[A/N: Thank you for the kind reviews, everyone. Here is where the chapters start to get a little longer, so I hope no one minds. Please keep letting me know what you think!]
3.
A ray of feeble November sunshine fought its way into the plate glass window but still couldn't compete with the shiny mahogany conference table. CC stared at her glass of water, absently wondering if she shouldn't have some sort of coaster. A small smile crested her face; Niles would be proud to hear her worried about water stains.
Andrew sat across from her on the other side of the table, his besuited elderly father next to him. CC took a sip of her water and noticed the absence of anyone on her side of the table. This didn't bode well.
A foreboding waft of Lady Stetson announced a new arrival, and CC knew that the presence of BB Babcock boded even worse.
"Hello, doll," BB greeted, bending down to kiss the air relatively near CC's cheek.
"Hello, mother," CC replied warily. What did it mean that her father, who formed the original agreement, wasn't here but her mother, who opposed it, was? CC very much doubted that anything would wind up in her favor.
BB walked to the other side of the conference table, teetering on heels CC doubted a woman of her age should wear, and pressed actual kisses to Andrew and Mr. Wilcox's cheeks. Small talk passed back and forth between the groups before BB sat down next to CC and splayed her hands on the table. Heavy gold and diamond rings glittered in the light.
"Let's get down to business, shall we?" BB suggested coolly.
"Let's establish why I'm even here, first of all," CC countered.
BB spared a derisive glance to her daughter. "CC, do be reasonable. Now, Theo, why don't you air your concerns and I'll discuss mine?"
CC listened as her father-in-law, who was apparently named Theo, explained what she already knew: he was retiring, he worried about the continued partnership between Babcock, Inc., and Wilcox Corp. A small feeling of tentative relief began tugging her stomach back into its original place.
"Theo, you're absolutely right," BB stated authoritatively before Theo had even finished his last sentence. "There's no need to question the integrity of a Babcock business deal, of course, but given the very unusual nature of this marriage—they don't even live together, for goodness' sake—your concerns are well grounded. I've spoken to Stuart and I think there's a solution that will please everyone."
BB turned to give her daughter a smile, and it was in this smile that CC realized how foolish her tentative hope had been. It had never been enough, and so it would never be enough, to take away her freedom to choose her own life. Her family would always have to take more.
"I'd love to hear it, BB," Theo said. CC glanced at Andrew and found none of the camaraderie she'd encountered yesterday.
BB clasped her fingers together so that she could separate them to spread her hands wide as she gave her solution, a politician giving resolutions that would never actually touch her life or affect her in any way.
"An heir."
CC pushed into the Sheffield mansion, her fingers grasping the wrought iron for stability. She'd laughed at Nanny Fine's hide-a-key weeks ago, joking that surely Niles, having no life, would always be home to let them in if anyone ever forgot their keys. But now, CC uttered a silent thank you to the nanny. Now, CC could go in, retrieve her purse, and then return to her penthouse and the chilled bottle of vodka she'd left in her freezer.
Following the disastrous meeting, CC had left the office building, jumped into her car, and jetted off. Originally, she'd intended on going to the Sheffield mansion to get her purse and get some work done, but she knew that would never happen when she was in such a state. But the idea of being in an empty penthouse (where her mother would be able to find her) was just as impossible. So CC had settled into a cozy bar she had frequented before, close enough to the Sheffield's that she could walk, and disappeared into the large holiday crowds as she nursed more drinks than she meant to.
Now, the manse was thankfully dark and quiet, everyone retreating to their own rooms, planning the next day or week or year, with no one directing the course of their lives. Lucky ones.
"Miss Babcock?" At his voice, CC started and spun around, losing her grip on the door and stumbling slightly. Niles clicked on the lamp on the side table and looked at her, concerned.
"I-I'm not that drunk," was all CC could think of to say—which was likely the least convincing thing to say when one is attempting to prove one's sobriety. But CC wasn't a stumbler, or a slurrer, or a sloppy drunk. She was a Park Avenue drunk: she just got crueler.
"And Miss Fine wasn't that desperate to marry Mr. Sheffield," Niles remarked.
