Part Two
Disclaimer: Everything belongs to Gossip Girl. I'm just showing my appreciation for it in a non-profit way.
Lily eyed her best friend. "Are you alright, Evelyn? You look as if you're in another alternative universe."
Evelyn blinked. "Sorry, Lils. I was just thinking."
"About Bart?"
"Shh!" she hissed. "Why don't you broadcast it to the entire school!"
"No one heard."
Evelyn rolled her eyes.
"Are you sure this fling with Bass is a smart idea? You know what kind of man he is," Lily continued in a lower voice.
"And what kind of man is that?"
"Ruthless, manipulative, a womaniser, and emotionally repressed."
"He's not like that with me!" defensively snapped Evelyn. "He's changed."
"Evelyn, I don't want you getting hurt—you know that 'happy' and 'Bass' don't go in one sentence."
"You don't even know him," she retorted.
"I know his reputation well enough, Evelyn, and I know that you're setting yourself up for pain."
Evelyn's cheeks were inflamed by barely suffused anger. "Listen to this, Lily: if Bart was such a cheating bastard, then why has he agreed not to sleep with me until I turn nineteen?"
"How do you know that he's not 'plowing' some other slut behind your back," asked Lily bluntly.
"How dare you insinuate such a thing!"
"I'm being a realist and honest. A man of his standing and power would have a dozen ladies for every night of the week. What makes you think you're any different?"
Evelyn snatched up her shoulder bag and stalked off the school property while ignoring Lily's apologetic calls for her to come back.
It was ten minutes before four pm and Bart was scanning over the details of a new contract he was drawing up for his takeover of a small advertising firm, when his phone rang.
"Bartholomew Bass speaking."
"Bart, don't be such a pompous ass."
Bart clenched his jaw at the smug drawl of his twenty-one year old spendthrift brother. "What do you want, Jack? "
"I'm calling you up to let you know that there's something unpleasant brewing."
"Stop being cryptic. This isn't a scene from bloody Macbeth."
"My brother the literary giant—who knew?"
"As much as I would love to engage in a battle of wits for the remainder of the afternoon, I do have a business to attend to—get to the point."
"Touchy, touchy. I thought I'd give you a brotherly heads up."
"Are you on crack?"
Jack snorted. "Dream on! I wouldn't give you the chance to boot me out from the company."
"A man can dream."
"Anyway, there's a piece coming out on our family history in The New York Times."
"How come I didn't know any of this?"
"Because I rang them up and offered to help them," Jack sweetly responded.
Bart could sense his brother's poison seep through the phone connection all the way from Sydney, Australia. "What did you tell them?"
"I told them all about dear old dad's drinking problem and his penchant to belt you across the backside until you bled or fainted, and I told them about our saintly mother running off with dad's barber, leaving us to the mercy of dear daddy—"
"Listen to me, you little bastard—if you think you can topple me from my own company with this pathetic plot that seems to be ripped from a D-grade comic book, then you're sorely mistaken."
Jack practically cooed down the phone: "And why would you think that I would do such a heinous thing like that?"
Evelyn was about to sneak out to meet Bart for drinks when her maid Elsie entered her room and handed her a note. "From Mr. Bass, Miss Darnay."
Evelyn snatched the letter from her and flipped the simple white paper open. On it was only two abrupt sentences written in Bart's crisp handwriting:
E,
I'll have to cancel tonight as some important business has occurred that I cannot delay.
B.
Evelyn scrunched up the paper and threw it in the bin. "You can cancel my car, Elsie. I won't be needing it tonight after all."
"No problem, Miss Darnay."
Once Elsie left the room, Evelyn dialed Bart's private number.
"Bass Industries, Michelle speaking."
"Could I please speak to Mr. Bass? It is a matter of some urgency," said Evelyn.
"Name?"
"Evelyn Darnay."
"Hold please."
The phone was silent for a few moments when the nasally Michelle came back on the phone. "Mr. Bass is not able to take any calls at the moment. Can I take a message?"
Evelyn wanted to throw up. "No, don't worry."
"Thanks for calling Bass Industries. Enjoy your evening."
Evelyn switched the phone off without even bothering to reply.
Lily's earlier words echoed around Evelyn's head as she stared at Bart's torn message in the bin: "How do you know that he's not 'plowing' some other slut behind your back?"
