roxanne castillo + satine (tellourstory) wrote in thereincarnates, @ 2011-02-25 01:45:00 |
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Entry tags: | lucas valentine, roxanne castillo |
Who: Lucas Valentine and Roxanne Castillo
What: After Richard snaps, there’s only one place for her to go.
When: Thursday afternoon.
Where: Lucas’s office.
Warnings: Angst. Lots of it.
She’d run as far as she could, and would have kept running if she’d thought her legs would support it. Half a dozen blocks in the Chicago snow had taken most of her energy. She stopped, ducking in to an ally to lean against a wall and catch her breath. Every part of her was still terrified that Richard would show up at any second. She knew she didn’t have much time before he did start looking. If he found her, she didn’t know what she would do. One thing was for sure, she wasn’t going back.
Digging her freezing hands in to her pockets, she hit a jack pot. Her sunglasses were there, and so were a rumpled twenty dollar bill and the business card Lucas had given her. It would be enough to get a cab, get her further away. It was the middle of the day. She doubted Lucas would even be home. But now she had the address to his office. If nothing else, there would be people around. It would be safe.
Shoving on her sunglasses, she stepped back out on to the street, frantically waving down the next cab that drove past. The driver gave her a long look, obviously wondering what this crazy woman was doing, before waving her in. Roxanne gave him the address and settled back in to the peeling seats. Slightly warmer and more settled, it was easier to focus on what was throbbing. When she touched her fingers gently to her forehead, they came away wet. Her voice breaking, she asked the driver if he had any napkins. He wordlessly passed her a handful, giving her a worried look in the rear view mirror. She really was a mess. There was no way she could be seen like this, not out in public. People would ask questions.
By the time they pulled up in front of the law office, she thought she’d managed to clean herself up a little better. Taking a deep breath, she paid the cabbie (leaving him with all the change for putting up with her) and went inside. She tried to walk slowly, calmly. The receptionist looked up with a smile that automatically turned wary. Everything here was so clean and polished that she felt even more out of place. “I...I’m looking for Lucas Valentine.” The woman behind the desk kindly explained that he was in a meeting, but that she was welcome to have a seat. Since she didn’t have anywhere else to go, she dropped wordlessly in to one of the chairs, burying her face in her shaking hands. She didn’t see the receptionist give her another look, then pick up the phone.
---
It was the meeting from hell, the meeting that would never end. Lucas had nothing useful to add, and no one expected him to. It was a corporate case and the unspoken fact was that he was only there because having a named partner's son at the table satisfied the client's sizable ego. There was probably something wrong with him that he preferred the company of accused thieves and murderers to CEOs, but at least the criminal cases were more interesting.
When his assistant tapped on the glass window of the conference room and gestured frantically at him he had to remind himself not to look too relieved until he was out of the room. He made his excuses and ducked out of the meeting of doom.
"Oh my god, thank you." He smiled at his assistant. "Honestly, I was going to start making paper airplanes out of my files soon. I swear Douglas actually practices that monotone voice to get it just right. That's not natural. Did you just rescue me because you're angling for a bonus, or did you need something?"
"There's someone here to see you. She's waiting for you in the lobby," the young woman replied. Her voice dropped slightly, obviously thinking she had some good gossip. She had no idea. "Candice says she looks like she got in a bar fight."
Lucas gave her a quizzical look, handing her his files from the meeting. "Alright, I'll go see what's going on."
He didn't know what to expect. It was possible that whoever it was was a former client, or a future client. It wasn't anything like that though. As soon as he saw her sitting there his heart leapt into his throat. She did look bad.
"Roxanne!" He ran to her side. "What happened?"
---
She didn’t know how long she had been sitting there when she heard him call her name. The sudden wave of hope that came with seeing him overwhelmed her already frayed emotions. The rest of her shook just as badly as her hands. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I know I shouldn’t have come here, but I didn’t know where else to go.”
She took a breath to steady herself, but it came out as a sob. On the inside, she was just as much of a mess. She didn’t want him to see her like this. At the same time, there was nowhere else she wanted to be but with him. She choked back another bout of tears before she was able to even start telling him what had happened. When she did, her tone bordered on hysterical.
“He knows, Lucas. He came home and he didn’t even look at me, and I just couldn’t pretend anymore. I told him I was leaving, that I was done, and he…” She had to pause, sliding her fingers under the edge of her glasses to wipe her eyes. “He was so angry. I didn’t think he’d ever stop. I had to run.”
