A/N: My dear readers, here is the next chapter for you :)
Busard: Thanks for being the first reviewing this story ;)
Astha22: :D
Deabra: You made my day with your review! I'm an Ollie fan too… aaaand in this chapter you get to know my favorite Smallville character :)
Supesfan18: There are some more characters from Dance of Love on the way…
A huge thanks goes to my betas Dragon166, and Astha22 as well as a special thanks to Supesfan18 for the creative input in this story!
2.
Twenty minutes later, the fundraiser auction started. La Viegre was the first to be auctioned off. She and Celeste had agreed to have dinner with the man or woman who bid the most.
Clark stood on the bottom of the stage and smiled at his wife. She just looked stunning in her beautiful long black chiffon dress. Her hair was up in a nice do and the black long gloves she was wearing accentuated her gorgeous appearance.
I didn't take long and La Viegre was auctioned off to a very rich Arabic oil sheikh.
When it was Celeste's turn, Richard, who was standing next to Clark, smiled at him. "Are you going to bid for your wife?"
Clark just smirked. "I'm afraid, I'm not as rich as these boy billionaires," he replied to his friend, looking bemusedly at Oliver Queen and Bruce Wayne who were both standing on the other side of the room.
"Well from my point of view you are the richest man in the world as you have the honor of being married to her," Richard realized out loud.
His friend just laughed. "I know!"
The speaker went to the microphone for the second time and smiled.
"It is my honor to take the bids for the lovely Celeste Kent. Starting bid is ten thousand US dollars."
It was totally crazy; the number of people who bid for Celeste was just mind-blowing. Clark watched them, stunned, realizing that the highest bidder was on one million US dollars within a minute.
His wife just smiled as the bids continued to go higher and higher until Oliver Queen and Bruce Wayne were the only bidders left. Both looked cheekily at Clark as they continued to push up the prize for a dinner with Celeste.
Clark let out a long sigh. The two playboy billionaires had planned this from the beginning, just to make his life as miserable as possible. He knew that for sure now.
Mathieu, who was standing on the other side of the room, just looked pitiful to the Daily Planet reporter who winced with every bid Oliver and Bruce shouted out. Smirking, he lifted his champagne glass and took a sip of the flagitiously expensive brewage.
"Wow, I didn't know that pilots could look so hot when they are not in their uniforms," an agreeable voice of a woman realized out just behind him.
Puzzled, Mathieu turned around and was stunned. He considered Celeste to be the most beautiful woman he had ever met. But the woman just standing in front of him was beyond beautiful, she was absolute perfection! Tilting his head, he took in her divine feminine appearance.
She was wearing a silky black dress. Her beautiful red hair was in a nice up do, and in her white gloved hands, she was holding a champagne glass, looking at him with her deep green eyes.
"Excuse me?"
The woman just smiled and extended her hand. "Tess Mercer, acting CEO of Luthercorp," she introduced herself.
Shaking her hand, Mathieu was stunned. "As in Lex Luthor's Luthorcorp?" he asked just to make sure he had heard her right the first time.
"The one and only," she confirmed.
Running a hand through his brown hair, he said. "I didn't know that Luthorcorp has a new CEO."
Tess nodded. "I've been in this position since this morning," she explained and locked eyes with him.
Mathieu gulped.
"And you are?" she asked.
"Mathieu Perontier," he said, not being able to escape her stare.
"A man with a French name, an Australian accent, living in the United States. What an interesting combination," she realized as she looked over the rim of her champagne glass and taking a sip just a moment later.
"My parents are from France. I grew up in Australia, and live in St... Star City," he started to stutter.
Oliver Queen, who had noticed Tess having a conversation with his private pilot, excused himself and left the group of elderly men standing with him. Walking up to them both, he gave the sign to the auction speaker that he was out of the game, when the highest bid was at ten million dollars, to give Bruce Wayne the honor to go to the dinner with the Australian ballet dancer.
"Mercy, what are you doing here?" he snapped at Tess, once he was standing in front of her.
"Oliver," she exhaled irritated, adding sarcastically, "What a nice surprise!"
"Ten million dollars for the first, second, and…," the speaker said as he lifted the hammer.
"Fifty million dollars," another man yelled out his bid.
All the people attending the auction, including Tess, Oliver, and Mathieu gasped and turned around to find out who had joined in last minute to bid for Celeste.
When Clark realized who the eager man was, he could just manage to swear. "Shit," he murmured, concerned.
Richard looked puzzled at Clark. "What happened?"
Clark shifted nervously from one foot the other. "Have you ever heard about Borysko Nicolaev?"
Lois, who had been on the other side of the room walked up to her husband and Clark and looked pleadingly into her friend's eyes.
"Clark! You can't let Celeste go to a date with this hypocrite," she begged him.