Maybe Lily was right. Maybe she was setting herself up for disaster.
The following day, Evelyn attempted to contact Bart again, only to be rebuffed by the same chirpy Michelle. Evelyn gritted her fists. She was not the type of person to be snubbed by anyone—no matter how rich and powerful they were.
Deciding not to call Bass Industries again and humiliate herself, Evelyn decided that she was going down to Bass Industries and confront Bart. That way, she would be able to see for herself whether he was only stringing her along for his own perverse amusement.
Lily's words kept echoing around in her head, strengthening her pride. She shrugged out of her Constance uniform and put on her best black dress, her black wrap and black heels. She tied her hair into a chignon and added a rope of pearls, with a touch of gloss,
She then stared at her reflection in the mirror. The image that was reflected back at her radiated composure. Icy and cool. Bart would see that she was no flimsy violet to be trodden over.
Bart rubbed his temples. He had been answering calls from the press, investors and associates all morning, and as such, his emotionless façade was being stretched to the limit. So far, he had managed to assuage the majority of the callers, who saw that the 'rags to riches' story was beneficial to the company's image. Everyone always loved an underdog story.
Damage control did not seem as onerous as he had originally expected.
His intercom buzzed, the shrill sound intensifying his migraine.
"What?" he snapped.
"A Miss Darnay is waiting in the foyer to speak to you. She has no appointment, but Michelle has left a note saying that this is the same woman who has been trying to contact you for the last twenty-four hours. Would you like me to contact security, sir?"
"No, Emma. Just tell the lady I'm unable to see her."
"As you wish, sir. There's a telephone conference with the German stockbroker, Sebastian Muhler in ten minutes—he wants to discuss today's article in the Times."
Bart pinched the bridge of his nose as the tension filled his body. He forced out the warm image of Evelyn—an intoxicating combination of the erotic and the innocent—sprawled under him on the couch, her eyes gleaming, and her full, red lips curved up in a lazy smile, out from his mind.
He had to concentrate on the survival of his company. That was what had got him through his life, kept the demons of his childhood at bay, and kept him from sinking under into his own black sea of melancholia.
Nothing else mattered.
Bart finally arrived home at nine-fifteen and was ready to collapse. He had only a measly sandwich and a cup of milky tea since 5am, and his head was ready to split open.
So tired was he that he did not even notice his light in the lounge was on.
"Hello, Bart."
Bart jolted around, annoyance flooding him. No one had ever caught him off guard before. "What the hell?"
Evelyn rose up off the couch like a graceful apparition of a classical muse. "You can't avoid me forever, Bart. "
"How long have you been here?"
"Since the afternoon."
"Who gave you permission to enter my apartment?" he snapped.
Evelyn's eyes flared. "You're a bastard, Bart. How dare you treat me like crap! I should have listened to Lily when she told me you would treat me like all your other women, and dump me on the curb like a piece of rubbish when you tired of me."
And Bart, who's best weapon in the face of conflict was a cool barb that rolled effortlessly off his tongue, said in a deliberately mocking voice: "Well, you should have listened to your dear Lily who seems to have so much insight into the human condition."
"I defended you to her. I said you were unlike any other man I had ever met. But then you ignored me for two days, with only a cold note—"
"I told you when we first met, that I was hardly the sort of man you should be associating with," said Bart coolly.
Evelyn trembled but she did not crumble against Bart's iron composure like a lesser woman would have, and she bravely soldiered on. "I was so angry at you, and hurt…and then, I saw the article in the Times this afternoon, and all I wanted to do—" her voice broke, her eyes unwavering on his. "…and all I wanted to do was hold you and reassure you that I didn't care what your past was—that I was so proud of who you've become and how far you've raised yourself…"
Her voice trailed off, her chest rising and falling as she vainly attempted to retain her emotions. Bart found he could not speak. It was as if someone has just wielded a sledgehammer into his gut and kicked him in the back of his kneecaps.
Evelyn continued in a hoarse voice: "All I want to know, Bart, is where I stand with you. I don't want to be jerked around with. I'm not a girl who accepts leftovers or halves."
"Evelyn…"
Humiliatingly, Bart could not articulate himself. His heart was so full of this headstrong and imperious, yet warm and vital girl. He was a man who had conquered half the New York skyline, but he could not find the words he wanted to say to her.
