Cadmium and Cerise
Disclaimer: This story takes place the night of the "Go Red" Ball on Valentine's Day 2009. Tea is just Todd's lawyer and friend. Todd has no twin and was recently acquitted of conspiracy to kidnap Hope. Marty does not have her memory back yet. This is a non-profit "One Life to Live" fan fiction – no copyright infringement intended.
February 14th, 2009
9:48 p.m.
Todd Manning was seeing red. Literally.
As he stumbled down the corridor of the bustling Palace Hotel, streamers, balloons and sundry decorations in cerise, cadmium and every other hue of red were everywhere.
The hoi polloi of Llanview were also bursting in shades of scarlet. Most of the men were in black like him, but the women were dressed to the elevens in long flowing evening gowns, expensive jewels and lethally chic hairdos.
Leave it to his baby girl to crash the party in her amazing natural honey curls and a cherry-red leather jacket. She knocked all the other coiffed women here into a cocked hat with just a little cat smirk on her full, lush lips.
Todd could have laughed in pride and delight at her devil-may-care finesse and effortless chutzpah if he hadn't felt so sick at missing her.
Tonight's Go Red Ball was for a good cause – womens' cardiac health awareness and heart attack prevention.
Not that he cared. Tea had practically had to drag him out of Marty's bed and into his suit to get him here. Since his funds had finally been unfrozen by the courts, he'd had Tea write a check for a huge donation and made sure she got a receipt for his tax deduction.
What a hilarious joke that tonight was all about healthy hearts, when his own heart was shattered by the knowledge that the woman he now knew he'd never stop loving could not bear the sight or touch of him.
Todd barely noticed that he was getting apprehensive, mistrustful looks from all the gaily-dressed partygoers. Hushed whispers about what he'd just done followed him down the hall.
Todd came to a bank of elevators and knew he needed to escape the ball, if only for a while. He pressed the "down" button quickly. When the empty elevator arrived, he stepped inside and let out a deep, ragged sigh as the aluminium doors hissed shut, encasing him in blessed solitude.
He wasn't one to run away, but he hadn't gotten – or stayed - where he was today by pushing his luck, either.
The hotel's ballroom was on the third floor. Toss quickly pressed the button for Level 1 to access the hotel's spacious floor of conference rooms. He knew no one would be down there, and he needed at least a few minutes alone to try and figure out how to stop Marty from leaving with that freaking psychopath.
Rage boiled up again in Todd's gut like a geyser filled with acid as he stepped out of the elevator onto the thankfully quiet first floor of the hotel.
A knife.
That son of a bitch Wes Granger, Marty's new boyfriend, had held a knife to his throat.
As he remembered the incident, the blood pounded dangerously in Todd's carotid artery, near where the ape had nearly sliced him. He could still feel the freezing, shiny metal of the utility blade pressed against his flesh.
Todd closed his eyes. He dug his nails dug into his palms as he struggled against waves of humiliation and a desire to kill that biker scum so palpable he could taste it, rich and warm, like Scotch roaring a trail down his throat into his guts.
Oh, he could have taken Granger down, and done it with ease, style and pleasure.
But Antonio Vega, McBain and his flunky Talia Sahid were there, and none of them would scruple to arrest him if he put a foot out of line.
Blair was there too, watching every move he made with narrowed, heavily made-up eyes. She never hesitated to remind him that the restraining order against him was still in effect. And if he EVER wanted anything to do with his kids again, she gloated, he better "straighten up and fly right", to coin one of her favorite phrases.
Everyone he said he had a rotten temper. They were right. They said it would be the death of him some day. Probably.
But Todd honestly didn't think anyone knew how much he loved and needed his children - not even his kids themselves. Starr may have perjured herself to save him from jail for attempted kidnapping, but Todd couldn't kid himself that didn't hate him.
Didn't matter. She, Marty, Jack and Sam were still his life, and always would be.
What were the kids at school saying to Jack about his dad's latest sojourn in Statesville Prison? How long before Sam started to fear and shrink from him, just like Jack had after Todd almost died after being framed for Margaret's murder?
He didn't want to think about it. He couldn't stop thinking about it.
If anyone had asked Todd why he was pacing madly up and down the hotel's thick carpeted floors, he would have told them they were insane, and that he was standing perfectly still.
Todd didn't realise he was moving until he slowed down and noticed a sign outside one of the hotel's several huge abandoned meeting rooms.
As he neared the set of mahogany double doors, which were barely ajar, he noticed that the small bronze plaque read "Madison Conference Room".
Another cosmic joke. Madison had been one of the girl's names he'd picked out for Hope when he'd thought he'd have to take the baby away to keep her from that twisted sister Marcie McBain.
Why didn't Starr realise what he'd been trying to do? She was his heart, his best part, his only little daughter. Why couldn't she understand that he'd been trying to protect her from the deep, slicing pains he dealt with every hour of his life - remorse and its sister in crime, regret?
Todd growled low in helpless frustration as his thoughts whirled around how to make the only two women in the world he loved, except Viki and Jessica, see the light, and the truth about him.
Suddenly, a hand reached out of the conference salon door, grabbed him by the wrist and yanked him inside.