Disclaimer - I do not own any of the characters from The Phantom of the Opera, although I do rather enjoy borrowing them from time to time.
A/N Hello, I know I've been out of touch for quite a while but hopefully this story will get me back into the routine. I don't have a beta so please forgive the mistakes. Since I am terrible at descriptions I thought I'd just paint a picture of what our characters look like by using celebrity descriptions.
Christine – Keira Knightley (with dark hair)
Erik – Julian McMahon of Nip Tuck fame (I always thought he would make an amazing Phantom!)
Raoul – Jude Law
Carla – Brittany Murphy
Author – ToryD
The Phantom's Secret Obsession
Chapter 1
"Raoul?" Christine called out questioningly as she entered the apartment of her fiancé with an armload of groceries. Frowning she side stepped past his luggage as she wondered what could have happened to cause Raoul to cut his business trip short as she walked into the kitchen to deposit her bags. Taking in the new tiled back-splash that she had installed herself this past weekend, she smiled as she wondered if Raoul had seen her handiwork, and better yet if he approved of her choice of green for the color scheme.
On an impulse she had decided to stop by the supermarket on her lunch hour to buy all the ingredients of Raoul's favorite meal so she could surprise him tomorrow evening with a home cooked meal to celebrate his homecoming. "Honey?' she called out as she made her way back to the master suite. Hearing strange moans coming from the half closed door Christine froze with a feeling of dread settling over her like a thick, oppressive blanket. Closing her eyes she drew in a slow, deep, steadying breath to gather her fleeting courage to face what lay beyond her view. Lifting a trembling hand she slowly pressed the half opened door wider to confront the sight that her heart was attempting to deny. Taking in the sight of the passionately entwined couple upon the white linen sheets, she felt her whole world crashing down around her in an irrefutable fashion.
Standing on the room's threshold, she simply stared at the sight of the man that had so convincingly promised her a lifetime of happiness as he made love to another woman. After several torturous seconds, Christine drew in a shaky breath. "Raoul?" she cried out softly with a fractured tone that sounded so very foreign even to her own ears.
Lifting his tousled blond head, Raoul looked back over his shoulder to see his Christine with a look of abject horror upon her face. "Oh God!" he groaned as he quickly disengaged himself from the woman in his bed. "Christine!" he called out beseechingly as he came to his feet uncaring of his current naked state.
Unable to face the sight before her eyes, Christine turned away as she clapped a hand to her quivering lips in an attempt to hold in the painful whimpers that threatened escape. Cruel cold fingers of this unthinkable reality clutched unerringly at her throat, threatening to cut off her air supply as her heart began to beat at an uncountable rate.
"Christine!" Raoul called out sharply. Reaching for his robe he quickly donned the soft navy garment that ironically had been a gift from Christine on his last birthday. "This isn't what it seems," he insisted as he began to walk towards her frozen form.
"It's best that she found out before the wedding Raoul," a smug seductive feminine voice called from the rumbled bed.
Christine raised her shocked eyes to look into the self-satisfied face of her half-sister. "No," she cried as she shook her head in utter shock at this a second betrayal of those who has professed to love her.
"Shut the hell up Carla!" Raoul spat at the woman leaning back against the bed's headboard with her bare breast still showing the evidence to his own recent passions. Turning back to face Christine he was filled with a wave of self-loathing as he took in the utter devastation upon her beautiful face. "Baby, listen to me," he began in a soothing tone as he walked towards her.
With a bewildered shake of her head, Christine looked from her sister to Raoul who was now reaching for her left hand.
"This means nothing," he said softly as he turned to guide her towards the living room, wanting to put a physical distance between his fiancé and the woman he had just bedded. "It's you I love. Carla has been throwing herself at me for months now, and I just cracked. I know that you wanted to wait until our wedding night to make love and I respect that, in fact I love you all the more for coming to me as a virgin. But I have needs Honey," Raoul explained as held on to her hand with a fierce grip. "Please listen to me Baby, I love you so much, this was just one big mistake."
