Takes place during Season 2, episode Woman of Steele.
As always, thanks go out to my editor, who has worked as hard as I on these while providing me inspiration here and there.
Feedback is always welcome. Email me at RSteele82 at the dreaded hot mail dot com . And if there is a story you would like to see, let me know that as well and I will see what I can create!
Oh, and the normal dribble. I don't own the characters, make no profit, this is just for enjoyment.
Steele
After abruptly leaving the Welles' at the club, Steele had every intention of heading to Laura's to try to make amends for his behavior that afternoon and most certainly that evening. The fact that Laura had taken the limo, leaving him stranded, spoke volumes about how she had felt when she departed. Laura, who never backed down from a challenge, had simply fled, seemingly unable to put enough distance between him and herself fast enough.
Steele whistled for one of the cabs nearby, then once he had given the driver Laura's address, had lost himself in thought.
He should have been shocked by her abrupt departure, it was so out of character for her, but he was not. He had not missed the color creep up her cheeks, her face reddening as his near obsessive need to look at the woman who so resembled Anna had not angered but…humiliated her. This was not a dinner meeting, dining with the Welles' tonight. For them it had been a date, and a date which was far from the norm for them: never before had they agreed to meet a client and their spouse for a night on the town. They were exposing their personal relationship, one that before this night they had kept closely under wraps. Laura had been nervous about taking this risk, exposing, even a little, that relationship to the world at large knowing how it could reflect upon her most directly, yet despite her apprehension had looked forward to the evening all week.
He in turn had allowed himself to become transfixed by another woman, even when it became clear that Herbert Welles was aware as Laura that his mind was somewhere else… on someone else.
Damn, he thought to himself. Even Daniel, who held no great fondness for Laura, would have been appalled by his behavior this evening. Daniel had drilled it into his head from his teen years forward that not only did you depart with the lady with whom you arrived, but you always had the courtesy to shower your attention on her, and no other. It was the gentlemanly thing to do, it was a part of their code.
It was a short drive from the club to Laura's loft. Too, short, he realized as he paid the cabbie and watched the car pull away. He was not prepared to see her yet, to give the explanations she deserved, not when his own thoughts and feelings were still in so much turmoil. Abruptly, he turned on his heel and walked several blocks until he found a pub that seemed quiet enough to allow him time to think.
Entering, he walked up to the bar and ordered himself a two fingers of scotch, neat – and considerable departure from his preference these days for a fine wine or some champers. He slung his head back, drinking it down straight away, then after acquiring a second round moved to a table tucked into a dark corner at the back of the room. There he slouched down into a chair, while propping his feet on the chair across from him, legs crossed at the ankles.
He needed time to process the events of the last twelve hours before he made his way to Laura.
Laura, whom had captivated him from the moment he had first looked into her eyes. Laura, for whom he had begun changing his entire life for – who he was, how he thought, what he did. His need to be with her had transcended anything he had ever known before. He woke each day looking forward to the first time he would see her that day, hear her speak, hear her laugh. He longed, almost desperately, for the first moment their bodies would come in contact during a day, whether on purpose or by accident. He was still amazed how a simple brush of her fingers against his arm would send jolts of electricity through his body. He relished the moments she would allow him to take her into his arms, to press his lips against hers, to feel her texture, to taste her. In the year and a half since they had first met, she had become the center of everything good in his world.
He cared for her, deeply, passionately, as he had intentionally implied to her the day they fought in his office nearly a year ago, the day she discovered the true identity of Colonel Reginald Frobish.
Bloody hell, Steele, he told himself. Admit the truth, if only to yourself for once. You don't simply care for Laura, old sport. You love her beyond distraction. You never believed yourself capable of loving a woman. Enjoying, yes. But love? What did you know of love before her? Nothing, not a damned thing. You suspected you might be falling for her when you chose celibacy the night Creighton Phillips appeared at your apartment with Laura, rather than risk her falling into another man's arms. 'What's sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander,' remember? The idea of another man touching her, tasting her, making love to her, had felt like a knife twisting in your gut. Had there been a doubt that you had fallen in love with her, it would have been completely erased the night you saw her dangling from that beam at the Federal Reserve building. You had wished that it were you there dangling, facing possible death, rather than her. When she was finally safe, it was all your legs could do to hold you up, the thought of her being gone, forever, a nightmare that you relived for months to come. You loved her then, yet it pales in comparison to how you feel now.
So how, then, he wondered, had it been so easy for Anna's doppelganger to become his focus instead of the woman before him?
Anna.
He had believed her to be dead. Then suddenly, there she was in the museum. Alive. Well. Breathtaking.
He had felt the air whooshing out of his body at the site of her, as though someone had laid a fist, hard, into his gut. A whole host of emotions had passed through his body in mere milliseconds when he saw the woman he believed to be her - confusion, elation, hope, disbelief – all tangled up with one another. He had been unable to stop himself from pursuing the woman, needing answers, needing to understand. But she had vanished, almost as though a ghost, straight into thin air.
As he and Laura had driven together to the club this evening, sitting shoulder-to-shoulder in the back of the limousine, he had finally convinced himself that the woman he had seen was someone that happened to look like Anna, but was not she. Her hair was different, the way she dressed, how she carried herself – none of that was the Anna he knew. He finally began to relax, to look forward to the evening ahead with the woman sitting next to him.
Laura. My, she had been a vision to feast his hungry eyes on. As usual, she had dressed with an elegance unique to herself. The black, strapless, long gown, its sequins sparkling, was only outdone by the freckles across her shoulders that she had left exposed for him to admire that evening. His entire being had rippled with pleasure when he saw she had left down her hair for the evening. He had never realized how sensual touching a woman's hair could be before Laura. Now, however, every time she wore it down, he longed to tangle his fingers in its silken texture.
He had been unable to deny himself on the way to the club. Laura had fairly glowed in anticipation of the night before them. Reaching over, he had brushed his fingers along her freckled shoulders, before his hand moved into that glorious mane of hers to lightly cup the back of her neck and draw her to him, so he could brush his lips softly across her own. Her small sigh at the contact had lit his body on fire, and he had deepened the kiss, needing to taste her, to feel her tongue brush across his own. It was rare that he allowed himself to kiss her so passionately, so possessively, as he knew more often than not she would put space between them before temptation got the better of the both of them. Yet, when they were in the limo, under Fred's watchful eye, she would often allow herself to get lost in his embraces, knowing there was only so far they could go with an audience nearby.
He had believed he had shaken off the specter of Anna's ghost. Yet as dinner wore on, he found himself once more thinking about the woman he had seen at the museum, only certain that she existed at all because of the painting he had stood before. He had tried to focus on the Welles' and Laura, but when the song he and Anna had first danced to began to play, all effort was lost. He had been helpless to control himself, looking around the room to see if the woman was indeed there. Despite the fact that he had seen Laura's discomfiture, her embarrassment, he had been unable to resist making his way to the woman, needing to know once and for all if she was Anna, or merely her look-alike.
The woman, of course, had denied knowing him, had denied being this woman he referred to as Anna. It had been surreal. She looked like Anna. She sounded like Anna. Yet it was not she. More confused than before, he had returned to the table needing the security that was Laura. She would help ground him, just by her presence. But she was gone. Unable to fight a ghost, unable to bear the embarrassment of how she had ceased to matter, she had left.
Gone.
How would he ever explain this to her? If he tried, would she understand, could she? Would she turn him away before he even had a chance to try to describe what the last twelve hours had been like for him since Anna's ghost had appeared? Was what he had done so unforgiveable that he would lose her?
It was that last thought that propelled him to set down his glass, harder than he intended, and to walk briskly out of the bar, heading to her apartment determinably.
He needed to see her, to explain.
He needed her to understand.
He simply needed Laura.
Laura
Laura sat in the backseat of the limo alternating between wanting to wring his neck and wanting to kick herself.
She shook her head to herself, while crossing her arms over her chest and letting out a deep sigh.
She had run. She, Laura Holt, had run. That was the only way to describe the way she had ended up in the backseat of the limo, by herself, heading towards her apartment while he remained at the club, presumably still obsessively staring at that blonde.
