"Jesus, Stella." They were in his office and the bottle of Scotch procured from his desk drawer was almost empty, not to mention they'd stumbled up from Attraction. They were both drunk but it was Stella who kissed Burton, and slid her hands down the front of his shirt to his belt. He pulled away, swearing.
"What, Burton?" Stella inquired languidly, letting her hand trail across the smooth strip of leather as he brushed past her heavily. Burton raised his hand like it weighed twenty pounds and swiped down his face, looking vaguely annoyed. If he wasn't so inebriated, he would have been a lot more pissed off but the alcohol was slowing his limited sense of decency to a very slow crawl through his brain. He knew this wasn't right.
"What do you mean, what? Stella, you know what you did." His voice took a hard edge and he shot her an angry look over his shoulder. She rolled her eyes as his gaze dropped to the floor. She grabbed his wrist and pulled him back to her, exploiting his impaired balance. He moved closer to her heavily and ended up pushing her up against the cabinet on the far wall. She smiled, like a shark.
"Never mind… Remember what I can do." Stella leant on the last word, dropping her head to bite the sinew where Burton's shoulder met his neck. He groaned her name and exhaled forcefully as she kissed the raw spot, moving up his neck. He almost growled, remembering himself and pulling back, but Stella caught him mid-recoil. He looked into her eyes and saw nothing but hunger, no remorse. She kissed him again and he wanted to cry like a child.
"See? We're good together, we always were." She smirked, eyeing his lips. "Well, except when you were walking all over me." She leant forward but he turned his head. She paused for a moment, then pressed her lips to his cheek, his jaw.
"You killed her." She heard his voice above her as she moved down his neck again, scraping and caressing. "You killed my…" She edged her knee further between his legs, pushing closer to him. His hands dropped from their resting place on her shoulders. "You killed my daughter's mother."
Stella looked up and locked eyes with Burton. There was nothing there but pity… and a flash of something. Deer in the headlights. But black soon became blue again in the dimness and Stella smiled, flipping a few blonde layers over her shoulder.
"How sweet." Burton's eyes widened.
"You knew? You knew Kay had my child. You knew you were killing a mother!" He backed away a step but Stella followed, staying as close as possible. She had the expression of a venomous snake about to bite back at something small, stinging her.
"I killed no one. And she wasn't a mother. You unloaded that child on your sister days after she was born. And your tart went right back to drinking, doing drugs and turning tricks. Don't you dare insinuate otherwise." Stella hissed. Burton examined her, barely subdued rage painted plainly on his face. There was something unsettled in Stella's expression, something he'd never seen before.
"She's dead, though. And without you, my daughter would still have a mother living somewhere." The words echoed around his office and Burton felt better for shouting. A satisfaction at presenting Stella with a truth she couldn't ignore.
The look of outrage on Stella's face faltered, her eyes dropped to the floor. The silence was like another person standing there, accusatory. Kay, naked but for her necklace and covered in bruises. Staring her down.
Stella picked up her jacket, draped over the arm of her chair and walked to the door. Opening it, she lifted her head and looked Burton full in the face. She looked like a child apologising for something terrible, that they know is wrong but they're not sure why. Maybe denial.
"It wasn't my fault. I had no choice."
Long after she'd left his office, chauffeured away in a car with dark windows, her husky voice grated, reverberating around Burton's head. Finally, he sank to the floor beside his desk and cried like he said he never would.