Chapter 8: Dress Rehearsal
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He'd broken the kiss when she attempted to undo the buttons of his shirt.
"Not down here," he said softly. She didn't heed his warning, so he introduced the tip of the samurai sword to her heart, just as she had to him earlier.
That was all it took, and like a palace guard, he guided her back upstairs with the tip of the sword pointed delicately to her back.
When they reached his bedroom she turned to face him and he laid the sword carefully down on his dresser. Then he unfastened his watch.
That was what did it. Everything in the room changed, like a dial being turned slightly on a radio until the station came in, crystal clear. All because he'd taken off his watch. It was a blatant signal for what was to come, yet it was so cleverly discreet.
He let the platinum accessory fall with a heavy 'clunk' on the surface of his nightstand. He didn't look at her as he did it. He was lost in his own world, eyes hooded and pensive. He almost looked nervous as he started undoing the tiny buttons on the cuffs of his sleeves. The sight reminded her of something. She was too bold to hesitate.
"Do you keep any handcuffs around?" Rachel asked. Frank stopped unbuttoning, taken aback. His face was unreadable. He wasn't smiling, but he wasn't frowning either. He certainly didn't look bashful, but he didn't look confident in that moment at all. She couldn't figure this man out.
"I'm a bodyguard, not a cop," he finally said.
"I thought maybe you were gonna cuff me to your bed," Rachel suggested in a low voice.
No matter how stoic he was, he couldn't hide the forbidden glint of excitement in his eyes as he stared at her, then glanced consideringly at the bed. He kept his expression tight and careful.
"I wouldn't do that," he replied at last, his voice raspy.
She pouted. "Why not?"
He looked down, taking his time with the rest of his shirt buttons. "It's a fire hazard."
"Fuck, Farmer. Only you would think of that." She tugged his collar. "Where's your sense of adventure?"
"You mean forcing you up the stairs with a lethal weapon pointed at your back isn't adventurous enough for you?"
She glanced down at the sword where it gleamed on the surface of his dresser. "Will you cut my clothes off with it?" She flashed him a dirty smile.
"I already cut your scarf," he defended, pressing lightly against her so the backs of her legs hit the edge of the bed.
"You're gonna pay for that, by the way," Rachel chided, hooking her fingers into his belt loops.
"You can deduct it from my salary."
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Back then she had convinced herself it was the draw of something taboo. He had come into her life with every intention to ruin it for her own safety. He had treated her like a strict father, and not like a fawning fan.
He was worlds more mature than her, a fair bit older, white as God made them, only wore suits, carried a gun, and perhaps the most enticing: he was hired specifically to protect her. He was so deliciously opposite from her in every way - he didn't even approve of her and probably didn't respect her - yet he was willing to die for her. It upset her, and thrilled her, and confused her. Her expectations of having sex with such a man could not be quantified. In fact, it had scared her. That was why she had to face it. There was no way to reconcile this uptight bastard as a sexual being in any capacity, unless they were to roleplay being in a James Bond movie.
And so she went into his bed with an excitement she'd not felt before, feeling rather deviant about it all. It had felt wrong in the best kind of way. Like some romantic infiltration of ethics. After all, he was her employee.
Maybe it was the way he'd swept her into his arms so effortlessly and saved her that night. Maybe that was the catalyst.
She'd been with men three times his size; dark, muscled demi-gods who could bench press her with one hand. But even they could never make her feel as desirable or as feminine as her beloved bodyguard had. Frank Farmer was in a league all his own, so different than those boys she'd slept around with. He was cerebral and intelligent and disturbingly observant. Hell, the country had relied on him to protect two presidents before her. She didn't feel worthy of his service in that regard, and that made her want him more.
She had gone into that night, ready to let him spank her, pull her hair, call her out for being a naughty and disobedient little bitch. She had wanted him to put his gun to her throat, slice her panties off with his samurai sword, cuff her to his bed and punish her like she was sure he wanted to. She would've been all too fine with those things. But he did none of them.