This morning with Caroline Welles had been unsettling. They were there in official capacity for the Agency when he had simply upped and walked away after seeing the blonde, abandoning her to make explanations to Caroline. Explanations that she didn't have; explanations that she had to create out of whole cloth. It hadn't escaped Caroline's notice his distraction or the cause of it. But the woman had been gracious and understanding, thankfully clearly confident that the Agency's competency extended to Laura as well as Steele.
Laura had considered asking what had come over him, after they had returned to the office, but chose to leave him brooding to himself. He would come to her when he was ready, as he always had. When he withdrew into himself as he had that morning, little good could come from trying to press him. He would either shut her out completely, or feeling pushed he would make an offhanded remark, guaranteed to flare her temper, leading to an explosion of both of their tempers in the end. While the latter often relieved tensions between them, when the fight was over at least, she wasn't in much of a mood to engage at the moment. So, she had opted with the former: let him come to her.
Only he hadn't, but seemingly had recovered on his own.
When he had picked her up that evening his normal relaxed countenance had returned as had his genial nature. Not to mention his obvious desire for her. His eyes had nearly popped out of his head when she had opened the loft door to him and he had caught sight of her. While she would never admit it to him, she had spent hours shopping for the gown with him in mind. When she had seen the black gown that currently graced her body, she knew that the fact she had left her shoulders exposed to him would give him immense pleasure. By the same token, it had been no coincidence that she had left her hair down, long and flowing, knowing how he loved to run his hands through it. The look in his eyes, his words, had made her careful considerations well worth the effort.
In the limo on the way to the club, the natural ease which characterized their friendship, the foundation of what they were, had flowed easily as though it had never been interrupted by the morning's events. She had caught him on numerous occasions glancing at her bare shoulders, enraptured by them. She had known it would only be a matter of time before he would have to touch her, and she waited in quiet anticipation of the moment. When it at last arrived and his fingers had brushed softly across her bare shoulder, a trill of delight ran through her body. When his hands ran through her hair to cup the back of her neck, she had had to resist allowing the smile of satisfaction from appearing on her face. When his lips had finally brushed her own, the astounding gentleness with which his touched hers had made it impossible for her to suppress the gasp of pleasure before it escaped her lips.
But it was the kiss that followed that would show up in her dreams many nights over the weeks to come. Rarely did he kiss her so completely, in a way that laid claim to her as his own. The kiss was passionate, full of longing and need. She let herself succumb to the kiss, allowed herself to be free to revel in it. The taste of him, the texture of his lips, the feel of his hand in her hair, on her neck, would often linger for hours after kisses like these.
To have gone, in the matter of an hour, from being held in his arms, under his lips to… invisible… had been too much for her. She had tried her best to make light of it, to try to nudge him back into the moment. It had become clear, however, that the only place his attention would be was on that blonde. She had tried to hold it together, but when Herbert Welles had looked down at her while they were on the dance floor with mounting sympathy, she could think of one thing: Leave, now.
Laura's thoughts about the evening went on a temporary hiatus as Fred pulled up to her building. She hoped the brief climb up the three flights of stairs to her apartment would help her clear her head of the evening's events once and for all, but sighing at the door of the loft, she realized there was not a chance of that tonight. Closing the door behind her and latching it, she decided that perhaps some time at her beloved piano would help her calm her confused thoughts, give her time to get perspective, to let it go.
But when she sat down at the piano, and her fingers began to dance across the keys, she realized belatedly that she was playing Chopin's Prelude in E Minor – the very piece she had played the night he had left the piano in her loft for her. Her fingers stumbled on the keys then stopped their movement, and she leaned her head forward until her forehead rested at the top of the piano.
In a rare moment of honesty with herself, she admitted that what she needed more than anything else was to be held. By him.
The man with no name. The man she levitated towards when she needed comfort. The man whose mere presence in a room made her feel not alone in the world. The man who made her feel physically safe, because he had shown her time and time again, he would protect her with all that he was from all the perils in the world.
But, she found herself asking herself for the thousandth time in the last year and a half, who would protect her from the emotional peril of him?
Somehow, some way, despite her resistance, he had managed to become the most important person in her life. But how? Why?
Ah, hell, Laura, she thought to herself. You know why. Because you're in love with him. You've been in love with him for nearly as long as you've known him. That's why.
Standing, she walked into the kitchen and filled the tea pot with water then set it on the stove to boil. Tea. How ironic. She had never drank tea before he came along, and now when she need comfort it was tea to which she turned. Leaning against the kitchen counter, waiting for the water to boil, she returned her thoughts fully to him, remembering the day everything had changed.
I was in the office with Murphy and Bernice when he walked in, she recalled. The moment I saw him, it felt like time hiccupped before continuing on. I've never denied I was instantly attracted to him. My God, how could I not be? He's the most beautiful man I have ever seen, like a fallen angel with those eyes, that hair, that body… that smile. Yet, the moment I looked in his eyes and saw the gentleness, the kindness that is always there, I knew he would, in some way, change my life. Never, though, did I imagine it would be because he would ferret out my secret and become the embodiment of the fictional boss I had created. But he did and has.
But becoming Remington Steele is not how he changed your life, Laura, she reminded herself. Falling in love with him was how he has changed everything. God, I tried so hard not to let him in, this man with no name. But I couldn't help myself in the end. I knew I was headed for trouble that night in the limo, when he vowed to prove Wallace had not died of an overdose but had been murdered. I realized that I had found a kindred spirit in him. Someone who was drawn to help the underdog, to protect the innocent, to bestow justice. Who'd have ever thought? she asked herself with a laugh. A con man, a thief, with a heart of gold.
She had tried her best to keep him at arm's length, and Lord knows she continually reminded him that mixing business with pleasure was not even under consideration. After all, she was his employer, he hired to play the role of Remington Steele. Those lines should not, could not be blurred.
Yet blurred they had. It seemed he was forever forcing himself in on cases, bringing them in close, constant contact. Eventually their time in the office began extending to time together out of the office. She had tried to convince herself that she was simply being a mentor to him or that she was being empathetic – after all he was a man in a strange country, strange city, with no friends or family around. But mentors don't kiss their pupils, empathy does not lead to eagerly anticipating he would lean into her and touch his lips to hers. She had been fooling herself, trying to pretend what was happening was anything other than what it was.
Then the Marcall case had come along. She and Steele had played a married couple, the Peppler's, on the verge of divorce. In her cups with a group of divorcees she had gone to lunch with, when Marcall and he had walked into the room, the other four women had swooned at the site of Steele. Her inhibitions loosened by the alcohol, she had told the other women that they couldn't have him, he was hers. She had been so stunned to hear herself lay claim to him, that she had become shockingly drunk over the next few hours. The case, their roles, had been too much. The rings they wore on their fingers had been too comfortable, never feeling foreign at all.
Then two nights later, he had arrived at the office drunk beyond belief. She had hurt him earlier, and he had set about to prove his theory correct at the cost of drinking four bottles of wine, after all four divorcees had refused to imbibe. It was when he laid, with his head on her lap, looking up at her and confessed to having enjoyed being a Peppler with her, that she knew she had fallen and fallen hard for the man. Had she any doubt in her mind that she was in love with him, those doubts would have been cast aside the night after her house had been bombed. Between him holding her gently in his arms as she cried, the story he regaled her with to remind her life was full of endless possibilities, then arriving at her newly leased loft to find the piano he gifted her waiting for her.
That night she had stopped pretending they were just business associates and their romance had bloomed. Their time away from work was spent together. They had become inseparable.
Until today.
That blonde.
Who was she to him? What was she to him? It had become clear tonight that despite the connection she and Steele felt to one another, it was tenuous at best. Otherwise, she would not have become invisible to him, while the other woman became all that he could see.
From the day he had walked into her life, Laura had been waiting for the moment that he would walk back out of it. It was only in the last couple of months that the fear had begun to abate, that she had come to believe he would be there tomorrow, and the next day, and the next.
Tonight she had found out that there is more than one way to leave. She had always believed that leaving meant packing bags and boxes and disappearing, as Wilson had done. Now she knew that someone could simply pack up mentally, emotionally and be gone, right in front of you, while you watched.
Somehow, that type of leaving hurt worst of all.
