Chapter 21: Set the Record Straight
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"You nervous?"
Frank swallowed hard. "No."
"It's okay if you are. You're about to meet the President of the United States," the White House Branch Inspector informed him with a smile.
Frank steeled himself as he watched several uniformed men exit the oval office, leaving the doors open as they did.
Walking two steps behind his commanding officer, Frank entered the room, his heart pounding as he took in the familiar details he had seen countless times before – the off-white walls, the scalloped full springline bookshelves, the goldenrod curtains. He straightened to full height as he stood in the center of the iconic room, his polished black shoes coming to meet with the center shield of the presidential seal on the carpet beneath him. The eagle stared tauntingly back at him with its beady, narrow eye.
Behind the carved wooden desk, the large leather throne upon which the president would sit remained facing the windows.
"Madam President," the man behind him made a stoic introduction. "Secret Service Agent Frank Farmer."
Frank's eyes narrowed as he heard the click of the door behind him, locking him into the oval office with the Commander in Chief. . . herself.
As the chair turned around, her breathtaking figure came into view. Dressed in a slim-tailored ivory blazer and pencil skirt, she was a vision to behold. Her dark skin and black hair pierced her pale surroundings in comely contrast. As she stood up, his pulse quickened, his eyes entranced by her ravishing smile.
"So you're my new agent," she crooned, tilting her head to inspect him from head to toe.
"Yes, Madam President."
"Your hands are shaking," she observed in a feather-light voice.
"It's just adrenaline," he calmly averted, tightening his fingers against his hip.
With a gait that could rival a prowling panther, she rounded the corner of the desk and seductively perched herself on its edge, facing him.
"Why don't you put that adrenaline to good use?"
She slowly slipped her hand over her knee, drawing his attention down her long, slender legs . . . clad in panty-hose without shoes.
He woke with a start, to the real-life sound of Rachel Marron's sultry voice.
"And you get on my case for taking naps during the day."
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He refused to take responsibility for the way she stared at him.
It wasn't his fault she was so damn provocative in everything that she did. He wanted to have normal conversations with her, and they did manage to have them every once in a while. It just required a lot more effort than should have been necessary.
He found himself showing off again. He didn't know if it was even effective. Rachel was a multi-millionaire with everything at her fingertips, and a million people willing to do her bidding without question. Even so, he felt he had to do everything he could to entice her, to keep her attention, to increase his own desirability in the wake of her effortless perfection.
"You know, you've just talked for–" Rachel checked the Cartier watch on her wrist, "–seven minutes straight about your land."
Frank tore his gaze away from the striking scape of Sierra Nevada to Rachel where she leaned casually against the balcony. He felt his face warm as he tapped his fingers awkwardly against the side of his thigh.
"Sorry," he muttered hoarsely. "Guess I'm turning into my dad."
She gave an irresistible little giggle which left a pleasant burn in the pit of his belly. "It's okay. It's cute."
Frank hadn't found any compliment more confusing than when a woman called something he did 'cute.'
He gave her a withering look and continued the conversation. "So to answer your question from earlier, yes, there are other houses near here. One is actually just over a half mile up the road." He eyed her suspiciously. "Were you thinking of buying one?"
He was stunned that she didn't immediately wave off the notion. "It is nice up here," she admitted, throwing a glance back at the mountain.
He looked carefully between the view and her face. "It grows on you."
"I never really thought about having property in the mountains. I've had beach houses before," she said consideringly. Such a statement could have been seen as bragging, but Frank knew her better. "I never used them much. They always ended up being more of a draw for Fletcher and his friends."
"Fletcher seems to like it up here," Frank added helplessly. Was he trying to convince her?
"He just likes hanging out with you." For some reason her eyes wandered up and down his body as she said it, and he had to look away.
"I feel kind of bad about that," Frank said, realizing his disjointed words might not have made sense to her out of context. He quickly recovered, "I mean, I feel sort of guilty for not reconnecting with him sooner."
She waited in loaded silence until he added softly, "Or you."
He braved a look at her, and found her still in that casual pose against the railing, her beautiful face somehow managing to look both haughty and tender. She half-shrugged, giving a wayward toss of her hand where her fingers flippantly strummed the air. "We've both been busy."
