other, drinking each other as if we would never get this moment again. He broke away, taking a deep breath before pulling his shirt over his head and throwing it aside.
"Eager, Mr. Darcy?” I giggled, and he didn’t answer with words. He unbuttoned the top of his pants and pushed me onto my back. Taking hold of my legs and spreading them, he kissed up from my thigh until he reached the hem of my shorts. Shoving them down, he rubbed my pussy, and I opened my legs wider for him.
“Eager, Ms. Harper?” He snickered as he pulled down my tank top, cupping my breast. He kissed the tops of them both, his right hand speeding up, making me wetter as he rubbed. He stared down at me, my back arching when he slid two fingers inside me.
"Oh…." I moaned, tilting my head to the side, giving him easier access to my neck as he kissed it. I was at his mercy. Anything he wanted, he could have gotten it from me. I didn’t care; that’s how good it felt.
Biting my lip, I rocked against his hand, my eyes closed as I clenched on to his shoulders. All too soon, he pulled his fingers out of me.
"You taste amazing." His actions had me mesmerized, and I wanted to lick them too. "I bet you taste even better straight from the source."
By the time his words registered with me, he was already on his knees with his head between my legs. He licked me languidly, and I shivered in response to his ministrations.
"I was right, " he murmured from between my thighs.
"Ah!" I moaned as his tongue entered me, along with his fingers. With one hand on my breast, pinching my nipple as he had done, I settled the other on his head, pulling his hair as my legs close around him.
"Fuck." I moaned, rocking into his mouth. He didn’t hold back, and I couldn’t stop the noises that escaped me.
His hands reached up and I placed them on my breasts.
"Fuck, baby," I hissed. I didn’t want to be the only one getting pleasure out of this. Pulling away, he licked his lips as he stared at me. I pushed him onto his back. He sat wiping the corner of his mouth, and the look in his eyes almost made me melt right there and there.
I straddled him and took off my shirt completely. I stroked him, enjoying how his chest rose and his lips parted but he didn’t speak. I sat up onto my knees and lowered myself onto him slowly, torturing him and myself until he couldn’t take it any longer and grabbed my waist, pulling me down onto him, hard.
"Ah, shit. Fuck." I moaned, closing my eyes.
I put my hands on his chest, bracing myself as I rode on top of him. He gripped my thighs, slamming up into me as I came down. My whole body felt like it was humming, coming alive.
Not satisfied like this, he rolled us over, pinning me under him once more. He thrust so deep, I rose off the bed and my toes curled. Yes! I wanted to scream at the top of my lungs. We moved in tandem and perfect unison, my hands around his neck. I panted against him as we sped up.
How did we go almost a month without this? I felt the need to ask myself that every time we had sex.
"Oh my God." I gripped him tighter as he sat up on his knees, taking me with him. After I wrapped my legs around him, he began to pound into me, fucking me like he had the very first time we met.
"Theo!" I gasped, raking my nails down his shoulders, no doubt marking him. He took my hands and placed them over my head as he thrust deeper into me.
"Look at me," he commanded, but I couldn’t focus on anything other than the sweet punishment he was delivering. He slowed his strokes to a painful pace as retaliation.
"No, please." I almost whined.
"Look at me," he said again, and I opened my eyes, meeting his deep green ones. I felt like he was staring at every part of me. He was taking me all in, devouring all I had with every thrust.
He kissed my lips as we came together.
"God, I love you." He gasped as he fell on top of me.
I didn’t say anything. I wasn’t even sure I could speak at this point. I just held on to him.
I heard Cleo and Mark whispering outside the bedroom door. Closing my eyes, I tried my best to block them out, to only focus on him and this moment.
Theo
Rolling over, I reached for her, but the spot next me was cold. I would have panicked had it not been for what sounded like her puking in the bathroom.
“Felicity?” I got up and grabbed my boxers from the floor.
“I’m fine! Don’t come in!” she yelled before she once again threw up.
I opened the door and saw her sitting in front of the toilet, her body covered in sweat. She was dressed in my shirt. “You don’t s
ound fine.”
“I told you not to come in,” she muttered, pushing herself off the floor. I tried to help her, but she brushed my hand away. “Do you always have to see me at my worst? I’m embarrassed enough.”
“Fuck being embarrassed. If you aren’t feeling well—”
“It’s just the meds. They warned me it would cause nausea,” she said, rinsing her mouth out with water.
“Dr. Butler said there were other combinations of—”
“No! No more experimenting on me. I’ve tried so many different drugs in my life. I’m so tired and just need them to be gone. If I take this long enough, they will go away!” she cried, clutching the sink.
“Who?” I stepped up beside her. Her head shot up to me so quickly you would have thought I’d screamed at her. Her eyes widened, and she swallowed slowly but didn’t answer. “Felicity, who is it that you want to go away?”
“It’s nothing, I just meant—”
“Don’t lie to me, Felicity. You’re still seeing them. Mark and Cleo, you still see them. You lied to your doctor… to me.”
She shook her head. “I know they aren’t real! I didn’t mean to lie, but it’s not working. That place isn’t for me. ”
“Oh god,” I groaned, pinching the bridge of my nose. I knew it. She wasn’t ready. How could I have just—fuck.
“Theo.” She reached for me, but I stepped away from her.
“You need to go back.”
She glared at me, shaking her head. “No, I won’t!”
“Felicity!” I yelled, but she stomped into the bedroom. Following her, I grabbed her arm. “You need to go back.”
“What part of no are you not understanding! I will not. I can’t go back to that place. I won’t do it.”
“Then I can’t do us!” The moment I said it, I regretted it. She looked like I’d hit her. Her hands clenched, and when I reached out again, she held one up as if to repel me.
“I tell you that I love and you use it as blackmail for me to do what you want?” She bit her lip so hard, I was worried she was going to draw blood as tears fell down her face.