So why did he give her butterflies where the others could not?
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He had always protected men. Usually the worst kind of men. Politicians who hid their indecencies behind closed doors, who were calculated and power hungry. But he had never protected a woman before. Until Rachel.
It was much more different than he'd thought it would be. He was naive to think that going into such a job would be about the same as protecting the president. He had no resources like he did at the White House. In Rachel's world, he was one man against an army of problems in the way. He'd gone from an iron cage with a no-fly zone in D.C. to her sprawling California property, with its wide open terraces and uncharted foliage. And it had been up to him alone to lock down the beast.
In Rachel's world, Frank found himself constantly shielding his eyes from the many spotlights which always seemed to surround her. It was a metaphor for his entire life, he thought, that he desperately tried to do his job in the anonymity of the shadows, rejecting all recognition for the sake of maintaining privacy. In Rachel's world, privacy was a nonexistent concept. When he had first started the daunting task of guarding her, privacy was not a frequently used word in her vocabulary.
Rachel was not the type of woman Frank had ever imagined himself with. He had always thought it was bullshit, what people said – that you can't help who you fall in love with. Much like every other aspect of his life, Frank assumed he could condition himself into loving only a certain type of woman. One who was mature and quiet, not emotionally candid, maybe a little boring and reserved. He certainly never expected to fall for Rachel Marron – an emotionally stunted woman with more power over others than he had himself. A woman who hated being locked down, who hated being told what to do, who couldn't follow directions if her life depended on it. A woman whose passion made sparks fly everywhere she stepped foot, whose gorgeous face could cause riots, and whose childlike joy at the smallest things in life was downright arresting. The exact opposite of the woman he thought he belonged with.
He blamed the fact that she was a woman for his behavior. He'd never been so staunch before, not even with the president of the United States. It all hit him when she'd called him a fanatic to his face. He'd never been called a fanatic about anything before. It was almost a compliment, and he'd taken it as such in the moment. It urged him to be even more invasive, even more tyrannical with his safety precautions, even more rigid in his rules than before. With every effort Rachel had made to undo him, he buttoned himself tighter and became even more harsh with her.
He would have never done that if he was protecting a man. Only a woman could get under his skin like that.
The responsibility he felt in protecting her was tenfold what he'd felt while protecting Reagan. Rachel was such an electric presence, such a ball of fire – she was something that could not be contained – yet at the same time she was helpless and clueless and so blithely unaware of all the dangers in the world. It was the first time in his life Frank felt that his employer actually needed him, not just in the sense of protecting, but in some other way he could not place. He could see it in her eyes when she looked at him; no matter how much vitriol she spat his way, those eyes of hers were burning with needs and silent pleas.
Somehow he'd always known their paths would cross again. But he didn't expect it to happen quite like this.
It was nearly 5:30 A.M. by the time Frank returned to his hotel room. He had trouble focusing all through the meeting, suffering from sleep deprivation . . . and more so from sex deprivation. Knowing there was a goddess in his bed waiting for him was enough to make him speed read through his presentation.
He opened the door to find her there, still in bed, twirling a lock of her raven hair around her finger.
"Did you ever think about joining the military when you were younger, Farmer?" Rachel had a knack for catching him off guard. Luckily he knew just how to feign unaffectedness.
"Yeah. Air Force." He shed his jacket.
"Ooh, I could see you flying those planes," she swooned. "What changed your mind?"
"They told me I was too tall to fly the planes."
She smiled. "Well, I guess that's a compliment."
He shrugged. "I guess so."
He watched as one of her slim legs slipped out from under the sheets, the contrast of her deep skin against the white fabric causing his heart to race. "How tall are you anyway?" she asked him.
"6'1"" He undid his necktie and tossed it down on the bed.
She raised her eyebrows. "I would've guessed you were taller. You have nice posture."
"Not as good as yours," he threw the compliment back at her.