He was tired of relying on that same old excuse. Feeling hollow, he allowed his eyes to linger on her boots as he said, "There were times when I wanted to." He again tapped his hand against his thigh, lost in thought. "I guess I just didn't know what to say."
"I could have reached out, too," she admitted after a beat. "My feelings were a bit hurt after you turned down that interview with me."
His eyes snapped up to meet hers. "The one with Sulley?"
She nodded coolly. "You watched it, didn't you?"
His mind revisited the warm, static-ridden images of her in that powder blue dress, describing the way she felt when her bodyguard had rescued her at the Oscars. His throat was tight as he worked the words out. "Yeah, I watched it."
He didn't miss the tiny glimmer of a hidden thrill in her jewel-like eyes. "And?"
"You did fine without me."
He could tell it wasn't what she'd wanted to hear. Truth be told, it wasn't all he wanted to say either. "Thanks," she muttered sarcastically.
"Seriously, I would have ruined it," he said roughly, waving her off as she started to protest.
"Just because you don't like the spotlight, doesn't mean you didn't deserve some recognition for it, Frank."
"The spotlight and I don't get along. I'm like the wicked witch of the West. You might as well throw a bucket of water on me." He mimicked the gesture with his hands and leaned dejectedly against the stone siding of the house.
"It's not too late to come out of hiding," she said enticingly. "Sulley would piss himself with excitement if you agreed to an interview with him now."
"And what good would that do? Stir up all the drama again after all these years? What for?"
"It is the tenth year anniversary of my win . . ."
"Oh, don't even go there, Rachel."
"If he invited you, would you do it?"
"I–" Frank stopped to gape at her, tempted for little more than a second when she looked up at him from beneath those lashes. "No. Hell no."
She snapped her lips shut and glanced skyward. He steadied himself. "The attention wouldn't serve me in any way," he calmly explained. "I was just doing my job. You're not the only person whose life I've saved, Rachel." He winced and shook his head, realizing how egotistical it sounded. "I didn't mean it that way. I mean–"
"I understand perfectly well what you mean," she said in an empty voice. "I was just another one of your clients that needed protection."
He closed his eyes for a moment, reclaiming the control he seemed to have lost long ago. "You're not just another client, Rachel. I . . . I don't think of you that way. I never have."
He opened his eyes to find the stifling pressure of her dark gaze, urging him to elaborate. "I would hope that were obvious after . . ." He hesitated, breath hastening as he lowered his voice an octave, ". . . after last night."
She blinked a few times, weakly, her eyes scanning his face. There was still a hardness to her features that he knew might take weeks of work to soften. He wasn't opposed to such a workload, but he had to know he had her permission first.
Rachel adjusted herself against the balcony, tugging the long sleeves of her lavender sweater over her wrists. The sudden vulnerability of her body language drew him in.
"Frank, I feel a lot closer to you than I've been to anyone else. I don't just mean physically." Her tone was serious, and it gripped him. "It does something to you when someone saves your life, I think. You become bonded to that person. It's almost spiritual."
His heart skipped a beat on the way she said the word bonded, with such sweet intensity, in her effortlessly sultry voice.
"Maybe you don't feel that way," she dismissed, "but I do."
The act of jumping in front of a bullet had been so ingrained in Frank, he couldn't say he'd done it with the intent to forge this intangible, intimate bond with her. Even if he was beginning to understand what she had so eloquently described, he knew he would never desire to share that with the rest of the world. No, his experience of that defining event would remain forever tucked away from the media's prying fingers, recognition be damned.
He felt her eyes trained on him as he studied the surrounding forest, lost in his thoughts. The gaze of a woman could beat him senseless. He was all too used to the feeling. She was waiting for him to placate her, but he feared that words would fail him again.
"Just because I might not feel the same way about it that you do, doesn't mean I don't feel anything, Rachel."
"Your silence all these years spoke louder than words," she said coldly. "Everyone assumed you felt nothing about it. I couldn't help but assume the same."
"When you say 'everyone,' who exactly are you referring to?"
"Who do you think I mean? I mean everyone. Everyone is everyone."
"They don't know me at all," he defended himself against her cryptic answer.
She laughed dryly. "Well, they think they do. And that's enough."
"You know me," he corrected. "That's enough."
She threw her head back, exasperated, but she was still laughing as she shook her head at the overcast sky.