Steele
He had stood outside of the door to Laura's loft for several minutes before he had finally worked up the nerve to knock. He had spent the time worrying that she would simply slam the door shut on him, would let him know that she was done with him, once and for all. When he would cease worrying for a moment, he would remind himself to brace himself for the fury he was sure to be greeted with if he made it through the door. He had finally reached up and knocked.
She had let him in. She had not been furious. Hurt, confused, mildly annoyed – all of those things, all well deserved. She had patiently listened as he had veered from one emotion to another, while trying in his own confusion, confusion tinged with a touch of desperation for her to forgive him, to explain the last twelve hours. Throughout the time he had spoken a part of him was prepared for her to toss him out on his ear. Instead, she had offered him compassion, understanding, strength.
He wondered even now why he had been surprised. After all, she had been his anchor for the last year and a half, his port in the storm, his shelter from the rain… all those witticisms that described what she was to him when things were falling apart around him.
He had been overwhelmed with a combination of thankfulness and relief that she had not only forgiven him for his slights across the day, but leant him support once more.
The need to touch her, to hold her, had been more demanding than he had ever known before. When his lips had met hers, he had been unable to help himself as the emotions he was feeling poured from his heart to his lips: profound relief, gratitude… love. He had exposed his heart to her through the touch of his lips, of his hands, in how he held her. He had kissed her endlessly, until the need to simply hold her had had the greater call and that is what he did: gathered her close to him and held on to her for the longest time. He hadn't lost her somehow.
When she had finally pulled herself from his arms, he had been left feeling a little unsteady on his feet, a little bit lost, and certainly filled with a great deal of regret. He was prepared for her to walk him to the door, as she normally did after a long embrace, and send him on his way home. Instead she had shocked him, taking his hand and leading him to the couch, having him stretch out, then she laid down beside him, adjusting them so his arms were around her, her head pillowed on his arm, before picking up the remote, turning on the television and running through the channels until she found a showing of Strangers on a Train (Farley Granger, Ruth Roman, Robert Walker – Warner Brothers, 1951), then settled down in his arms, lending the proximity of her body to his to comfort him.
As the movie had progressed and he had relaxed into the familiar security of Laura in his arms, he had at last found an even keel. When the day's events had fallen into perspective, and the nightmare that had been that day had been tucked away, he had leaned over her and thanked her softly. The slightest nod of her head was her only answer. He had leaned down to run his lips softly across hers, needing to emphasize his words, and she had reached up and touched his cheek gently, before turning her attention back to the movie.
He had left her loft feeling whole again. He could not help himself, drawing into his arms in the open doorway, and kissing her once more with his heart on his sleeve, ending it with a kiss on the tip of her nose, before he turned and walked away. He had left her with a dazed look upon her face, and he found himself smiling for the first time since they had arrived at the museum that morning, knowing that he had not lost her during his moments of foolishness.
He should have known Laura would help him find his way. He promised himself that he would not forget it again in the future, that he would not hide from her as it felt like his sanity was crumbling. He would remember she was his center, his balance, everything that was good in his life.
Laura
She had not been surprised when she heard the knock at her door, despite the fact it was well after 10 P.M., and on a work day, no less. She had half-expected as much when she had fled the club, when she had left him to pursue his obsession with the blonde. She never, for a moment, believed he would spend the evening with the blonde, if for no other reason than his code of honor would forbid it: he had arrived with Laura and would not take another woman home with him that evening, despite being abandoned by her.
She carefully stirred her cup of tea, needing a moment to gather herself, before moving to the answer the door. Her third cup of the night had her body vibrating from the infusion of caffeine. It had provided the comfort she had desperately needed, but now left her questioning if she would ever get to sleep that night.
When she opened the door she was met by a contrite, embarrassed Mr. Steele. He had asked if he was permitted to come in, something he never did, normally strolling through the door into her home as over the past months they had spent considerable time together within its walls. Tonight, though, he was hesitant, uncertain if he would be welcomed and rightly so. Still, she realized she could not be upset with him for shutting him out, if when he came to her, she did the same. So she had welcomed him in.
She wasn't sure what she had expected to hear, but was certain it was not the story he had shared with her. It had been difficult seeing him so emotionally wrenched apart. This was her Mr. Steele, the man who seemed to be perennially optimistic, the man who refused to greet any trouble without a bit of wit and whimsy. But the man that stood before her now was haunted, lost, hurting.
He hadn't shared much about Anna, just glancing over the fact that she was a woman from his past who had died. But it was clear, in his anguish, that the woman had touched something deep within him, he had perhaps even loved her. The fact that he had planned to run away with Anna spoke volumes, as the man before her had made it clear, countless times, that commitment was not a word within his vernacular. Certainly, though, going away with a woman, the haunted look in his eyes as he spoke to her about Anna, implied he had committed to the other woman.
It would take a stronger woman than she to see the man she loved standing before her, tormented, to only turn her back on him. Laura prided herself on the fact that she was reasonable…always reasonable. So she had stood and listened to him pour out the salient facts about the nightmare of their day, about his past that had come back to literally haunt him.
She had imagined, briefly, what it would have been like if her father suddenly appeared on her doorstep, how she would have reacted. Much the same as he, she believed. She would have locked herself away from him, while trying to process the shock, not to mention the avalanche of feelings that would have buried her. She would have needed time to gather herself, find perspective, rein the emotions in before she sought him out for his comforting presence. How, then, could she fault him for the same?
She had watched the play of emotions across his face when she offered him comforting words, honest words, instead of the rebuke he had been expecting. He wore his relief that she had forgiven him, had even understood, like a suit of clothes. When he crossed the room and took her face in his hands and leaned in to kiss her, it had never crossed her mind to pull away, to make him pay for his treatment of her that night.
Instead, she had found herself being kissed in a way he had never kissed her before. She could feel his emotions in the brush of his lips against her own. His lips expressed the words his mouth could not: relief, gratitude, the depth of his feelings for her. It could have been overwhelming and, she admitted to herself, had it been it would have led her to pull away before things went too far. Instead, she had found it comforting, it had made her feel secure in who she was to him, what she had come to mean to him. It had been what he needed, but what she needed as well.
The kiss has seemed to go on forever, as though time had simply stood still for those moments. When he ended it and gathered her in his arms, needing to stay close to her, she had wrapped her arms around him as well and tried to lend him the comfort he so desperately needed. It was only when her calves tired from standing on her tip toes so her head could rest upon his shoulder that she had pulled away. Without even looking at him, she knew he was still off balance, still needed her strength, so she had led him over to the sofa, had him stretch out on it before folding herself next to him then wrapping his arms around her body, allowing herself to be the anchor in his storm. It was not an entirely selfless choice, she knew, as she needed the comfort of his embrace as well, to allow the strain of the day to ebb away.
She knew the moment that he had finally found his footing again, as his body relaxed against hers and his breathing at last evened out, deepened. That he had kissed her in the same manner as earlier had not surprised her, nor had it when he had pulled her into his arms again when they were standing at the door, as he prepared to depart and head home.
Surprised that he had needed the contact, no?
But still she had been shocked by the kiss goodbye, shocked by its continued intensity of emotion. As his emotions overtook her own, she had been prepared to pull him back inside and lead him up to her bed. The need to share herself with him, all of herself, had been overwhelming. He had left her dazed, and speechless, dropping a kiss on her nose, then departing without the gentle nudges usually required of her.
Closing the loft door, she had flopped her back against it, needing a minute to get her feelings under control. When she had gone to bed that night, she had fallen asleep more confident in who they were, what they were, to one another on a personal level than she had ever been before. It struck her as odd how adversity that affected them on a personal level so often worked to bring them closer together.
Steele
He wasn't sure how long he had sat on the arm of the chair after Anna left, he just knew time suddenly seemed to have no meaning. When he finally got up, it was only to pour himself an ample portion of scotch, hoping to stop the way he was shaking.
She was alive.
Anna was alive.
He had not been losing his mind, as he had been led to believe. When he had arrived home from Laura's just a scant half hour ago – is that all it was? – she had been waiting for him in the dark. They had kissed hard and quick, she had confirmed that she was, indeed, Anna and had offered no explanation for allowing him to believe she was dead. She told him she was in danger, admonished him to stay away from her and then was gone, disappearing into the night.
