Obligatory disclaimer: I do not own "Ugly Betty" or any of the characters and/or brand names mentioned.
A/N: I have two messages to convey. The first is to wish everyone a happy and safe 2008 :)
The second message is directed at the AMPTP; I took the liberty of making a New Year's resolution for them: give the writers what they're due so we can end this thrice cursed strike already!!! Ahem. Otherwise, I'm forced to crank out stuff like the following fanfic. It's dark and twisted and even a little sweet, maybe. Hope you enjoy.
The two were definitely in love.
That much was plain to Wilhelmina as she stood, arms crossed, luscious mouth pulled down at the corners, watching Daniel and Betty.
Oh, it was so obvious—late at night, the way Daniel watched her pour over layouts that he could have easily perused and approved over a fifteen-minute coffee break; he was simply fascinated, and fascinated that he was fascinated, over this little, odd, dynamic girl, after all this time.
And then there was the way she glanced over at him every now and then to straighten a forelock of dark, spiky brunette hair and his response of practically rubbing his face into her open palm as she did so.
They were both loose as a goose around each other in strange, intimate, familial way that had nothing to do with the Jose Cuervo they were consuming, the condensation rolling off the longneck bottles and onto the glass desk—even that was so damn hot when these two were together.
Wili shook it off. Mustn't take her eyes off the prize, mustn't fail to get what she was due.
When the solution had come to her in all its shining perfection, she was almost angry at herself for not thinking of it sooner. Sophia Reyes, the beautiful, backstabbing, brilliant bitch, had had it right all along: divide and conquer. Split up Bizarro-world Barbie and Delinquent Ken and watch Daniel's reign crumble, Betty's heart shatter.
Wili tapped the tip of her now-perfect nose with an equally perfect nail. It wouldn't be easy, of course, but she and Marc's covert observations had given her an ace in the hole that anyone with her bloodthirsty brand of ambition would be hopelessly stupid not to exploit.
Oh, she felt sure she could divide them for a short time; she could stalk over right now, interrupt their little co-ed party, and put their feelings, their love to words, to poetry, really. And the two might fly apart, scatter like frightened does for a time.
But they would always, always gravitate back toward each other. It was practically a law of physics, of the universe, really, that Daniel Meade and Betty Suarez would never fail to find each other.
But Wili had to try, had to make it stick.
Betty was the one to corner, no doubt about it. Daniel would simply look at her askance and tell her to piss off, and then go seek out his pwecious wittle Betty.
Wili watched as Daniel put a finger under Betty's chin, lifted her face to his and told her goodnight, then reluctantly turned and strode toward the elevator. He looked over his shoulder at least five times.
It was time.
Betty was logging off her computer when she felt a change in the atmosphere, a beautiful hostility.
"Wilhelmina." It wasn't a question. Betty turned around.
Wili was somewhat disappointed. She could so easily glide up to everyone else, even Marc, without being noticed until she was well within pouncing range. She'd perfected in prep school how to walk, no, waft softly, gently, soundlessly, like a lady, the headmistress had said. But not Betty, who was so effortlessly connected to everything and everyone around her, even amongst resistance, she couldn't help but feel the strong presence of one so deadly as Wili Slater.
It was one of the many things that deeply irked and unnerved Wilhelmina about the girl. It made her feel that Betty had once again gotten the better of her. There were ramifications for doing that.
"Late night?" Wili asked, her eyes like two lifeless, round blue marbles, as blue and inhospitable as Neptune's surface.
"Yes." Betty stood and straightened. She was obviously creeped out (good) but she was trying not to show it. Brave girl. Wili felt she could afford to at least mentally compliment her, knowing Betty was about to be absolutely annihilated by what she was about to do.
"Back to Daniel's loft, I assume."
Betty looked at her quizzically. "No, I…I'm going home. To Jackson Heights."
"You know, Betty," Wili began conversationally, parking her Brazilian butt lift on the edge of Betty's desk and fingering the pink and green stuffed bunny, "I like to consider myself a big-sister figure to all the young ladies here at Mode. A worldy, understanding woman, so to speak."
Betty snorted. More like a Grandma-figure and in an alternate satanic dimension, she thought, but wisely kept it to herself. Wilhelmina gave her the straight-up heebie-jeebies. She reminded Betty of a sleek, dead, stuffed and mounted snow leopard, always posing and vaguely pitiable for it, always intimidating with its lifeless glassy eyes.