"What?" he demanded.
"You're no open book, Farmer." Years later, the sound of his surname in her taunting voice still stung him. "You're like a thousand page, leather-bound tome with a padlock."
He laughed bitterly back at her, pushing his fingers through his hair. "How can you say that after we've . . ." He trailed off awkwardly, relying on the vaguely illustrative wave of his hand to imply his meaning.
She cocked her head and stared at him expectantly, but he didn't finish the sentence.
"What? You think you automatically inject all your deepest darkest secrets into me just by fucking me?" she asked. He tensed up, his face growing hot in response to her candidness. "I may know you better today than I did ten years ago, but I've still been much more open with you than you have with me."
He could not argue with her on that point, but he felt it was unfair of her to compare them. He had spent the last decade watching her life unfold through the media; all of the details of her many affairs, successes, and failures had been shoved in his face. She had lived in ignorance of his whereabouts; the details of his life had remained a mystery to her.
He sighed. "What do you want to know?"
He thought she would have a list ready to recite as soon as he posed the question, but she had responded instead with heavy silence. He could see in her eyes that there was something she wanted to ask him – it was a specific thing, and he knew it because this wasn't the first time a woman had tried to corner him into revealing matters of the heart. And that was where he became uncomfortable, all capabilities failing him.
Frank found relief in Rachel's speechlessness, drawing his focus to the scene behind her. She shifted, preparing to speak, before she went silent again, confusion drawing her brows together.
He had noticed the bear emerging from the woods before she had, and he couldn't help but smirk at her while she was unaware. "What are you givin' me that smug look for?"
He didn't answer, choosing to instead savor the moment she whipped around and saw the intimidating creature, her hands barely making it in time to cover the startled cry from her mouth. He moved closer to her, quietly assuring her that there wasn't any reason to panic.
Slowly, she lowered her hands and whispered, "Oh, my God. Are you gonna shoot it?"
"No, I'm not gonna shoot it," he laughed.
"What if it tries to attack us?"
"It's just a black bear. Just leave her be, and she'll leave you alone."
"She?"
He pointed a few yards behind to a small cub crawling along its mother's path.
Rachel watched the scene play out with guileless wonder, her mouth hanging open, arms locked in a lopsided anchor where she leaned uncomfortably against the balcony. His hand dared to make the slightest contact with the small of her back. He wasn't sure she even noticed, but his entire body was aflame from that one touch, completely ignorant to the wildlife that held her in a trance.
Her lips broke into a girlish grin just before she turned her head to look back at him, her features flushed with sanguine perfection, beckoning him to share in her excitement at the scene. Her expression was like a cage full of doves released at the end of a wedding. It lit up all of the darkest places within him and mocked every empty, painful year he had spent alone.
He had let every distraction get in the way of finishing any conversation he started with her.
And he wondered why communicating with her was so difficult.
}0{
She cornered him again after dinner.
"Here's the thing," she began, and he already felt the tension in his joints, already felt his chest tighten. "If you were to open up and tell your side of the story on television–" she cowered slightly under his sudden glare. "–radio, whatever." She followed him closely on his heels as he moved through the rooms of the house, closing blinds, shutting doors, adjusting locks on the windows. "Then no one would have to speculate about your identity or release all these wild theories about you."
He stopped what he was doing and stood at the base of the staircase, despising himself for being even the slightest bit intrigued.
"Wild theories?"
The corner of her mouth turned up in a sly half-smile. "That's right."
"What are you talking about?"
"I've had to deal with the media my entire life. It doesn't matter how much you manage to hide from them, they can fill in the gaps however they please. They'll have their way with you whether you like it or not."
He studied her face for a moment, questioning whether she was just toying with him to try and get him to comply, or if she was being serious. "So, what have they been saying about me?"
"Oh, there's been all sorts of theories about you over the years. You're hiding out in an Amish settlement somewhere in Pennsylvania. You took a rowboat to Cuba and can't get back into the states. I have you locked in a dungeon beneath my mansion and have been keeping you captive as my sex slave. Or then there's my personal favorite: you're actually an extra-terrestrial and you only beamed down to earth for the sole purpose of saving me, your galactic goddess, from the treacherous snares of humankind." She giggled at his agape expression. "As far as the world is concerned, you've put on a greater disappearing act than Criss Angel himself."