Leaving him more confused, more anguished, than he could remember ever being before.
Anna.
Tossing back the scotch, he poured himself another generous serving before carrying the glass out onto the balcony. Pulling out a chair from the table, he flopped down then propped his feet on the chair across from him.
Anna.
Lounging back and closing his eyes, while he nursed his drink, he let the memories of their time together flood back to him.
They had met at a party. She had been in the company of another gentleman, older than he, a man that attempted to appear distinguished, respectable, but had an air of common street thug about him. She had caught his eye immediately: tall, blonde, large breasts, with an air of sophistication that was enticing. Certainly, she was his preference in women, his type. As his eyes had flitted down her body, he could not help imagine what it would be like to take her to bed. When her eyes caught his, she had smiled, and despite years of Daniel drilling it into him that a man should never usurp another's territory, he had found himself walking across the room when the man left her side, extending his hand, asking her to dance. She had looked at him smugly, knowing the power she held over men, and nodded her head in agreement.
He had been young, then. Only 26 years old, so much younger, certainly in spirit, than he was now only five years later. He had, of course, had more than ample experience at leading young women astray and into his bed, had known well by then how to pleasure any woman he took into his sheets. He had not, however, been prepared for a woman of Anna's experience. Four years older than he, she had mastered the game of seduction and power long before their paths ever met.
When he had led her onto the dance floor, he had imagined, briefly, that it was he in control of the game, the seduction. After all, it had always been such with other women. Turn on the charm, lure them into a night of passion in which he would assure they experienced tremendous pleasure, then with a kiss and some words of praise, would say his goodbyes without so much as a glance back. He wanted no entanglements, sought only the pleasurable release that sex would bring.
He and Anna had, indeed, fallen into bed together that night. But he had quickly found himself being the seduced instead of the seducer – a first for him. She had taken him to heights his body had never known before, leaving him begging her for release. Where she had learned to touch a man, tease a man, and where exactly to place her lips on a man like she did, he did not want to know. He only knew the need for her to take him to the explosive heights she had led him had quickly become an addiction he had to feed.
It was she that had rolled out of bed the next morning when he had reached for her to go another round. It was she that had kissed him, then said her goodbyes. It was he that was left lying in the bed wanting more, needing more, but watching the person that could give him just that walk out the door without so much as a backwards glance.
In another first for him, he became the pursuer instead of the pursued, intentionally seeking her out whenever he could. Oh, but the woman could be cold, cruel. On more than one occasion he had arrived at a soiree with her, only for her to leave with another man. She would make it a point to be sure he was watching as her mouth ravaged another man's on the dance floor, as she pulled that man by his hand from the floor and led him off to whatever room it was she had booked for the night. She would smile coolly towards him, to let him know it was she that controlled their destiny not him.
Instead of repulsing him, her actions only fed his addiction more as he yearned to be the first to conquer her, the first that could claim her as only his own.
When she would come to him the next day, and she always did, displaying whatever bauble or roll of money she had managed to relieve her mark of the evening before, she would become irritated by his lack of interest in her accomplishments. She would mock him then, for being so provincial, for believing that monogamy between a man and woman could exist at all. She would try to cajole him, attempt to convince him that she had done what she had for them: to finance their lives together one day, all while using her hands and mouth to bring his body to life. There was never anything gentle about the way they came together. Anna liked it hard, she liked it rough, fast, repeated. He would often find bruises left by bite marks on his body, scratches down his back and abdomen that needed tending. There was carnality in their coming together that was akin to two wild animals mating. It was heady, consuming, fraught with both dizzying pleasure and mind-altering pain. He had never experienced the likes of it before or since.
He would, at times, find he was disgusted with himself, questioning who he was and what he had become with Anna. Spending his childhood on the streets, unwanted, unloved and at times victimized, after Daniel plucked him from the street his mentor had carefully instilled in his wayward ward concepts that had been thus far foreign to him, with self-respect being at the core of each lesson. There were many times in his relationship with Anna that self-respect was once again as foreign as it had been when he was living on the streets. Further, he had never been a domineering lover nor one that wished to be dominated. He was a gentleman, prone to gentle touches, tender strokes, soft words. Still, he was drawn to the animalistic nature of their coming together, each time, it seemed, reaching greater heights of pleasure than the time before. During the throes of passion he would often be unaware of the nearly violent nature of their coming together, yet later when he would see the bloody scratches, the bruises, he would feel his stomach churn with revulsion.
It was only at those times of self-recrimination that she would become tender, determined to lure him back into the fantasy they were weaving, and she always succeeded. It was these moments that cast the spell on his heart. He believed himself to be in love for the first time. These were the moments he clung to when Anna acted coldly, callously. He was convinced that if they only had more time alone, without the lure of the con, they would be able to immerse themselves in one another, to nurture what was between them, to build a life together. These hopes would lead him to open up to her as he had no other before her.
As days turned into weeks, he began to feel the need to impress her, thinking perhaps then he would gain some form of control over whatever they were to one another, over her. He violated yet another of Daniel's absolute rules, and began sharing details of his heists with her: how he would do it, what he was after, finding his body stirring as she ooh-ed and ah-ed over his elaborate, hand drawn plans. On a couple of occasions he had even shown her the spoils of his activities, leaning back on the bed smiling as she tried on a necklace of diamonds and sapphires or a solitary ruby, larger than she had ever before seen. She would be particularly voracious at those times, finding whatever jewel that dangled between her breasts as he took her a powerful aphrodisiac.
Still, he had adamantly refused to take her on a heist with him, a point of ongoing contention. Yet, no matter her hold over him, no matter how deep his addiction had run, he had never for a moment considered risking his neck simply to humor her. He knew, too, that she would make him pay, would once more lead another man off to her bed, but still he remained firm. The actual heists would remain his and his alone.
Anna had begun three months into their affair to speak of going away, starting somewhere new. He had been thrilled, knowing that a new start in a new place would be the impetus to their joining together their lives.
The night they were to leave, they had had another one of their explosive arguments. He had a job planned for that evening, one that would leave him with 50,000 pounds in his pocket for his troubles – a wonderful nest egg with which to begin their new lives. Anna had wanted to go with him, and he had once again refused her demands. She had stormed out of his rented room, vowing to lure another man into her bed, to reap the rewards, so that she, too, could contribute more financially to their escape.
The heist had gone off without a hitch. He had met his customer, turned over the goods and collected his fee. Returning to his room, he waited for Anna, knowing not to expect her too soon, knowing she would have done exactly what she had stated she planned to do. It left a bad taste in his mouth, knowing that on the morning of their departure she would still have the smell of another man on her body, but believing this would be the last time he had forced himself to accept it. What mattered, the only thing that mattered, is that they soon they would start their lives together.
When she had not returned by dawn, he had begun to pace. Surely, she had not run off with the other man, she never had in the past. Was she in trouble then? He had no idea how to find out, as the only thing she had shared was the party she was attending was on a friend's yacht, and she had a stateroom on it that would be hers alone. This was Monte Carlo, for God's sake, and yachts were a dime a dozen.
By nine a.m. he had run to the corner market to grab a cup of hot tea and a paper, before returning to his room to wait for her once more. At 9:27 he had stumbled across her obituary:
Anna Simpson Merleau, 31
Tragically drowned last evening, October 17, 1979, whilst
attending a soiree on a friend's yacht. She leaves
behind her husband of two months, Raymond Merleau.
Funeral services will be private.
He had dropped the paper in horror. He didn't believe it at first, couldn't. She had married another man while they were together? She had drowned? She was gone, forever? He couldn't wrap his mind around any of it. Over the next three days he kept his ears to the ground, trying to discover when and where her funeral was to be held and at last had discovered the information he coveted.
On the day of her burial, he had stood tucked behind a tree, out of sight, some distance away. He watched as her husband, the man she had been with the night they had met, laid a single rose on her coffin before it was lowered into the ground. He had waited for almost an hour after the guests departed before he left his hiding spot and approached her grave. Laying the bouquet of roses he had brought with him on her freshly covered grave, he had dropped to his knees and cried.
