Of course, I have told myself that I gave up my dreams because I found a worthy cause, but what I now find is that the underlying truth, some portion of my motivation, I drew from Brendon. I have done so much of it for Brendon, for the shared vision we began more than a decade ago. I have sacrificed almost everything about myself for what I had thought an ideal, a higher calling, and now I have found out that I have sacrificed myself for a lie. Is there anything left of me to salvage now? – Felicity’s Journal, March 28
You seem to misunderstand a lot of things, but I want to make myself very clear because I don't want to blindside you like you did me. You seem to interpret setting boundaries as an attempt to manipulate, but I am setting boundaries nonetheless. So here is mine. You will not have us both. If you insist on keeping her around, the best you can hope for from me is our living apart while you live however you want. Then if you come to your senses, maybe I'll still be available, maybe I won't. Otherwise, you will have to cut her off. Get her transferred to a different department, a different city, never see her again. If you want me, that is what it will cost you.- Unsent email from Felicity to Brendon, March 19.
Late evening, March 19
Felicity managed a laugh. How she even knew the song she couldn't conceive, but the vague remembrance painted her brain with an image from her childhood. She had thought it strange for a rock song to have numbers in it; she didn't know why now. And at the time she hadn't known what a .45 was or what 5'9” meant. Now the song lulled, sultry in the dim lighting of a small dining hall. With just one look I was a bad mess, it lamented, and Felicity smirked at the unlikely grunge of the music. She liked it, but it didn’t seem particularly “Bill Henry.” A sort of shimmering mist enshrouded the air, and a scent clung to the fog, something Felicity didn't recognize – spicy, earthy, intoxicating.
Someone knew how to throw a party. Finally. The music, the aroma, the haze all worked synergistically to invoke a sort of hypnotic pulse in the room. The obscurity suited Felicity because she didn't know how she would function throughout an entire night with the ProtoComm people. A cocktail party had been torture enough, but a night like this? While she played the dutiful wife to a philanderer? At least at Saturday's party, the numbers of people let her disappear into the wallpaper. Here, each person would scrutinize her every movement, and she had no desire to encounter Jase in her current state, not after their last meeting.
Now she thought she might understand why people chose to drink at company parties. At least if I make a fool of myself, maybe I won't remember, she groaned, determining to drink at least two glasses of wine for a nice, tipsy buzz. A little liquid courage. Especially if Amy showed up.
As soon as they entered, Brendon began the round of introductions. Felicity had expected the other VPs: Edward Pope from Oakland; David Farnham, Houston; and Anna Waters, Chicago. Felicity's blood chilled slightly as she shook Jack Buckley's hand. She had never been able to expunge from her thoughts the hunch that Jack Buckley had a hand in the disappearance of John Mitchell a few years back. Even though Brendon reassured her, Felicity remained suspicious. His reassurances are worthless anyway, she realized.
Of course, Jenna Whitfield imposed herself glowingly on the arm of Jase Hamilton, her face sporting a sparkling smile and his, a stiff resignation. When assured that Brendon's eyes focused elsewhere, Jase dispatched a knowing, somber smirk in Felicity's direction, and she glared impudently in return. Still, her stomach clutched.
Why did his smile appear to hide anxiety? He had definitely not forgotten her upset at their last meeting. She tried to feel irritated at his presumption, but just couldn’t make herself. Still, she could let anyone know how badly she wanted to unload her own worries on him – the only friendly face in the room. Instead, she relaxed her tension into her best approximation of a flirtatious smile. What could it hurt to indulge herself a little? Too soon to tell, she realized as her eyes dropped. She wished she could have seen Jase’s reaction, but her soul still ached too profoundly to engage in games.
Breathing deeply, she turned back to take the lushly upholstered seat offered by her husband. Unlike at the other dinner parties she had attended, everyone ate at this small gathering, because the food made the centerpiece for the discussion. Twenty people lined a dark solid wood table with Bill Henry, CEO, at the head.
No Amy. Thank God, Felicity sighed. She glanced covertly at the other diners, first at Bill, then around the table. Through the haze, David Farnham seemed less sinister than she remembered him, though at the moment she didn't trust anyone from ProtoComm. Jack always made her think of the smarmy car salesman, and Felicity could never imagine how a man like that had become vice president of such a powerful company.
When Felicity looked at Bill Henry, though, he oozed power. Something about the man exuded utter assurance, a confidence that everyone around him thought of things exactly as he intended. For the most part, he smiled and simpered, offered noblesse oblige to his employees and charmed their wives or significant others.
