Chapter 34: For All The World To See
awesome banner by midnite_holic
[ Read the whole story | Read the last installment | Chapter list ]
A/N: Reviewers, thank you so much. Your comments mean the world to me. THE WORLD.
"You sure you're okay with this?" Lindsey murmured as they approached the door, his client in tow.
"Like I said," Buffy told him, and herself, "I'm a professional. High road all the way." Anxiously, she patted her updo. "How's my hair?"
"Perfect. You look fantastic."
She took a deep breath, and together, they entered the Wolfram & Hart conference room. Three suits stood to greet them, including Lilah, who said, "Aw, he brought the little wife."
Unbelievable. Did the high road include vaulting over a conference table and punting another woman out the window? If not, it really should.
"Buffy's the best PL in the firm, you know that," Lindsey said, sitting diagonally from his lover, leaving the direct-opposite seat for Buffy.
"She's certainly the best dressed," Lilah said, insinuation meter on high. "Is that Cavalli, dear?"
"I'm not big on labels," Buffy said, once she'd talked herself down from a rampage. "But thanks for the compliment, 'dear'."
Lindsey tapped a pen on his pad, his discomfort palpable.
Holland Manners cleared his throat. "Why don't we get started?"
"Great idea," Lindsey said.
* * *
Rinsing her hands at the ladies' room sink, Buffy heard the clack of approaching heels. Don't be Lilah, don't be Lilah, don't be Lilah...
"Oh," condescended Lilah. "You're still here."
Terrific. "Can we not?"
Opening a lipstick, Lilah pulled an innocent face. "Beg pardon?"
"Whatever," Buffy said, trashing a paper towel and making a beeline for the door. "I don't have the time or the energy to trade insults with you."
"Too busy earning those designer duds?"
That halted her in her Jimmy Choos. Was Lilah trying to bait her, or had she actually seen something?
Returning Buffy's glance in the mirror, Lilah said, "I've seen you around town in your new wardrobe. Sum total must be thirty Gs. How does a girl making about that much a year afford to splurge like that?"
Buffy accosted her and hissed, "I have a husband with a trust fund who just slept with a skank. You do the math."
"Look at that. You do have the energy." Lilah calmly put her lipstick away.
"Stay out of my life," Buffy said, barely containing her rage.
"Or what?" Lilah spun to face her, picking up her purse. Reflexively, Buffy knocked it out of her hands, making its contents spill on the floor. "You'll beat up my purse?"
She really, really hated how this woman got to her. "I mean it. Dig in someone else's yard before I go digging in yours."
Placid as ever, Lilah smiled and crouched down to retrieve her scattered makeup, wallet, and open plastic pill box. "Be my guest, Summers. Maybe you'll find what I'm looking for."
Buffy frowned. "Which is?"
With a throaty chuckle, Lilah snapped her pill box shut. "I get why he likes you so much." She stood up and brushed past her. "You're ballsy. Dumb, but ballsy."
By 'he', she means Lindsey, Buffy wondered. Right? "You don't know anything about me."
"I know one thing," Lilah said, door handle in her grasp. "When this all blows up in your pretty little face, I'm gonna have good seats." She winked, and was gone.
Alone in the restroom, Buffy repeated a mantra to calm herself down: If she had proof, he would know. If she had proof, he would know. And if he knew...
She closed her eyes, and a tear spilled down her cheek.
I am not going to cry at Wolfram & fucking Hart became her new mantra, and she steeled up.
Lilah didn't have proof. That's why she went for button-pushers like Paris and the new wardrobe -- to gauge Buffy's reaction.
Looking down at her suddenly-obvious $1800 dress and $950 shoes, Buffy noticed a small elliptical blue pill near her toe. She picked it up, read the embossment -- LILLY 4415 -- and stashed it into her own purse.
She had some research to do.
* * *
"I'm sorry, but I can't let you up there without an appointment."
Katie, the Pratt Enterprises main floor receptionist, was testing Buffy's last nerve. On top of the passive-aggressive 'tude, she was blonde, cute as a kitten and dressed like a Hostess Sno-ball, all fuzzy and pink.
No earthly desire for the women at corporate, he says. "Look, he's not answering his phone, and it's an emergency. Can you just tell him I'm here?"
With a nose-scrunching grin, Katie said, "Pretty sure I can't."
She'd been itching to punch someone all morning. Might as well be this chick. Crossing her arms as a restraint, she said, "What floor is he on?"
"Mmkay. Let me break it down for you, Miss...?"
Uncomfortable with adding 'Pratt' since the start of her affair, or making it obvious that she was related to him in any way, Buffy said quietly, "Summers."
"Spike Pratt is a very important man, 'mkay, he's not gonna blow off work in the middle of the day to..." Her face fell. "Buffy Summers?"
