CHAPTER 32
YOU ARE THE DEVIL
"Oh, wow. We are twice as old as the oldest person in here!" Emily laughed as they walked into a night club.
"So?" Richard challenged her, straightening his pants and hating how crinkled they looked.
After getting all soaked with water at the beach, he had quickly changed into the first pair of pants he found in his suitcase, in the trunk of his car, which was on the way to a night club. Most importantly, he now had a dry pair of shoes on and he was feeling much more comfortable.
"So…" She grabbed his hand, just as a new song started playing. "Let's show them how it's done."
Emily felt carefree, at a place where nobody knew her and nobody cared about her. She was just a human, in a crowd of drunk humans, pretending to know how to dance.
"Well, hello there, wild American tourist." He grinned when she started getting a bit wild. "You got moves, Lauren!"
Emily decided to shake off the sound of that name and to just focus on the music.
Richard soon offered drinks, but Emily didn't want to ruin her night with alcohol. She made a mental note to herself to be at least a little mad at Garcia when she got back home, since her little stunt had taken away the opportunity to let drunk Emily take over the club. However, she knew that the moment she consumed any alcohol, she would start feeling the side effects again, and her sudden emotional outbursts and all the crying she did on the highway two days ago, were enough side effects for her to have to handle while on holiday.
Richard felt thirsty, so he got them both virgin cocktails and she ended up liking the taste of hers.
An hour later, all sweaty and in the middle of the dancefloor, Emily realized that she never really needed alcohol to get her going.
She was famous for being a free spirit, when it came to partying. She could be SSA Prentiss all day, every day, but like Luke Alvez had once said, she was a hot little Mammacita when the sun went down. Emily recalled the moment she had heard him say that about her and how inappropriate she had found those words to be, given that she was his boss. However, she now wished she would have taken it with a pinch of salt. He was, after all, right about what he said.
"Doesn't it feel just great to leave a night club and not feel that dizziness and tipsiness and that urge to drink water straight out of the sea?" She commented when they finally decided to leave.
He laughed, as he knew exactly what she meant.
They kept on walking in direction to where his friend's house was. He had shown a photo of the house to Emily when he had asked her to go.
Coming down the street, they could hear loud noises and music. Emily already knew she was not going to get any sleep, with all that commotion going on at the neighbor's house, but she could think of an alternative way, or two, to spend the night, awake.
"Alright, it's the last one to the right. The closest one to the beach…" Richard pointed out as they walked.
The noises only kept getting louder and louder until they found themselves at the gate of this beautiful house, the yard of which was full of men in dark costumes and women in, well, not much clothing. If any, at all.
"Ooh…" Realization hit Richard and he felt like a dumb idiot at that moment.
"Let me guess…You only asked your friend if you could use the house this weekend and he organized you a little surprise party, for the good old days, since you failed to mention you were coming here with company already?" Emily smirked, suppressing her laughter.
This was too much to handle. Her eyes darted to a very eager twenty-something year old blonde girl who was just getting out of the swimming pool and directed herself straight to the lap of one of the guys. He could have been her father, twice her age, easily. Instead of the need to cringe, Emily just wanted to laugh out loud. This was ridiculous and she wasn't sure what would be an appropriate reaction to all of it.
"Yeaaah, something along those lines…" Richard shrugged.
"He's known for his wild parties. I guess I should have been a bit more specific about my weekend intentions…" He felt so uncomfortable and Emily found that to be so endearing.
"So, hate them…" Emily laid out their option. "Or join them?" She added with a naughty smirk.
"Oh, no, no, no…" Richard shook his head in denial of what she was suggesting.
"There is only one woman I want to spend my time with." He added, his fingers searching for hers before he held her hand and turned around, unable to watch the scene any longer.
"Good. You have passed the test!" Emily now laughed out loud.
"Oh, is that so? What are you, Interpol or something?" He tickled her lightly as he shot a joke at her.