He was never certain for which thing his tears were drawn. The fact that she had lied to him, and married another man while she was with him… The fact that he would never again experience the heights to which she could take him, both high and low… or the guilt that had been eating away at him in the three days since he had learned of her death.
Had he taken her on the heist with him that night, they would be together that very moment. She would not have attended the party, because she would not have been determined to make him pay for refusing her… Had there been no yacht, she could not have fallen from it to her death. His refusal to share that part of her life with him, no matter the possible cost, was the reason she was now lying in the ground, gone.
That afternoon he left for Italy, and never considered returning to Monte Carlo again. Trying to forget, he had spent lavishly for months, and night after night took a different woman into his bed in an attempt to satiate his aching body. He would find that release would help numb his body for short periods of time, but that each time he woke he yearned to find Anna in his bed. He found himself shockingly in his cups on numerous occasions during those months, something he had rarely allowed himself to indulge in before Anna's death.
The darkness that had descended over him was unlike anything he had experienced before. In his desolation he convinced he was not meant to love or be loved. Hadn't life, thus far, taught him that after all? In those rare times when he felt comfortable in whatever relative's home he was being sheltered in at the time, he would be sent packing. It had been clear that if he began to care about something it would be taken away. So he, the unwanted, unloved child, had taken to the streets instead. Better to fight for survival than to be reminded daily he was not deserving of what most children received by right of birth alone. Then, when he had dared to love Anna, she had not only betrayed him, but she had been taken from him. No, love was not to meant to be his. It was not his destiny.
Gradually, as time moved on, he learned to tuck away the grief and guilt, but the lessons of his life, his time with Anna had stayed with him. Nearly 2 ½ years later he found himself in Los Angeles, and for the first time since Anna, had found himself viscerally drawn to another woman. To Laura. He had begun to build a life for himself and over time realized he was no longer haunted by images of Anna. He had learned how to be happy again, how to enjoy life, milking from each day all that it could give. He had only begun to dare to believe that perhaps love was not unattainable, even possible.
Then today, Anna had suddenly appeared in his life again, very much real, not a ghost, not a doppelganger, but her. Tonight she had stood right here in his apartment. He had tasted her again, could still imagine her taste on his lips. The moment he had held her the old addiction, the old feelings had roared to life. And like in days past, she had claimed control over how they met, when they met, and had left him, as she had so often in the past, on her own terms. He was left with no answers to all the questions that had raced through his mind. He was left, with his lust for her unchecked and unresolved.
When dawn broke the horizon he stood and stumbled into his room. Kicking off his shoes, he collapsed on the bed, determined to get at least a couple hours of sleep before heading to the office in the morning. He was determined to find out who Anna was now, where Anna was now. He would put Mildred to work on it in the morning and see what that trusty computer of hers could dig up.
The office…
It was only in the moment before he slipped off to sleep that he thought of Laura. How would he tell her? Would he tell her? Already he had begun to feel that his relationship with her was a betrayal to Anna.
His lips lifted into a small smile as sleep finally enveloped him.
Anna was alive and she was here.
Anna
Anna sat at her vanity, in the bedroom that she and Walter Patton shared, not even an hour after she had left Steele, bewildered and alone at his apartment.
She smiled at herself with satisfaction.
It had been so easy to reel him back in, just as she had known it would be. It had been kismet at its finest when she had discovered he was here in LA, where she would soon marry one of the wealthiest men in the world. The moment she had seen his picture in the paper, she had known she had found the answer to her little problem. Her little problem in the form of her current husband and partner in many crimes, Raymond Merleau.
She had managed to pull off the ultimate con, solely on her own devices. She had first lured Patton into her bed, then convinced the old man he was in love with her. Soon they would be married, then soon after that he would die of a heart attack. It would not be unexpected, as the man was suffering from a heart condition. She would just help it along with drugs she had stashed away, just waiting for the perfect moment. A couple of months of marriage, a couple months of bedding the odious man, assuring a change in his will, and at his death she would become one of the richest women in the world.
The only thing standing in the way of her perfect plan was her husband. He had been blackmailing her for months, threatening to reveal not only the nature of their relationship but also the myriad of scams they had pulled off together. Only if she shared Patton's fortune with him, would he agree their little secrets would remain just that – theirs. Well, she could not abide by that! This con was hers from its inception, it was she that had put in all the work. No one but she was entitled to the benefits that her scheme would reap.
She had made up her mind months ago that Raymond had to be eliminated. The answer that had always beleaguered her was how? How could she remove him permanently from the picture without somehow being implicated?
Then when she saw his picture in the paper the answer became crystal clear.
He had always been so easy for her to manipulate. A simple snap of her fingers had always brought him to heel. She had amused herself with him for months, relishing the power she held over him. She laughed out loud now, remembering when he had foolishly believed that first night it was he that held the power over her. How quickly he had learned. He had become her puppet, a toy to play with, to see how far she could take things before he snapped. She lifted a brow, smiling with pleasure, as she remembered how she would torture him, forcing him to watch as she allowed another man to put his tongue in her mouth, his hands on her body. It was only when she knew he was beside himself with jealousy, that she would pull the other man off to her room, making sure the man's scent would be on her the next time she saw him.
The game had amused her for months. It just so happened that her untimely death coincided with her loss of interest in the game. Still, she had found some amusement in knowing that he would blame himself for her death, and would suffer for it. She would still hold power over him even after he believed she was dead and buried.
She had had no intentions of ever seeing him again, no desire to. She wondered if he had yet realized she had never once in their months together called him by his name. It was something else she withheld for her own perverse enjoyment. A 'darling' flung into a sentence here and there, and he never seemed to recognize that she refused to acknowledge him by name. If he had, he might have realized he was nothing more than an object to her, a thing, not a person, a toy, not a man.
She had tested the waters this afternoon at the museum, then later in the evening at the club. She was confident that her control over him remained intact. If she had had any questions after he abruptly departed the company of his associate and Caroline at the museum, then her ploy at the club had laid them completely to rest. She had watched with amusement as he had left the dowdy little creature he was dining with to seek her out, without so much as a look back. She had had to squelch her smile of amusement as she watched the mousy little woman grab her purse and depart the restaurant abruptly, leaving him behind.
She shook her head and laughed.
He was as easy a mark as he had ever been.
It would be easy to convince him that her life was in danger at Merleau's hands. It would be easy to convince him to eliminate Merleau, permanently. Then she would end his life as well. Two birds with one stone and all that, she thought to herself. Two people that knew of her past, of who she was, of what she was, permanently erased as threats to her carefully orchestrated plans.
She sighed in contentment as she amused herself with thoughts of all the ways the money she was about to inherit could be put to use.
Laura
He had walked into her office that morning a virtual stranger. She had been looking forward to his arrival all morning, with memories of how he had held her the night before still dancing in her head. When she had stumbled across the pictures of Lydia Van Owen in the society pages, she had fairly burst with excitement that she would be able to share the news with him, help him find permanent peace. The woman was real, but she was not Anna Simpson.
He had seethed with hostility upon seeing the picture. That the hostility was directed towards her had sent her off kilter. His snappish retort that she could handle the Agency's demands on her own had stunned her.
The man that had arrived this morning was a stranger to her. He was not the man she had spent the last year and a half with, and was most certainly not the man who had held her last night. He was not even the man, obsessed and conflicted, that she had tangled with the day prior.
When he stormed out, he had left her confused, concerned. She knew instinctively where he was heading and decided to follow him so that they could talk. While she might not have a right, on the professional level, to demand to know what had happened, what had changed in the last 8 hours, she certainly had the right to some explanation on the personal level. She had stopped for a cup of coffee to fortify herself for the conversation to come, and had arrived just as he emerged from the backyard and headed towards the Auburn.
It had been clear from the moment he saw her pulling in that he was not pleased. No, he was clearly miffed with her for following him. But, his attitude be damned, she was going to have this conversation with him.
She had carefully tucked away her emotions when she spoke with him, at least initially, appealing to his logic. But a quick retort by him in response to her questioning if he knew Anna and Lydia were one and the same when he walked into the office that morning, had set her teeth on edge.
She felt she had an absolute right to know the answers to the question she had asked, that he continue to honor their unspoken agreement these past years that they would never lie to one another on a personal level. He had not answered her question, and had all but told her straight out to mind her own business.
