A/N Finally! My main computer broke while I was half-way through this chapter so I had to wait to get it fixed before I could continue :( But hey, this chapter's ready now and I'm hoping to have another up soon.

Hope you all enjoy :)

Nude, With Calla Lilies

Chapter 12: Dirty Smiles

He'd acted like he couldn't care less, like she meant nothing to him and never would. He'd treated her like he hardly knew her, like she wasn't broken and afraid, but merely someone he'd come into contact with through chance.

Lucas Scott hated himself for the way he was in love with Brooke Davis.

He'd spent the past few nights tossing and turning, knowing that Brooke would never agree to Peyton's offer of their spare room, meaning that she'd go back to that house she shared with Chase, prepared for another blow, another slap, another bruise across her delicate skin.

Her skin was what haunted him the most.

Perhaps, he'd thought, if Brooke did choose to stay, if she did pack her bags and swallow whatever pride, if any, that she had left, he'd get a decent night's sleep.

But knowing she'd be laying awake in that bed down the hall, would probably do more to keep him awake than a hundred cans of Red Bull ever would.

If she did stay, they would almost certainly get caught. Staying away would be too hard.

X

He cried when she left their bedroom, bag in tow. He cried like a small child, like it was his mother leaving, clawed at her ankles with their black hosiery as he promised never to do it again, never to even raise his voice.

But when she simply stepped over him, head held up high, he snapped, pulled himself up, face turning redder as he slammed her against the wall.

She still didn't look in his eyes.

"You'll regret this you know." He spat. "You'll have nothing, no career, no house, no car, no clothes. You won't get a modelling contract looking like a piece of crap!"

She wouldn't reply, couldn't reply. Just held her breath until he realised his grip from her neck a little.

"You're nothing without me and without my money."

"I was everything before I met you, and now look at me!" She finally replied, voice taken over by some kind of involuntary reaction. "I can't even look at myself anymore! You did this to me!"

"You did it to yourself." Chase replied coldly. "Was he worth it?"

"Who?"

"Whoever you slept with, whoever you got your slutty little hands on."

"I told you, I didn't cheat on you!" Brooke lied.

"And I told you, that I didn't believe you. You're a liar Brooke. A dirty, cheap, personality-less little liar."

"Because of you!" She screamed as she freed herself from him, cheeks burning. "All of this is because of you!"

"Yeah, you're right." He followed. "All of this is because of me; this house, your clothes, your career, your car, the vacations. You'll come back when you realise that you can't ever live like this without me."

"You're kidding yourself."

"You need me Brooke admit it! You need me, and you need my money and my last name."

"I don't need anything from you anymore." She returned coldly as she left that house to a hundred flashes, to bright blue sky and cotton wool clouds.

Brooke Davis-Adams was Brooke Davis again.

X

"I just don't get it." Lucas frowned. "You and Brooke, you're not friends?"

"Not exactly."

"Then why would you invite her to stay?"

"Because she needs somewhere and we have a spare room."

"But loads of people have spare rooms. I don't invite people I hardly know to come and stay."

"That's because you don't 'hardly know' anybody that's been a victim of domestic abuse. She needs help Luke!"

"Exactly." He nodded. "But we can't give her that Peyton, she needs a doctor or a psychologist or..."

"She's not sick Lucas!"

"No, but aren't there people you're supposed to talk to? People that can help..."

"You're supposed to do what feels right for you." Peyton replied frostily.

"What about what's right for us? Having Brooke here will make things hard for us to do things just me and you."

"Wake up Luke." Peyton rolled her eyes. "We don't do anything just me and you anymore other than fight."

"That's not true, we do lots of things together like, we eat together, and sleep together, we've just been on vacation!"

"Yeah, and while you were walking the beach on your own, I was getting massages and pedicures on my own."

"What are you trying to say?"

"I don't know." She sighed. "Maybe..."

"Maybe what?"

"Maybe this marriage isn't..." She stopped as the noise of the door buzzer overtook her voice, offering a small sad smile towards her husband. "That'll be Brooke."

"Wait!" Lucas cut in. "We haven't finished this conversation."

Peyton turned to look at him on her way out. "You and I both know how this conversation ends Luke."

X

The worst part of it all wasn't that he knew his marriage was over long before that earlier conversation. It wasn't that Peyton had turned her back to him yet again, her curly blonde hair resting on his half of the bed. It was that he could hear Brooke crying, failing as she tried to stifle her sobs against the emerald comforter, sniffing as she exhaled, only to reduce to tears again after a couple seconds.

Brooke Davis' cries were worse than Lucas could have imagined.

They got quieter as he made his way nearer, and Lucas began to wonder whether he was just imagining that things were worse than they were in reality. But when she wiped at her face furiously as he knocked lightly on her door, entering regardless of her answer, he knew she was trying to cover her tracks.

