He notices her the minute she walks through the door.
She strolls into the smoky, dilapidated bar with her head held high; looking every bit the rebellious princess escaping from her castle. He knows of course, Mary Stuart is no princess.
"You lost, doll?" a man bellows from the bar, and she looks at him, more like pins him down with those sleepy brown eyes and a small smile spreads across her lips, sinful and enticing.
"Maybe. Care to show me the way?" she asks, her voice deeper than what you'd expect, throaty and dark. The men whoop and whistle at her, and she takes it all in stride, meeting their eyes, not once looking down or away or blushing, as if she owned the place and them along with it. Her eyes were a warning as much as an invitation.
But if she'd come to flirt with trouble tonight, he would do nothing but try to please her.
"What are you doing here, Stuart?" he asks loudly. At the mention of her last name a few of the most insolent men shut up, certainly recognizing her, and more importantly, her family.
"Why must you kill my fun?" she asks him, batting her big eyes at him, and he can't help but wonder if she does this with every man she encounters. He likes to think he's above giving in to her sultry voice and charm (he's wrong).
He knows her, knows of her, actually, in the way his father insists he knows everything there is to know about the other families so he's prepared when he takes over the business. She's the only daughter of James Stuart, his father's main competitor in the trade of alcohol and other goods. Their families had been fighting each other for control of the trade in this city for years.
His brother had called her a woman you'd literally die to be with, after they'd seen her and her father on the docks once, a few months ago, as they oversaw the delivery of a shipment. Men would, he is certain, they would sell their souls to spend a night with her, and he's pretty damn sure it would be worth it too, whatever happened after her father found out someone was messing with his daughter even when she made eyes at them and begged them to.
And this is not the first time he's encountered her in a speakeasy her father doesn't own, alone and seemingly looking for trouble. It is the first time he's left his post from afar and actually spoken to her, though, and her intoxicating presence already has him wondering if it was a good idea.
"Is that what you call fun?" he asks her, downing the last of his whiskey in one go. "Get one of those guys waking up black and blue in a ditch somewhere tomorrow?"
"That was one time," she tells him, playing coy, twirling the cigarette holder between her dainty gloved fingers, the picture perfect of aloofness. But he sees past it; notices the way her eyes dart past him, making sure he's alone and she hasn't gotten herself in actual trouble she can't get herself out of. "Valois," she says, raising her eyebrows. Of course she knows him, he'd expected nothing else.
They size each other up, both well aware that they are alone here, none of their people around and a myriad of outcomes the night could have right in front of them. This is as much neutral ground as there could ever be for them. He's feeling charitable though, and gives her an out. Surely she knows that while none of his father's employees are here, many of these people are friends; she's the mouse walking into the cat's den.
"Get out of here, princess," he tells her, "your daddy might get worried."
"My daddy can go fuck himself," she says harshly, attracting several looks from the patrons around them, because even for an illegal establishment in a seedy part of the city she's a little thing with a big mouth.
"In that case, let me buy you a drink."
His offer is met with calculating eyes, she's not foolish. She's also not cautious, he can see that plainly, she coming in here like that.
"Hope it's good," she tells him, and leads the way to the bar, swinging her hips to the music playing in the background.
.
Brown eyes meet blue ones over the rim of the glass, an invisible tug of war going on in between them, a certain challenge as they share a cigarette, lips touching were the others have been. They could very well set fire to this place and get away with it, but for this particular night they choose a much more dangerous path. His tongue is exploring her mouth and her hands are slipping under his jacket before either of them remembers their last name.
.
He pays for the room with a couple of bills, his hand never leaving her ass. Her hand brushes down the bulge in his pants before they even get out of sight from the motel's front desk. He doesn't remember the last time he wanted someone this much, with a desperation that felt as liberating as it did constricting, the not being able to get her undressed fast enough, the room being so far away. Her lips are soft and taste so sweet he wants to bite them like candy, and he does, eliciting a gasp from her that makes him impossibly harder.