Not Felicity, of course. She would have needed to catch his eye, something she would avoid at all cost of civility. Because beneath the veneer of his courtesy, she sensed a shadow of duplicity or artifice. Like Brendon, she realized. Everyone wore masks, she knew, but she could see past most of them to their cause – insecurity, judgment, manipulation. Felicity could not decipher Bill's mask, and she therefore wanted nothing to do with him.
Since he spoke to Ed Pope for the duration of the meal, it didn’t seem to be an issue, but she noticed Bill's eyes on Brendon several times during the conversation. Bill also shot several covert glances toward Jase and toward Jack Buckley. Breathing deeply, Felicity reined in her errant imagination and forced herself to focus on what lay in front of her. The man was sending messages, but Felicity had no hope of figuring out what they were.
The meal came course by course, seven in all, and Felicity concentrated on the etiquette that she usually ignored. On one side of Felicity sat a small swarthy man, someone she had never met.
He had some kind of Italian name, or so Felicity thought. Pietro? she searched her memory for the recent introduction. Though she couldn't remember the particulars, she knew that every time she saw him, he wore varying shades of forgettable tan, and she could only describe his hair and eyes as generic brown. Her mind immediately dubbed him the “tan man.”
Brendon held her other side, while across from her sat the vanilla Anna Waters. Fortunately, Jase sat several chairs to her left on the opposite side. She had absolutely no occasion to glance his way. That did not, however, keep her from feeling his eyes on her much more than could be considered proper, and she struggled to restrain herself from peeking toward him. If his initial expression indicated the rest of the night, she knew that if she looked at him again, fire would erupt in her veins.
If at any point the party had no dish before them, Brendon entwined his fingers firmly in hers, interlocking them in almost vise-like fashion. It felt less like a connection and more like shackles. Under normal circumstances, his possessiveness would have annoyed her, but tonight his powerful presence provided a buttressing effect against her insecurity. Even though he had betrayed her, he was also the only one who knew her secret pain – or at least a small portion of it.
Well, and Jase. But Jase was off limits. She wondered if the other people in the room could feel it, the rift between Brendon and her. It seemed tangible, and Felicity found it hard to believe that others could miss it. She felt more exposed than she could ever desire, the ostentation of her apparel adding to her unease. At least Brendon's familiarity offered her a small measure of comfort.
The slight breeze from the ceiling fan overhead caressed her bare back and found gaps where the cloth of her dress didn't cling. At some point, the drape of the fabric teased loosely down the sides of her torso, and Felicity began to severely question her sanity in choosing to make herself so vulnerable. Her puerile desire for vengeance on Brendon back in Phoenix had backfired. If she’d known about the party any earlier, she would have gone shopping.
Sweeping her eyes around the table, Felicity appraised the other women near her. No one else had chosen to attire themselves in quite so dramatic a fashion. Anna Waters had definitely traded her femininity for power, dressing herself accordingly in a slightly tailored tuxedo. From what Felicity could see, the only hints that it had been intended for a woman showed in a tapered waist and a flared leg.
Jenna sported a tight-fitting, very short sequined dress, colored with the cascading effect of mother-of-pearl. She honestly looked lovely, but the outside didn't reflect the inside, Felicity knew. All of the corporate wives dressed in suitably classy attire, but nothing particularly daring. Felicity mused gratefully that as long as they sat, she could hide herself beneath table linens since most of her height came from her long, statuesque legs.
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Unfortunately, dinner ended before she finished her first glass of wine. In desperation, she crudely swigged the last of the glass, afraid the alcohol wouldn't hit in time to deaden her to the anxiety she felt. Just before she would be forced to stand, the server intruded between Felicity and the tan man with another glass of malbec.
All of the chairs followed that of Bill Henry in scraping backwards and evicting their occupants. To Felicity's surprise, Brendon never let go of her hand. He did not chase after conversation with the most interesting or powerful or helpless people in the room. No, he stood staunchly by her chair, awaiting her movement. As she unfurled her feline length, she felt more than one pair of eyes assessing her. Unused to the spotlight, Felicity kept her eyes played on the carpet unwilling to see who watched her. Stupid dress, she fumed, this was supposed to torment Brendon, not me.
Brendon instinctively drew her closer to him as if he, too, noticed the stares from around the room. Felicity was grateful that the wine had started to work. Still, even through her increasing stupor, Felicity sensed the urgency in Brendon's grasp. She laced her arm through his, not feeling entirely stationary on her own. Though when sober she reviled Brendon, in her near-sodden state she reverted to her usual child-like attachment to him.