"Huh, please. Interpol is so lame. All they ever do is paper work, sit behind a desk, drink coffee, wear those godawful costumes and act like they're the shit." Emily could not help but blurt it all out.
"I know from experience!" She thought to herself, in addition, but this time she did not share those words with Richard.
"Yeah, totally lame. Nobody likes the Police anyway. So useless. All they ever do is let the real bad guys walk away. They are all around us, you never know whom you can trust." Richard's eyes had a certain spark in them, as he spoke. Emily did not notice it, as she was glancing over to the party, which, in a weird way, kind of maybe intrigued her a little bit.
"Let's choose a hotel randomly." She suggested as they started walking down the beach again, in direction to the city center, since they were both sure they weren't going to spend the night at, what seemed like, the Playboy House.
"Fine." He looked around and spotted a tall one right in front of them. "How about that one?"
"Hmm, no. It's too big." She winced, not liking the exterior of the hotel.
"Ha, what she said." Richard smirked and Emily gasped, not expecting him to say something like that.
"Let's go check this one out." Emily pointed to a five-floor hotel that looked fancy, but also boujie.
She saw a fence that divided the beach from the private swimming pool area of the hotel.
"What are you doing? There's video surveillance." Richard hissed at her when he saw her put her right leg up against the wall and crawl up, clearly aiming to get on the other side of the fence.
"So? Who would identify us anyway?" She smirked, but soon after came her downfall.
"Oh! Careful! I got you." Richard reacted right away. It happened in less than a second – Emily's shoe slipped on the fence and she was about to hit the ground, had he not immediately grabbed her and picked her up, so she could grip the fence tighter and steady her foot on the side of it.
"Enjoying yourself much?" Emily smirked.
She was now safe and secure, however, Richard's hands were still on the same spot where they managed to grab her as she was about to fall.
"Uh, sorry." He said shyly, realizing he was still grabbing her, well, but cheeks.
"I do have a great ass. So yeah, I get it." She said confidently and almost frowned when his hands let go of it.
"I'm so glad she bought that dress." He thought to himself, without saying a word out loud.
He had previously seen her in pants and he doubted the grip would have felt as good as it felt now that she was, well, not covered in that area.
"I guess this is you making good on the promise to have me fully moved in by the end of the week?" Bryan asked when he saw Angela walking towards his dorm room.
"Uh-huh." She nodded. "Also, this is me getting my fairy lights back!"
"How do you even know you'll find them her-…" He cut off his own question, as it took her five seconds to find them after they walked in the room.
"Amateur! He didn't even try to conceal them!" She rolled her eyes, grabbing them from under Jack's bed.
"Look! I told you I remembered changing the batteries. Those black and red ones are mine, for sure. They are the cheapest ones on the market, nobody else buys them anyway." She laughed, happy to see that her favorite lights were intact and working. One of the three batteries was missing, so Jack could have tossed it away in the woods, when he had messed with the lights.
"There's our first solid proof of Jack being an accomplice. Or involved in this whole thing anyway." Bryan commented while sticking his personal belongings into a suitcase.
Angie grabbed his stuff from the bathroom and he asked how could she know which products were his.
"I know what you smell like, hence, I know what you use. And no, it's not because I'm a genius. It's because I'm a girl, duh!" She said jokingly while grabbing random things from the bathroom shelf.
"Oh, those two are not mine." He pointed out the last two things that she had just picked up.
"Yeah, I know. But this is the best brand out on the market, plus, the bottles are full, so they are now yours." She smirked. Clearly, she had no shame in stealing Jack's belongings. He had, after all, stolen something of hers first.
She let Bryan walk out of the room and she told him she needed to go to the bathroom first, so he waited for her outside. She joined him three minutes later, with a content smile on her face.
They walked to Angie's dorm room and packed all of Amanda's things in boxes, putting them away in the little storage closet by the entrance door, so that Bryan would have sufficient free space to move in and put all of his stuff.