"You shouldn't be here Lucas."

"And neither should you but we're all doing things we're not supposed to be." He said somewhat sadly, very softly, and he was sure it made her lips creak into something of a tiny smile, a slightly dirty, naughty smile that he'd have pressed his own lips up against if they'd been anywhere other than in that room.

"Does Peyton know-"

"She's asleep." He cut in.

X

Brooke found the silences the unbearable. When she wasn't talking to him was when she'd do nothing but think about him. The more they talked, the less she thought. It was better that way, didn't hurt as much.

"Tell me things." She asked softly.

"What do you mean?"

"Tell me about work, your day, the weather, anything."

"But why do you-"

"Just talk to me Lucas." She whispered. "Please."

So he told her about the book, about how it had been approved by the publisher, and how it was due in stores in the next few weeks. He told her about the weather forecast, and how it had predicted rain, but he was hoping for sun.

"I like the rain." Brooke said gently. "Even though it messes up my hair sometimes, and it ruins my makeup. I love watching it against the window when I'm inside with a mug of hot chocolate."

"You don't seem like a hot chocolate kind of girl." Lucas replied with a small smile. "More like...caramel latte."

"Really?"

"Really. You look to me, like you'd drink lattes during the day and shots of espresso at night."

"Wrong." She shook her head, laughing a little until she remembered that it wasn't just the two of them, and that everything with Chase, had in fact, happened.

Lucas sighed and stopped leaning against the wall. "Do you want some?" He asked. "Hot chocolate I mean. It's raining."

She nodded yes, and wiped at her eyes one more time, making sure there were no remnants of mascara, no bags, no wrinkles.

"You still look beautiful." Lucas whispered softly as she looked up, thinking he'd disappeared towards the kitchen. "Even when you're crying, with those bruises." He closed his eyes for a second. "You still look beautiful."

He was almost out of the door before she called his name, holding the duvet close to her as she sat up properly, luxurious hair tumbling over her shoulders.

"What are we doing?" She asked. "I mean, I know what I'm doing but us together. What are we doing?"

"I don't know what you mean Brooke." Lucas replied defiantly.

"I'm here because you're supposed to finish saving me, because I love you and you told me that you loved me too, that you were in love with me. Unless you've changed your mind?"

"Of course I haven't changed my mind!"

"Then what are we doing still sneaking around?

"I just...I need time to tell Peyton...I..."

"You must love her more than you tell me you do." She smiled, sadly shrugging. "You still haven't left her for me."

"Look, Brooke-"

"I think we should forget the hot chocolate, don't you?" She whispered, still with that horrible undimpled smile plastered across her pale lips. "Just go to bed."

X

"Brooke, I found something last night." Peyton said as she sat down beside the brunette, placing a mug of fresh coffee on the table for her. "I didn't want to say anything in front of Lucas because I mean...well it's your decision, what you do...who you tell."

"I'm not sure what you mean." Brooke said slowly, her heart panicking as it raised its beating speed.

"There was a test in the bathroom, in the trash."

"What..."

"I dropped the flannel from the sink into the trash can, and when I picked it out, I saw the packet."

"Did you look in it?" Brooke asked.

"No, I just, I covered it...why?"

Brooke just shook her head, blinking back more tears. "I couldn't."

"You couldn't what?"

"Look at it. I just...I don't want the answer."

"Brooke, you've got to look." Peyton said softly, placing her hand across Brooke's cold skin. "If you are, there might be...I don't know, legal things. The press are always outside here, if you start showing, if you are... then they'll know."

"I can't."

"Why not? If you are, I mean...it is Chase's baby...right?"

Brooke just dipped her head, silently staring into the black liquid in front of her.

"Oh...well...I mean, you need to find out if you are, you'd be able to figure out the father right?"

The brunette only shrugged. "I...Peyton this is all such a mess, I'm so sorry."

"You don't need to be sorry." The blonde soothed. "But you don't really need that test do you?" She asked. "You know the answer Brooke."

"I didn't want it to be definite." She mumbled. "That test, it'll be evidence, like the end of everything."

"It's a baby Brooke, not the end of the world." Peyton replied softly. "And it's your decision, nobody else's, not if people don't find out."

"But if I have this baby, and if Chase wants access, who knows what he's capable of? Or if it's not his, I'll get nothing."

"Nothing?"

"In the pre-nup. If I cheated, I'd get nothing, not the house, the cars, nothing."

"But you don't need those things Brooke, you can make your own money."

"How can a pregnant model ever make any money?" She cried. "I can't support a child, I've got nothing."

"But what about your savings?"

"It's a joint account."

"But Brooke you should be entitled to something."

"I just...please don't tell Lucas." She begged. "I don't want him to think of me as some sort of gold-digging slut, as a whore..."

"He wouldn't think that." Peyton replied, "But I won't tell him, I promise."


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