"Chance to back out, doll," he breaths over her neck, once they're inside the sad little room and he's got her pressed up against the door, her eyes staring up at him the color of coal. His fingertips stop just shy of the hemline of her underwear, her dress hiked up to her thighs, to wait for her answer. It's a God sent moment of clarity where he realizes that he has Mary Stuart in his arms and he's not allowed to have her, and if either of their families found out-
"Just fuck me," she purrs, dragging her nails down the nape of his neck and pulling him down to her red mouth.
Neither of them think again that night.
.
She leaves the rented room in her crumpled dress, her white gloves in her hands, every bit the demure angel. As if she wasn't about to walk down the streets of Manhattan in night clothes and sex hair at half past ten am.
She takes his chin between her fingertips before leaving, and kisses him, biting his lip hard as she pulls away in retribution for last night. Her own lips are red and swollen from kisses and bites, but she looks smug as all hell when she picks up her shawl from the floor.
"We'll meet again, Valois," she tells him with that voice of hers.
She says his name with a certain venom behind it, and as she steals one of his cigarettes on the way out, he finds he likes it.
.
They do meet again, and he gets addicted to it, the way she wraps her legs around him, how she shamelessly pushes his head down her body. The tilted, foggy bedroom eyes and the way she blinks at him after he makes her come undone, as if all along she was the one fucking him and not the other way around.
He gets addicted to the way her mouth tastes like liquor, like expensive chocolate and cherries, a forbidden fruit laced in his favorite perfume, caramel eyes beckoning him in.
He fucks her like she's a mouthpiece for her entire family line, like she alone was the reason his father hated him and he felt trapped in his life. Where the first time he did not see anything but big brown eyes and black hair, her name is at the forefront of his mind now. Stuart, she's a Stuart, and it feels equal parts wrong as it does good, to feel her cry out against him, to imagine he could use her as a balm and vent for the anger that had taken root inside of him a long time ago.
It's only afterwards, as she traces the nail marks on his shoulder blades, her warm breath hitting his back softly as he lays on his side, that he realizes she's doing the same.
.
Soo enough it's not a night here and a night there when their respective parties seem to collide, them moving in the same circles, but consciously making plans, booking rooms days in advance. Suddenly it's her asking Kenna or Greer to cover for her as she leaves, it's making sure none of her father's men follow her so she can meet him and they can spend the night drinking of each other. It's him telling Bash that he's leaving but not mentioning to whom, hoping that his previous indiscretions with girls will cover the fact that now he only ever craves one.
There's a wildness to it, an excitement that sings in her veins whenever she sees the familiar slicked back blond curls waiting for her at the corner of the street, and that doesn't stop, not until after they're asleep and sated, limbs draped over each other.
(Perfect little Romeo and Juliet, except there's no love, they would never die for each other.)
They can't seem to kick the habit, and they find it's much more addicting than the alcohol that so concerns their families.
.
She's supposed to be just another girl.
It's supposed to be strictly physical. The motel rooms, the smell of the smoke, the rum dark and lovely down their throats, burning them from the inside out. Them burning each other. It's not this, it's not brushing the short tendrils of hair behind her ear and covering her with the sheets before he leaves, something pulling him back to the bed where she lays.
It gets hard to distinguish what is it he likes, the way they pick wherever it's convenient to meet, both of them escaping their families if not for a little while, or if it's her, just her...
There's the anger of his father pressuring him into taking care of more and more of the business, the way his blood rushes when he meets her at night and the way her naked body feels, warm and pliable beneath his hands. And then there's the way she laughs in the mornings when he finds himself tickling her awake, her brown eyes looking like molten gold in the sunlight streaming through the windows as more and more she stays to have breakfast with him.
It's hard to separate things when it comes to her, and he's not sure he wants to.
.
He doesn't realize when it shifts, when neither of them wants to let go once they are done and instead stay in each other's arms, but it happens. They laugh in between kisses and he holds her hands next to her head as he drives into her, pressing kisses against her jaw line, and it's only later, when she's already fallen asleep, that he notices their fingers are still intertwined.
.
"Drinking debauches mankind, you know?" he asks her, jokingly, from his seat on the groaning wooden chair at the foot of the bed. "That's why it's against the law." He kicks his feet up on the bed so the glass she's filling spills a little with the movement, the dark caramel liquid running down her bare stomach and staining the already blemished mattress. It doesn't matter, he'll lick her clean later anyways.