Evelyn read the intensity, the desire and possessiveness of his gaze. Her heart constricted and all the anger she had been harboring earlier fled from her like air from a balloon.
She let out a choked sound and within a few steps, she flung her arms around him and held him tight. Bart's arms snaked out around her waist, nearly crushing her to him and lifting her feet slightly off the ground.
Neither of them spoke. The only sound was their heavy breathing.
"Please don't push me out," she whispered in his ear, as her hands lightly caressed his neck and his close-cropped hair. "I wish you had told me about your childhood—I never knew that you suffered so much."
Bart only tightened his hold on her, burying his head in her neck as if she was a life source from which he could gain succor.
From then on, Bart and Evelyn's relationship went to a new level. Evelyn now understood that work was always going to play a large part in Bart's life and she would have to work around that. Bart would not be the man he was if he was not entirely dedicated to Bass Industries.
Every Friday night at 7pm, Evelyn was escorted up the elevator by Bart's bodyguard Clint and taken to Bart's study. She would settle herself on his couch and study for her exams while he sat at his massive mahogany desk and poured through papers or bark on the phone to various minions.
Bart felt so at ease in her company as she quietly flicked through her schoolwork. It took all his self-control not to ravish her on the leather couch as she stretched herself out and crossed her slim legs while highlighting important passages.
Bart liked the fact Evelyn did not badger him for attention and merely kept to herself. He looked forward to their Friday nights together and sent her little gifts every Wednesday, such as a bunch of perfumed lilies (her favourite flowers) to signify he was thinking of her. He sometimes wondered if she was deliberately tempting him with her indecently short dresses, sheer stockings, high heels and highly styled hair.
Indeed, she was an exotic nymph that he never tired of. She somehow managed to be elegant and highly sensual at the same time without appearing like a cheap, perfumed whore. It was as if a mature woman was inside the body of an eighteen year-old girl.
At 9:30pm exactly on a Friday night, he would put down his papers and slowly approach her on the couch. She would smirk and open her arms to him, allowing herself to be flipped on top of him, her legs entangling with his. They would kiss passionately, hands and mouths exploring each other, but never quite breaking the boundary that Bart placed a couple weeks ago.
Bart would then bring her back to his apartment in his limo and then he would encircle her in his arms while they shared a bottle of Moet by his fireplace in between numerous kisses and caresses.
He had never treated a woman like this. She was the only one he had bothered to take the time to get to know. He somehow perversely thanked his brother Jack for his devious scheme, because there were now no secrets between him and Evelyn.
Before her, Bart could not care less about the troubles of his conquests, but with Evelyn, he was completely enraptured by her. He could listen to her recounts of her school life and the empty vassals that inhabited it without yawning or tuning out.
In return, Evelyn would listen to his accounts of the day with genuine interest and ask questions if she did not understand what he was talking about, unlike other women he had screwed who would inanely giggle and pretend to comprehend the complexities of his work.
She could speak fluent French (because of her French roots—and if Bart was really honest, listening to her speak French was bloody sexy), basic Italian (because she had a few cousins in Italy) and a bit of German after spending some time there on a modeling shoot.
He still could not comprehend how this girl had dominated his life.
It was inconceivable.
Evelyn's birthday rolled around before she could even register it. Her mother was like a robot on steroids and amphetamines, running around the house (as fast as her bulk could carry her, that is) and barking orders at the numerous caterers that milled like oppressed worker ants through the Darnay's lavish, white marbled mansion.
Evelyn could not see Bart at all in the week leading up to her grand birthday bash as her mother was nearly suffocating her with the birthday planning. Evelyn sat through so many planning sessions, dress fittings, catering meetings, make-up and hair tests, invitation design groups, photographer discussions ("Black or white to suit your classical bone structure, my dear?"), champagne breakfasts and fashion shows, that she thought her head would be completely lopped off her shoulders and fall into a basket like Marie Antoinette's head.
And throughout all this anarchic business, her father benignly stood by and docilely accepted his wife's ideas. No amount of money was too much for his beloved daughter.
The only bright light was that she would be spending the aftermath of her party with Bart. In between her mother's incessant orders, Evelyn had managed to snag herself some alluring lingerie to wear under her lavender gown (her trademark colour) that she was sure would make Bart go crazy.
