Chapter 5: Seeing Scarlet

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His first thought when he saw her outfit was that it wasn't exactly airport appropriate. She was wearing a red dress. It came just down to about an inch above her knees, with ruching that cinched at her tiny waist. Frank felt his ears burn when she caught him staring.

"Have something you wanna say, Farmer?"

"You look nice," he said quietly. She tilted her head, mistrust in her eyes. He gave her a more forward once-over and added, "for a party maybe, but not the airport."

"We're going to Miami, Farmer. It's gonna be hot."

"I don't mean that it's too revealing–" He stumbled on his words as she stared at him, daring him to continue. "I mean, it is a bit revealing, but–"

"Excuse me? Don't tell me you're gonna pick apart my wardrobe now!"

"It's the red," he interrupted her. "It's too conspicuous. You're more of a target."

"What color do you want me to wear?" She played along, daring him to try her patience.

"Black or gray," he answered, not an ounce of irony to his steady voice.

Rachel shook her head. "You're unbelievable."

"If I knew there was a possibility someone could shoot me in public, I wouldn't be dressed in bright colors," he explained, his voice shaking with frustration.

"Well, that doesn't seem to be a problem for you, Frank. You wear the same goddamn thing every day."

"Yeah, to blend in," he mumbled.

"That's your job, not mine," she spat aggressively, eyes practically aflame.

And so she wore a fiery scarlet dress to the airport.

Rachel didn't wait long after their arrival before insisting that she needed to go to the ladies room. Bill glanced pointedly at his watch and told her to hurry up. Knowing she was only doing it to rattle him, Frank reluctantly chased her to the entrance to the women's restroom, and just barely caught himself before he almost followed her inside.

He was startled by the sound of several young women squealing her name in excitement as she entered. There was a commotion inside as Rachel stopped to chat with each of her fans individually, offering to sign their bookbags and gushing about her upcoming concerts. He was helpless to stand there, listening in while she wasted precious time. Frank was livid. She knew what she was doing.

She found every reason to dilly dally, purely to wear him out.

When they finally made it to the line for security, there was a loud scuffle going on up ahead. An angry passenger was arguing with a TSA agent, blocking the path for anyone else to pass through the checkpoint. Rachel's group looked expectantly at Frank, hesitating to go any further through the security line.

Frank laughed without amusement. "Oh, now you all want me to intervene?"

It wasn't Sy's nasty mug, or Devaney's crossed arms, or Tony's tight-lipped scowl that spurred Frank into action. It was the flicker of fear in Rachel's eyes, and that alone.

Charged by a surge of hot adrenaline, Frank moved forward and addressed the irate male passenger with a stern voice, "Hey!" He called out, drawing the attention of everyone in line. "You wanna dial it back, buddy?"

"You work here?" The passenger challenged Frank. The rattled TSA agent froze in his place.

Frank shook his head calmly. "No."

"Then mind your fucking business."

A hushed wave of concern overtook the security line as Frank stepped closer to the man, only stopped by the stanchions between them. "I think it is my fucking business that I'm about to miss my plane." The poor bastard, now beet red, raised his chin but didn't challenge Frank further. "So why don't you shut your mouth and let the man do his goddamn job?"

The crowd watched with bated breath as the exchange evaporated as quickly as it had escalated. The irate man yanked his luggage from the agent and shuffled off without another word.

When Frank returned to his party, he was greeted with four pairs of awestruck eyes, all four of them too proud to admit any sort of grace. His gaze lingered significantly on Rachel's before lifting both her suitcases onto the conveyer belt at once.

What they'd just witnessed was but a mild mirror to their own perpetual friction.

A young man in line behind them praised Frank, "Damn, that was savage, man."

Frank smiled to himself but didn't acknowledge the compliment. Pretending not to hear, Rachel coolly adjusted her dress and slipped past him to go through the metal detector, ignoring Frank's forceful reminder to take off her bracelets. The alarm blared angrily at her as she passed through.

Frank cringed.

"Here we go," Bill muttered behind him.

"Oh, come on, what is it?" Rachel complained.

"Jewelry, ma'am." The older agent clipped, twirling his finger in gesture for her to turn around and go back through.

Rachel huffed and begrudgingly stomped back through the detector, to which it beeped hilariously above her again. Tony's muffled laughter was infectious, and even Rachel's temper couldn't stop Frank from stifling a smile.

She stopped in front of Frank, forced open his right hand, and stuffed her bracelets into his palm. He knew she had purposefully pretended not to see the agent holding out a gray dish for her valuables. Even if it wasn't intentional, she could have easily stuffed her jewelry into Tony's hand. Or Sy's. Or Bill's. They were all standing the same distance from her. But she had singled out Frank.

She attempted to pass through again. The light flashed red and another resounding beep echoed three times above her.

