"I'm sorry, but you can't go in there! She's got…" The young woman stopped as the door opened and squeezed inside. "I'm sorry, Ms. Barrett, but he wouldn't listen. I told him that you were seeing someone."
"It's fine, Lola," Brenda said with a nod. "I'll handle this." Lola left the office, and Brenda looked up at the man standing in front of her. "I don't know why you're here, Lorenzo. I told you the last time I saw you that I had nothing to say to you." She turned away and looked to the young woman seated in front of her desk.
Cassandra Fowler looked behind her with wide eyes that Brenda could understand. It wasn't often that most people experienced the intrusion of a mobster and his bodyguard. She brushed her flaming hair out of her face and turned back to Brenda. "Maybe I should come back later. I, uh… I've got an exam tomorrow that I should really be studying for and…"
"And that won't be necessary because Mr. Alcazar is leaving." Brenda stood up and leaned forward. Her hands planted firmly on the desktop blotter, balancing herself. She looked past him to Lucky, assuming that Lorenzo had picked up a replacement since Jason had been shot, and shrugged. She noticed that his eyes were on the newest L&B musical acquisition and made a mental note to warn the young PCU student against the dangers of someone like Lucky Spencer.
She turned back to her intruder and he was smirking. The slight curve of his lips led her eyes to travel up a little farther, until she looked into his eyes. There was something… wrong about this. In the split second that it took her to look from his lips to his eyes, she had a sudden rush of information flow through her mind.
First, Lorenzo always stood tall and the man standing in front of her slouched a bit, leaning back at the small of his back. His hands were shoved deep in his pockets. The ensemble was completely Lorenzo, but the stature and the closer cropped hair screamed anything but. There was a twinkle in his eyes, one that had never been in Lorenzo's when he looked at her. A hint of amusement at her frustration that Lorenzo would never feel, and if he did, he would never have shown it.
Brenda walked around the desk slowly, her hands sliding against the desk. Her hip bumped the side of Cassandra's chair, but she ignored the slight pressure. Her eyes were for only one person, one man who had brought such happiness into her life, but at the same time had brought more pain than she ever thought she would be able to overcome. The one man that had abandoned her, never called her, and now forced his way into her office as though he held that privelege.
She woke with the feel of him against her body and the taste of his mouth on her lips. Stretching, Brenda pushed herself up from the bed. The second her hand hit the empty pillow beside her, she popped up and turned to the side. "Luis?" She fell forward onto her knees and searched the room. In the early morning light, she could see the open closet door, and inside, the only clothes that remained were hers. The drawers were open of the bureau, the armoire doors wide open. Everything that proved that they had shared this loft was gone.
Brenda stood up and screamed, "Luis!" She ran into the living room, and there was no sign of him. Everything that Luis Alcazar could pack had been taken. From the desk that he had once conducted business at, he had taken a picture. The frame was still there, but the picture was gone. She knew which one it had been. The two of them at Carly and Lorenzo's wedding, with Brenda laughing after Luis had caught the garter.
In place of the picture was a handwritten note, folded in half. With tears streaming her face, angry and hurt, she smashed the front of the frame against the end of the table. The glass broke and crumbled at her feet. She pulled the letter out, cutting her hands against the broken shards of glass. Blood leaked onto the note and she couldn't think about her own pain from the cuts. She could only think that it was far too short.
Mariposa, my beautiful butterfly,
I couldn't stay here, and you know that. It tears my heart to leave you, but I had to go. I don't know when I'll come back, or even if I can, but remember, I love you. Mi corazon… I did this for you. I'd rather you suffer my loss to another country than lose me to prison or worse. I love you, Brenda, and the memory of your body this one last time will carry me.
Luis.
She screamed and balled the paper up. She threw it across the room, then turned back to the desk. She swiped her arms across the desk, sending pictures, flowers and papers crashing to the floor. She picked up a large silver frame, holding a picture of the two of them in Venezuela, and slammed it down over and over again on the desk until there was nothing left but jagged shards and disjointed sides.
Brenda collapsed to the floor and let her tears fall to her hands. Tears mingled with her blood and washed into her cuts. How could he have done this to her? How could he leave her without a real goodbye? Or maybe she should have known that their lovemaking was goodbye. Sex with Luis was always a mixture of furious abandon and careful love. Last night, when she stopped him from leaving, the only fury had been in the first kiss. Everything else had been to solemn, too sacred. It was the softest she'd ever seen Luis, and it would be the last time she'd ever see him again.