---
He knelt down next to her chair, instantly putting his arms around her. It didn't even occur to him that they were in the lobby of his firm, for all the world to see, and if it had occurred to him he wouldn't have cared.
"Shhhh. It's okay, I'm glad you're here. You did the right thing, finding me." His breath came fast and shallow. This couldn't be happening. It was his fault. He shouldn't have pushed her to leave or to see him secretly. Or maybe he should have pushed harder, convinced her never to go back to that bastard at all. Somehow he still managed to stay mostly calm.
"Let's go to my office, okay? Unless..." he swallowed hard. "Do you think you need a doctor?" Or can you wait here while I go track down Richard and kill him myself, was the suggestion he didn't say out loud. He didn't think he'd ever been so angry in his life, but his concern for her was great enough that it almost completely drowned that out. For now. He'd make sure she was okay, then they could figure out what to do about Richard.
---
She leaned in to his touch, taking what comfort she could from the familiarity of it all. This was the first time all day that she’d felt truly safe. She couldn’t help but cling to him like her life depended on it. There were a few other people around, whispering about the scene they were causing, but she didn’t care. All of her focus was on Lucas. He was the only thing in the world that mattered right then.
“No. No I don’t.” Or at least she didn’t think she did. All she knew was that she didn’t want a doctor. She would be okay. This wasn’t the first time she’d been in this situation, though it was the first time she’d been able to go to anyone about it. That made all the difference.
She pushed herself to her feet, still more than a little unsteady. “I’m sorry.” She was whispering, finally realizing that other people might be listening. “I should have waited, or not told him at all. I should have done this differently.”
---
He smoothed back her hair and kissed her gently. He felt completely helpless. He should have been there, he should have been able to protect her, somehow.
"It's not your fault. None of this." He put one arm around her, guiding her to his office. "I'm so sorry." The firm wasn't completely unused to drama (enough reincarnates worked there for one thing) but not necessarily on this scale. He ignored anyone watching or asking questions, merely catching his assistant's eye and hoping that she'd understand and try to keep people away. He locked the door behind them.
---
He could say it wasn’t her fault, but she knew it was. At least partially. She’d handled it badly on all sides. She never should have made Lucas wait, never should have assumed Richard wasn’t capable of something like this. In the end, being careful hadn’t helped anything. Now she was being paraded through a law office in the middle of the day, in front of everyone Lucas had to work with. God she’d been stupid.
“You don’t have anything to apologize for.” He’d been nothing but patient. The moment they stepped in to his office, she wrapped her arms around him and buried her face in his shoulder. She’d been so scared. Scared of what Richard would do, scared he would find her, scared Lucas would send her away. Being alone with him, she couldn’t make herself hide what she was feeling anymore. Instead she cried helplessly in to what had to be a very expensive suit jacket. “I don’t know what I’m going to do.”
---
Lucas didn't know what to do. He couldn't fix this or undo it, no matter how much he wished he could. While she cried, he just held her and murmured meaningless words of comfort. No matter how often he might say it would be okay didn't make it okay, but he could tell her that he was here, that she was safe, and that he loved her.
"We'll figure something out. For a start, he's not getting anywhere near you ever again." He hadn't let go of her yet, and wasn't likely to for some time. He was scared of losing her. He may have come close today without having known it. He'd been an idiot not to realize how dangerous Richard really was. Thoughts of revenge were overridden by slightly more practical thoughts. He spoke softly, not sure how she'd take his suggestion. "We should go to the police."
---
“No. If we do that, this whole thing will become a…a spectacle. He has important friends. He’ll make sure that it’s worse for me than it is for him. You’ll get dragged in to it, and I don’t want that.” She’d seen Richard go through a lawsuit before. By the time he was done, the other man’s reputation had been in tatters. She wouldn’t have Lucas’s life destroyed because of a mistake she had made. “It’s not worth it.”
She let out a long breath, pushing up her sunglasses so that she could really look at him. Not that it did much good. Her vision was still a little blurry. “But you’re right, he’s never coming near me again. I know this isn’t how we wanted it to happen, but it’s done.” She tried to smile at him. Part of her wished that she could forget about Richard and start a new life right here and now, but she knew it wouldn’t be that easy. He wasn’t done with her yet. “All I want now is to be with you.”
---
"He shouldn't get away with this. He assaulted you, it's a serious crime." That's as far as he was going to press the matter. He wanted to say that he didn't care if he got dragged into it, that he fully intended to be in it whether he was dragged or not, but he wasn't going to argue with her. Not right now.