It had stung… It had stung badly.
After the time they had spent together the last year and a half, especially in these last six months in which they had worked to establish a more intimate relationship on a personal level, his attempt to brush her off had been, at the very least, insulting. She had always suspected that if past and present clashed, she would be unable to compete. She had felt more confident in the last couple of months that his ties to her were very real, had begun to believe his choice of the past would no longer be a foregone conclusion.
To realize she was wrong was synonymous to being sucker punched.
To his credit, he appeared to regret his words the moment he spoke them, stopping her, asking how she could believe the time they had spent together could mean so little to him. But the only words that danced through her head in that moment was the old saying "the proof is in the pudding." She had reminded him that since she was left, through every fault of his own, blind to his past and without knowledge of how he felt in the present, only he could determine what their time together meant to him. Then she had turned and walked away, needing to put space between them, needing to sort out her raging emotions.
It was only in talking to Mildred that her rationale had returned, that she had begun using her head instead of her heart. In doing so, she had realized the reemergence of Anna Simpson into his life was earmarked by too much coincidence. It just happened that Anna's fiancé was the owner of the paintings that the agency had been hired to secure? It just happened that she would appear the morning they were to test the security system at the museum? It just happened that the song that had haunted him had begun to play the moment she walked into the club? It just happened that she would be dining there on that evening at all?
No, she didn't accept that. If she had learned anything at all during her years of detective work it was that too many coincidences added up into a plan. A plan he was blind to because of whatever hold Anna had over him. He was one of the most intuitive people she knew, could read people better and faster than even she. Yet, the past had clouded his judgment, had erased his ability to see Anna for what she was, what she was doing.
He was living on the edge of emotion, which meant she would have to be the one to take a step back and act logically. The hair on the back of her neck had been standing at attention since the moment Anna appeared. She had initially written off the feeling to petty jealousy. Now, she recognized it for what it truly was. Every instinct told her that she had to act, had to find the truth, because if she didn't he wouldn't come out on the other side of whatever Anna had planned unscathed. It was up to her to protect him, even if he didn't want it.
That thought hurt her, more deeply than she would have imagined possible. They had always been partners first, friends second, and whatever they were working towards together last. He had rejected her on all three levels today, shutting her out from both his problems and his life. On more than one occasion he had been cold, uncaring – something he had never been to her before. It was as though with Anna's appearance back into his life, everything they were to one another had simply disappeared.
She allowed herself a moment to feel the pain, the…betrayal. She allowed herself to recognize that what she needed most at this moment was for someone to tell her everything would be alright. That they, the both of them, would make it out the other side of this mess okay, safe. She needed to hear that this unwelcomed visit from his past would soon be gone, that they would return to what they were, that they would survive this hiccup.
There were two problems with this, however. First, this was not a hiccup, it was a tsunami. Second, the person that she needed to hear the words from, the person that she needed comfort from, had shut himself off from her. She was alone to fend for herself, to fight for them both.
Feeling tears threatening, she shook her head hard. She wouldn't cry, she couldn't cry… she, Laura Holt, did not cry. She fought.
Throwing the Rabbit into gear, she pointed the car in the direction of the museum and Caroline Welles. It was time to stop being the woman left behind, and to begin being the detective who rose to every challenge.
Steele
Steele sat on the sofa in his apartment, leaning forward, staring at the object on the table in front of him. Just last evening he had been questioning his own sanity when at the club Anna had denied being whom he believed her to be. Tonight, knowing that it was indeed her, he was questioning his sanity for a very different reason.
Lying on the table in front of him was the Agency's gun – the gun he had slipped into the Agency under the cover of darkness to take.
He leaned against the back of the couch, and ran both of his hands up and down his face, then leaned back over to stare at the gun once more. Finally, he pushed himself up off the couch and walked over to the liquor cabinet, pouring himself a generous helping of scotch, then carried it out onto the terrace, needing to place space between and the gun.
He had just lifted the glass to his mouth for a drink, when it registered in his mind that for the second night in a row, he was relying on liquor to help him through the emotions of the day. He pulled the glass away from his mouth and stared at it, then walked over to the patio table and slammed it down, mindless to the liquid sloshing out of the glass over his hand.
Only once before in his life had he relied on liquor to get him through a difficult time: right after Anna had died. He had not liked its effect on him, muddying his mind, leaving him wallowing in his grief and guilt. He had sworn off drinking for relief, for comfort, then and there, and had not violated that declaration until last night. To find himself turning to it once again tonight was yet another indication of the extent of his inner turmoil.
Anna was in danger. It was the thought that consumed him all day. Those words had been echoing in his mind when he had scurried over to Patton's estate this morning, demanding the answers he had not been given the night before. When he learned Merleau was blackmailing her and was threatening his own life as well, he had been enraged. He had sworn that he would handle things from here forward, then had spent the day following Merleau until at last he had witnessed Merleau purchasing a gun from a less than reputable pawn shop.
The purchase of the gun had, at the time, confirmed all that Anna had claimed that morning.
It was not until he snuck into the Agency in the darkness of the night that he had stopped reacting to all that had occurred over the last twenty-four hours. As he had snuck out of his office, gun in hand, his eyes had briefly glanced at the door to Laura's office and stopped in his tracks. His mind instantly took him back to that morning and he reflexively closed his eyes in remorse as he remembered the hurt and confusion he had seen reflected in Laura's eyes when he had treated her so coldly. Now here he was sneaking around in her Agency as though he was again the thief in the night he had once been.
He had briefly considered leaving the gun behind, but at the moment the only thing he knew absolutely was that Merleau had purchased a gun that afternoon. It seemed precipitous to make certain that he was armed as well, when and if Merleau came after him.
Dreadful things, guns. And now, one sat in his living room, bullets in chamber and ready to use.
It was only when he had driven back to his flat, gun tucked into the back of his pants, that the blinding panic he had dealt with all day began to subside and his mind began to hear the voice that had guided him the last year and half.
Icy calm, Mr. Steele, icy calm.
Returning to the living room, he sat down on the couch, and concentrated on removing the emotion from the events the last two days, and used Laura's analytical approach to solving any puzzle at hand.
Anna had come to him last night. Why? She had claimed it was to warn him to stay away, or he would put both of them at risk. But for what purpose? She had gone out of her way to convince him at the club that she was not the woman he believed her to be, and there was no doubt that she had seen his confusion, had watched his retreat. In the past, the only time she came to him was when he had begun to withdraw, and it was only in those times that she expressed any form of tenderness towards him at all. If she had truly wanted him to stay away, why come to him at all?
Clearly, she had come to him in order to draw him to her side. Could it be because she was afraid of Merleau? Perhaps. Could it be for other more nefarious means? Perhaps as well.
She had claimed she could not let him know she was alive, those five years ago or even across the intervening years, because she would have been ashamed for him to discover she was nothing more than a common swindler. Given when they were together she would go to bed with a veritable stranger simply to relieve them of money or jewels, surely she could not believe that he would consider swindling an insurance company to be a step downwards. She had traded her body for profit, and while at the time her actions had blinded him with jealousy, he could see now her tactics were equal to prostitution. The fact that she had both a husband and lover in the wings made her actions all the more deplorable.
No, he could not believe that she had not told him she was alive because she was ashamed.
Her faked death…this begged the hardest question of all. Who had been in that coffin he had watched lowered into the ground? Insurance companies did not accept obituaries as proof that someone had died. They required autopsy reports, death certificates. Had the coffin been empty, and palms greased to obtain those documents? Or had someone actually been laid to rest in Anna's place? If someone had been substituted for her, where had the body come from?
There were no answers to those questions. Only Merleau and Anna would ever know the answers.
Which brought him then to the question of Merleau. Anna had stated that Merleau had absconded with the money from their con, leaving her without a cent, without a name, without a place to go. He knew her well enough to know that she would not have lived upon the streets. She required a much more civilized existence. Where had she gone before heading to St. Moritz? She had alluded that she had not seen Merleau between the time that he had abandoned her and the time of her engagement announcement in the news. Was this the truth, or had they maintained a partnership that had recently soured? Once more, only Anna and Merleau knew the answer to those questions.