"Yeah..."
"Well, why didn't you say so?" Katie tittered nervously and picked up the phone.
Buffy blinked in confusion. The sound of her name had never instilled fear in any listener. Laughter, sometimes, but fear? Not so much.
"Hi, Garrett. Miss Summers is here to see Mr. Pratt. ...Great!" She hung up and blinded Buffy with a smile. "Garrett will be right with you, Miss Summers. Please, have a seat! Can I get you anything? Bottled water? Coffee? Champagne?"
* * *
"This your first time here?" Garrett asked her in the elevator.
"Yeah," Buffy said. "Why?"
The elevator doors opened, and she heard muffled shouting.
"No reason," he replied calmly, and walked ahead.
* * *
"Good afternoon, Miss Summers," said Spike's personal receptionist, who was neither blonde, nor a fuzzy cupcake, but a total fox who oozed sex appeal from every microscopic pore. "I'll announce you--"
"Sit down, Satsu," Garrett said gently as he ambled past her desk. "I got this."
Buffy scurried to keep up. "You didn't tell him I'm here?"
"Don't have to." With a card key, he unlocked a set of double doors, revealing the source of the shouts: Spike, standing in the center of his enormous office, lambasting three men.
"--out of your collective ass long enough to stop telling me why I can't and start telling me how I can. What?" He swung his head to the door, and saw her.
Before her eyes -- and everyone else's -- Spike Pratt melted into goo.
Transfixed, he said softly, "Leave us."
She felt her face flush.
As his men filed past her, she thought she heard one whisper, "Speak of the devil."
Buffy was the devil? What did she do? She must have misheard.
Garrett left and closed them in.
Still gooey, Spike tilted his head.
"I didn't mean to interrupt," she said.
Slowly, he stalked toward her.
"I-is everything okay?"
"It is now," he said, stopping before her to do that not-touching-but-might-as-well-be trick he did so well. "There a zipper on this thing?"
She shelved a grin. "That's not why I'm here."
"Pity..."
"Stop," she said, evading his lips. "I need to talk to you."
Teasingly, he whispered, "Big or small?"
"Huge."
"That's just my size--"
"Stop it! I'm serious! Is this all women are to you?"
He laughed, "What?"
"Little pink objects of desire?"
"You're in purple today," he said, closing in again.
She poked his chest. "Front Desk Barbie isn't. Does she wear pink every day? Is that a requirement here at Sterling Cooper?"
"What on earth are you talking about?"
"Candi, or Cakie, that... '60s throwback gargoyle at your front door."
Spike seemed genuinely confused. "Satsu?"
"No, Katie. The girl downstairs. But, now that you mention it, Satsu is..." Buffy deflated, "...also pretty."
Charmed, he touched her pouty lip. "Satsu is also gay."
Buffy let that sink in. "Oh."
He put both hands on her face. "You're my one desire, Buffy Summers. Whether you like it or not."
She realized she was nuzzling against his palm, and stopped. "It seems like everybody here knows that."
"They know you're important to me. As they should."
"If Lindsey came here, or talked to one of them..."
With an emphatic eyeroll, he let go of her. "Can't have him finding out."
"No. We can't." She watched him walk to the wet bar and pour a glass of water. "Step out of yourself for a second and think how badly it would destroy him."
He let out a bitter chuckle. "Oh, it's for his sake, is it? We're protecting him?"
It took her a moment to form words. "I know you care about him. You've been protecting him for years."
"Buffy," he said frankly, "You're not protecting anyone but yourself. You can dress your cowardice in all the hero medals you want, but that doesn't hide the truth. No matter how this ends, everyone's gonna lie bleeding. Everyone."
A tear rolled down her cheek, then another, and no mantra could prevent more. Crumbling, she turned around. She had to get out of there.
"Fuck," Spike muttered, and captured her en route to the door. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry, please don't cry. Please! I'm a bad, rude man, I shouldn't have said that."
"No, you were right," she said between sobs, caged by his arms. "I'm a coward. I am. I had a shitty day and I... I came running to you, like you could fix it somehow..."
"I'll fix it. I will. Tell me what to fix."
"I'm the one who broke it, I need to fix it--"
"No. No, forget what I said. Let me fix it." He turned her to face him and said, "I'd do anything for you, you know that."
She shook her head, wiped her tears, feeling stupid for having driven all this way. "It's not worth worrying about. I'm sorry. I'm just being paranoid, I think."
Spike walked her to a nearby couch, sat down with her. "Try me."
She sniffled. "It's Lilah. You know, bitch lawyer?" At his nod, she went on, "I don't know if she's still following us or what, but she's definitely clued in. Not enough to prove it to Lindsey, but enough to taunt me with it, and... Anyway, this pill fell out of her bag."