She looks up at him in annoyance, a small wrinkle forming between her eyebrows.
"It's a good thing I'm not a man then," she answers him, swallowing the bitter alcohol at once.
He loves her a little then, in a way that's sad and lonely and tastes like whiskey from her lips.
.
One of her father's men catches her outside The Nightingale, their bar of choice, and he's smart enough to turn around and leave before they notice him. It still makes them stop, be more careful. They don't see each other for nearly three weeks after that and once they do, he rips her dress, and between gasps and kisses promises to buy her a new one.
.
"Do you really not care?" he asks her quietly one night, the sweat drying off of their bodies. "About all of it, I mean...going out dressed like that, meeting me here, all the sex-"
"I think you'll find neither of us can complain in that aspect," she interrupts him, nestling her head further in his shoulder. They don't talk much, usually, merely joke around but she has a reputation, and he can't help but worry.
"When I marry, I'll marry whoever my father says, and I reckon the man won't have much choice in the matter either," she tells him, sitting up in bed, the sheet falling to her waist. "So why should I care? Why should I keep myself at home and dress all proper when at the end it won't matter? Why shouldn't I have a little fun?" she asks him, running her hand down his bare chest, her thighs on either side of his legs, straddling him.
He complies and kisses her then, his hands sliding down her body he's come to know by heart. This stopped being a little fun a long time ago.
.
"I want to take you somewhere," she tells him one morning, her legs folded underneath her and her bare face making her look very young. Today there's no trace of the little minx with the short hair and black-lined eyes, blowing Os with a cigarette to an entire room's delight.
"Where?" he asks her, buttoning his cuffs; not a reminder that they are supposed to be nothing more than a pastime to each other, or that they can't be seen together, but an honest desire to follow her and see where it all goes.
"Now where's the fun in telling you?" She smiles, biting her tongue between her teeth.
They end up on the beach, and despite the weather have to share the boardwalk with a few too many people. It's odd, to say the least. The silences aren't uncomfortable, but he has to remind himself that she's not just Mary, despite what it feels like.
The park is filled with the sound of children's laughter and there are people in their bathing suits running around down at the beach, and the sheer amount of noise that surrounds them makes it seem like a dream he won't admit he's had, because the only hours he's shared with her have been between the four walls of a motel room and between the sheets of a bed that it's not theirs, their moans bouncing off the walls. It gives him a glimpse into a life he can't have with her and until now didn't realize he wanted. He kisses her in front of the ocean.
.
She convinces her dad to let her go to college with her friends, to let her move in with the girls. He argues that she already spends all of her time partying and doesn't need to move or go to college to do the same, but he gives in, at the end. Everyone always does when it comes to her.
.
They make it a habit to get on the subway at different stops, and they spend entire days on the beach together. It's far away to not be found but close enough to still look over their shoulders in case they've been followed.
She returns to the apartment so late at night that eventually the girls have to be told the truth, and saying it out loud, pushing those words out of her lungs after so many months of keeping them close its liberating, if not frightening.
.
She has one of her maids deliver the note to him. The poor woman enters the establishment pale and absolutely terrified, and makes a bee-line to him the second she notices him. She practically throws the note in his lap and then leaves as fast as possible.
He's mildly amused at Mary's antics until he reads the note, asking him to meet her that night, signed with a shaky handwriting nothing like her usually elegant one and no kiss staining the paper at the end.
.
He opens the door of the room gingerly, half expecting her father's men to grab him the minute he sets foot inside, and the weight of the gun on his hip is a comfort if that was the case. But there's only her on the bed, a half empty bottle of rum on the bedside table, barefoot, her lithe body wearing normal clothing instead of her usual attire.
"Francis, welcome!" she exclaims. "I couldn't wait for you darling, I'm afraid I'm half under already, " she slurs, smiling as if it hurt.
It almost scares him, how fast he rushes over to her and takes her face in his hands, turning her left cheek to face the light. And there, along her left cheek, is a bruise, the soft skin purple and so tender to the touch she winces at the softest caress of his thumb.
