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Lucas
“Based on the amount of time I spent in that damn boutique, you all better appreciate how fine Bella looks.”
“’Licia? Why did you call again?” Lucas shoved his shoulder into Bella’s apartment door. Bella had texted he could let himself in. Since he was already running late, he wanted to see Bella before she was whisked off in her chariot — er, mother’s town car — and tortured for the evening.
Not more than a step inside Bella's apartment, Lucas' phone tumbled out of his hand, ripping the corded earpiece. Bella stood in her bedroom doorway in a heart-stopping emerald green strapless ballgown. Satin glistened in the light, shifting from emerald to almost black. The designer cut the flared skirt with a slit that reached mid-thigh on one side, and yes, her leg was peeking through. Across the bodice, silver snowflakes were embroidered, and crystals glittered like falling snow, stealing Lucas' breath from him.
Large, bouncy blonde curls cascaded over Bella's shoulder, neatly tied to one side.
Words, thoughts, everything failed Lucas. Tiny voices shouted from Lucas' phone, but he couldn't take his eyes off Bella.
"Daniel's here. I promise not more than an hour there." Bella rushed past the couch, hopping on one foot to get one more strappy silver heal on her bare foot.
She collided with Lucas, grabbing hold for balance.
“Well?” Bella beamed.
“You... look...”
Chris and Alicia's tiny voices continued from the phone. Loathe to let Bella go, Lucas did only to scoop up the phone and end the call. But his eyes never left her.
“Was that my dumbass brother?”
"Wow." Words finally caught up, which was the absolute best he could do.
Bella held each of his arms as if she needed something or someone to keep her balance, but she didn’t. She was steady as a rock.
“Do you like it?” Her cheeks flushed.
They were standing so close, Bella gripping his arms tighter. Lucas refused to let go of this moment. They could just stay there, forget both parties.
"An hour. Tops. Then the drive back to the recreational center, and I'm all yours. Well, not all yours, but... you know. For the kids."
"The kids," Lucas mimicked. His mind was still stupidly stuck.
“Ms. Astor?” Daniel, for some unknown and ungodly reason, asked from the door.
That, finally, brought Lucas’ wits back. “Will he ever learn he’s not your driver anymore?”
“Daniel isn’t actually driving. But he wanted to escort me.” A hiccough sounded in her throat.
It took all his willpower not to grab hold of her waist and pull Bella into him.
That wobble in her voice was what she got when thinking about Eli. Her father.
All he could do was break the spell gently. “Don’t be too harsh on your mother.”
A wan smile spread across her face. "I just want autonomy over my life. To make my own decisions. She doesn't get to choose who I want to be with. Or what happens with my clinic," Bella said, the wobble still there but also something else. She hid her face by moving in to fix his tie side to side.
“Bella?” Lucas asked, his breath stolen away the closer she moved.
“Ms. Astor?” Daniel asked again. “We’ll be unfashionably late...”
“Coming, Daniel.” Bella took a step back, giving Lucas a satisfied smile now. “You look good, Holt.”
Bella walked to the door without waiting for an answer, grabbing a wrap for her shoulders.
“Bella, this isn’t finishing school or whatever. You have autonomy. You have a choice.”
“Do I?”
Did she? Or did Bella always have to tiptoe around everyone's wishes, desires, and worst, the media?
“If you need me,” Lucas heard her pause at the door and added, “I’m a text away.”
***
Bella
The wrap warmed Bella's shoulders, but overall the chill in her never truly went away, even in the warm car. The last warmth Bella felt was standing with Lucas in her apartment. A warmth that drew her in closer to Lucas by the second. Ugh! She did not want to be here!
“Mr. Warren will meet you at the door to escort you in. There’s a reporter from...” Bella waved off Daniel’s instructions.
“I’m not giving an interview. I’m not bothering with mother’s plans for me.”
Daniel knew enough to end the conversation there. He set down his phone and gave her an appraising look, and an uncharacteristic sigh escaped.
“What is it?” she asked.
Daniel always had a warm smile for the twins. Bella always assumed that was because he was also a father and very fatherly with them when they were children. But at no time did she expect him to say, "Your father would be proud."
That came out of nowhere.
“I’m sure he wouldn’t be if he knew...”
“Bella.”
Her heart skipped a beat. In all her years knowing Daniel as her driver, caretaker, assistant, and now as a director at Astor Pharm, he'd never used her first name. Or if he did, it was accompanied by a 'miss' ahead of it.
A new stinging, more itchy and watery than earlier when she'd been waiting on Lucas clawed at her eyes. Bella didn't think she could handle Daniel continuing.
“He was always proud of you.”
"Yes," Bella sighed, shoving the tears away. "So proud when I was arrested."