Angie hung the fairy lights above her bed, against Bryan's protests that they should be treating them as piece of evidence. There was just no way she would sleep one more night without the lights twinkling above her head. Luckily for her, she had two spare batteries, so she replaced that missing one without a problem.
"Okay, this has always felt more like home than my own room anyway. Even if I was sleeping in the bed of a girl, presumed dead." He winced at his own statement, but the best part was that Angela knew exactly what he meant.
"Now, we go celebrate!" She suggested cheerfully, already picking out a dress from her tiny little wardrobe.
"We can't leave the Campus." He reminded her while searching for something nice and clean, to wear himself.
"Nobody said we can't enjoy the Campus then." She shrugged, having an agenda in mind for the night.
She then walked over to his stuff and very casually picked something up and put it in her bag, without him noticing.
Angela, the thief, was out to play that night.
"Never would have pegged you for a bandit." Richard commented once he was also on the other side of the fence.
"Oh yeah? Do I really look like a good girl to you?" Emily gave him her best puppy eyes, as if to fool him to think she was cute and innocent.
"Honestly?" Richard asked with a smirk.
He moved closer and held her against his body before giving her a brief kiss.
"Good girls are not my type." He whispered against her lips and she almost died. Again.
When Emily pulled away from his grip, a light suddenly fell on them. Her movement had triggered the automatic night light and they were now standing in the middle of the pool deck, fully dressed and completely immobile.
"If only you could see your face right now!" Emily started laughing.
He didn't seem like the good boy type of guy either. She had already profiled him as someone who was extremely bad at following rules and working under someone else. Although, she was sure he would be good if someone was working on top of him, but that was, clearly, meant in a completely different context.
"Thinking about naughty stuff again?" He could tell by now, when Emily was having some inappropriate thoughts.
"Busted." She said, tilting her head sideways a little bit and her shoulders raising up an inch.
"Fancy a swim?" She asked, shooting a glance over to the water.
It was warm outside and they were both still sweaty from all the dancing, so a swim sounded like a good idea…
Until he picked her up and threw her in the pool.
"Holy crap!" She hissed, as soon as her body swam up and her head was above the water.
"Too soon for this joke?" He asked.
"No. It's just that…" She felt shivers down her spine and it was hard to concentrate enough to be able to speak eloquently. "It's freezing, damn it!"
"Oh well, I guess I could use a cold shower right about now." He smirked and jumped in the water, attempting to be brave and manly.
However, he regretted his decision as soon as his head was above water.
"Oui, it's freezing." He said grumpily.
Seeing how cute the hotel looked, none of them would have imagined that the pool was not heated at all.
She noticed Richard was about to hop out of the pool and she grabbed his hand, forcing him to face her.
"Wait. It's actually not that bad after a bit. Give it time." She smiled, speaking of the water temperature in the pool.
He brought his hand to her face, gently brushing away a few strands of hair from her cheek and forehead before leaning towards her.
"I'm afraid time is running out." He whispered, a witty play on words.
She knew he wasn't talking about the pool and it made her feel really guilty. He had told her, numerous times, that he knew she would be leaving at the end of the week. It didn't seem to be such a huge problem for him, but she just couldn't help but feel guilty about it.
"Hey, in comparison, Cinderella only had one night…" She said silently, her hand holding his hand underwater. "But you can bet this was the best night of her life."
What she said was true – she really did feel like this week had been the most fun she had ever had with someone.
However, it was true only for her. It explained only her own feelings about it all.
"I know." Richard challenged her, because this was the best way to talk to Emily. "But she never, not even for a second, considered how the Prince felt about it."
His words were true, for him. Because, yes, Emily had been more than straightforward when she had told him she was a person who would always end up leaving. But also, she never considered the fact that by committing to this week and committing to him, she was ultimately going to hurt him, by leaving. He never spoke about it, but it didn't mean it wasn't on his mind.