"So are we going to finish where we left off?" she asked, her musical voice filling him with temptation.
"I have thirty minutes."
She must have known he still wasn't comfortable having intercourse without a condom. The first thing she did after lifting her naked body out of bed to kiss him was drop to her knees. She didn't make him wait for it either. He wouldn't have lasted long anyway.
She was right about her gag reflex.
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It had been barely a week since her new bodyguard had started working, and already half of the house was turned upside down to make renovations. Apparently it was all for her own safety, and apparently Devaney was footing the bill for it all. It angered Rachel to think that this glorified secret service dropout came at such a high price, and now on top of it he wanted to flip her mansion into a prison.
"I heard he was listening in on our phone conversations now," Rachel gossiped to her sister.
Nicki looked over her shoulder. "Who told you that?"
"Sy."
"That seems a little extreme. Are you sure it's true?" Nicki challenged.
Rachel shrugged. "Seems the type."
"I really think you ought to listen to Mr. Farmer, Rachel. I think we should trust that Bill has done his homework and found you the best man for this job."
"I swear if you all keep hatin' on my Tony. . ."
Nicki sighed. "Rachel, Tony is a slab of muscle. He has his place, don't get me wrong, but Mr. Farmer seems to have a very extensive knowledge of high level security. This is a man who has protected two presidents, honey. We should be flattered he's even taken Bill up on the offer to work here."
"Flattered?" Rachel snorted. "You're giving this guy way too much credit. He's been here a week and all he's done is drill holes in my walls and chop down all my trees."
"He's creating a perimeter around the house, Rachel. It should have been done a long time ago." Nicki glanced over the grand staircase to the foyer where a team of contractors were congregating. "The man knows what he's doing."
"He may have known what he was doing in D.C., Nicki, but this isn't the fucking White House. Tony never–"
"Tony doesn't understand this kind of security, Rachel," Nicki interrupted. "Mr. Farmer is far more intelligent, and capable, and mature . . . "
"Capable and mature?" Rachel repeated the descriptors with heavy suggestion in her voice. "You got a little thing for him?"
Nicki blushed at her sister's implication. Her meek voice was unusually defiant as she retorted, "I respect him. You should too."
"Speak of the devil," Rachel muttered as Farmer scaled the stairs to meet the sisters at the top.
"Miss Marron?"
"How many times I gotta tell you, Farmer? Call me Rachel. How else are we supposed to know which sister you're talkin' to?"
He glanced apologetically at Nicki before correcting himself. "Rachel, I'd like to have a brief meeting at some point this afternoon with you, Tony, and Devaney to go over some changes in protocol for when we go out."
"That won't be necessary. I don't see any need for changes. We've handled things just fine for quite some time now."
Nicki glared at her sister. Rachel conveniently ignored it, crossing her arms. She had to admit, she got a little bit of a high off seeing this man's frustration levels rise.
Farmer straightened up, his unwavering eye contact like an arrow on a bullseye. "Let me rephrase that. I will be making significant changes to the current security operations for when you're in public. I'd like to have a meeting as a courtesy, to communicate to the rest of your team precisely what changes will be taking immediate effect."
Rachel was not only a bit stunned that this man continuously clapped back at her, she was more so stunned that he did it in the most subdued, effortlessly confident manner. In her mind, she never left room for argument. But Frank Farmer had a way of twisting the narrative in his favor without even raising his voice with her.
Rachel huffed, wishing she could swipe the smug look off her sister's face. "I'll only give you fifteen minutes, and Sy has to be there, too."
He didn't look thrilled by her inclusion of Sy, but he nodded curtly and confirmed, "Alright. Two o'clock, base of the staircase. Don't be late this time." He'd barely reached the bottom of the steps before he was already shouting commands to the circle of contractors gathered below.
Rachel shook her head. "What a tightass."