“Yes,” Daniel countered. “Even when you were arrested.”
Bella scoffed, though it was admittedly half-hearted. No one was proud when she was arrested.
"Eli raised a young woman who could and can stand independently. And when no one stood up for her, she stood up for herself."
“I was fed up with the bullshit, Daniel. Still am. And no matter how much I stand up for myself, I’m still at the beck and call of my mother. Of mother’s peers. The board. The rest of the fucking world.” She pulled the wrap tighter around her. “I feel like I’m being stuffed back into the shit-show mother always wanted. Like I’m a child again. No matter how hard I fight, I will never be in control.”
“Is that so?”
"I mean, my mother still has this grand view of who I should marry, just like my grandfather. Marry someone like Preston. An excellent family, someone in our circle that we can make a political match and..." The hiccough in her words accompanied a glance at Daniel, who did nothing but sit there, placidly staring forward. Most of the fight drained out of Bella. "She's absolutely over the moon about Pres and me, and heaven forbid I don't fall in line with that! And if I don't, what? My clinic is going to be pulled right out from under me? All I can be is who my mother wants me to be with my own flair just to annoy the shit out of her. But I can't be... me."
"Flair?" Daniel smirked, though the shadow in the town car hid it well. "The Bella I knew before did not allow for herself to be placed in a mold. She broke through them. Ransacked meetings with her father and showed up the directors with more intuitive insights for Astor Pharmaceuticals than any man in the room."
“I was not kicked out of those meetings because I was my father’s daughter. I didn’t know my place.”
“I think you always knew your place. Your place should have been CEO of Astor Pharm.”
“That was never my place.”
"Maybe. Or maybe it was never the best placement for you. But alas, your grandfather is not with us any longer. Despite what you thought, you were carving her own path even back then. Not the one your grandfather or mother wanted. I miss that Bella Astor. Though I get glimpses now and then. After everything stuffed way down has built up enough pressure to burst."
"I've changed. Everyone changes, Daniel. I had to 'grow up.'"
Picking a piece of her skirt between two fingers, Bella rolled the satin back and forth. She changed before Frontier Doctors, sure. But Bella also learned plenty of lessons during her time in the doctor's program. She'd been trying to stay in line and quietly deal with things until... until she couldn't any longer.
Daniel nodded slowly. "Yes, of course, Miss Astor. Forgive me. You may have grown out of the mold-breaking, miss, and prefer hiding away. Denying us the grace that is Miss Bella Astor in full."
“No... that’s not what I meant.”
But Daniel kept barreling on. “We do change and are never the same as we once were. But — tell me if I’m overstepping my bounds — I believe that piece is still inside Bella. Wanting to emerge. Something has been holding it — you — back. Whether that's fear or stress or coping with what happened in Frontier Doctors — or all of it combined. But what do I know? I am an old man who has worked for the Astor family my entire career."
“Daniel...”
The car eased to a stop so gracefully that Bella didn’t notice it. She only knew when her driver silently opened the door as Daniel said, “We’ve arrived, Miss Astor.”
Bella hadn’t time to work through what Daniel said.
Daniel, his wrinkles deeper than she remembered. More gray than black in his hair. When did that happen?
As she gazed at Daniel, somewhat in shock, his eyebrow quirked up, and Daniel asked, “Would you care for me to escort you to the door?”
Bella peered out the open door at the Astor brownstone, or more accurately, a collection of several brownstones renovated and opened to one another. Mainly the building kept its structure inside with many archways and doorways among the rooms. The one exception was that several rooms had been opened up to create a modest ballroom. It surprised Bella that her mother would host a gala in their smaller (for a family like the Astor's) Brooklyn home instead of the mansion.
Next to Bella's driver, Preston stood ready, his tuxedo tailored to perfection. The kind of fit where Bella could see Preston's athletic build underneath all the layers without much imagination. He'd combed his dark hair back, but a wave persisted. And a solitary piece tried to break away and fall to the side. His hand held out for her; Preston waited patiently for Bella to make the first move.
Daniel cleared his throat, and she jumped. “No, Daniel. Thank you.”
“Have a lovely evening, Miss Astor.”
“Quit with the Miss Astor bullshit, Daniel. You already called me Bella.”
His smile warmed, reaching all the way to his eyes even in the dark of the town car. "I'd be loathed to call you as such, Miss Astor."
“You don’t work for my mother in that capacity anymore, Daniel,” Bella hissed as she slid out of the car.
Stepping from the town car, though, a weight lifted from Bella. Something she hadn’t known she’d been holding onto.
An onslaught of flashes from photographers on the sidewalk twinkled, and faceless reporters and paparazzi vied for position.