CC leaned back against the door, the sphere of light emanating from the lap protecting them from the rest of the world. She rarely got to experience Niles like this—almost assuredly free from the family, from eavesdroppers, from people who made it necessary for him to always attack her. These times were her favorite.
"Niles, does it ever bother you that you've known Maxwell your entire life and you still call him 'Mr.'?" CC asked. She'd intended for her voice to be a little sharper but it was smooth at the edges.
"Does it bother you that I still call you 'Miss'?" Niles responded. "Or I suppose I should call you Mrs. Wilcox, right?"
"Hilarious," CC said with a sigh.
Niles eased up in a way he rarely did when company was present. "Did you come for your purse? It's in the kitchen." So that she would most likely see him if she ever came for it, he didn't add.
"I did. But let's have a drink," CC suggested, pushing away from the door and walking (quite steadily) into the living room. "You get my purse, I'll get the drinks."
"Yes, sir," Niles replied. CC laughed as she walked to the minibar and mixed two vodka tonics. She set his on a coaster on the coffee table and kept hers in hand as she sunk into the couch.
Niles returned and tossed her purse to her as he made to head for another lamp in the room. "Don't," CC said. "You're best viewed in dim lighting."
"Oh, how marriage has changed you," Niles tutted as he turned around and sat on the couch a few safe feet away from her.
"That's the second time you've brought it up. Something you'd like to talk about?" CC asked, sipping her drink.
Niles pursed his lips. "Something you want to talk about?"
CC raised her eyebrows and laughed humorlessly. "Niles, you've known me for how many years?"
"Nearly half your life, so I'd guess 45 years," Niles interjected.
"That was rhetorical, jackass. You've known me for 12 years and you found out three days ago that I'm actually married and you have nothing to say? It's like I don't know you at all."
"Like you don't know—" Niles began heatedly, anger at so many things flashing through and disappearing just as quickly. He paused to collect himself. "Well, I don't have any informational questions. I think I've figured that part out."
"Ah. Ok. Enlighten me."
"Some sort of business deal to appease both sets of parents and you thought your job was done when you signed your name on the marriage license, but now one side isn't so happy with it so they want more from you."
"Surprisingly intuitive for a butler," CC granted, tipping her glass to him.
"Thank you. So what more do they want from you?" Niles asked, his light tone hopefully covering the nervousness he felt. What if she left? What if she—
"Kids," CC said blatantly. Saying it aloud blocked out any other possible words so she swallowed a large gulp of her drink. It didn't diminish the ball in her throat but it did chase away her immediate fear that she would start crying.
"Kids?" Niles repeated incredulously. He stared at her so intensely that CC turned away. "Well, you can't do that."
"Why not?" CC turned to him.
"Because…you're just too old, right?"
"Niles," CC said quietly. Niles shook his head.
"They can't just dictate your life that way," Niles told her.
"You'll find that they can."
"Why? Will they hold a gun to your head and force you to…"
"No, of course not," CC snapped. "They'll just disinherit me and take away my trust fund."
"Andrew's family has the power to do that?" Niles asked.
"No," CC said, irritated. "His family will walk away from the business deal and cost my father's company millions. My family, in turn, will take that out on me."
"Then walk away. You made millions here, didn't you?" Niles suggested.
CC glared at him. "Such an easy suggestion. Why didn't you walk away from your family when they signed you into Maxwell's service? Why have you stayed your entire pathetic life?"
"That's different. My family's welfare was at stake—"
"It's always different, isn't it? You bow to other peoples' wishes and sacrifice your own life because you're noble but if I do it, then I'm—"
"A high-class prostitute?" Niles suggested. CC's mouth froze in the shape of whatever words she'd planned on saying.
In one movement, CC stood, grabbed her purse, and threw her drink in Niles's face. She hurried past him and towards the front door.
"Babcock, I—" Niles tried. He never got to say what he was; the slam of the front door cut him off.
The next morning, CC slid into the office chair in her penthouse and picked up her phone, dialing Noel's house number.
"Hello, hello?" her brother chirped.
"You jackass," CC greeted.
"CC! How are you?" Noel said cheerfully.
"Terrible. Why is Mummy here?"
"Oh. Ah. She's in New York?"
"Yes, Noel. Answer my question. Why is she here, and why did she tell Andrew that I'd be at Maxwell's?" CC asked.