"You look gorgeous, darling," breathed her mother, dramatic tears filling her eyes. "Aren't you glad you followed my advice?"
Evelyn inwardly rolled her eyes but kissed her mother's cheek. "Thanks, mother."
Evelyn's Grecian one shoulder lavender gown hugged her torso like a second skin and then flowed out at her hips, making it seem as if she was swathed in a romantic lavender glow. A serpentine gold bracelet was wound around her arm and chandelier style earrings with purple gems dangled from her ears. Her hair was in a loose chignon while her eyes were dramatically outlined in black, reminiscent of Elizabeth Taylor from Cleopatra.
Elsie's entrance with a large bouquet of lilies into Evelyn's room interrupted the uneasy mother and daughter interlude. "These came for you, Miss Darnay."
Mrs. Darnay raised an eyebrow. "Who sent you those frightful funereal lilies?"
"Mother," Evelyn warned, knowing full well who sent them. "You know lilies are my favourite flowers."
"I have no idea why you like them. They remind me of death and funerals."
"Please, mother," sighed Evelyn, trying to fight down the blush that was rising up her cheeks.
"Darling, why can't you be like any other normal teenage girl and like roses?" She frowned. "Who sent you those?'
Before Evelyn could move them from her mother's reach, Mrs. Darnay snatched the bouquet and searched for a card, but found nothing. "Who sent you these without even leaving a card?" she demanded.
Evelyn, now calm that Bart did not leave anything incriminating, said coolly, "It is just Lily's idea of a joke, mother. Don't have a heart attack."
Mrs. Darnay relaxed. "Well, tell that girl to get a better sense of humour."
Evelyn managed a smile. "No problem—I'll be sure to do so."
Though Bart had been the one to insist that they keep their relationship secret, standing in large Darnay ballroom all the while watching men flock around the resplendent Evelyn, made him wonder whether he really wanted to hide their relationship anymore.
Humiliatingly, he found pangs of jealousy clawing at him as boys laughed and flirted with her. He felt possessive and did not like Evelyn showering attention on them. He wanted to be the only recipient of her affections, not those obnoxious rich boys who would never know what it would be like to claw their way up from poverty and abuse to head an empire.
He only wanted those hands on him, not on the arms of those St. Judes boys.
His mind could not help but drift to the night ahead, where he would be finally able to fuck her and hear her moan his name. He would finally be able to feel her body uninhibited by articles of clothing and be given a full, uncensored view of the soft, doe-like skin that was occasionally tantalisingly bared to him through a plunging neckline or a short sleeve top or dress. He would finally be able to feel her hands and mouth on him without boundaries. The fact that she was no virgin did not bother him. He welcomed it, wanting no shrinking lamb in bed with him.
He would make all her previous experiences pale in comparison to what they would share tonight.
Bart was jolted from his musings by the sight of that Peter Hawk, Howard or something, saunter up to Evelyn and slip his arm through hers. Bart tightened as he saw that smirking moron whisper something in her ear. Bart has no illusions as to what the twat was saying. His leering glance said it all.
Anger and jealousy swirled in his gut.
He suddenly knew what he had to do.
Damn all the consequences.
"Hey babe, why have you been avoiding all my calls and letters?" Peter murmured in her ear, his alcohol-laden breath making her want to hurl.
Evelyn successfully removed herself from his clutches with as much dignity and grace as she could muster. "Please leave me alone, Peter."
"What the hell?" Peter snapped.
Evelyn, thinking that he was snapping at her, was about to reply with something cutting, when she felt someone tap her on the shoulder.
She spun around, her dress swirling around like a soft lavender wave.
It was Bart.
He wordlessly held out his hand to her.
And she—unable to prevent a soft smile from appearing on her face—placed her hand in his without a moment's hesitation, her hazel eyes never leaving his mercurial grey ones.
Whispers filled the room as he led her to the dance floor. In her periphery vision, she vaguely registered her mother's outraged face and Lily's shocked expression.
But she did not care at all.
Screw the consequences.
"You and I, eh?" she breathed in his ear.
His eyes gleamed. "You and I."
End of Part II. Please review and tell me what you think—it would be most appreciated!