Wili continued in a silky ethereal purr. "I notice more than you think I do. I see more than anyone else here. I see how Daniel is hopelessly, deeply in love with you. And I see the feeling is mutual." Her tone remained gently casual.
Betty thought now would be as good a time as any to have that asthma attack she had been putting off since she started to work at Mode.
Wili arranged her face into an expression that she probably thought oozed big-sisterly insight and concern. She tapped Betty's cheek and then traced a nail along the soft contour.
"Oh, don't look so shocked, dear. Don't insult us both. It's really a no-brainer. Daniel's known so few women who wouldn't spread their legs within ten seconds of meeting him. And you come along, so sweet, so brave, so smart, so unaffected, so good. You intrigued him so from the very first. Naturally, those feelings would evolve."
Wili was a little intrigued herself to find that, about this last point, at least, she was sincere.
Betty's throat worked, but to her credit, her voice came out clear and strong and firm. "Wilhelmina, Daniel is my boss and my dearest friend. There could never be…"
Wili tilted her head. "I know there could never be. But those pesky feelings are still there, aren't they? Making you feel flushed and hot and cold at the same time. Making your palms sweat. His, too. No one blames you, least of all me. We're both adult women, Betty. We can talk. He is quite the specimen, isn't he?"
Betty had started trembling, unable to look away from that gaze, unable to close her ears off to the words, wanting desperately to conjure up another denial. But she could not. And Wili knew. Wili leaned in closer.
"But, Betty, darling, you know why Bradford hired you. You must, by now. A brilliant man, may he rest in peace."
Betty's eyes flashed fire briefly, but she only nodded sadly.
Wili took a deep breath before continuing, as if it pained her to inform Betty of what she already knew, as if she weren't enjoying the hell out of this.
"Sometimes life requires sacrifice. If romantic complications got in the way of business, Mode's progress, Daniel's progress, would be muddled. Maybe even grind to a halt. We wouldn't want that, now would we?" She raised an expertly crafted eyebrow.
Betty could take no more. In a building designed for air flow, continuity, space, she had never felt more trapped. She had to break lose. She snatched her hand away from Wilhelmina's. The other woman's was cool as snake's skin and relaxed as a day at the beach. God, how could anyone find her beautiful, why do all the interns aspire to be her? She's hideous, vulgar, terrifying, said Betty's racing mind.
Feeling nauseas, Betty fled. She waited until the elevator doors shut, then crumpled into heap.
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Daniel had made it out to his town car before he realized he'd forgotten his briefcase. He wasn't really surprised at his oversight, wasn't even annoyed. It wasn't like he could remember much nowadays except Betty, anyway.
"Sorry, Steven, I need to go back and get something," he told his driver apologetically. Yeah, I need to go get Betty so I can bring her back to my loft and…o-KAY, going to get the briefcase now…
He hoped ridiculously that she was still up there. Maybe he could persuade her to dine with him. The thought made him wipe his damp palms on his disgustingly expensive suit. God, he was like some newly minted smitten boarding-school punk around that tiny, sweetly fiery girl.
The elevator doors pinged open and there, a little dollop of warm colors crouched in the corner, was his Betty. She made a soft gasping sob as she saw him and then hid her face in her hands. Her arms wound more tightly around her as if she were trying to disappear inside herself.
Daniel was immediately terrified. A crying Betty was unacceptable. Unacceptable, because when she cried, he was torn apart from the inside out…
"Betty, God, what's wrong? Your family (my family, came an unbidden thought) —Hilda, Justin, Dad, I mean, your dad—are they okay?"
Seeing he wasn't going away, she nodded and he helped her stand; she was still flushed and trembling, and she unselfconsciously accepted his embrace, which made him feel giddy despite his fear for her.
"Start talking, Betty." She looked as unhappy as he'd ever seen her.
"It's stupid. I'm stupid. Stupid and crazy and impossible and God, after all this time, she still gets to me…"
"Wilhelmina."
Off Betty's surprised look, Daniel said, "Oh, she was skanking around up there a little while ago, staring at us like some demented old perv. I never thought she'd be stupid enough to try anything evil once I left. God, I'm so sorry, Betty. And good old Wili had gone senile if she thought he'd let her get away with hurting Betty…What did she say to you?"
Betty refused to look him in the eye, never a good sign. "Just intimidation tactics, I guess. That's how she works." Her hands were clasped in front of her, like they always were when she was deeply disturbed. "And a bunch of made-up crap. Botox overdose, maybe." Her attempt at humor fell flat and lay between them.