"Are you kidding me?" The diva was in full force. "What now?"

"Rings," Frank said calmly.

Staring hotly at his face, Rachel stomped her way back through, ignoring the incessant beeping. She tugged off three rings from both her hands and added them to the pile of bracelets he held.

Before she could turn around, he added, "Earrings."

She pulled both earrings out at once and shoved them into his other hand.

"Necklace," he whispered, trying not to cause more of a scene than she already had. She fumbled blindly behind her neck for a few moments, flustered with everyone watching her. Unable to let her suffer too long, Frank stepped behind her and swiftly undid the clasp of the delicate white gold chain. He recognized some of the discarded jewelry in his hands as being the same pieces she'd left on his nightstand the night they slept together. He shifted, trying to repress the unbidden tightness in his loins.

Ninety-nine percent of him wanted to protect her at all costs, no matter how much bullshit he had to put up with. The other one percent of him wanted to slam her gorgeous body down on the floor and fuck her in front of everyone until she cried out his name.

They all breathed a sigh of relief as this time Rachel finally made it through the detector.

Sy discretely began shedding his own accessories, eager not to be the next victim.

Once on the plane, Bill and Frank were seated on either side of Rachel, with Tony and Sy on the opposite aisle in first class. During takeoff, Rachel started shouting over the aisle at Sy about the logistics of the hotel. It was all information she knew that Frank was in charge of, yet she talked to Sy as if Frank wasn't sitting inches from her, between the both of them. It had to have been the tenth time that day she'd tested his patience. Refusing to take her bait, Frank ignored the exchange.

About twenty minutes into the flight Rachel suddenly stood up without warning, and both Bill and Frank said her name at the same time. Rachel seethed, "Oh, would you two relax? I just have to pee. God."

Frank looked over at Bill, who lifted his hands in defeat. Rachel impatiently knocked her legs against Frank's where he was blocking her way to the aisle. "Move," she ordered. Frank reluctantly stood up and let her pass him into the aisle. Before he could follow her, Rachel pushed hard against his chest with one hand. "And for God's sake, Farmer, do not come and stand in front of the door."

Frank chewed his tongue to keep from responding, debating whether he should follow her anyway. He noticed the concerned looks from the other passengers at her outburst before he calmly returned to his seat.

He turned his head at the sound of Tony's boisterous laughter. "Hey, Frank," Tony poked, "think I should go over and stand outside the door to see how she reacts?"

Frank couldn't quite muster up the amusement to laugh along with his colleague.

Looking on with disgust, Sy deadpanned, "Hilarious."

Still wheezing and slapping his knee, Tony shook his head.

Frank mentally prepared himself for the longest flight of his life.

Hopefully by next month she would be able to finally get that private jet.

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He couldn't ignore the knot in his stomach when Rachel was around. It was like he was back in high school again, roaming the halls of the hotel as if they were lined with lockers, waiting to catch a glimpse of her when she passed by. He hadn't expected her to be wearing nothing but a robe and sandals the next time he saw her. It took all of his willpower not to triple check the doors of the indoor pool again, just for the chance to see her in her bathing suit. He couldn't allow those thoughts to elaborate upon themselves. If he did, one slip and he would be done for. Like a sheet lying on the ground – if he dared to tug just one corner, the rest would follow.

He was furthermore shaken by the brief interaction she'd had with his employer. Frank had already spent a painstaking amount of time trying to ensure that senator Benjamin Knox never set his wandering eyes on Rachel Marron, but he had failed in that endeavor. Frank wondered if Rachel realized just how attractive she was. She may have joked about her age, but in reality she was flattering herself. The fact that she was about to turn forty only enhanced her timeless beauty. In his humble opinion, she didn't look a day over thirty. Particularly where her body was concerned. . .

Seeing her scantily clad, in any capacity, forced him to relive that time in Miami. Ironically, it had been one of the worst times of his life that he could remember. She had been exceedingly cruel to him during the trip, and it had forever left a sour taste in his mouth, despite her apologies which followed weeks later. His mind always went back to that moment when her sultry eyes taunted him from across the room as she'd pulled Portman into her bedroom. It was one of the few memories that could weaken him completely.

Frank scrubbed his forehead with his knuckles in an effort to erase the thoughts from his head. He made his way into the elevator with the intention of walking Knox's floor, when the door to the elevator was suddenly forced back open by a meaty hand.

A tall, dark-haired man entered the elevator, dressed in a white bathrobe, still dripping with pool water. Frank noticed that the stranger was clearly in pain, rubbing his eyes incessantly with the back of his hand and cussing under his breath.

"Got something in your eye?" Frank asked curiously.

"Yeah. Perfume or some shit."

Frank crinkled his nose in doubt. He knew the smell of pepper spray anywhere.

"Pool fight?" he pressed, grinning to himself as the man's eyes continued to water.

