TWO: Gentlemen Prefer Brunettes
She traced his face with relish as she crossed her sultry legs, watching him as he watched her, drawing a caricature of his fixation with her dark, dark eyes, the only part of her smooth calm face that was smiling. They laughed at him, midnight pools of pure temptation set in a face that showed no further trace of this hilarity, staring straight through his façade of business and polished severity and laughing in vampish, sadistic amusement at all the lust they saw buried beneath it.
Billy Flynn knew then even more than before, as he stared evenly back into taunting black depths of her dancing eyes, that his first impression of Velma Kelly had been perfectly correct. She was selfish, egotistical, common as sin, but just too damn beautiful for the sanity of any man to cross her path, and she knew it. She also knew that Billy couldn't resist her, and she savagely enjoyed every minute of his seemingly silk-smooth yet awkward pretense.
She lit up a cigarette, uncrossed her legs, and began pacing the room, the light seeping in from the tiny barred windows hitting her raven hair, outlining her beautiful form in golden light. Billy was sure she'd planned it that way somehow. Her red lips curled in an expression that could be read many in ways, as defiance, a smile, a scowl, a grimace, but Billy saw it as a challenge, something he'd never been able to resist.
Billy knew how his priorities fell and would not stand to kid himself about it. Velma Kelly had money; that was what had put her on his list. She was beautiful. That had pushed her to the top of it. The Kelly case and Velma herself were the talk of Chicago, and that was what kept her there.
Billy snapped the briefcase he had been leaning over in the pretense of searching for some vital document or another shut and pulled one of the jailhouse chairs to him, managing to appear completely cool and unruffled, even while learning the hard way that few of the old wooden stools that cluttered the room had more than three legs.
He glanced subtly at Velma to see if she had noticed, but as usual, her face was unreadable. She merely leaned against the wall in a carefully choreographed pose and blew smoke at him.
"Put out that cigarette and sit down, Miss Kelly. We have a lot of work to do regarding your trial." His voice was ice and business with a hefty shot of the irritable haste of the working class.
His statement was met with an arched eyebrow, but Velma acquiesced, her smile, scowl, or whatever it was growing as she dropped the cigarette, put it out with the blade of a heeled pump, and sat down across the flimsy table from him, tauntingly placing her long legs on the table so they were almost directly under Billy's nose.
She was playing with his temptation, pulling at his strings, and Billy wasn't sure he liked being the marionette for a change when he was so accustomed to being the one pulling all the strings himself. However, in the midst of all his laudable attempts to damn back the floods of lust and pure animal instinct that had flooded up under his immaculate suit with the closeness of his stunning client's equally attractive legs, Billy had few thoughts to spare on such metaphorical musings at the moment.
Velma's legs moved slightly across the table with the fluidity of a dancer. Billy could barely keep himself from cursing aloud. Velma blinked at him with the regal irritability of a cat awoken from its mid-afternoon nap. "So?" she purred, fingers curling claw-like around an unlit cigarette in a harsh parody of an infant clutching its pacifier.
Billy acted as if he hadn't heard her, finding refuge from her siren's charms once again in the depths of his briefcase. In his own time, he raised his head and spoke for the mere satisfaction of showing Velma she could not control him.
"First, let me tell you something, Miss Kelly. You can't keep taking your fame for granted like you did today, parading your guilt for all of Chicago to see. You're standing in the middle of a swarm of reporters waving a red flag, for Chrissake! I won't have you jeopardizing this case with your arrogance, Miss Kelly."
Billy was, in truth, not concerned for the case at all, but he badly needed a entrance back into his business-only frame of mind and found stern lecturing the best way to do it. And besides, there was a half-truth to this statement. The way Velma had contradicted him at that morning's press conference had not irked him, however. It had only fueled his surging hunger to put one up on Miss Kelly in this unusual competition of theirs.
"With Mary Sunshine on the job?" Velma let out a guttural snort of skepticism, brows arching spectacularly. "How could we lose?"
"You see, that's the kind of attitude that will lose me this case," Billy shot back smoothly.
Velma let out another deep-throated and quite mirthless laugh. "So it's all about you now, is it?" She lifted her legs from the table and sat upon it as she spoke, crossing her legs extravagantly once more and staring calmly at her attorney, eyes dancing anew. Check mate.
She used Billy's moment of veiled discomfort to snatch the reins of the conversation. "So, what do you suggest I do, Mr. Flynn?" Somehow, she managed to make this question into yet another tease.
"For starters, let me do the talking next press conference before you hurt yourself."
The hilarity in Velma's enigmatic eyes softly spilled down to her rouge-red lips, which curled in a deliciously scornful smile. "Yeah? And what if I don't trust you?"
"Then why did you hire me as your attorney if you don't trust me?" he rebuked curtly. Of course, Billy was asking a question he already knew the answer to, a practice his profession dictated which he had always seen as a bit of an occupational hazard.
Velma had hired him basically because she could. She had hired him to show Chicago that she could afford the prices of the best lawyer in town, and that left an impression as deep as that of any press conference. As much as he loathed to even think it, he was just a pawn in Velma Kelly's little publicity stunt, and admittedly, she would probably do reasonably well in court without him. Not that he'd ever admit that to Velma.
Velma's only response to his question was yet another of her mysterious half-smiles. This smile told Billy two things. She had obviously read his thoughts and was enjoying the contents of them very much. And it told him that Miss Kelly was enjoying this little battle of wits just as much as he was.
A/N: For those of you who are confused by this little chapter, considering this is a Billy ROXIE fic, it will make sense later, so don't hate me for it! Thank you SO MUCH for all your reviews, and just to let you know, I went to hell and back to get this chapter done before I leave for Toronto, so please please please please please review this!! It's my birthday...Well it was a couple hours ago anyways. (Puppy face) Okay, okay I'll stop now...