"She was also a fairytale character." Emily pointed out, as if that was going to fix things.
"So was he. From the same fairytale, nonetheless." After this statement of his, Emily had no right to comment any further.
His message was perceived, loud and clear.
And yet, even if she wanted to, there was nothing she could do about it – she knew that Sunday she would have to leave.
Luckily for her, some French guy started yelling at them for being in the pool so late at night. They made a run to the hotel, pretending to be guests.
Emily pushed him in the elevator and hit the last button, the 5th floor.
When they walked out, she threw herself at him, as if they were getting hot and heavy.
Richard gave her a confused look, but it wasn't like he wasn't enjoying it.
Soon after that, Emily opened a random door and dragged Richard inside.
"Uh, the utilities room?" He said, confused.
They were in a small closet, surrounded by dirty and fresh towels and all sorts of cleaning products.
"Think about it for a second." It was her turn to challenge him.
"Oh, I get it. A couple bursts out of the elevator, can't make it to their room, ends up in the utilities room instead…" He narrated and she kept on nodding.
"Then moves to their own room…" Emily said confidently, suddenly holding a room key in her hand.
"Where did you get that?" Richard raised an eyebrow.
"The key chain." She said calmly.
"But how do you know this room is not occupied?"
"Look around. Aside from the mixed pile of dirty towels, what else do you see?"
"Empty shelves with only two piles of fresh towels on them. With room numbers written on the shelf where they are placed. And one of these room numbers is the one you are holding."
"Impressive, Detective!" She was proud of his ability to spot things out.
"If the fresh towels are still here, it means the maids haven't prepared these two rooms for guests yet. So, I guess one of them just got booked for the night." Emily smirked, dangling the key between her fingers. "And if they ever check the security footage, we are nothing but a bunch of horny tourists, impatient to get to our room." She added.
"Wait." He called after her as she was exiting the closet.
He turned around and grabbed the Do Not Disturb door sign and then followed her, placing it on the door before they checked in, illegally.
"Damn, you could have told me we were going to the pool!" Bryan protested when he realized where Angie was taking him.
"And ruin the surprise?" She smirked, grabbing his swimsuit from her bag and dangling it in the air.
"You are the Devil!" He laughed and made sure to go change somewhere where she wouldn't be able to see him and be scandalized by his nudity.
When he came back, she was already in her beach bikini, selecting music to play on her phone.
"Wanna see some cool cheer flips?" She smiled while stretching her muscles a little bit first.
"Is it inappropriate to tell you that I've seen plenty of cheerleader moves?" He smirked proudly.
"Yes." She replied before selecting a song that she liked and hitting play. "But, please, tell me all about it." She challenged him, suddenly sounding like a less of a prude.
'Ready? Okay!" She called out before she made a quick run towards the swimming pool, jumping in the air and performing a perfect set of two skills before she landed in the water.
"Woaaah!" He was impressed. "That was perfect!"
"Actually…" She came up to the surface and spit out some water. "It was crap. That second thing I did, I overspun and if it were on a mat, I would have landed on my ass."
"Oh, well, to someone like me who doesn't know anything about the rules, it still looked quite impressive." He pointed out before standing up and jumping in the pool as well.
"Shit, why didn't you tell me the water was so cold!?" He could feel his teeth gritting.
"And ruin the pleasure of seeing you suffer? No way!" Yes, she was most definitely the Devil.
They started splashing water around and being silly while they discussed random things about their experience at the Academy so far.
In between swimming and then dancing on the edge of the pool, time went by quickly. When Bryan checked the time, it was already midnight.
"Well, it's officially Monday now. I guess that means no cuts on the second week either." He commented.
"Yup. That could only mean more severe cuts, the third week." She just had to be a pessimist.
"Come on, don't say that." He frowned. He had been in such a great mood until she brought that up.