With no answers available to him and questions only continuing to mount, he turned out the lights in the living room before heading into his bedroom. Stripping down, he climbed into bed, praying that sleep would come.
For hours he tossed and turned as his mind constantly niggled at him, insisting that he didn't know Anna at all, not now, not then. Each time those thoughts invaded, he would force his mind to his bittersweet memories of their time together: the night they had first danced; how she had looked leaning over him with a ruby dangling between her breasts as they shagged, to the ecstasies she had driven him to with her mouth alone.
When he at last fell asleep, as dawn broke across the sky, he dreamed of golden brown eyes, gossamer shoulder's sprinkled liberally with freckles, of lilting laughter trickling across the evening wind. He a dreamt of being pulled fiercely against a small body and showered with kisses and touches that told him how important it was to someone that he was there, alive…of kisses stolen in an Auburn, under an Auburn…of the laughter, joy and passion that came with a day picnicking in a park. He sighed deeply in his sleep, finally relaxing into it, only to have the alarm clock begin to blare.
He awoke with a jolt. Rolling over onto his back, he rubbed his hands across his face, then stared up at the ceiling with his reddened, bleary eyes. Step one is getting rid of Merleau, he reminded himself. Then I can take the time to figure out the rest.
Pushing himself out of bed, he headed to the bathroom to shower, shave and get ready, hoping to beat Laura to the office. He had never needed to talk to Laura more, and he had never been less able to do so.
Laura
She stood next to Mildred's desk, immobile. Her brain seemed to have shut down momentarily – from the shock, the hurt, the anger…the everything that had transpired across the last two days. Finally breaking her stupor, she wandered into her office, sitting down hard in her chair.
She felt alone – utterly, and completely alone. There was no Murphy to turn to and bounce ideas off of; there was no Bernice to spill her heart out to. While Frances and she had gotten closer while Frances was in town, her sister had no idea of the relationship between she and Steele and that is how it would have to remain. Her mother? That is the last place she would turn to.
She needed her partner, her closest friend. But of course, that was not going to happen. She had become persona non grata in the course of twenty-four hours. No, she corrected herself, within the span of two minutes yesterday morning. When he wasn't looking straight through her, he was looking at her with hostility in his eyes…or worse, speaking to her with unhidden resentment.
She leaned back in her chair, her hand moving automatically to her left brow, rubbing it.
She couldn't remember a time in her life when she had been more confused, felt more helpless.
She had only been trying to help him, checking out Anna's story. It was what they did for one another: they always had one another's back. When one wasn't seeing thing clearly, the other inevitably was. They trusted each other's instincts, no matter how off course those instincts might seem at initial glance.
The hair on the back of her neck had been standing at attention since the moment he had taken off at the museum, leaving her with Caroline Welles. So far, those little hairs, her personal warning system, had proven, once more, to be deadly accurate. She had found out from Caroline that those accidental meetings between he and Anna were no accidents at all.
Whereas before the last twenty-four hours she would not have had a moment's thought about not telling him what she had discovered, she actually had to convince herself that he had a right to know – consequences be damned.
It had not gone well, not at all. He was first angry, raising his voice to her, its tone accusatory. Then when she had turned on her heel to leave, he had grabbed her, clenching his fingers into her upper arm. He had never before touched her roughly and most certainly not in anger. That, more than the look in his eyes or the tone of his voice, told her how far he had distanced himself from her.
Her hand moved from her brow, to pinch the bridge of her nose. The strain of these last twenty-four hours was getting to her. She had been unable to sleep the night before and her head was beginning to pound.
By all rights she should leave him to deal with the mess his past had once more brought into both of their lives. If those hairs on the back of her neck hadn't convinced her that he was in danger, mortal danger, she would have turned and looked away. Yet, every fiber of her being was saying this was not a matter of a broken heart, but a matter of life and death. For that reason, alone, she stood up from her desk, grabbed her purse and headed out the door.
The only woman that would be killing her Mr. Steele was Laura Holt.
There was work to be done.
Steele
Steele sat on the couch in his flat, having come straight home once he had extricated Merleau from Anna's house and, he hoped, from her life.
He had accomplished his goal, fulfilled his promise to Anna, but at what cost?
All morning he had been haunted by his encounter with Laura in the reception area of the Agency. She had taken a deep breath and looked at him warily before telling him what she had learned from Caroline Welles – that Anna had carefully orchestrated her accidental meeting with him that first day she had come back into his life. Laura had unwittingly confirmed his suspicions on why Anna had come to him that night in his apartment. The idea that he had been such an easy mark for Anna angered him, and he had taken it out on her, all but hollering at her while simultaneously justifying Anna's actions.
She had been hurt by his tone of voice, terribly, and had turned on her heel to flee. The hurt he had seen flash through her eyes had nearly gutted him, and then what had he done? He had grabbed her by the arm, manhandling her in a way that he never had before, in a way he never though himself capable of, sinking his fingers into her flesh, and forcing her to stay. She had remained stiff under his fingers, her arm remaining frozen in mid-air when he removed his hand, the unwilling audience for his stumbling attempt to explain why he was about to head out the door to once again act as Anna's defender. Even to his own ears his words had sounded weak. He was not even sure why he had uttered them to begin with, when what he had wanted to tell her was that he was sorry for all he was putting her through and that it would soon be over.
But instead of offering her comfort, he had turned and left, leaving her behind to tend to her own wounds, as he had done countless times in the two days past.
Laura, he thought.
Was it only two nights ago that he vowed to himself that he would never again forget that she was his center, all that was good in his life?
Not even twelve hours later he had completely obliterated this promise to himself, still reeling as he was from Anna's appearance at his apartment the night before.
How many times had he left her hurt or confused in the last twenty-four hours, he asked himself now.
He had told her in the office that morning he was unsure how he felt about Anna marrying Patton. Why? Why had he done that? Yes, the first twelve hours after Anna had appeared in his apartment he had been torn, confused, as the feelings he had for Anna in the past had rolled over him like a tidal wave. But last night as he had tossed and turned in his bed, he had come to accept that he did not love her now nor had he loved her then. She was an addiction, yes. Thoughts of the countless hours they had spent in bed together still had the power to fully arouse him. Certainly she had been the best sex he had ever had. But five years older and a lifetime of experience (it seemed) later, and he could recognize that is what had tied him to her in Monte Carlo, even when he oft loathed himself upon examining the scratches and bruises on his body.
When he thought of Anna, he thought of carnal lust. The future, when he was with Anna, was measured in terms of hours, maybe a couple of days. Yes, they had planned to go away with each other. Yes, he had believed their leaving Monte Carlo would finally allow them to love one another as he had believed they could. But when he had tried to look ahead, to where the road would take the two of them together, truth be told, his imagination never journeyed much past the next day or night and the bed they would be in. Fidelity was certainly never something of which he believed her capable. Bloody hell, he knew she was incapable. Friends? They were never that. As for trust? Trust was never a word that came to mind when he thought of Anna, else he would not have refused to take her on his heists.
There was no more a future for them now than there had been back then. In fact, there was utterly no chance of a future for them now.
Not when even in his dreams it was Laura to whom his heart and soul were drawn.
He was closer to her than he had ever been to another human being and he wanted to be even closer still. Each day when he woke, he didn't think first of sex and where they might have it. He thought of her beautiful eyes, her enchanting smile, her dazzling mind. He looked forward simply to seeing her, as that was often his favorite time of the day: the first time they spoke, or fought…whatever their first contact of the day might be. During the day when his mind would wander, it inevitably would meander to hoping to spend time with her in front of the fire at his apartment, wine glasses in hand, lying on the floor facing one another, talking and laughing, with hopefully a few stolen kisses, gentle touches.
Did he want her? God knew that he did – with every fiber of his being. He longed to know the feeling of her bare skin pressed against his own, the touch of her hand on his body, the taste of her breasts, the feeling of being enveloped inside of her. Yet, while he never passed up an opportunity that could take them in the direction of being lovers, it was far more important to him that they kept working towards what they were meant to be to one another…something, he suspected, that was far more than simply lovers.
Hell, he had given up sex for her, not sleeping with another woman since Creighton Phillips had entered her life. He had been celibate for more than a year now – damn, already more than a year? – because the only woman he wanted in his bed was her.
