Regina opened the door a little so Emma could slide in the passenger seat. Before she stepped inside, Emma waved to Ruby and held her phone up. "I'll call you later!" she called. Ruby cocked her head at the sight of the car and Emma made a desperate "TRUST ME, ALL OKAY" face that luckily Ruby seemed to respect. When Emma got in the car, Regina was covering the side of her face with her hand.
"Um, I'm sorry, are you embarrassed to be seen with me?"
"No Ms. Swan, I just hate reinforcing the old cliché of a politician brought down by a sex scandal."
"A sex scandal? You wish."
Regina raised an eyebrow. "So I take it Ursula told you your job is over?"
"Actually, it's more like her club is over. All the other dancers walked out with me." Emma crossed her arms and looked at Regina. "Looks like we all had one thing in common."
"Herpes?" Regina snapped.
Emma bristled. "No, Regina, a sense of self worth.…And a hatred for most of the customers."
Regina glared at her while her hands squeezed the steering wheel, gripping it so tight Emma thought her black leather gloves would snap.
"Why didn't you just meet me in there?" Emma asked, leaning her head back on the headrest. "Why do you have to play these little mind games with me? And don't say you're trying to get me out of Henry's life, because if it was really about Henry you wouldn't have let me f-ck you."
Regina's eyes closed at the words as though deflecting them. "Can we move this conversation somewhere a little more private? "
Emma reached for the door handle as though about to get out of the car.
"Please, Ms Swan. I want to talk. I want to…" she trailed off, clenching and unclenching her jaw, her eyes burning into Emma's.
"Why do we have to have this conversation somewhere else, Regina? Because you're going to take more pictures of me? Or threaten me? Or drop me off at the town line? Or turn me over the Sheriff or-"
"I simply want to feel free to express myself outside the public eye." Regina interrupted her. "If you don't trust me to convey you to a place of safety, YOU can drive."
"Fine." Emma said, sitting up and unbuckling her seat belt. "Let's switch seats."
Regina looked absolutely furious but unfastened her seatbelt and indicated to Emma to get out and go around to the driver's side while she slid into the passenger seat. Emma felt deliriously gratified by the small gesture, even if Regina kept her face carefully angled away from the still-full parking lot.
"There's a cabin of mine in the woods where we can talk without disturbing Henry." Regina said. "I was able to go up and unshutter it after I got off the phone with you, so it might be a little chilly but if we lay a fire it should soon be-"
"A cabin!?" Emma looked at her for a moment. "We need a whole cabin just to talk?"
Regina snarled at Emma, her eyes narrowing. "Has it ever occurred to you, Ms Swan, that the benefit of being with someone who constantly 'schemes' is that once in a while they 'scheme' a nice little surprise for you and if you stopped questioning me every five minutes you might just-"
"'Being with'?" Emma whispered. She felt her heart kick off in her chest as though the key to the ignition had jump started her and not the engine. "Am I…are we 'being with' each other now? Or is 'whatever this is' between us-"
"Oh how you do love to latch onto phrases." Regina put her head in her gloved hands. "Ms Swan-"
"Emma." Emma said, her voice low.
"Emma." Regina sighed. "Every instinct I have tells me I should run you out of town, pull some strings and get a restraining order against you and make sure I never see you again. I wake up every day in a rage at the thought of your existence."
Emma's chest was heaving, her hands already clenched into fists.
"And yet…" Regina's head tilted back onto the headrest, her jaw clenched, and her eyes squeezed shut, but then she looked straight into Emma's eyes. " And yet somehow I've spent the last week paying to look at you, I've risked my career associating with Ursula to get you out of Underland, and you're currently at the steering wheel of my Benz. My Benz, Emma. Now why do you think that is ?"
Emma looked at her blankly. "I don't know." She whispered.
"It's because I want you so badly if you don' t get us out of here right now I will rip those cheap clothes off your ridiculous body and have you on the gravel of this parking lot."
"Okay. So do we take a left or right out of here?" Emma said, shifting the car into drive.
From the outside the cabin was very rustic, but once inside Regina's modern tastes prevailed, with surprisingly clean wooden floors, whitewashed stone walls hung with black and gray gingham curtains and tasteful antique wooden chests under each window. Black and silver lanterns, their steel cut like lacework, hung sparkling from the exposed wood beams and Emma found herself going into intimidated-guest mode, afraid to broach the topic of ripping clothes off while she sat on a couch in front of a small fire with a glass of wine in hand as Regina poked, sneering a little, at some dying embers. Had she imagined Regina saying that? No, she had definitely said it. And now they were sidling around the fact of it, still reeling from the impact of each other like two expert boxers, waiting to see who would get knocked out and go down for the count first.
"I'm not good at this." Regina said stiffly, gesturing at the fire.
"Here- you work on the wine, I'll get this going." Emma crouched down, shucking off her leather jacket, and stirred the ashes before making a pyramid formation from kindling. As she heard Regina pick up a remote control and turn on some sort of hidden speaker system so soft music began to play, she was struck by the difference a day had made. Last night she'd been on the same wavelength as Shelley- almost ready to walk into the ocean. Now she felt as though she'd been transported into some sort of dream.
"So what exactly do you want to talk about, Regina?" Emma asked, keeping her vision trained on the small, growing fire.
"I shouldn't have ended things so abruptly." Regina said haughtily from the couch. Emma realized she had slid her small feet out of her shoes.
"I felt used." Emma said softly.
"Well, at least you didn't feel used and out a few thousand dollars." Regina swirled her wineglass in her hand.
"I never wanted your money, Regina. And if you hadn't manipulated my boss I wouldn't have had to take it. But God forbid I find a job where you can't boss mearound and-"
"Emma, understand this: as long as you are in Storybrooke I will not let any man touch you."
"Damnit, Regina, that's not how this stuff works!" Emma stood up, glaring. "You don't get to command me like that. You don't even get to ask that, if we're not together."
"How do you expect us to be together unless you belong to me?" Regina looked genuinely confused. "What else does that mean to you?"
"Belong to you? So what, your ideal set up is for me to lock myself away at home while you run around town with Graham?"
Regina's face went white. "Graham? Graham is no concern to you."
"Um, Graham is a big damn concern to me. Henry knows about his little climbs in and out of your bedroom window, Regina."
Regina looked down at her wine glass. "I haven't been with Graham that way since I saw you dance that night. He's…house sitting for me now in case Henry needs someone. And he got my groceries yesterday. And he…" she took a long pull of wine. "It was… very different with you." Regina said, and her eyes met Emma's. "It was profoundly different."
Emma settled back down by the fire, feeling way too pleased about that statement.
"So you've gotten me fired because I 'belong' to you, but you seem really anxious that we not be seen in public together. You want to have sex tonight after dumping me last night." Emma flung the stick she'd been using to prod the flames into the healthy, crackling fire that now leapt in the fireplace, then strolled over to the couch and sat a few feet from Regina.
"How do you see this going?" Emma asked, peering at Regina.
Regina handed her a wineglass from the coffee table.
"I'm glad you asked, Ms. Swan. Because I have a proposition for you."