"How is old Andrew? You know, I haven't seen him since—"
"Noel Nathaniel Babcock, I will take the next plane out to Evanston and—"
"All right, all right," Noel said with a sigh. "She called to see how I was, which means she actually called to try to…figure things out about my life, and she asked several questions about Brian and truth be told, these questions were making me rather uncomfortable because I told Mummy that he's my graduate assistant—"
"Oh, Noel, he's been your graduate assistant for eight years. He's either really struggling with that Master's degree or he's your boyfriend," CC snapped, irritated. "You know I know. I walked in on one of your 'research sessions' five years ago."
"Yes, yes, CC, but you know how Mummy is," Noel said.
"Yes, I do." It was CC's turn to sigh. "So you threw me under the bus to deflect attention." This wasn't said with anger but rather pride. This was her brother. This is who they were.
"Of course," Noel replied dismissively.
"But how?" CC asked. "What could you have possibly told her to make her want to come to New York demanding heirs?"
"Heirs?" Noel repeated. He cursed under his breath. "Ceec, I didn't mean to make that happen. I just thought she'd call and harass you instead."
"You just woke up the Beast, you aren't responsible for the wreckage it's created," CC said. "What did you tell her?"
Noel paused and CC furrowed her brow.
"It couldn't have been about my stint at the Place. If anything, that should have pleased her," CC said in a lame attempt at levity.
Her brother swore again. "No, but that did come up. I mentioned that Sheffield's butler had been to visit you there and she—"
"You told her that he visited me in the hospital?" she asked weakly.
Noel paused again and CC knew he realized his mistake, that he'd perhaps realized it soon after he'd said it to their mother. "CC, I'm sorry."
"What else did she want to know?" she asked stiffly.
"After I told her, she asked if you and he seemed close, and I—"
CC promptly hung up the phone and put her head in her hands.
Of course, CC thought, it was quite fitting that the catalyst to this most recent event in her life would be Niles, the man who just called her a prostitute and who would never in a million years admit to the world that he and CC were close. But CC knew her mother well—she'd inherited enough of the woman's poor qualities to be able to follow the convoluted and manipulative paths of her mind—and whatever CC claimed and whatever Niles claimed, his visit to her in the hospital spoke volumes. That Noel knew about it added even more information.
And if they were close, if CC ever considered her relationship and her history with the butler long enough to put that qualifier on it, what would it amount to? CC sensed that her mother's sudden arrival in New York served more than one purpose for BB. She didn't just want to remind CC how she didn't control her own future; she wanted to show her daughter the fruitlessness of any relationship with the help, close or otherwise. BB didn't like to use words to teach her lessons; instead, she was a more progressive teacher and liked to manipulate situations so that her pupils would learn the lessons themselves, often in the most painful way possible.
Niles was, after all, the person she'd spend the most time around in the past decade. She thought back to Thanksgiving and remembered the pleasant camaraderie and light flirting. Whatever the nature of her relationship to Niles was, CC did not have the freedom to figure it out.
She remembered the feel of her hand on his and a fist closed over her heart.
She jumped when she heard the phone ring, but she pushed away from her desk and left her office. She had no patience to hear Noel's groveling and apologies. She wasn't really mad at him, not the way she usually got mad at people, but she still didn't feel like talking to the other man who jump-started this entire catastrophe.
Chester looked up hopefully as she entered the living room and she smiled, curling up next to him on the sofa and petting his soft fur. Both looked up, alert, when a knock sounded at the door.
"You expecting someone?" CC asked. Chester looked at her with his big brown eyes and cocked his head. Sighing, CC stood and walked to the door, praying it wasn't her neighbor.
She pulled open the door and smirked when she saw Niles on the other side. "Sorry, hun, but if you want an appointment, you'll have to call Big Papa."
Niles looked for a moment as though he wanted to laugh but he quelled it, not willing to risk it. "I'm sorry, Babcock."
CC paused, looking at him expectantly. After a few silent moments, she responded, "That it? Ok, then."
"No, that isn't it," Niles answered, holding out his hand so that she couldn't shut the door, as she was trying to do.
CC halted her movement and kept her door half-open. "Ok. What else?"