What he wanted most, even more than her in his bed, was her unflagging trust.
And he trusted her beyond measure. Never once had it crossed his mind to exclude her from something that could put both of their necks on this line. He had only known her for a couple of months when he recruited her to break into the museum and steal The Five Nudes of Cairo with him. He had never considered her a liability when they broke into the Federal Reserve with one another, rather he had been concerned about the risk she was taking should they be caught. When she had gone berserk on adrenaline when the stole the Pitkins, his only concern had been for her well-being.
Most of all, he trusted her to always have his back. How many women would have stood behind a former con man and thief, when DesCoine had framed him for murder? There had been no proof of his innocence, only his word against a staggering array of evidence and still she had stood by his side. In fact, how often had he gone headlong into danger, trusting her instincts, trusting her?
Did she trust him as he trusted her? No, not yet. But he could hardly find fault in that, as he had several times tried to pull the wool over her eyes. He believed, however, that in time that trust would come. He simply had to continue walking the straight and narrow, continue becoming a better person, as he had been striving to do since he met her.
With Laura, he could look to the future, as terrifying as that thought so often was. Still, on lazy Sunday mornings as he took his tea out on the terrace, he would often find himself thinking "Next winter I am taking her to Aspen, come hell or high water," or "Next spring, I will convince her to steal away to Paris with me." When he thought of the future in terms of Laura, he thought in the terms of months, years, not hours.
He wondered now, how he had ever been confused at all; what on earth had gotten into him that he had ever thought for a moment that what he had with Laura was a betrayal to Anna. In fact, he now realized that this obsession with Anna the past day was a betrayal to Laura.
He had no idea how he would ever make it up to her, but knew he had to start that process now. First, he needed to see Anna and let her know that there was no future for the two of them. Then, he would find Laura and grovel at her feet for forgiveness if need be.
He realized at that moment that there was never a decision to be made about whom to choose. His heart had chosen a long time ago. All he ever needed to do was simply try to hear it over the cacophony that had filled his head these last two days.
Standing, and pulling on his jacket as he moved towards the front door, he grabbed the keys off the entry way table.
He needed to get to Anna's, now, and give her the news. He suspected she would be unaffected by it, but for him, it was closing the door on the past…with finality.
Then, he would go find Laura and try to make amends for his actions the last two days. He hoped, fervently, by the time night rolled around again, that he would feel the peace of holding her in his arms again.
Laura
Laura lay on her back in bed, staring up into the darkness. She had thought that once Anna no longer posed a threat to him, that she would finally get the sleep her body desperately needed. Her brain, however, had far different ideas, as it would not shut down. Sitting up, she sighed, punched her pillow several times then flopped back down to lay on her side.
He had come to her tonight, a bottle of champagne in hand, hoping for a chance to explain. A part of her knew that he would, while another part had hoped he would not. She needed him, she needed time away from him. She was angry at him, she was relieved for him. She wanted to throttle him, she wanted to hold him. She wanted nothing to do with him beyond business, she never wanted to let him go again. She was unsettled, a ball of contradictions. Worse, she was vulnerable, something she had promised herself long ago, after Wilson, that she would never allow herself to be again.
He had come to her tonight with his heart on his sleeve. She knew how hard it was for him to talk about his feelings. Like commitment, he had spent a lifetime avoiding delving too deep. Both came with risks, and both were foreign to the life he had known before her. The fact that he had been willing to take a risk tonight, to go against his own grain, spoke volumes. It told her that he, too, felt whatever this was between them…difficult to identify but there none the less. It also told her the depth of his remorse for his actions the last two days.
He had not been wrong when he had told her tonight that he had changed, was a different man than the one who walked into her life nearly two years ago now. She had no doubt that he would have her back when they were working on a case. In fact, if anything, she was more concerned that he would overreact if he believed her to be even at the slightest risk. His protective nature was deeply ingrained in him, had been there from the start, but he had stopped trying to deny it, trying to hide it under flip remarks.
He was definitely no longer as self-consumed as he was when he had first taken on the mantle of Remington Steele. Despite how much he loathed leg work, when it came down to it, he was there by her side on a case from beginning to end. He was preternaturally concerned about both she and Mildred, something that certainly flew in the face of his past when he had intentionally steered clear of any ties to others. Yet, his presiding concern was that both of the ladies in his life be happy.
Certainly, his ongoing attempts at honesty, in words and action, fairly shouted out how much he had changed during his time in LA. While he could still be duplicitous at times, for the most part he tried to be truthful, even when he knew the truth might tweak her temper.
It was for these reasons and more that she had no reason to doubt what he had told her tonight when he arrived at the loft. She had no reason to doubt him when he had told her he went to Anna's that day to tell the blonde that they had no future together. So why did she doubt him when he told her that the reason he had planned to end things with Anna, once and for all, was because of Laura herself?
Every time she asked herself that question, the skeptic in her returned to the old colloquialism of "actions speak louder than words." He himself lived by the rule that a person's actions spoke of their true self, their true feelings. He himself had often said that words could not be trusted.
His actions the past two days certainly did not say that she held a place in his life that was significant to him. She had become invisible to him, when he was not resenting her for what he saw as her interference in the his and Anna's relationship. It had become clear to her that when the past came calling, he was more than willing to turn his back on his present, herself included. It had happened when Chalmers reentered his life last year and again, now, with Anna.
Tonight, after they had toasted, then drank their champagne, she had been as loathe for him to leave as he was. She suggested he turn on the television and see what he could find for them to watch while she took a shower and changed. From the bathroom she could hear him rattling around her kitchen, a lid clanging against a pot, and then she could smell the popcorn as it cooked. By the time she came out of the bathroom, hair still wet and in her long pajamas, he had a bowl of popcorn along with the champagne waiting on the coffee table.
He had selected an airing of Bringing Up Baby (Cary Grant, Katharine Hepburn, RKO, 1938). They had sat close to one another on the couch, his arm wrapped around her shoulders when his fingers were not playing with strands of her hair. They had laughed often at the antics of Grant and Hepburn and at the absurdity of Hepburn's pet leopard. The movie had the effect he had hoped for – relaxing both of them, after the strain of the past two days.
He had not kissed her again until he stood in the doorway of the loft, preparing to leave for the night. Then, he had gathered her gently in his arms, and for the second time in as many days, he kissed her in a way he had never done before: gently, tentatively, with his relief that he had not lost her conveyed through every touch of his lips on hers. He had kissed her for several minutes, and it never changed. When it had last, regrettably, ended, he had kissed both of her eyes, then, leaning his forehead against her own, yet another first: he had reached up and pulled down her arms, running his hands down them until he reached her own hands, then had linked his fingers with hers, while standing there silently. For some reason, it felt like the most intimate act they had ever experienced together.
When he had finally stepped away from her, dropping her hands in the process, he had stepped back to her for just a moment. Laying his hand against her right cheek, his thumb rubbing gently along the side of her lips, he had leaned down and kissed her left cheek, then whispered next to her ear, "Thank you." Then he was gone, while she was left standing staring after him, dazed.
Laura finally fell asleep, the memory of those last moments together fresh in her mind bringing a small, pleased smile to her lips. As she drifted off, the only thought that registered with her was relief that they had made it through. The next morning she woke out of sorts due to the nightmare that had plagued her sleep – a nightmare of watching him finally walking away, towards his past, away from her – never looking back, even for a moment, as he went to join Felicia, Daniel and Anna before he simply faded away. In the months to come, the nightmare would frequent her dreams, and just like this first time, she would wake up feeling more alone than she could ever recall before in her life.
Several months later, when she would end their personal relationship while they were in Cannes, she did so under the guise that mixing business and pleasure was simply not working out. The truth of the matter, however, was that in the days that followed the removal of Anna from their lives, she slowly but surely subconsciously began trying to put distance between them in her heart and mind. She had always been afraid that once she was in too deep – and she certainly was – that he would disappear from her life. Before Anna, she had begun to believe that it would not happen. After Anna, she knew that when the past came calling, she was powerless to keep him from opening the door.
Anna had taught her a valuable lesson: better to be the one to walk away, than to be the one walked away from.
This lesson would wreak havoc on their relationship for years to come.