Why did I take that second glass of wine, she bemoaned, too late. Even though she had drunk less than half the second glass, she found her attention wandering, unable to fix on anything in particular. Unfortunately, she did manage to catch the unexpected entrance of a lovely female form, a vision in blushing pink, where she glided into the room. Amy, Felicity huffed, and a hollow, heavy emptiness opened inside her gut, a million pinpricks of pain radiating from its depths and sapping the strength from her limbs.
She felt her frantically rapid breaths begin to race out of control. To his credit, Brendon froze, glancing first with horror at Amy and then with increasing concern at Felicity's sudden panic. He rubbed his hand comfortingly up and down Felicity's arm, and she found the pain temporarily anesthetized when she leaned into him. A moment later, though, she felt herself being deposited onto a stuffed, oversized armchair, and the disorientation of drunkenness added to the return of the ache.
The increasing effects of the alcohol began to slow her breathing even as Brendon's action raised her ire, and Felicity stared in sodden disbelief as Brendon made his way cautiously to Amy's side. Within moments, Brendon stood in intimate conversation with his lover – his lover, Felicity sobbed silently, the alcohol deadening what would no doubt otherwise have burst from anguished lips. Infuriatingly, Felicity's head swam so out of control that, even with the obvious importance of keeping an eye on her husband, Felicity could not.
Instead, from the corner of her eye, she suddenly became aware of Jase Hamilton as he deposited a drunken Jenna Whitfield onto the arm of someone Felicity remembered as maybe Gregory? Almost immediately, Bill Henry motioned to Brendon that he wanted to talk. Glaring, Felicity leaned back in the chair, stabbing Brendon a thousand times with her eyes as he maneuvered his way from Amy to Bill.
In leaning back and crossing her lanky legs, Felicity suddenly realized that the slit along the front of her dress exposed her from ankle to mid-thigh. It was a full thirty seconds before Felicity's sodden senses responded by uncrossing her legs and using her hands to make the two sides of material meet.
Felicity had not been able to finish her second glass of wine, but she had drunk it quickly enough that its effects seemed to have hit with intensity. Now that she sat still, the deadening of her senses left her feeling not just exposed, but isolated. Her dress exacerbated the sensation. What an idiot! she laughed at herself. At least the alcohol kept her from taking the situation too seriously.
Once again, it was the spicy scent that washed over her first, and her mind quickly flew to the anticipation of the touch – a flashback to the first night when Jase Hamilton had come to her rescue. Jase did not disappoint, and the thrill when his fingers scorched the tender skin above her knee eradicated the memory of the heat on her back those weeks before. The burn traveled up the skin of her leg, and she closed her eyes to wrestle control from the alcohol that threatened to render her impotent against the feeling.
“Ta tenue est sensationnel,” Jase’s deep voice rumbled, and a slow pulse of air stream from Felicity's lungs, a soundless whistle releasing the steam from the sensation. Her dress was stunning? Instead of sitting in any of the adjacent chairs, as any proper gentleman would, Jase placed himself on the edge of the solid wood coffee table, his knees just inches from Felicity's.
“Bonsoir, Jase,” she giggled, and the sound rumbled deep and velvet.
“You're drunk,” he asserted, amusement lighting his features.
Felicity barked a sardonic laugh. “I am not!” she retorted. “I have only had one and a half glasses of wine.” She certainly felt more drunk than she should have.
Jase looked suspicious, lifting her glass to his lips and breathing in the bouquet. “When is the last time you drank?”
“Samedi,” Felicity pouted. “So, there.” Did I just say that last part out loud? she scoffed to herself, even as the ache worked to suck her down into a deep well.
Jase smiled, somehow a somber expression. “I watched you Saturday. You never even finished a glass. Tonight, you chugged the first one, and I only see a few sips left in the second one.” He pointed to the nearly empty glass he had placed back on the table.
“Not drunk,” she insisted. Biting her lip, Felicity frowned. She felt drunk. I guess I did finish that second glass, she mused.
Her dander ascended languidly, and she leaned back again in her chair and crossed her legs, so as to increase the distance between Jase and herself. She didn't remember the dress until his fingers stirred on her knee, and her breath hitched. For an instant, the ache receded, the weight retreating under an ecstatic warmth that muted her misery. Still, a voice thrummed coolly from inside her mind that she could not give in to the pleasure, that it was a false friend.
“Stop it, Jase!” she complained, frowning sullenly.