He took it from her. "What is it?"
"It's an anti-psychotic. It can treat anything from bipolar disorder to acute schizophrenia. Naturally, my mind went..."
"To the extreme."
Buffy nodded. "Add the fact that I know she owns a gun, and... blam, paranoia party in my head."
"Well." Gently, he took her hands in his. "She's not been following us, that much is certain."
"I just wish I knew what she was after."
"You mean besides your husband?"
"Yes," she answered plainly. "If she only wanted him, she'd have evidence by now. She's looking for something else, Spike. Something major. And it might be about you."
He gave her a warm eye-smile. "I'll call my guy, get him back on her scent, all right? No stone unturned."
Chewing on her lip, she stared down at their joined hands. "You've never met Lilah, have you?"
"Never. If she's got something against me, it's indirect. Maybe I did her Daddy wrong, who knows." He moved a strand of hair out of her eyes. "Whatever it is, we'll get to the bottom of this, you and I. Together."
She smiled and mouthed, "Thank you."
"You're welcome. Now," he inhaled at her neck, unpinned her hair, and teased her dress up her thighs. "Don't make me rip this off you."
Buffy let out a breathy laugh, and caught his wrist.
She could have complained that he'd spoiled her perfect coif, could have insisted that they not have sex when she was expected back at work in thirty minutes.
Could have.
But what she did instead was take his hand and place it on her hip, right above her zipper.
* * *
You ripped my dress after all, William. Do I need to punish you again?
She sent the message, put her phone down on her bureau, and pulled the Cavalli dress over her head. Grabbed a towel and checked her blinking phone.
Message from: Willow
"That's weird," Buffy said, and opened it.
Um... I think you maybe mis-sent that? Unless I missed something.
Heart racing, she checked her sent messages. Lo and behold, she'd sent that last one to Willow, not Will.
And she'd sent another one to her, too.
Had the craziest dream last night. Will I ever get to hear that story conscious? More importantly, when did you hang up, before or after I started snoring? P.S., That's a trick question that can only be answered with: "you don't snore."
Buffy ran damage control in her mind. What the hell could she tell her oldest, dearest friend; her cousin; her closest surviving family member? She couldn't say it was Lindsey -- she'd used another name!
Maybe she could ignore it until Willow forgot about it...
Incoming call from: Willow
Dammit. Ignore? Or answer? She pressed the green button and smacked herself in the head. "Hey, Willow! How are you?"
"I'm good! How are you? I feel like it's been months."
"Yeah, I guess it has. Crazy, huh? Time is, whoosh, flyin' by."
"Totally," Willow said. "Hey, is everything okay with... everything?"
"Everything's great! Uh, I'm sorry about that text..."
"It's okay! We all make mistakes."
"Yeah..." Buffy felt a lump form in her throat. She sat down on her bed, stared down at her toes and said, "I'm cheating on Lindsey."
There was a stunned silence. "What?"
* * *
"Wow," Willow marveled after hearing a condensed version of the story; one that left out certain key details such as who this 'William' actually was. "I don't know what to say."
"I'm a horrible person, you can start there."
"No, you're not horrible, but... It's so not you."
"I know."
"You've always been so anti, I mean that whole thing with your Dad..."
"I know," she said, pulling another tissue out of the box to dry her tears.
"And... William? I gotta be honest with you, he sounds kind of manipulative."
"He is -- I mean, he was. At first. But now, I swear, he's like a different person, Wil. He's the man he used to be, and... I think I helped him get there, so he fell in love with me. And I..."
Willow waited. "Do you love him back?"
"I... have strong feelings for him. He's like no one I've ever met. But he's not exactly the kind of guy you bring home to mother."
"So, you're just gonna keep stringing both of them along?"
"No," Buffy said, defensive. "I'm not... stringing. I'm confused."
"I get that, but, eventually Lindsey's gonna find out."
"Eventually," she gave with a pout. "Until then, can't I just have my cake and eat it, too?"
"I guess... but you know what happens when you eat a whole cake, don't you?"
"You're satisfied and sleepy?"
"No, you're left with nothin' but a big ole' empty plate and a tummy ache. I don't want that to happen to you, Buffy."
"Me either." Her eyes welled again. "What do you think I should do?"
"I can't tell you that. You'll do whatever feels right, and that's fine. Just promise you'll be careful."
"I promise," Buffy said, and she meant it.
One hour later, however, she was tied to Spike's bedposts, begging to be hurt.
Read on... >>
A NOTE ABOUT PLAGIARISM: Don't do it. Call me crazy, but I don't like finding my hard work pasted into other people's stories. If I find out you've plagiarized me or any other author, I will make sure everyone knows it. If you're not clear on what 'plagiarism' means, the definition is here.