"What happened to you?" he asks, barely repressing his anger. He'll kill them, whoever dared to lay a hand on her.
"What do you know," she says, grabbing the lapels of his jacket with unsteady fingers, "my sweet old man found out about me hanging out at the Nightingale so much…" She plops down on the bed again, her vision lost somewhere behind him.
"Mary?" He looks around for water, settles for wetting his handkerchief under the faucet of the shabby motel room. He'd assumed she was safe, that if what they'd been doing ever came to light her father adored her, that he would be the one paying the price.
He takes her into his arms gently, the cold water on her forehead seemingly clearing her head enough for her to whisper, terrified.
"He knows about us…Francis-"
"It's all right," he tells her, pulling her down so her head rests on his lap.
"He told me he couldn't care less if his daughter was a slut, but did I really have to pick a Valois?" She laughs bitterly, the alcohol still governing her it seems, because tears start to fall from her eyes. He's never seen her cry.
She stands up so suddenly it makes her pale, and her eyes are frantic when she looks at him, as if she hadn't really seen him until now.
"You need to leave, get out of here, leave the city-"
"Mary, what-"
"He's going to kill you, Francis." Her mouth trembles with the words.
A cold shiver makes its way down his neck, because for every care he doesn't have in the world, he never expected it to happen like that. But he'd known she was fire the first time he held her, he'd expected to burn. She throws herself against him and he stumbles back with the force of the collision, his arms instantly go around her waist, holding her up.
"I was stupid, he's been looking for an excuse to attack your family for years and I gave him one," she sobs against his chest, her hand on his throat, her finger on his pulse as if to assure herself that he was still here.
"My father's sick," he shares with her, placing his trust in someone such a foreign feeling. "He's dying. We're more vulnerable than ever now." He's strangely calm as he utters this out loud, his mind racing like he's been taught, trying to find a way out. Even if her father doesn't go through with his threat, if his own father finds out this could cost him the business.
She makes him look at her then, her hand running through his hair and down the nape of his neck, her eyes red-rimmed and sad, but her mouth as sweet as ever as she presses a kiss to his mouth.
"What have we been playing at all this time?" she asks miserably when she pulls away.
He doesn't have an answer.
.
Her mother informs her the following day of the man her father has picked for her to marry. His name is Tomás, and he's a widower, and also happens to be rather important in his natal Colombia. She's not surprised his father would use her to get his hands on something he wanted, she'd been expecting it ever since she was sixteen and his father joked around with business partners that he'd throw her into the deal as well if it helped close it.
She doesn't cry herself to sleep that night. Instead she thinks of Francis and her future husband and the power at the tip of her fingertips, and then she doesn't doubt of what needs to be done.
.
It's all over the tabloids, news of renowned entrepreneur James Stuart dying in a tragic accident in one of his bars as a pipe exploded, how odd it was that there were no other casualties, how grief stricken his wife and only daughter must be. She takes over the family business.
.
Nearly a month passes by.
And it's almost merciful, the way he lets the poison slide down his father's throat. It's the years of being beaten down and mocked by his own father, the repressed anger, that finally tilt his hand just so, the liquid hitting his father's lips and sliding home.
It's merely speeding up the process, he tells himself, eliminating the last obstacle for him and Mary.
(Perfect little Romeo and Juliet, who wouldn't die for each other but would kill everyone else.)
.
The bad blood between Stuart and Valois dies down not long after, the business blooms, and if anyone suspects, they don't say anything.
The first thing they do as one is buy off The Nightingale. They slip in at night, breaking in even if they own the place, a bottle of newspaper-covered whiskey in his hand and a portable gramophone in the other. He sets it down and fixes the needle, winding it until the soft music fills the empty place. She looks at him, the blond hair, the slender hands which, like hers, are stained with blood. They're equally rotten, and she wonders if that's why they found each other in the first place, why they deserve this.
But as he twirls her around to the jazz in the background, she thinks of the parties and the liquor and the music, the nightlife of this city breathing and alive, and how it's all worth it, the world they'll build together.