This was why her mother rarely had galas or large social functions in the city. Or maybe it was precisely why she was this time.
“So, B?”
She glowered at Preston. Five seconds and he was pushing her buttons.
“What’s the plan?”
"What makes you think I have a plan?" she folded her arms, and more flashes blinded her. But she would rather freeze on the sidewalk than let Preston think she was interested in being at the party with him.
"You texted you wanted to talk — which is never a good sign — and then you and I never talked." Discreetly, Pres lifted his elbow for her to take. Of course, she didn't right away, so he was forced to grind out the last thought. "Though you may not believe it, I know you enough to know when you might self-destruct. And, personally, I don't want to see you actually self-destruct."
Well, that’s annoying.
"Bella, I know you don't want to be here." He slipped in close to her. New flashes and that weight that had lifted tried to settle again, this time on her stomach, but when she didn't back away, Pres continued, "I asked you because I wanted to spend time with you.”
“That’s almost believable. Are you sure you don’t want something else?”
They'd been standing there long enough that the flashes died down. The crowds of photographers and a few journalists held a collective breath to see if Bella Astor did something newsworthy.
Preston stepped into her line of sight, making her look at him. “Bella Astor,” he held his arm out for her again and said, “I would like to be your date tonight.”
“Ugh! You think you’re so suave.”
"If Bella Astor has all but agreed to be my date, I think suave is the correct adjective."
She slipped her hand into the crook of his arm and let him lead her into the Astor brownstone. “I’m not your date.”
"Close enough."
Stepping through the threshold, Bella was overcome. Like this house had thrown her back in time. Not that Daniel's speech, stuck in her mind, helped any. She relished a glimpse at the restored molding and woodwork Lina spent so much time perfecting with contractors. The house felt proper and complete, yet it held history. Bella saw some of her grandparents' furniture from the entryway, like the carved wood of a familiar couch in the sitting room. It transported her back to when she'd run through her grandparents' own brownstone with Chris in tow. They chased after Preston during their holiday parties until her father found them and started a new game.
“Act natural,” Preston sang in her ear as he dropped his hands on her shoulders.
"Why?" Dumbest question ever. Bella had zero time to react. "Oh, shit. Mother."
"An impeccable greeting if I've ever heard one," Lina sighed.
“We are humbled to be invited at all, Mrs. Astor.”
The charm was so thick that Bella thought she might suffocate.
“Speak for yourself.”
"Excuse me, Bella dear, did you..."
"I'm sorry, mother. I'll speak louder. I said... speak. For. Yourself. You blackmailed me into being here." More weight lifted, and there was an ease slipping into Bella. She felt comfortable and oddly at home.
Preston squeezed her shoulders, telling her to stop.
“Preston!” Ah, the first of what was sure to be many interruptions by someone Preston needed to speak with. “I’ve been waiting for you.”
"Bella... I need..." A frantic yet well-established panic came over Preston.
“To run off? You’re not even my date and ditching me.”
“I am your date.” His glower deepened. “Five minutes.”
“You say that about a lot of things.” Bella gave Preston a sarcastic half-curtsey as he excused himself from her mother.
Lina wasted no time. “Well, you both are a vision together.”
“Then you might need to visit the optometrist, mother. Everything must be blurry for you.”
Using his impeccable timing, her brother parted the crowd, holding two champagne flutes aloft. Ever the dashing gentleman, Christian's curls were the opposite of hers. Wild and carefree.
Bella took the proffered flute and emptied it in several unseemly gulps.
“A warm welcome to my dear sister!” Chris teased.
“What? Are you stuck in a regency romance?”
“Bella,” her mother droned.
"Speaking of warm," Bella replaced her empty flute and stole the second in her brother's hand. "I'm feeling warm." Plucking the ribbon on the wrap, Bella let it fall to the floor and was off to the party without any other comments to her mother.
"Dear sister," Chris sang when he caught up, dropping his empty flute with a passing server.
“What of it, dumbass?”
After appraising her for a moment, Chris grinned devilishly. “Love the dress.”
Both twins burst into fits of boisterous laughter. Christian took his sister's arm. They toured around the party, snickering to one another, patently ignoring or skirting around families neither could stand.
Many people attempted to call on Christian. As CEO of Astor Pharm, he should have been mingling, networking, buttering up the governor over in the corner, the senator wooing the middle Beaton daughter, and so on. But he wasn't. Chris firmly planted himself with Bella, like when they were kids, teens, and even adults. He was by her side, and Preston was nowhere to be seen. A true throwback to five years ago.
It was only when Bella was alone for thirty seconds – Chris off to fetch round four on the champagne and Preston was shockingly not returned from his schmoozing – that the inevitable happened.
“How does trash even get into a gala as fine as this?”