"I know," he answered as he helplessly watched his wife getting auctioned off to the richest man in the world who had quite a big criminal record about sexual harassment. Unfortunately for the victims, Borysko Nicolaev's money, and very effective connections to certain key law enforcers made it almost impossible to sentence him for his cruel crimes against women.
"And you will let Borysko Nicolaev go off with her to that dinner?" Tess asked Oliver beyond believe.
The billionaire just shrugged. There was nothing he could do right now. Even though he knew that disaster was bound to occur. Borysko Nicolaev was anything but an honorable man. Especially when it came to women.
Mathieu looked at them both. "You know each other?" he asked puzzled, "And what's up with the man winning a dinner with Celeste?"
Smiling like a little boy who had just won the first prize in a lottery, Borysko Nicolaev walked up the stage and took the hand of the graceful ballet dancer. They walked down the stairs, where Clark was already waiting for his wife. He had a notepad and a pencil in his hand, silently hoping that the Ukrainian billionaire did not know that he was married to the woman he had just paid to have dinner with.
Looking at the small and very smart looking man, he adjusted his glasses and shifted his attention to Celeste. "May I have an interview Mrs. Kent?"
Absolutely furious about the rude interruption of his dinner with the ballet dancer by the insulting journalist, the Ukrainian billionaire held his arm between the reporter and the ballet dancer, yelling at Clark, "I don't think the lady wants to be mutilated by a journalist at this time of the day."
"I can take care of myself," Celeste explained calmly to Borysko Nicolaev, looking very determined into his eyes as she shifted her glance to look into the cerulean eyes of the man she loved. She was more than puzzled. Noticing that her husband was extremely twitchy, she excused herself and followed him behind the huge velvet curtain, located next to the stage.
"What is wrong with you?" she whispered, concerned, looking around to see if somebody had noticed them vanishing behind the curtains.
Clark let out a long sigh and looked deep into her eyes. "Celeste, you can't have dinner with this man," he said breathlessly.
Frowning, she crossed her arms over her chest. "Are you jealous?" she asked indignantly.
He just rolled his eyes. "Who wouldn't be jealous of anybody having dinner with you?" he asked with a smirk. "Celeste, this man is very well known pander," he continued more seriously. "He is famous for humiliating women. I don't want you to be alone with him for even a second."
With his words, Celeste's expression became soft. He was really concerned about her. Walking closer to him, she cupped his face, "You don't have to worry; I'm a big girl," she tried to reassure him. Clark still wasn't convinced and she could see it in his eyes. "And by the way, I won't be alone with him. La Vierge and the sheikh will be with us all the time." Placing a quick kiss on his lips, she smiled. "No need to worry, okay?" she said over her shoulder as she walked back to the Ukrainian billionaire.
Her husband watched her until he felt a touch on his shoulder. Turning his head, he realized Oliver standing next to him.
"Can we talk for a second?" the blonde man whispered into his friend's ear.
Clark turned his head again and glanced concerned at Celeste who was about to take off to her dinner with Borysko Nicolaev. Turning to face Oliver, he nodded.
They looked for a room where they could talk in private.
"So this was your wife. I have to admit, you are a lucky bastard," Oliver joked with a cheeky smile on his face after he had closed the door. "No wonder you've hidden her from us for all that time, which was by the way a very bad idea," he added.
The tall man in front of him tucked his hands into the pockets of his trousers and smiled. "I noticed. But you know exactly why I haven't introduced her to the Justice League," he explained.
"Well, I get it. You just don't want her to be in the middle of the action and seriously, I don't blame you," Oliver realized out loud.
Clark shifted a bit and looked with a concerned expression into Oliver's eyes. "Something tells me that you haven't asked me for a word to tell me how amazing my wife is."
Now Oliver got more serious. "No. Unfortunately there is a very serious cause behind this. Bruce was digging into some files of Rothul Industries when Wayne Industries took over the company and he made a very worrying discovery."
"Rothul Industries? The subsidiary company of Luthorcorp?" Clark asked surprised.
"Yes, Boy Scout," Oliver confirmed. "Bruce discovered that Lex Luthor is digging around in the Cambodian rain forest and we don't know what he is up to."
"When did you find this out?" Clark asked puzzled.
"Just a couple of hours ago. And to make things even worse, I just found out some other alarming news, Lex Luthor has passed on all of his authorizations to Tess Mercer, his new CEO of Luthorcorp. Clark, there is something really big going on here. Do you think you could check out what this little pathetic punk is up to?" Oliver asked concerned.
Clark nodded. This all was an indication, that Lex Luthor was more dangerous than ever. They needed to stop him. Not only for Jason, his son, but also for the rest of the world. Just when he wanted to answer Oliver, he suddenly noticed Celeste's heartbeat accelerating rapidly. Looking up, and turning his head in the direction where he had located her heartbeat, he supersped away.
Oliver just shrugged. "Yeah right. I know I sometimes bore you stiff, but could you at least pretend to be interested?"