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Rachel threw a dirty look at her alarm clock as it beeped at her for the fourth time. She hit the snooze button yet again and flipped over in her bed so that her head was facedown in the pillow. After fooling around with her former bodyguard all night and earlier that morning, she was desperate to catch at least a few hours of sleep before the full cast rehearsal of 'Sugarplums and Stars' that evening. It was Devaney who had reminded her that the rehearsal started at five o'clock at the Benedum, and not at seven o'clock like she'd assumed. She was such a wreck.
She recalled the knowing look Pettigrew had given her when he spotted her sneaking back to her room just before noon earlier in the day. She would have been embarrassed if anyone else had known her whereabouts, but she knew her secret was safe with him. After all these years, Rachel considered herself something of a master of the walk of shame. As much as she hated having to do it, in a hotel it was a piece of cake to blend in.
Those precious last thirty minutes she'd spent in Farmer's room were well worth it. Just to see the expression on his face when she swallowed – that was worth it.
She smirked to herself as she hugged her pillow. She was certain she'd upstaged his ex-wife in about a hundred ways last night, and they hadn't even fucked properly… yet. She hoped he was comparing. He deserved to be treated like a king, and not a fucking sperm dispenser.
Her alarm clock went off again, and this time Rachel gritted her teeth and reluctantly pulled herself out of bed.
As she was getting ready, she texted Frank.
I have to go do this stupid dress rehearsal on two hours of sleep thanks to you.
About ten minutes later, he replied: You can sleep on stage.
She quickly sent back: If I lay down on that stage I'll expect you to come fuck me proper.
Her heart thumped wildly as she awaited his next reply.
No offense, but I hope to never be caught on stage with you again.
She knew the meaning behind his text. She knew it was a joke. She knew he didn't mean it to be callous, but it still stung to read it. She felt a lump form in her throat and tossed her phone aside. Moments ago she thought she looked like a badass; now her reflection in the mirror was that of a dejected little girl whose crush had just slighted her.
"Rachel?" She heard Pettigrew call for her as he entered her hotel room.
"In here," Rachel called out from the bathroom.
Pettigrew peeked his head around the door. "Devaney's asking how much longer."
Rachel rolled her eyes. "Tell him I'll be down in five minutes."
Pettigrew checked his watch then promptly left the room.
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Rachel had to admit, she felt kind of fabulous amongst her peers. A lot of them looked like walking advertisements for botched plastic surgery, and quite a few were about forty pounds heavier than the last time she'd seen them. Of course most of them were already a little older than her; she had been lucky enough to hit her prime during an advantageous age. Still, she was happy to be wearing a long, golden evening gown which clung to her slender figure. She'd be lying if she said she didn't enjoy the looks of envy the other women were giving her.
It was something of an understanding that Rachel Marron always wore either gold or silver on stage. She was pleased that none of the other women had dared to touch the two colors. Though a woman in holly berry red had caught her eye.
"Rachel Marron," the woman drew out her name, looking her up and down.
"Myra Dailey," Rachel addressed her fellow singer with a bored expression. "Nice dress." She made sure the compliment was given as flippantly as possible.
Myra simpered across the table where they had both been seated to get their makeup done. "Brock told me you were staying at the Sheraton."
"Uh huh."
Myra's face was stone cold. "He told me you two went swimming together the other day."
Rachel burst out laughing, causing her makeup artist to poke the corner of her eye with the mascara wand. Rachel glared at the young man as if it were his fault. He mouthed 'sorry' and began to touch up the spot with quick hands.
"Oh, yeah, I swam laps around him," Rachel said cheekily.
"You know we're together, right?" Myra's voice was sharp.
Rachel bowed her head to hide her smile. "I didn't know that. You might wanna punish him for his behavior."
She narrowed her frosty eyes at Rachel. "Oh, I have no problem punishing him."
"You enjoy, honey. I got my own booty to spank back at the hotel."