He took her sunglasses off her, folding them and setting them on his desk. "It's done." He kissed her again, still as gentle as could be. "You are here with me now. Everything else we can figure out. Together."
There had been a knock at the door, but he ignored it. Then he heard the latch turn, which meant it was someone with a key, so either his father or his assistant. Thankfully, it was his assistant. Without a word she set down a few items before closing and locking the door again. She'd brought in a first aid kit from the washroom and some damp paper towels. She was definitely getting a bonus after this.
"You should sit down." He brushed a fingertip lightly across her cheek. "You’re bleeding." He tried not to let too much emotion into those words, even though thinking again about what had happened to her made him burn with rage and frustration.
---
She didn’t want him to get away with it either, but she also didn’t want to turn their lives completely upside down. All she would do was cause more trouble if she went to the police. Maybe she would think about it later. For now, she was with Lucas. She wanted to focus on the positive, what little there was. She was done with Richard, and now she could stay with the man she loved. Nodding, her smile grew a little stronger. “Together.”
The knock on the door made her jump. A young woman walked in, carrying a first aid kit and some paper towels. They didn’t even make eye contact or speak, but she didn’t think she’d ever been so grateful for someone she’d never met.
Roxanne caught his hands in hers, pulling his fingertips to her lips for a brief kiss. “I’m okay.” She moved to sit down, though. While she may have been far more settled than she had been before, she was still a little unsteady. Picking up one of the paper towels, she dabbed at the spot on her head that hurt the most. Not surprisingly, it came away spotted with red. She bit her lip when she saw that, mostly to keep from going to pieces again. So maybe she was still feeling a lot unsteady. Hoping he would understand the question, she glanced up at him. “How bad is it?”
---
How bad was it? It was awful. From his perspective, anyway. Someone hurting her was so completely unacceptable that he didn't even have words for it. He knew that wasn't what she meant though, or what she needed to hear. Objectively, it probably could have been a lot worse. She looked rough, but there wasn't anything that made him want to rush her off to a doctor. So long as she wasn't hiding any more severe injuries.
"It's not good, but it's not terrible." He smiled weakly. "You look like some asshole beat you up." Taking the towel from her he gently cleaned the patch of blood she'd been dabbing at. The split wasn't that large, and he told himself that head wounds always bled a lot. He was pretty sure that was common knowledge and not something he'd just made up to reassure himself.
"Do you..." He paused. He wasn't sure he wouldn't regret this question, but he had to ask. If she could talk about it, he could hear it. He had to know. "Can you tell me what happened?"
---
Her face felt like some asshole beat her up, so she wasn’t surprised. Returning his smile, she tried not to flinch when he took over trying to clean her up. It was almost soothing, having someone else fuss over her like this. She wished she could just curl up next to him, close her eyes, and block out the rest of the world. But that wasn’t really possible in the middle of his office, and he had a question that he deserved an answer to first.
It wasn’t something she wanted to remember, but she made herself go back to earlier in the day. She wanted to get the story straight. Her fingers twisted together nervously in her lap as she began, her voice not nearly as steady as she would have liked. “He was home early. He does that a lot, leaves work in the middle of the day. When he didn’t say anything to me, didn’t even look up at me, something just kind of clicked. I didn’t want to be there anymore. So I followed him, and I told him. I don’t think he believed me at first.” She laughed, more bitter than amused. “I said that I was in love with someone else. He just walked across the room and hit me, told me I was stupid. Like it was nothing. I think that’s when I fell.” Her fingers brushed lightly across the small gash on her head. “He pulled me back up. He told me he was doing me a favor, making sure you weren’t just…just with me because of the way I look, like no one would ever want me for anything else. It’s why he kept…I tried to fight back. And then…I’m not sure. Satine took over. She knew what was happening, and she just kind of slid between us. It was like it was all happening to someone else.”
She didn’t know if that was what he’d wanted to hear, but she felt a little better having gotten it all off her chest. “He left me there, went to clean himself up. I didn’t really think about it, I just grabbed my coat and ran out of the apartment. He’d taken everything, but I didn’t know what he would do if he came back.” Her voice cracked and she pressed her lips together to try to keep from bursting in to tears. “I was so afraid he was going to follow me, but he didn‘t. Then I came here.”
---
A mix of emotions washed over him. He was proud of her, actually, for having told him she was leaving, for having fought back, for getting out. All of it. He also felt sick just hearing about. Even with that small amount of detail, the way her voice was just flat and almost emotionless scared him a little. He thought he could hear it, but he might have been wrong.