Borysko Nicolaev had ambushed the young ballet dancer into a dark corner outside the building where the fundraising gala took place, by asking her charmingly if she wanted to accompany him while he was having a smoke. Now, he walked slowly up to the young woman and forced a kiss on her lips. Shocked, Celeste glanced into his cold and blank eyes, pushing him away from her as far as she could. But he didn't care about the fact that she didn't want him to touch her. With even more force, he pressed her against the wall and ripped her dress open.
"Too bad you haven't got a body guard," he said sarcastically, trying to put a hand on the secret place between her legs.
Celeste looked at him with her eyes wide open. Just when she wanted to lift her knee to fight him off, she felt a gust of wind accompanied with a loud woooooosh.
With a relieved sigh she smiled and gathered her dress together. "Who says I don't have one?"
Borysko Nicolaev was terrified when the dizziness of the superspeeding had faded away and he finally realized that he was hanging upside down on the edge on the roof-top of the Daily Planet.
"What is going on here?" he screamed in fear.
"Hasn't your mother taught you how to behave in the presence of a lady?" Superman asked in his low voice, holding only on to Borysko Nicolaev's right foot. He could barely hold it together after what he had just witnessed.
"What do you mean? That ballet whore? Every woman I have to pay for is a pavement princess. Period. Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh..."
The next thing Borysko Nicolaev noticed was the ground coming dangerously close to his face. Just when his nose was an inch away from the hard, wet and cold concrete, Superman caught the Ukrainian billionaire midair and shot back with him on to the roof-top, to put him in the same position as he was before.
"You son of a bitch! You really dropped me!" Borysko Nicolaev screamed, hysterical and beyond belief, once he was able to speak again. "I will tell this to the press and the news channels - everyone around the world shall know what you have just done to me."
Superman just laughed out loud. "Go on tell them if you want. I'm more than certain that your reputation is gone, once I confirm what I have just seen. Even the best lawyer in the world wouldn't try to object against my testimony." He shook Borysko Nicolaev a bit and looked at him with a serious expression in his face. "Now, do I have to repeat myself?"
Absolutely terrified by the sheer thought of Superman dropping him a second time, Borysko Nicolaev surrendered. "Okay, okay! I didn't treat the lady with respect. I'm totally sorry for this and it will never happen again," he stated, as big pearls of sweat were running down his nose.
The next thing he felt was his feet back on the ground.
Superman patted his shoulders. "This wasn't too hard, was it?" he asked and looked seriously into the billionaire's eyes. "I want you to go back to the lady and apologize for your absolutely inappropriate behavior." Borysko Nicolaev nodded and was about to walk away. "And," Superman continued, tapping at one of his ears. "Don't even try to play tricks. I can hear you from anywhere in the world." With these words he tilted his head back and shot up into the sky, leaving behind the very shaken up billionaire.
Back at the fundraising event, Clark scanned the dimmed ballroom for a sign of Celeste. Passing by Mathieu and Tess, who danced closely with each other, he spotted her on the dance floor together with Alexander Nilson, who was twirling her around. She had changed into a stunningly long and formfitting crimson dress, which suited her perfectly. Walking up to them, Clark extended his hand and glanced at Alexander.
"Can I take over?"
The Swedish dancer smiled, said hello to Clark, and kissed Celeste's hand before walking to the other side of the dance floor, asking his wife to share a dance with him.
Lifting her gaze to look at her husband, Celeste made eye contact with him and felt her heartbeat accelerating. Cuddling into his arms, she asked. "Is he still alive?"
Clark kissed her passionately, absolutely relieved that she was okay.
"Barely," he replied after he had released her lips.
They started to dance to the beautiful blues. The young ballet dancer closed her eyes and drifted away in her thoughts. In Clark's arms was the place where she knew she was safe for the rest of her life. When she felt a cold and sweaty hand on her shoulders, she jumped. Shaken a bit, she turned around and looked into the cold eyes of Borysko Nicolaev, as Clark became extremely tense in her arms.
"Mrs. Kent, I would like to apologize for my earlier behavior," the billionaire stated with a trembling voice and clenched teeth. "It was absolutely inappropriate to treat a dame like you so disrespectfully." Turning around, he walked away, looking up to the ceiling. "Did you hear that Superman? I apologized. No need to come after me again," he whispered angrily.
After the Ukrainian man had vanished, Celeste looked deeply into her husband's eyes, who couldn't suppress a chuckle. "What did you do to him?" she asked accusingly.
Shrugging, he looked at the floor. Somehow the pattern of the flawlessly waxed wood underneath his shining black shoes was more interesting for him at the moment.
"I let him drop from the rooftop of the Daily Planet," he finally admitted, sweeping her back into his arms, before she could start arguing with him. Bending her body slowly back to the beat of the music, he glanced deep into her shocked eyes, and added, "Nobody has the right to treat the woman I love like he did and he just got the punishment for his inappropriate behavior towards you!"