Myra smirked and turned her cheek for her makeup artist to apply blush. "So which NBA star did you sneak into your room last night? Or wait, was it another NFL player? I have to admit, Rachel, I'm not quite sure who you haven't banged yet." She gave an irritating little laugh, to which Rachel rolled her eyes.
"Well, I do know one thing," Rachel said nonchalantly, "no matter who I take to bed, I'll know he's got at least five inches over Brock's micropenis."
Rachel yelped as she was pegged in the eye by a small bottle of setting spray. Her makeup artist gasped and stepped back to point the blame at Myra where she sat, examining her nails on the other side of the table. Rachel promptly bent over and chucked her shoe at the woman, who screamed loudly enough to draw the attention of everyone backstage.
"Marron, you are such a psycho!"
"Oh, honey, tell me something I haven't heard before!"
"What the hell is going on?" Pettigrew barked as he arrived on the scene.
Rachel looked down like a puppy who had just been caught chewing the curtains. He looked between the two women, piecing together the altercation that had just occurred. Even under the circumstances, he did the gentlemanly thing and picked up Rachel's discarded shoe to help her back into it while Myra played up a fresh bruise on her forehead. He glanced sternly up at Rachel and muttered, "Cool it," under his breath.
"Can I get you some ice, Ms. Dailey?" Pettigrew offered. Ever the damsel, Myra nodded with a sniffle, still glaring at Rachel from behind her hand.
Despite their injuries, both women gave their best performances for the rehearsal. Rachel was pleased to find that Myra had been stuck doing a duet with another washed up male singer. Her giant bruised forehead really took the spotlight as she belted out "Baby, it's Cold Outside."
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The rehearsal ended later than usual. Rachel had begged the directors to let her leave before the other stars had finished their songs, but they weren't having it. She used to have so much more influence over people than she did these days. It was incredibly frustrating.
It was nearly eight o'clock by the time they got back to the hotel. She wouldn't have been as upset by the delay if it hadn't been for the fact that Farmer had likely already eaten dinner and would probably have no interest in going out with her for drinks again. She glanced wishfully at her cell phone, and finding no new messages since their last text exchange, she resigned herself to go straight to her room. Devaney, as usual, was thrilled.
She made sure to call Fletcher before bed to wish him luck on his date.
"She flaked on me," his voice was forlorn. Rachel wished she could hug him through the receiver.
"Oh, baby, I'm so sorry!" Rachel sympathized. "Did she give a reason why?"
"She said she had too much studying to do."
Rachel winced. It sounded like an excuse she herself would've used on a guy when she didn't want to go out. She still would have liked to punch the girl in the face though.
"Well, maybe this weekend you two can get together."
"Yeah, maybe." Fletcher didn't sound convinced. He paused before saying, "I miss you, mom."
Rachel felt her heart sink. The guilt was never before so strong. Ironically, it seemed the older Fletcher got, the more he needed her around.
She realized then how pointless it all was. She was here, all the way on the opposite coast, three hours apart, just to sing a stupid secular Christmas song for some silly fans in her hometown. Her son was all alone, having been ditched by a girl on what should have been his first date. He needed his mother, and she wasn't there.
"I'll be back on Monday, sweetheart," she promised, tears in her eyes.
He sighed on the other line. "I know."
And they said their goodnights.
Rachel turned off the light and settled under the covers. How she wished she had a normal life sometimes. A life where she could be home with her baby and spend all her waking moments with him. Today's rehearsal at the theater had made her realize just how ridiculous the Hollywood chase had become. Even in her prime she'd never really been a role model for anyone. The interaction she'd had with Myra Dailey was enough to prove that she still hadn't learned to control her temper. She still got angry over petty things. She still got offended enough to cause drama. Was it too late for her to become a better role model for her only son?
With a long sigh, Rachel closed her eyes, allowing the existential thoughts to consume her as she drifted off to sleep.
Author's Note: Chapter 9 is already underway. Thank you again to everyone who has been reading along! I have loved reading your reviews.
XoX, Mack