"A psychotic ex," the man groaned.

The descriptor left no room for guessing whose hand had dealt this poor man his doom. Frank was mildly surprised that it had taken hardly twenty-four hours before Rachel was putting his gift to good use.

"I've got a few of those myself," Frank sympathized as the elevator opened on the fifth floor and the man shuffled forward, nearly hitting the door on his way out. "Good luck."

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That night, Frank asked Rachel to dinner. He considered himself lucky that she had no prior engagements two nights in a row now. It was a bit shocking to him that there were not more bitter ex-boyfriends of hers lingering about the premises.

She seemed surprised that he had asked her, and for a moment it made him question himself. Was she really shocked that he wanted to spend as much time with her as possible while they were here? He regretted to think that maybe his ex-wife had been right about him – he could be an emotionless bastard sometimes, at least in appearance.

Rachel didn't have to put that much effort into her appearance to captivate an audience. Everything about her was magnetizing, from her musical voice to her sparkling eyes. The way she moved was fascinating to him. She possessed a kind of graceful confidence that most women lacked. He had forced himself to subscribe to some ideology that an attractive woman was demure and reticent. It was more logical for a traditional man to pine after such a woman. Frank was comfortable with logic. What he was not comfortable with was the idea of being enslaved by wonder at a woman who was neither shy nor restrained. If he had tried to tie a horse in its stall, Rachel would have cut the rope and burned the stable.

It hurt him because he knew he could not be with a woman like her long-term. She was a threat to his way of life. A beautiful threat, but a threat nonetheless.

He had been a bit shy himself when he'd asked her out that night, entreated by the familiar scent of her perfume. She all but devoured him with her eyes when she said yes.

He decided to take her to a restaurant on Mount Washington so that they would have an excuse to use the Duquesne Incline on their way up. Rachel squealed with delight when she boarded the gondola, gushing about how she hadn't ridden the incline since she was a little girl. Frank watched her eyes light up as she pressed her fingers to the glass window and stared at the city with childish wonder.

It was addicting to watch her expressions in those small, joyful moments. He found himself wanting to seek out more experiences to elicit those charming little reactions in her. He could have watched it over and over.

During the ride up, Rachel played idly with a loose fitting scarlet colored scarf around her neck. He knew she'd worn it on purpose. She was toying with him by tugging it suggestively here and there. He couldn't deny that he wanted her to toy with him. He was hard pressed to recall a time when another woman had made him this excited.

Her eyes met with his as she wrapped the scarf tightly around her forefinger, then let it slip off. She repeated the gesture several times, knowing quite well that it'd had its desired effect.

At last she spoke, "I'm sorry if I embarrassed you in front of Senator Knox earlier today."

"You embarrassed him, not me," Frank assured her with a knowing smile. "It's alright though; it's about time someone put him in his place. I wish I could have had the honor, but unfortunately I'm still employed by him."

Rachel stopped playing with her scarf to glare at him. "Hmm. You seemed to have no problem putting me in my place when I was your employer."

Frank tilted his head slightly toward her and said softly, "That was a matter of life and death."

She pursed her lips to the side, not convinced.

"So who was the guy you burned at the pool today?" Frank asked out of nowhere. He very thoroughly enjoyed getting to catch Rachel off guard for a change.

She squirmed for a moment before smoothly covering herself. "If you wanted to see me in my bikini that badly, you could've just shown up at the pool instead of watching on the security cameras."

He discreetly tugged his collar. "I wasn't watching you on the cameras. I ran into the poor son of a bitch in the elevator and put the pieces together."

Rachel smirked. "Okay, Sherlock." As the incline at last reached the top, the doors opened to let the crowd off. Rachel pushed Frank's chest as she passed him to step out first. "That poor son of a bitch is Brock Chutney. He's a glorified cocktail singer. We went on a few dates a couple years back." She shrugged as if it were not a big deal. Frank noticed that every relationship Rachel had been in before seemed to not be a big deal to her.

He suddenly felt very territorial, glancing around at the strange men who surrounded them in public, wondering which of them might possibly recognize his date. Hopefully there were no other interested parties here in her hometown of Pittsburgh. Frank was somewhat curious as to what Rachel did all day long at the Sheraton while he was working. Surely Pettigrew was busy beating people away with a stick.

"That red headed woman you're always with; how do you know her?" Frank asked as they left the incline station and stepped into the cold evening air.

"Oh, Tina Brennan? I met her years ago when she was shadowing my makeup artist. She worked in fashion editing for a while. Moved all around. We just sort of kept in touch."

"Hm." Frank had every intention of remaining silent for the rest of their walk, but Rachel, of course, could support no such intention.

"You've continued moving around quite a bit yourself, I've heard."

He stared at her in awe. "Now where on earth would you be hearing things about me?"

