Chapter 2
Rose-Marie groaned mentally when she saw her stepmother, Marion, sitting at the dining room table. She'd just had her morning workout and had hoped to have some coffee in peace before grabbing a shower and heading to her father's office to try and tackle the storage room. The storage room at her father's office was an on-going project, one she figured was going to take a fair amount of time to sort out the mess that was in those rooms.
Instead, when Marion saw her, she smirked. "Had fun last night, did we?"
Rose-Marie didn't reply. She preferred to keep her conversations with Marion short and simple and she certainly kept her private life exactly that; private. Most of the time Marion left her alone, preferring to trade barbs with her older sister, Judith-Ann, who put up more of a fight.
"My private business is my private business, Marion; you know that," Rose-Marie said as she got herself a cup of coffee from the breakfast buffet.
"Not when it's in the tabloids, my dear," Marion smirked.
Rose-Marie froze. "What, exactly, do you mean by that?" she asked icily. Marion held up a copy of one of the local tabloids and Rose-Marie snatched it from her, coffee forgotten. "Oh my fucking god!" She quickly flipped through the paper, stared at the page, threw it on the table, snatched another local tabloid paper, found what she didn't want to find, threw that aside, and grabbed the New York Post, flipping to the Entertainment section. Sure enough... "Son of a bitch! They can't leave me alone, can they?!" she finished off yelling.
"Quite the good-looking guy," Marion smirked, clearly enjoying her step-daughter's distress.
"Fuck you, Marion! That's your life, not mine!" Rose-Marie snarled, taking off for the stairs that lead to the second floor of the house and her bedroom. Once in her room she threw off the sweats she had been wearing from her work-out and changed into clean undergarments. Then she grabbed a pair of well-worn jeans, some clean socks, her favorite t-shirt from Disney's Beauty and the Beast Broadway Musical, and pulled her hair into a pony-tail. While she was doing this, her sister, Judith-Ann, came into her bedroom, wearing her own pair of sweats.
"I heard yelling," Judith-Ann said. "What happened?" she asked, plopping herself on Rose-Marie's bed.
"You seen the papers this morning?" Rose-Marie snarled, hopping into her jeans.
"Yeah, cute picture and cute guy," Judith-Ann said while cringing inwardly. She knew how much her sister hated the papers and hated it even more when she was in them. Of the two Desmond siblings, Rose-Marie tried to keep her face out of the papers and her life private. "Did you have fun?"
"He's a cop, Jay, and I lied to him!" Rose-Marie snarled, shoving her head through her shirt.
"He didn't know who you were?" Judith-Ann asked, eyebrows shooting up.
"Told him my name was Bella Donald and that I worked at a bakery," Rose-Marie said. "Bent the truth in a few areas and spent one of the best damn nights of my life in his arms." She hunted through her closet until she found what she was looking for; a thick gray hoodie sweat-jacket from a local sports gear shop, and pulled it on. Then she started hunting for her favorite pair of Sketchers hiking runners. "I don't care about me or the flippin' tabloids, I care about him! Especially since I was seriously considering calling him up and suggesting we have a bit of fun at the St. Regis on V-Day! After this, I'll be surprised if he even speaks to me again!"
"You care about him," Judith-Ann guessed, watching as her sister yanked the found foot-wear on.
"I had the best night of my life with him," she snarled. "He made me feel things I thought I'd never feel – Donovan you know the rule!" she finished off yelling, jerking her finger towards the tall, Adonis-like man who had just entered her bedroom.
"Sorry, I heard yelling, figured I'd see what was up," the chest-bare man said unapologetically. He brushed a lock of his dark hair out of his face and placed his hands on his sweat-clad hips. He glanced at Judith-Ann, who jerked her head towards the door.
"Out, Donnie,I'll explain what's going on later," she said. Donovan shrugged and left the room, shutting the door behind him.
"I don't know why you put up with him," Rose-Marie muttered, grabbing her sheepskin jacket, the same one she'd worn last night, and her gloves.
"He's harmless and he's fun," Judith-Ann said, watching as Rose-Marie found her favorite pair of Victoria's Secret sunglasses and started hunting for something else.
"He's an idiot," Rose-Marie shot back, "And if that moron comes into my room again, I will borrow a pair of steel-toe boots from Ramon and use 'em on Donovan's ass." Ramon was the Desmond's gardener and sometimes wore steel-toe boots for work around the estate.
"I'll warn him," Judith-Ann said. She held up a denim hat with Eeyore embroidered on it and offered it to her sister, who grabbed it, shoving it on her head and pulling her hair through the back. "This guy really means something to you, doesn't he?" she asked.
Rose-Marie nodded. "He's a good man and he doesn't deserve this. I've got to get to him and try and apologize before he decides to never speak to me again."
Judith-Ann nodded and said, "Take my car; it's faster and the windows are dark. Plus, I gassed it up recently. Also, the paparazzi will be looking for you, not me."
"Thanks, I owe you one," Rose-Marie said, grabbing her purse and dashing out of the room.
At the New York Police Department, Rose-Marie found herself being confronted by a desk sergeant that she would have loved to hire as her new butler; the family butler, Paul, was getting close to retirement and she wanted him to retire without worrying about the family. This guy gave new meaning to the phrase "Human Brick Wall," which made him perfect for the family.
"Look, all I want to know is if Detective Flack is in so I can talk to him," she snapped.