"And yet, I've just been living my life as normal, hidden in plain sight," he said with satisfaction. "That is the beauty of keeping a low profile." He turned and headed up the stairs.
He was surprised when he didn't hear her footsteps following him. He took his time checking each bedroom on the upper level, ensuring that every window was shut and every balcony door was locked. Rachel's revelation had rattled him a little more than he cared to admit. For that reason he noticed his hands had lingered just a tad longer on each of those door handles. He wasn't stupid. He knew that people would have their speculations about him. But he hadn't expected them to become so obsessed. Rachel Marron was the one who drew in the obsessive lunatics, not him. . .
Frank suppressed a shudder as he made his way back down the staircase. He could see Rachel casually reclined along the bottom four steps, tossing her lip gloss up in the air and catching it repeatedly to entertain herself while she waited for him. Amused, he paused when he reached one step above her to catch the object while it was still in mid-air. She looked up in surprise when it never fell back into her open palm.
He stared down at her with a strange surge of power, having her head at his feet. "You have a weird way of trying to convince me."
She craned her neck back at an uncomfortable angle to try and get a better view of his face. "So, you'll do an interview?" she asked hopefully.
"How many times do I have to say it? No means no." He strategically stepped between her limbs as he descended the final four steps.
"Frank . . ." She drew out his name in a sing-songy way that tipped his heart in her direction again. Her hands clasped at his ankles as he walked around her, and then at his hand where he still gripped her lip gloss.
"No," he said firmly, unable to hide the smile from his voice.
She stood up and blocked his way into the hall, tucking her hands beneath his arms to hold him against her. "You're so difficult."
"I know."
She pouted. "Are you mad at me?"
"No."
She looked to the side then back at him, her eyes lighting up. "Will you fuck me in the kitchen?"
He nearly choked. "You want me to fuck you on a granite countertop? You know how uncomfortable that would be?"
That only seemed to intrigue her more. "I've never done it on granite before."
"Let's keep it that way."
"Well, then will you bring your guns into bed tonight?"
He looked at her in horror.
"They don't have to be loaded," she whispered. "Just role-play."
Loaded or not, there was no gentlemanly way for him to 'role-play' with handguns. Neither was there a gentlemanly way to tell her that she probably needed to go back to therapy.
"You have some strange kinks, Rachel."
"That's just the tip of the iceberg," she murmured, her tongue touching his earlobe. A frisson of heat rushed through him.
"I'm beginning to think they weren't too far off with that theory about me being your personal sex slave."
She grinned wickedly at him as her slender arms wrapped around his neck. "You wanna set the record straight?"
He shook his head and pushed her toward the kitchen. "No, let them believe it."
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The days passed so quickly out here. Rachel felt like just yesterday they had pulled up to find Fletcher's car unexpectedly parked in the driveway. It was already New Year's Eve. She woke up before the sunrise again that morning, tucked in her former bodyguard's warm embrace.
She was happily now four out of five. Well, maybe four and a half out of five. Granite wasn't half as uncomfortable as he'd told her it would be – cold, yes, but not altogether unpleasant. And she had convinced him to bring one unloaded pistol into bed with him last night. But when she had told him where she wanted him to point the barrel, he had quickly called an audible.
"You never did come up with a safeword for us," he had accused her before making love to her in the roses-and-romance way he preferred.
It was only after she'd climaxed when she remembered the reference.
She felt a little guilty about it now, in the dim light of dawn. He looked oddly innocent, still sleeping soundly on the pillow beside her. Compared to him, maybe she was a bit dirty and disturbed. But that hadn't stopped him from having sex with her every night. Hot, heavy, passionate, unprotected sex. Multiple times per night.
And just as she'd implied before, she still didn't know him any better for it. He was more an enigma now than he was their first night alone together. He vexed her to no end, just by the simple acts of breathing and blinking and being human. As he slept, she examined his hands, so heavy with a history of unspeakable tasks, too capable, too warm. Those hands were the reason she was still alive, and the reason she couldn't let him go.
Her fingers traced along his palms until his eyes fluttered open. He looked surprised that she was still there between his arms.
"Do you remember your first crush?" she asked.
His voice had yet to stabilize from sleep, and the result was beautifully raspy. "Why are you asking me this at five in the morning?"