"Oh, you just wait and see, Bry-Bry!" Angela said threateningly, before pushing him in the water one more time.
"I thought you didn't want to consume any alcohol." Richard said, surprised to find Emily in front of the mini bar as he walked out of the shower.
"I don't." She commented, grabbing a small pack of chocolates from the side shelf. "Same cannot be said about sweets."
"Well, lucky for you, you have a man with the name of a pastry shop." Emily laughed so hard when he said those words. She appreciated a man with a sense of humor as awkward as hers.
"Mmh." She teased him with a silent moan as she let her hand trail down from his chest. "I have to yet get a taste of that, though."
"If you don't stop licking those damn lips, you better believe you will get a taste, right here, right now. Ugh!" Richard thought to himself, while quietly fixating on her lips.
"You are the Devil!" He finally muttered, as Emily fed him a piece of chocolate.
"And you, man with the name of a pastry shop…" She kept on teasing him and he both loved and hated it. "You are no Angel."
He grabbed her hand while she made an attempt to feed him another chocolate and he forcefully tackled her to the floor.
Yes, she was right before – he did not mind someone working on top of him.
Even if he had tackled her, he then made sure to switch them around, so that she would be on top.
Emily kissed him with all she had, all this time thinking to herself: What did I do to deserve him?
She could feel his heartbeat when she lowered herself and pressed her body against his. She didn't know this, but he could feel her heartbeat just as clearly.
A couple of minutes into their little teasing game, Emily was done with the promise she had made to herself.
She let her hand tug on the belt of his pants and she knew that there would be no turning back from there.
Without realizing when or how that happened, the clasp of her bra came undone and she sucked in a breath.
And then, as every good moment in Emily's life, came the downfall.
Richard's phone started ringing. She had heard it ring a few times before, during this week, but this was a different ringtone. To most of the other calls, he had not replied. But hearing this ringtone made him groan in annoyance and gave her the impression that he had to answer.
He tried to ignore it, but it didn't stop. The sound seemed to get louder and more annoying with every second that went by.
Emily knew how to read people and she could read "rage", written all over Richard's forehead as he forced himself to remove her hand from where it was currently laying, at the clasp of his belt, and to grab the phone. With one glance to the caller ID, Richard knew he had to respond right away.
He muttered a Sorry to her and stood up, waking to the terrace and shutting the door behind him.
Suddenly, the imaginary sign on his forehead changed. Emily could now read "relief" and that confused her.
He was on the phone for about five minutes, a time during which both of them lost their appetite for dessert, after the actual chocolate dessert.
She could see him wave his hands in the air, he was clearly pissed off at the person he was talking to, or maybe at something he was being told.
She also heard him swear a few times, in French, and it surprised her. Richard had never used a single bad word, all week long. He did not seem like the rude type of a man who would swear and act disrespectful.
However, the swearing was all she could make out of the conversation. At first, she felt compelled to eavesdrop, but given that the curtains were see-through and he could literally see her standing by the window, she decided to opt for plan B – she needed a cold shower.
When she walked out of the shower, he was laying on the bed, staring at the blank wall in front of him.
"Problems at work?" She suggested, because hardly a friend could ever piss him off so much.
"Yeah." He replied shortly.
Emily was smarter than to keep asking. She had already profiled Richard as a man who could not keep a secret from the people he cared about. So, she could only sit quietly now and hope that she was one of those people, because she was curious to know what had gotten him so worked up.
After a long moment of awkward silence, he just poured it all out and Emily suppressed a victorious smirk.
"He's a dick! My colleague is a complete idiot, with no regard to anyone else's feelings. All he wants is the job to get done. How, when, why and at the expenses of what, well, those are not questions he gives a crap about!" Richard sounded like an upset kid, recalling an unfair soccer game.