He looked at her and eventually, she broke eye contact to inspect the door frame more closely. As much as she preferred Niles away from other people, often she could not handle more than small doses of him. There was something more poignant, more profound, that she sensed in him, and saw in his eyes currently, that evoked too many things she felt unprepared to deal with.
"Did you come to stare adoringly into my eyes?" CC snapped, her voice purposely harsh. "Just come inside, then, for God's sake." She turned and walked away, nearly tripping over Chester who had followed her to the door.
Niles shut the door and took off his wool coat, draping it over the closet door handle. He watched her turn to face him, crossing her arms. He suddenly found himself nervous—and he wasn't usually nervous around this woman, unless she happened to have a power tool in her hand—and wished he had thought everything through at least one more time. His morning had consisted of making, serving, and cleaning up after breakfast, after which a restless ennui possessed him and refused to relinquish its hold. Guilt, this was the name he'd assigned it.
"I'm sorry," he repeated.
"Yeah. You said that already."
"Stop being difficult," Niles said exasperatedly. "How many times in the past 12 years have I apologized?"
"Two, including today."
"See? It's genuine. I…I wasn't being nice," Niles finished lamely.
"Oh, well, thank you so much for coming all this way to let me know you weren't being nice," CC said, her voice dripping sarcasm like honey. "I never would have been able to figure that one out on my own, since I'm just a lowly whore."
Niles sighed. "Does your husband have to put up with this? Or do you two have a very modern marriage and live in separate penthouses?"
"Your jealousy is showing, Niles."
"You're right," Niles admitted. "Andrew does have bloody dreamy eyes. I bet you just get lost in them."
CC felt something like frustration, anger, and hurt form a hot ball deep inside her and she curled her hands into fists. "Isn't it just wonderful, then, how it's your fault he turned up in my life again?"
"My fault?" Niles repeated, confusion replacing the smirk he wore when he played with her.
"My idiot brother told my awful mother that you visited me at the-at the Place and she put two and two together so she decided to show up out of the bl—"
"What do you mean, 'put two and two together'?"
"It's arithmetic, Niles."
Niles rolled his eyes and walked closer to her. "I know that, woman. Why would your mother come here after learning that I'd visited you?"
CC sighed and felt her shoulders slump in a very Niles-esque gesture. "Because she…she figured that we were, I don't know, close, so of course, she can't let anyone actually care about me…"
Niles looked at her closely, and this time, she wouldn't find herself wondering what it was she saw in his eyes: it was as though he'd pulled the blinds up and let his feelings shine through for the first time. The light illuminated the dusty, forgotten parts of her, and whether it was the obvious fact that Niles did care for her or whether it was a combination of all that had transpired in the past few days, CC felt her eyes shimmer with tears.
Niles saw, too, and CC looked down before the sympathy certainly evident in his eyes embarrassed her even more.
"CC…" Niles said quietly. CC shook her head and went to turn away from him, but he pulled her into his embrace and held her tightly. "I'm sorry," he said softly into her ear.
"For the third time," CC said into his collarbone with a watery laugh.
He carefully placed his hands on either side of her head and pulled back so she could look at him. "Not just for what I said. For…well, for everything, I suppose."
CC looked at him and couldn't help but consider what her mother would say when her very intentions to keep Niles away were doing just the opposite. She had been correct earlier: the way things were right now, she absolutely did not have the freedom to figure out her relationship to Niles. But her mother wasn't here; her grip did not extend that far. She had never considered herself very rebellious, necessarily, but at that moment, CC wanted to rebel against each and every agent exercising control over her life, and the conduit to doing so stood in front of her, his feelings plain on his face.
Niles, for his part, had never before wanted to protect CC as much as he did in that moment. There was nothing he could do about her mother, about her marriage contract, about this current situation. But he could comfort her, offer solace, and prove to her that he did care about her just as much as her mother worried he did. And if Niles were truly honest with himself, some proprietary part of his core wanted to claim CC in a way he was almost certain her husband hadn't. And she hadn't pulled away from his embrace.
CC saw Niles leaning forward so she did, too, closing the gap and meeting his lips. She gripped the back of his suit coat as he slid his fingers into her hair, deepening in the kiss. Simultaneously, they stepped closer and pressed their hips together. She moved her hands around, pushing his jacket off of his strong shoulders, suddenly urgent to feel his skin with her hands.