Christine looked down at their entwined hands and felt a great shutter of revulsion fill her. "Let go of my hand," she said in a quiet voice that held such contempt that Raoul gasped aloud.
"You don't mean that Honey," he said as an unfamiliar fear began to seep into his soul. He began to pull her towards him in an attempt to soothe her tense frame, knowing that if he could just explain how much he loved her she would forgive him his moment of madness.
With a strength she didn't know she possessed, Christine reached up and pushed Raoul's body from her with an outraged cry. "How could you?" she whispered with tears forming in her shattered blue eyes.
"Christine," Raoul's own tortured voice called out as he watched helplessly as the pain of his careless actions took its toll on the woman he loved. "I'm so sorry sweetheart. Let me get dressed and we can go somewhere where we can talk this out."
Backing up on shaking legs, Christine shook her head from side to side while wondering who this man was who stood before her. Was this the very man who had professed to love her, the man who had promised to grow old with her, and the man she imagined as the father to her children? Her mind questioned ruthlessly.
"Wait!" Raoul cried as he watched her progress to the door. "Christine, we need to talk."
A desperate cry escaped Christine's lips as she reached for the door knob to wrench it open, wanting only to escape the events of the past few minutes, minutes that would be forever etched upon her now broken heart. Once she had the door open she ran at a breakneck speed for the stairwell, wanting to put as much distance as she could between herself and the man who she had placed her trust in. A trust that now lay in a shattering of broken pieces.
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"She's just left the building Sir," the large man said quietly into his cell phone as he fell into step behind the slim brunette.
"How does she look?" an urgent question came across the line.
Seeing the normally carefree, smiling woman who he had been hired to protect over the last ten months walking with her head hung in a dejected manor he could only conclude the worst. "She seems to be very upset," he imparted with a sigh.
Across the city in his penthouse Erik Desart closed his eyes at the pain that he knew Christine must be feeling. "Keep an eye on her, make sure she is safe," he ordered with a slight edge to his normally even tone.
"Yes Sir," John replied as he ended the call. Carefully keeping a discreet distance, he continued to follow the slight figure of the woman who his boss had taken such an unnatural interest in, an interest that would soon become more than just that of a concerned employer.
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Christine entered the Desart building in Manhattan where she had worked for the last year with a feeling of numbness enclosing around her. Making her way towards the bank of elevators, she was unaware of the strange looks of concern she was receiving from her coworkers.
Entering her office where she worked as Erik Desart's executive secretary, she hung up her coat as if she were on automatic pilot. Picking up the phone she deftly removed the call forward function as she had done so many times before. The phone began to ring almost immediately. Reaching out, she lifted the handset with a detached expression upon her face. "Desart Corporation, Erik Desart's office" she said in her practiced professional voice.
"Christine!" Raoul's urgent voice came across the line.
Without an ounce of hesitation Christine swiftly replaced the handset into the phone's cradle only to have it ring almost instantly again. "Desart Corporation, Erik Desart's office" she repeated.
"Let me speak to Erik," the distinctively feminine voice demanded from the other end.
Hearing the voice of Erik's former mistress Elena on the other end of the phone, Christine sighed resignedly as she had fielded the top model's calls for the last month. "I'm sorry Miss Reynolds but Mr. Desart is unavailable to take your call."
"I know that you are simply not putting me through! If you think that you can keep my from Erik then you are sorely mistaken!" the shrill voice screeched through the phone.
Working as Erik Desart's personal assistant for the past year she had dealt with numerous breakups for her attractive boss. Most of which encompassed the delivery of the prerequisite three dozen red roses accompanied with a card thanking the various women for their company in the past along with an expensive diamond bracelet to help ease the pain. With his amazing looks and billions, Erik was a magnet to all women between the ages of eighteen and fifty. He had a large scar covering the right side of his face that lent a bad boy air that only seemed to add to his animal magnetism. While she had to admit that she often found herself somewhat uncomfortable in his presence, she chalked it up to the undeniable sex appeal he presented to the opposite sex. She herself only found herself immune to Erik's unconscious sexual pull due to the strong love and commitment that she had for her relationship with Raoul.