"A while ago he asked me…" He paused, then correcting himself. "No, he ordered me to do something. Okay, he wanted the thing done and I volunteered to help, so I guess this is kind of my fault, as well. But I just wanted the job, not all the complications that came along with it. It was an easy task – I had to go somewhere, talk to someone for a bit and then go back home. Job done."
Emily couldn't deny it, but she quite liked a worked up Richard.
"No. Instead, he had to go and change the rules and he kept on changing things and asking me to do more and I couldn't stop halfway, because that would mean my assignment would fail and I also didn't want to continue, because it was too hard for me to do that stuff without losing myself in the process." He sighed, placing the covers on top of him. If one thing could make him happier at this moment, it was to feel warmth, after the icy cold water in the swimming pool.
"Did he make you do something illegal?" Emily asked, already hating Richard's colleague.
"Not exactly. I mean, what I had to do was actually a pretty cool thing, that's why I volunteered to be assigned to the task." He then placed a part of the covers on top of Emily, making sure she was also being warm. "But, like I said, it had to be a quick and simple job. And then came the complications and the requests and the no turning back and the time pressure and him holding things over my head, in case I wanted to back off."
"Wait a minute. That's bribery! He can go to jail for that!" Emily's first college degree had been in Criminal Justice, so she was already mentally preparing a case against that unnamed person.
"No, he could never go to jail." Richard pointed out.
"Why? You work for Jesus or something?" Emily laughed and failed to notice how Richard rolled his eyes.
"You see, the things is – it was never supposed to be this way. None of it was supposed to happen. And now I don't know how to undo it. I don't even want to undo it. I have no shame and no regret about anything that happened. I just hate not being able to be truly myself while doing all of it, because I know that all the lies and the shadiness has turned this task into a web of secrets, one that I cannot find a way out, well, not alive anyway." His metaphors confused Emily.
Given the fact that she had no idea what his job was, not even which industry it belonged to, she found herself unable to decipher the coded message behind his words.
"Wait. So you still did the job well, right? And you're upset because you couldn't be 100% yourself while doing it?" Emily asked, trying to make sense of it all.
"Exactly!" He was surprised to see how easily she got it. Well, part of it, anyway.
"Pfff, you have no idea how well I understand you – pretending to be someone else, losing yourself in that character, only to realize halfway along the way that it was the real you that you took on an adventure. And then being unable to admit to that, because it is way too late and the truth would, at this point, ruin everything good you have done and achieved." Emily thought to herself, because saying those words out loud would do one of two things:
One – it might make him realize that he was not the only one in a similar situation and that might make him fall for her a little more and that would definitely suck for him when Sunday came.
Or Two – it would ruin everything good they had experienced together for the past week and there was no way Emily would be leaving on a sour note. Not with Richard! Even at the expense of having been a liar and a deceiving bitch to him all this time when he was treating her like a Princess, in turn.
"Well, think about it this way – if you did the job well and you are proud of having succeeded…maybe you should cut yourself some slack about the ways you achieved that. I mean, you said you were losing yourself and you couldn't be true to yourself, but it's not like you were straight-out lying and being conniving, right? So, don't blame yourself for things that are out of your control. Just be happy that your job is done and move on." She smiled and then felt the need to add something else. "And before you say that the same can be applied to me, know that I am fully aware of the fact that I need to stop blaming myself. It's just…well, harder than it sounds."
Richard gulped. His hand searched for her body underneath the covers and it landed on her upper thigh, where it circled for a bit before it came to a halt, warming up her skin.
"That's the thing. I don't want to move on." He said silently and even though Emily did not understand what he meant, she knew it was time to stop dropping questions before this would turn into an interrogation that would make him feel uncomfortable.
"We should get some sleep." She said, noticing how the sun was now starting to poke through a bunch of clouds.
They had danced until really late that night, then spent time wandering around and trespassing, before they ended up "stealing" a hotel room for the night. Time had flied and it was now twilight, and they were only just now getting the chance to get some sleep…since their attempts to get something else got shut down.