"I have my sources," she said cryptically, her eyes glistening in a way that almost made him believe she was reading his thoughts now.

He confronted her, "Is this the same source from which you collected your information about my divorce?"

"Maybe," Rachel said slowly. "So tell me, when's the last time you actually tried to settle somewhere, Farmer?"

Her question put him on the spot. "I haven't really tried to 'settle.'"

Rachel pulled her jacket tighter around her as the wind picked up. "That can't have gone over well with the ex-wife."

He was surprised at the way Rachel mentioned his ex so casually in conversation. It was actually somewhat refreshing. Part of what drew him to Rachel, he supposed, was precisely that. How she was so unaffected by the seriousness of things. She bounced back from things so quickly. He would never meet another woman who could survive the murder of her sister, an attempted murder of her son and herself, and then go on to win at an awards show with a brilliant smile on her face like nothing had happened. She didn't dwell on the gloomy parts of her past. Maybe he could afford to be more like her.

Revived by her curious gaze, Frank attempted to explain his complicated living situation over the past decade. How he'd met Leah while he was guarding the bishop in Iowa. How they went back to California when his father had passed away, and how he had wanted to move right into the Tahoe cabin after inheriting it.

"Leah didn't want that. Said she didn't want to live in the middle of nowhere. She made me move closer to L.A. again." He couldn't keep the sadness from seeping into his voice. "Looking back on it now, I suspect she wanted to be closer to the fertility centers. That's when I bought the house in Chatsworth."

Rachel's eyes widened. "Shit, Farmer. You have more properties than me."

"I was guarding a railroad executive at the time," he explained. "And Leah had started working an advertising job near L.A. We ended up staying there until after our wedding. Once I got the job in West Virginia with Knox, we had to move again. She resented me for it, especially because we had to downsize when we went back to the East coast."

He was anticipating her next question before she had asked it. "Why did you downsize in West Virginia? Property has to be cheaper there."

"Because the only reason Leah agreed to move with me again was if we kept the house in Chatsworth. I couldn't afford to have houses on both coasts, so I started renting out dad's cabin and using that money to rent an apartment for us in West Virginia." He smiled wryly at Rachel. "Your head spinning yet?"

She gave him a little smile in return. "I'm following."

"We argued a lot more when we had to live in the apartment," he said. "That's when she started IVF without my knowledge. I filed for divorce in West Virginia, and as soon as we split, she moved back to California and stayed in the house in Chatsworth until I bought her out of it."

"You didn't sign a prenup?" she asked him as if it were an obvious blind spot on his part. Spoken like a true celebrity, Frank thought darkly.

"Generally, us common folk don't do prenups," he told her.

After a pause, she asked, "Do you regret getting married?"

Again, her boldness caught him off guard. Just like so many of the feelings Frank felt around Rachel, this one was equally addicting. He wanted her to keep prying, to keep interrogating. She was peeling back layers upon layers of lifelong silence, revealing a part of him that was just begging to speak. He never knew what she was going to ask him next, and the anticipation was exhilarating. After a long while of trying to think of what to say, he answered with one word: "Yes."

Rachel seemed to breathe a sigh of relief. "I keep telling all my friends that not getting married is the best thing I've done all these years," she said casually.

Despite showing no reaction on the outside, his fragile heart had interpreted her words as callous. "I think you misunderstood," he said carefully. "I regret marrying Leah. That doesn't mean I don't still want to be married."

He felt the warmth rising to his face as he registered the candidness of his revelation. Rachel was unusually quiet after he said this. He couldn't help glancing over at her, and was surprised to find a fallen look on her face. "Why?"

It was one tiny word that could strip him bare if he gave it the power to do so. Maybe there wasn't any use in hiding anymore. Maybe he should continue this strangely thrilling process of unveiling all of his most private thoughts to her, trusting her with the brittle pieces of his soul.

"I guess part of me still hopes to have some kind of stability in my life despite the nature of my job."

"So, you'd marry for stability? Meaning you'd want a woman who was stable?"

He spoke quietly, as if it would sting less to hear it out loud. "I'd want a woman who was stable in her commitment to me."

He thought he saw Rachel shiver as she said, "Commitment is a scary word."

Her brevity brought the humor back, whether she'd intended it or not. He smiled down at her as they finally reached the restaurant. "That's Hollywood talking." He manipulated their distance so that he was one step ahead of her and able to hold the door open.

"Maybe," Rachel shrugged. Then with a hilarious look of horror, she stopped in the doorway. "Have I been brainwashed?"

He suppressed a smile as he nudged her inside. "Little bit."

Author's Note: As you can probably tell by the recent frequency of updates, this story is living in my head rent-free and is shaping up to be much longer and more complex than I originally intended.

Thank you so much for reading! I love hearing your thoughts. Your reviews are so encouraging and inspire me to write more often!

Xox, Mack