Trailing his hands down her sides and resting in the gap between her shirt and her pants, Niles dug his fingers into her hips as she tugged away his tie and fumbled with the small buttons on his shirt. With a sound of frustration, she broke the kiss and pulled on the shirt, dislodging several buttons and leaving them hanging by strings.
Niles looked down at the vestiges of buttons and looked back up at CC, his eyebrow cocked.
With his chest partially bared and his face obviously recently kissed, CC felt a flush of desire wash over her again. "I'll buy you a new one," she managed to say before crashing her lips against his again, the force of the kiss actually knocking Niles back a few steps. Recovered, he slipped his shirt off and momentarily broke the kiss to slide CC's shirt over her head.
The feel of his hands against her bare back, waist, shoulders nearly made her knees weak. As soon as she realized this, Niles pressed a kiss right near her ear and whispered, "Get ready, Babcock," and placed his hands behind her knees, lifting her up and carrying her towards her bedroom.
He placed her gently upon her bed, using this new position to press kisses to previously unexplored areas of her body, seemingly insignificant parts that had become precious in his imagination: the top of her arm, the expanse of her torso, the small hollow where her abdomen met her hips. Even in the flurry of his desire, Niles took his time, his hands and lips exploring where it was almost too painful for his eyes to see.
CC, for her part, succumbed to the overwhelming yearning that she'd gotten only a glimpse of three years ago with The Kiss in the living room. Only this time, his lips tasted like himself, not like whiskey, and there was almost no chance of Maxwell and Nanny Fine interrupting them. What little part of CC's brain that was still coherent could manage only one thought, over and over: why haven't we been doing this all along?
Time sped up—or slowed down, possibly—and in a perfectly synchronistic moment, both were aware of nothing more than the urge to continue. But when Niles tilted her hips and slid into her, he closed his eyes and pressed his forehead to hers, pausing for several moments. In the moments, days, years to come, CC would never be able to fully articulate this moment, but even though she couldn't put words to it, she understood.
That moment eventually passed, and they gave in to their baser urges.
After, CC lay spent against the pillows and Niles sat on the edge of her bed, the remainder of his clothing in a sad heap by his feet. As she slowly regained the feeling in her limbs, CC turned to look at him just as he looked over his shoulder at her. Written all over his face was the universal expression saying, quite plainly, we shouldn't have done this.
In an instant, all of her feelings that Niles had successfully caressed away—her frustration, anger, irritation, deep-seated hopelessness—surged through and threatened to drown her. She wanted to kick him out of her bed, literally, and scream at him to leave; she felt the scream bubbling in her throat, blocking out anything else, but she bit it back and felt her face harden.
"I should go," Niles said, feeling every bit like the coward he was. "The family will be expecting their lunch."
CC looked at him coldly and it seeped into every fiber of herself: her rough edges turned to daggers of ice and her eyes to ice chips. She hated being reminded that she'd just had sex with a butler, a man so subservient that he'd leave her naked in her bed to go fix his master lunch. "Then go."
Niles sighed, his shoulders slumping, and CC felt even more disgust course through her. Had he wanted her to fight for him? Didn't he know that wasn't who she was?
On the other side, a side that now felt miles and miles away, Niles asked himself those same questions. Though he knew the absurdity of it, part of him did want her to fight for him, to somehow make up for the lie that they had ever stood even the smallest chance of being together. It was a lie he had believed in with the optimistic naiveté of a child, but it was a lie she had apparently always known to be one. She was married, and she wasn't brave enough to do anything about it. He knew that. Had he expected an hour of sex—admittedly damn amazing sex—to change her, the stubborn tower of Babcock?
He stood, pulling on his clothing, and watched in the periphery of his vision as she pulled a blanket to cover herself up. He spared one more look of disappointment about her, himself, them, before he turned and left her room, closing the door quietly behind him.
After CC listened carefully to the front door closing as well, she grabbed the crystal vase from her side table and hurled it at her door. It shattered loudly, gratifyingly, and CC felt a kinship to the vase as it scattered to the ground in shards of unrecognizable pieces.