Having experienced the worst moment of her life only moments ago left little to Christine's patience in dealing with her womanizing boss's castoff mistresses. "Listen Miss Reynolds, Erik has instructed me not to put your calls through meaning that he has dumped you as he has with countless other women. Now if you could just take the hint and take the diamond bracelet he sent you as his parting gift with some small modicum of decorum I'm sure that one day you maybe able to find your self respect again," Christine advised in a stiff tone that brought about a very unladylike curse from the other end.
Placing the phone down on the still screeching model, Christine froze as she caught a flash from her solitaire engagement ring. As her heart stilled within her chest she carefully withdrew her finger from the ring that now only represented a sense of heartbreaking betrayal. Opening her desk drawer she placed the ring in as the tears that had she had been holding at bay finally began to cascade down her cheeks.
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Erik drew in a slow breath as he reached for the door that led to Christine's office. Pushing open the door, he walked in with an elegant grace that was his alone. "Christine," he greeted as was his normal custom.
Christine gave a start as she glanced up at her employer. "Erik, I thought you were flying out to London this afternoon," she said as she quickly averted her tearstained face.
Erik silently vowed to make Raoul Chaney pay dearly for causing Christine's distress as he took in the obvious tears streaks upon her smooth cheeks. "Change of plans," he said with a stilted tone that went unnoticed by Christine. "Can you please get your pad and come into my office? I have several letters that need to be posted."
Nodding, Christine reached for her dictation pad as she surreptitiously wiped the tears from her cheeks. Rising from her chair, she followed Erik into his elegantly decorated office that overlooked the magnificent Manhattan skyline. Taking her customary seat she held her pen over pad as she awaited his dictation.
"Are you feeling alright Christine?" he asked with a concern that he couldn't quite hide from his tone.
"Yes, of course," Christine answered without looking up.
"Okay, the first letter is to Sam Weathers with Weathers Electronics….." Erik's voice trailed off after several sentences as he watched Christine stare unwaveringly down at her blank pad. "Christine," he called to her gently to pull her from the dark thoughts that were obviously torturing her.
"I'm sorry Erik," she apologized with a sad smile that had Erik wanting nothing more than to take her in his arms and promise that nothing would again hurt her in this lifetime.
"I can tell that something has upset you Christine," he said in a soft tone. "Is there something that I can do to help?"
Christine looked up into her boss's concerned face, noticing a new tenseness that seemed very uncharacteristic as if he was under some great strain. "I'm fine, just a little lost in thought is all," she said as she drew in a breath in an attempt to steady her nerves. "You can begin again."
Erik watched the play of emotions across Christine's face with an intense stare. "You're not wearing your ring," he observed softly.
Christine paled instantly but said nothing.
"You're clearly upset, can't you tell me?" Erik asked as he rose from his chair to cross to the chair at her side.
"I'm sorry, I'm just not myself today," she replied softly wanting nothing more than to find some hole in which to bury herself in until this unbearable pain ceased to exist.
With a deep frown marring his brow, Erik reached out to cover her hand with his. "Perhaps you should go home for the day," he suggested with a gentleness that Christine had never heard.
"I can't go home," Christine said with a small self-mocking laugh as she pictured walking into her father and step-mother's home that also currently housed her half-sister Carla. She had moved into the family home last month in order to avoid signing a renewing year lease on her own apartment that would have proved excessive due to her then upcoming marriage in three months time. Christine looked down at Erik's hand and felt a strange comfortable rightness fill her. "If you will excuse me for just a moment," she said as she quickly withdrew her hand and stood to make her way towards the door, needed to escape the bizarre undercurrents within the room.
Erik watched with an unguarded passion alighting his green gaze as the woman he had desired for the last year exited his office, knowing that in the coming days she would soon be his.
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