It was something to do with Betty and me. Daniel was infinitely smarter than most people gave him credit for. His perceptions of people and their moods were uncanny, especially when it came to Betty. Betty was never afraid to look him square in the face unless she was uncertain about the state of their relationship. In the rare times that their friendship had been on the rocks, she'd avoided eye contact like Black Death.
"My town car is waiting in the parking garage," Daniel said. "We'll grab some dinner and I'll take you home. I won't have you stumbling down the streets of New York when you're this upset. I'll be there in a few. I just have to get something at Mode."
She gave him her most concerned look. "Oh, Daniel, don't say anything to Wilhelmina. It'll just make it worse…"
"I'm just getting my briefcase," he said soothingly, in his most reasonable tone. "I'll give Frankenmina a wide berth." She shot him a suspicious glance through her tears, but relented.
"Tyrant." But she was smiling now.
He kissed her on the forehead. You have no idea…
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Daniel found Wilhelmina sitting in Betty's chair. Her usually immaculate posture had vanished, and she was lounging about with a smile that told him some small woodland creature had just died messily. Her delicate hands were crossed over her stomach.
Daniel suddenly stood before her. "So what'd you say?"
Wilhelmina didn't even bother to feign ignorance. "Oh, just that the hard-on you've been packing for her will land you both in a world of trouble sooner or later. And I'd bet sooner rather than later. Hated to break up the club house, though."
Wilhelmina was rarely surprised by anything in her life. But when Daniel reached down in one swift movement, clamped his hand on her wrist and hauled her to her feet, she had to admit that that was a, well, different reaction than the more low-key one she had been expecting. Not frightening, not yet, just different.
It was only when she stared brazenly into those eyes that she realized her miscalculation; she'd failed to know her enemy thoroughly, a devastating tactical error which was now devastating the tendons in her wrist.
Too late, she discovered that Daniel Meade was no longer the devil-may-care, easily led boy that she'd first met ten years prior, flirting with the giggling and swooning models in his father's office. She had failed to assimilate who he had become: a powerful, confident, domineering, sexy-as-hell man, infinitely kind and loyal to his few loved ones, and devastating to his many enemies, and all due to the gentle influence of one small Hispanic assistant. Oh, Bradford, you'd be so proud, you vicious old bastard…
Wili began to feel the almost-foreign twinge of fear when she realized that this was the first, last and only time Daniel Meade had ever laid a hostile hand on a woman. He probably didn't realize he was doing it, but that didn't make the scenario any less frightening—or arousing. She'd fantasized about driving Daniel over the edge so many times.
But now she was starting to wonder if she'd poked a tiger with a stick one too many times; or maybe it was that she'd poked a particularly Betty-shaped spot. He looked down, realized he was touching her, and disgustedly, wordlessly flung her wrist back at her. She fought the urge to cradle it, and it hung stiffly by her side for a moment.
He could practically see the wheels turning behind that face that had graced the cover of countless magazines in its heyday, through the haze of pheromones that Wili would probably be enraged to realize she was giving off.
She slinked closer and tried to rub up against him like a cat seeking just a little more attention. Daniel fought the urge to puke, a reaction not many men had probably had around Wili Slater. With that little half-smile that had driven most of the women of his acquaintance straight out of their panties in less that thirty seconds flat, he held her at arm's length easily. His blue eyes raked her up and down, slowly, leisurely.
He leaned in closer, and she thought she was going to swoon like those silly twittering little bitches that followed him like lapdogs.
"Wili, you bitch," he whispered, his tongue flicking into her ear and tracing the outer rim. "If I ever catch you screwing around with Betty ever again, they won't be able to trace it back to me when they find what's left of you and your pet." He nodded with chilling amiability towards Marc, who was dusting her office, oblivious.
He winked at her and grabbed his briefcase. "Wouldn't want to forget this," he said cheerfully. "See you Monday, Wili. I'm meeting a beautiful girl for dinner."
Wilhelmina walked back into her office like a sleepwalker, back to where she was safely surrounded by pristine white order, her private world, in which strong, wonderful, powerful heirs of publishing empires did not fall for curvaceous secretaries from Queens.
She sat on her white chaise lounge and finally allowed herself to tremble.
Well, what do you think? I'm not sure how this will be received because I took Daniel down a darker route than usual. If you loved it, hated it, or felt so-so about it, please let me know! Many thanks in advance!