Before the desk sergeant could answer, a woman with curly hair stepped up to the desk and said, "Well, unfortunately for you, Ms. Desmond, Flack does not want to speak to you. He has this little thing about liars."
"Oh, get off your high horse," Rose-Marie snapped. "You think I'm enjoying this? You think I like having my private life splashed all over the friggin' papers? All I wanted was one god-damn night to myself, one night where I could have a little fun, and thanks to my dear sister and stepmother, I can't even do that! I have to lie to get laid in private!" Not even turning her head, she jerked a finger towards a guy with a camera held up to his face and snarled, "And if you don't get that camera out of my face in the next five seconds you are going to find yourself in front of a judge on charges of harassment, bucko! And that's if you're lucky!" The desk sergeant, bless him, quickly got the man out of her sight. Rose-Marie sighed heavily, rubbing the bridge of her nose where she could feel a headache coming on. "Look, I just want to talk to Don, to try and explain and to apologize. He's a good man and he doesn't deserve this. I don't care about what happens to me, okay? I care about Don. He was kind to me and he gave me one of the best nights of my life, something I haven't had in a long time and thanks to the paparazzi and my family name, that's something I don't get very often. I'm not trying to pull a sob story, I'm just trying to hold on to something that was good. Hell, I was planning on calling him up and finding out if he wanted to join me at the St. Regis on V-Day for some more fun."
The woman crossed her arms across her chest and scowled, studying her. Finally she sighed heavily. "Let me talk to Don, see what he says, okay? He's a friend and I don't want to see him hurt anymore than he already is."
"I didn't want to hurt him at all," Rose-Marie said. "In fact, I didn't even intend to hook up with him and I sure as hell didn't intend for the paparazzi to find me. I thought I was safe. Guess I was wrong."
"You said you care about him," the woman said.
Rose-Marie chuckled wryly. "Yeah, I'm not much for fairy-tales but Don... I didn't think it was possible for someone to make me feel as good as he did, to make me feel like a person and not an object or a commodity or something to be shown off."
The woman smiled fondly. "Don does have that way with women. Let me see what I can do, okay?"
Rose-Marie nodded and sat down in one of the chairs, prepared to wait.
Stella Bonasera headed for Don's desk, thinking about the woman in the waiting area and about Don's anger. There was something about Rose-Marie that made her want to believe her. She mentally reviewed what she knew about the Desmond family and realized Rose-Marie was right; her mother and her sister were very public figures, in the papers and the tabloids practically every other day. Rose-Marie was the quiet, reclusive one, the one the papers rarely saw. Not much was known about her, except that she disliked the paparazzi and avoided them as much as she possibly could, to the point of threatening them the way she did with the guy who had just been in the waiting area. If there was someone special in Rose-Marie's life, she was very, very tight-lipped about it. Her date with Don Flack was the first time the paparazzi had seen her do anything like that since her college days, roughly five years ago, if Stella remembered right.
"Don?" Stella asked as she approached her friend's desk. The dark-haired detective looked up.
"A friendly face at last," he quipped.
Stella smiled. "Yeah, well, don't shoot me, but there's someone here to see you," she said.
"Who?" Don asked curiously.
"Rose-Marie Desmond," Stella said.
Don scowled. "I don't want anything to do with her," he said.
"And if I told you she wants to apologize?" Stella said. "What if I told you she is one of the most reclusive of the Desmonds and absolutely hates the paparazzi to the point of just having threatened a guy in the waiting area with a judge if he didn't get the camera out of her face in the next five seconds and that was only if he was lucky?"
"She lied to me, Stella, and I slept with her," Don snapped.
"What would you have done if you had known who she really was?" Stella shot back.
"Avoided her like the plague," he replied heavily.
"And instead?"
"I found a pretty, desirable woman that I had a good time with and was seriously considering calling up for lunch or coffee," he said, seeing where Stella was going with this.
"Amazing what one name can do, huh?" she asked gently. "She said she never intended to hurt you and that you made her feel things she hadn't felt in a long time. She was planning on calling you to see if you wanted to join her on the 14th for some more fun, except this time at the St. Regis."
"The St. Regis, huh?"
"Five star hotel, wine, sex, sounds like a good time to me," Stella said.
"Bella doesn't touch alcohol; something about being sensitive to it," Don said.
Stella nodded. "Makes an ordinary hang-over for us three times worse for her," she said. "Most people with alcohol sensitivity prefer to avoid the stuff all together." Don nodded; he'd been wondering about that. "The papers also report that she's a diabetic and is a frequent contributor to the top, most promising, nonprofit diabetic research companies," she said.
"That explains why she only had the one drink, a Virgin Raspberry Daiquiri, and didn't touch anything else for the rest of the time," he said, leaning back in his chair. "Didn't even take sugar in her coffee this morning, just milk. Didn't think anything of it at the time but I do remember seeing one of her finger tips looking a bit sore after she came out of the bathroom."
"Blood sugar testing; the norm for a diabetic," Stella said. "Look, I know you're hurt that she lied to you, but she's here and she's trying to apologize. She said she doesn't care about what happens to her, only that you're a good man and you didn't deserve to be splashed all over the papers like that."
"And you believe her?"
"Something in her eyes," Stella admitted. "That and the way she verbally castrated that camera guy; no weeping willow there."
Don chuckled. "Okay," he said, giving in. "I'll go talk to her, see what she has to say." He grabbed his coat from the back of his chair and stood up. "Can't hurt any more than it already does."