She shrugged one shoulder and gave him her cutest smile. "Pillow talk." She tucked her feet between his under the sheets.
He just looked at her with his crystal blue eyes, a smile tugging the corner of his lips.
"I'll tell you about mine," she said. He raised his eyebrows, urging her to continue. "His name was Nelson West. He was two grades ahead of me in elementary school. I thought he was the cutest and cleverest boy I'd ever seen when he was crowned champion of our school spelling bee."
Frank laughed. "He doesn't sound very tough."
"He wasn't. He was a lanky little nerd with glasses, and his pants were too short for his legs. But my eight-year-old self thought he was the finest thing ever."
"Eight years old? That's pretty young."
She smirked. "Your dad said you were a late bloomer. Didn't he tell us you were thirteen when you first found out about girls?"
"That's what he thought."
"So how old were you really?"
Frank sighed and answered reluctantly, "Ten."
"What was her name?"
"Sarah McMillan. She sat in front of me in history class."
"Did you pull her pigtails?" Rachel asked with a grin. He shook his head and reached up to fondly twirl a tendril of her hair around his finger.
"I was terrified to touch her," he admitted with a distant smile. "On Valentine's Day, she turned around and asked me to hold out my hand. She took a pink magic marker and drew a heart on the center of my palm."
Rachel gasped teasingly. "Not pink!"
"I didn't even care. I was smitten."
"And you didn't wash that hand again."
His smile broadened as he closed his eyes. "Not for the rest of that day at least."
He continued contentedly stroking her hair between his fingers until she asked him, "Which hand was it?"
Eyes still closed, he held out his left hand without hesitation, and Rachel inspected it with a scrutinizing eye. "I think I can still see something here…"
He playfully tugged his hand back when she attempted to trace a heart on his palm with her pinky finger. Her flirtatious laughter made him blush.
Several minutes passed in comfortable silence where Rachel wondered at how such an inherently gentle and shy child had grown into such a fiercely independent and formidable man.
"You really wanna live out here all by yourself?" she asked him softly. She knew it was a lot to bombard him with upon just waking up, but he didn't seem shaken by it at all.
"It's tempting," he answered quietly.
"I don't think I could do it. I'd be too lonely."
He didn't look surprised. "You're used to being constantly surrounded by other people. You never have to be alone."
She thought out loud, "Sometimes even if you're surrounded by hundreds of people every day, you still feel all alone."
He humbly admitted, "I don't know how you did it all those years, always being in the public eye. You're always under scrutiny, no matter what you do."
"It never used to bother me until after . . . everything happened." She touched his scar lightly with her fingertips. "I guess every year I got more and more scared. I kinda sabotaged myself."
There was a long pause before he finally asked her, "Do you want to still be in Hollywood?"
She looked away from his face. "I don't know. Sometimes I think I do, but then I wonder if it's just all the pressure and expectations. I know I'd like to keep singing and producing music, but I don't know if it's what my fans really want to hear from me."
He considered her words, then said gently, "It sounds like you need to do what's best for you right now."
She slowly shook her head. "I wish I knew what that was."
"I think you know what it is."
She wondered at their conversation for the rest of the morning into the afternoon. Some part of her understood why it wouldn't be wise for her to stay in Hollywood. It was more depressing and draining than exciting and glamorous anymore. At a certain point, the money just kept piling up and she knew she would never have to worry about her or Fletcher's comfort for the rest of their lives. So what was the point of continuing the chase? So that she could maintain her legendary status just to say she did? Just to prove the people who hated and doubted wrong? Just to stay relevant?
It was true what she had told Frank. All she cared about was her music now. She would never give up music or songwriting, even if she was a ninety-year-old woman stuck in a nursing home. She would still be sitting there with her songbooks and her guitar, entertaining the other wheelchair-bound residents.
How long had she had this dream, and how long had she ignored it purely because she was too scared to act? If she was going to get on Frank's case for never acting on impulse, maybe she should look in the mirror. She needed to rip the bandage off – and there was one particular way that she thought would be a good place to start. It wasn't going to be pleasant, and it wouldn't be easy. But it had to be done.
She waited until Frank had gone to take a shower, and with shaky fingers, she lifted the house phone and dialed Bill Devaney.