He stood by her while she told him, watching her face, her eyes, the way she pressed her lips together. He wanted to be calm and reasonable, but he just couldn't. It was like a floodgate inside him burst. All the jealousy, all the rage, and all the hate he felt for that man, in this life and the last, came to the surface. He turned away, pacing towards his desk. He pressed his hands to his forehead. "I'm gonna kill him." His voice was low and dangerous. "I'm gonna find him and I'm gonna kill him."
---
She was stunned when he started pacing. This was a side of him she’d never seen before. He sounded so angry that her first instinct was to cringe away. But she was quick to remind herself of who she was with. He wasn’t angry with her. She was safe here. Still, his tone, and what he was saying, put her on edge. Even if she wasn’t afraid, it was in her nature to soothe.
“Lucas…” Getting up, she blocked his path, framing his face with her hands. “Please don‘t. It‘s okay.” She kissed him softly, letting her lips linger. It felt like her heart might jump out of her chest, but she managed to keep her hands steady. “He can’t touch me now.”
---
He took a deep breath, focusing, trying to calm down. He didn't know that he was capable of hating someone that much, and the depth of it actually scared him a little. This wasn't about him though. It wasn't even about the bastard who'd done this. It was about Roxanne, who'd already been through enough. Too much.
"I'm sorry." He kissed her back, desperately. Even now she was a link to his better self, the man she'd come to to take care of her and keep her safe, not someone who'd leave her and run off to do something stupid. "I'm sorry, I won't. I just... it tears me up that you're hurt, that I couldn't protect you." He took both her hands in his. "Never again."
---
Never again. Richard would never touch her again. It was the second time in her life that she‘d made that kind of promise to herself. This time, she planned on keeping it. She had found a good man, one that loved her, that actually wanted to protect her. She would never have to live with being hurt or afraid ever again.
“You were here for me, and that‘s more than enough.” She laced her fingers through his, squeezing his hands. He’d done for her what no one had ever done before: he’d been there when she was at her lowest point to tell her that it was okay, that he was there, that he loved her. For that alone she owed him more than he would ever know. She stepped closer, leaning her head against his shoulder and taking comfort in being so close to him. “I love you.” She would never get tired of saying that, not to him.
Another thought settled in slowly, causing her to draw back. “I’m not…keeping you from anything, am I?” She didn’t want to distract him from his job, especially not now that she was feeling better. Even if she was sore and worried about what she was going to do next and generally shaken, the promise of a better life evened it all out. She would, eventually, be okay. “I’m sorry. I should let you get back to work.”
---
He held her. It wasn't much, but it was all he could do now. He made a silent promise to himself that he would never let anything happened to her, if there was anything he could do to protect her, to keep her safe, he would.
"Just the world's most boring meeting. Nothing I don't want to be kept from, trust me." He smiled, truly this time. He suddenly didn't mind so much being relegated to second seat on a boring case. It meant he wasn't missing anything too important or letting anyone down. Even if there was no question for him that Roxanne was his priority, not focusing completely on a client who was depending on him would have bugged him. In this case, it didn't bother him at all, and he was thankful for that.
This was far from over, he knew that. "Can you wait here, for just a few minutes while I sort a few things out?" He'd explain that there was an emergency and he had to leave for the rest of the afternoon. This more than counted. With the minor scene they'd made, no one would question that. "Then we can go home."
---
At least she hadn’t taken him away from something important. She already felt guilty enough for baring in here and interrupting his day. If she’d distracted him from something that needed his full attention, she would have felt even worse.
“Of course. Do whatever you need to do.” She smiled, a quick thrill breaking through what worry and panic she’d been unable to shake. They could go home. It was so simple, so casual, but it meant everything to her. She hadn’t wanted to assume that she could stay with him. He always made things so easy, brushing aside any awkwardness without even trying. This really was the beginning of everything.
---
She may only have been to his place the once, but he'd meant it when he said she was welcome there anytime. Now she didn't have anywhere to go and he wasn't about to let her out of his sight, so it just made sense. All at the same time he was stealing her away, and rescuing her, and they were just taking the next logical step in this whirlwind relationship. Home was where they were together, that was what mattered.
It took him fifteen or twenty minutes to settle things and the the whole time his attention was mainly on worrying what they would do next and whether Roxanne would be okay rather than on the conversations he was having. At last he returned to his office, and they made their exit, rather more discretely than she'd made her entrance.