She reached around her body and laid a tentative hand against the small of her back. She slid her hand beneath the fabric of her blouse and ran her fingers over the tattoo there. A butterfly graced the small of her back, centered on her spine. If one were to look close enough, they would see that amid the pink, blue and purple designs, the words Luis Alcazar had been hidden inside. She didn't know why she'd never had it removed, or at least covered up, but at that moment, she wished that she had.
Her hand came out so quickly that there was only blur as she collided with the side of his face. She stared at him angrily, but Luis only grinned. He touched his cheek. The pads of his finger dabbed at the corner of his mouth. She hadn't hit him hard enough to crush his lip against his teeth, but there was a small dot of saliva at the corner of his mouth. Luis laughed and said, "I was wondering how long it'd take you to realize I wasn't Lorenzo."
"You bastard!" She beat at his chest and he just stood there laughing. "How dare you leave me! How dare you… you… You knew I'd have gone with you eventually!" She hit him more, harder, and he backed up, but didn't move to stop her. He seemed to be enjoying himself. "You evil son of a bitch!"
Luis looked back at Lucky and laughed. "Don't worry. She won't hurt me. She loves me too much." He turned back to Brenda with a wink. "And evil, well, I don't know about that. What I do know is that it feels just like old times, doesn't it, mariposa?"
"I am not your butterfly! Stop calling me that!" As angry as she was to see his face, she was even more angry that for a second, she had wanted to stop beating him. She wanted to kiss him so hard that she would forget the years that they had been apart. She wanted him to whisper naughty Spanish words in her ear and hold her close. She wanted to fight him for the sole purpose of making up later. She should have wanted nothing to do with him, but right then, she could only think of loving him, and that made her as angry with herself as she was with Luis. "I hate you!"
She swung at his face and he caught her wrist. She swung out with the other hand and he caught here, again. "You don't hate me, Brenda." Her body jerked, trying to get away, and he pulled her abruptly towards him. Their bodies collided and a second later, his lips were on hers. Brenda tried to pull away, then memory clicked. She remembered kissing him, loving him, and her body melted. When she sagged, Luis pulled back, grinning. "In fact, I think you still love me."
She blinked at him. Brenda wasn't going to give him the satisfaction. Neither was she going to give herself the grief of unburying the love that she'd hidden so deep within herself. The only way to survive without Luis had been to forget how much she loved him, and she was not about to say it out loud. "I hate you."
Luis smirked. They acted as though there wasn't an audience watching them, and Brenda thought it was because she could so easily fall back into bits of routine and habit with Luis. There were always guards around, and they had always caused scenes in public. She could ignore the people around because her attention was focused solely on him.
Luis started to speak, then stopped as he looked at Brenda's left hand. He would judge the diamond collage on her left ring finger at about four to five carats. His grin turned instantly into disgust. He released Brenda so abruptly that she stumbled backwards and had to catch herself on Cassandra's chair. "You'll hate yourself for doing that," he said gruffly, then turned and walked out, his back rigid. Lucky looked at Brenda, shrugged, then followed Luis out.
Brenda stared down at her hand, then looked up to watch Luis walk away. In the instant she saw him, realized which Alcazar was standing in front of her, she had forgotten that she'd accepted Jax's ring the night before. When she melted into his kiss, there was no thought that another man's ring graced her finger. Now, with it in the open, with Luis so angry, so quickly, the weight of the ring was three times its actual size.
Brenda sighed and walked back around her desk. She fell down hard in the chair and slouched backwards. She should have known that things were going too well for her. Something had to screw it up, and there was nothing that could make a happy life turn topsy turvy like the introduction of Luis Alcazar back into her life.
"Brenda?" She looked up at Cassandra. "Maybe I should come back?"
"No." She shook her head and sat up straight. "Absolutely not. We are not going to let that… that… evil little… snake! That heartless…" She shook her head and shuddered. "We're here to set up your recording schedule, and that's what we're going to do."
And then someone else was calling her name. Brenda looked to the door as Lois Cerullo put her head inside. Her eyes wide. "What was Lorenzo doing here? I just saw him leave, and he didn't look happy."
"That, my best friend in all the world…" She sighed and leaned forward, propping her elbows up on the desk. She rested her face in her hands and looked down, then turned up to look at Lois through the curtain of her hair. "That wasn't Lorenzo. Run out and say hello, throw him a freaking party. Because Luis Alcazar has decided to come in and disrupt our lives again. Oh, the joy, huh?"