“Why?” he insisted, not removing his hand, but reaching toward the fabric with his fingers. Was he sliding his hand up her leg? Or was he pulling the material shut? She couldn’t tell – all she felt was the heat of his fingers on her skin, the electric pull of his touch.
“I don't know,” she pouted, her heart thrumming with excitement. “It's not proper. And there are people everywhere.” Despite retaining a remnant of her usual principled mind, Felicity's breath sped excitedly. She licked her lips, reaching her hand to arrest his, though she paused, their hands entwined on the flesh of her leg, before she finally pushed him away.
As if he read her hesitance, he leaned closer, his other hand pressing the satin fabric of the dress onto her thigh. “No one will see,” he smirked, his expression inviting. His eyes, though. They seemed…nervous? Concerned? They flitted around the room as if in search of something. “Brendon is occupied elsewhere,” he explained, reaching for the dress again. As if Brendon's absence excused the liberty! Still, she didn't stop him, sighing with the sensation of his hands on her. Jase's eyes scoured the room. “I'm pretty sure Bill has swept him off for a conference.”
“Evil conferences,” Felicity whined, her fuddled memory flitting to an argument with Brendon that she couldn't exactly remember.
Some subverted vestige of her rational mind wondered that two glasses of wine could have quite so dramatic an effect on her, but she couldn't form the thought adequately enough to examine it. Jase had said something, though, that Felicity needed to process. She closed her eyes to block out the room around her – to block out her drunken craving for Jase.
“You said Brendon!” she brightened. “Brendon, that's why. I'm married to Brendon!” Still she didn't move.
“What?” Jase feigned confusion, leaning in as if to hear better. His fingers brushed the tender skin inside her thigh as he leaned toward her, and Felicity shuddered with pleasure.
“That's why, your hand...Brendon...” her thoughts grew more confused as a muddled sense of unease suddenly gripped her.
“Brendon est un bâtard égoïste, et tu mérites mieux,” Jase whispered, and Felicity wondered how his lips had traversed the distance to speak so closely to her ear. She moaned lowly at the brush of his hand across her cheek. Jase had spoken the truth: Brandon was a selfish bastard, and she did deserve better. Unexpectedly, heat eased into the chair with her, and Jase threaded one arm behind her back. A fire spread inside her as he pulled her against his muscled chest, and she let her head fall back as she opened herself to him. Brendon wouldn't mind, Felicity assured herself. He wants someone else anyway.
Felicity couldn't think; she couldn't talk, but a battle raged inside her. She felt herself lean away from Jase, a last rush of resistance stirring her strength, yet even in her attempted rejection, she turned her face to him, her lips parted as if in invitation. She felt her eyes close. From far away she heard Jenna's voice.
“She doesn't look well,” Felicity heard as confusion muddled the foreseen kiss. Where had Jase gone?
“...can't hold her liquor...” Jase's voice, his arms somehow distant even as they held her “...don't bother Brendon...I'll take her.”
From somewhere inside her head, Felicity screamed in protest, but no sound escaped her lips. Jase spoke to others as if she were walking by herself, his arm merely supporting her, but Felicity knew her legs couldn't possibly be moving. She couldn't feel them. Where was he taking her? Had he slipped something in her drink? Had she completely misread him?
Brendon! her mind screamed, but all that escaped her lips was a mumbled, “Mmm...”
“Sssh...” Jase soothed, but the clattering of her heart screamed, “No! Brendon, help me!”
No sound would escape. Even if it had, Felicity knew Brendon wouldn’t help. He didn’t care. Jase could do whatever he wanted with her, and Brendon would probably be relieved. She felt herself being laid down on something soft, and she panicked. When her mind processed the sensation, though, it arrested her fear. A gentle rumble sounded in her ears. A car? she wondered. Then Jase, leaning over her, whispered, “Pas de panique. You'll be okay. I'll come and find you. I won't let them hurt you. I’m sorry for the show back there. Les yeux sont rivés sur moi.”
Eyes are on him? All sentiment of seduction had left him, replaced by a grave intensity. Then, too far gone to feel any reaction, Felicity felt him brush his thumb lightly across her forehead, the spicy scent trailing from him as he caressed her cheek reassuringly before standing and shutting the door between them.
As the darkness fell, she looked through the car window. For an instant, Brendon's face, hard and severe, stared at her through the glass. I swear, I didn't want him to, she pleaded silently to Brendon's furious gaze. Then he turned away, a flash of Amy's nervous face appearing as Brendon placed his hand on the small of his lover's back, and Felicity remembered nothing else.