Work Text:
Cast of Characters
(I’m including their ages, as I’ve changed them from what they are on the show)
Neal Caffrey, 32: Wealthy playboy, accomplished artist, and Peter’s ex
Elizabeth Mitchell, 30: Out of work playwright, currently slumming as a tabloid reporter
Clinton Jones, 31: Talented artist, currently slumming as a freelance paparazzo
June Ellington-Burke, 53: Peter’s stepmother, the woman who raised him
Diana Burke, 15: June’s and Reese's daughter, Peter’s half sister
Sara Ellis, 25: Latest Hollywood It Girl and Peter’s fiancée
Reese Hughes Burke, 57: Peter’s father
Uncle Mozzie, age unknown: Longtime friend of June’s
Vincent Adler, 50: Multinational publishing magnate and all-around sleaze
xXxXxXxXx
“How’s the air up there?” she asked.
“I beg your pardon?”
“How do you walk in those things?” El asked, truly curious, pointing her chin at the pretty if impractical pair of patent leather peep toe pumps the younger woman wore.
“Oh, I barely notice,” she replied breezily as the elevator stopped on the nineteenth floor and she hobbled out and on to her business; El didn’t know whether it was the shoes or the girl’s pencil skirt, but she looked like a stiff wind would have blown her over.
Less than a minute later, she was striding through the double glass doors of Adler Publishing’s top publication, Them Weekly, the soles of her star-spangled Chuck Taylor All-Stars making squeaking noises on the highly polished granite floors. Pausing by the front desk, she waited for the receptionist to notice her, but then a familiar voice called to her from the raised deck of offices at the back of the space.
“Elizabeth, you’re late,” called Vincent Adler, arms crossed in front of him as he attempted to look sternly at her. Despite owning a publishing empire that listed literally hundreds of titles, he still acted as editor-in-chief and publisher of this, the company’s flagship publication, and the one that made him famous.
“Weren’t we meeting at 2:30?” she called back innocently, making her way across the “bullpen” of staff writers’ desks to the stairs.
“It’s 3:05,” he pointed out, an amused smile nevertheless playing across his lips.
“Right on time, then.” She cocked her head and smiled, because that’s what he expected her to do. He was a smarmy misogynist who was rumored to have his fingers in more pies than Martha Stewart ever baked, but he liked her for some reason, and she’d done a lot worse in her life than flirt with a man to keep a job. She preceded him into his office, where another man already sat at the small, round meeting table, leaning his chair back against the wall.
“Elizabeth,” he greeted pleasantly, righting his chair and standing.
“Jonesy,” she replied, hiding a smile as he stumbled slightly when the chair hit him in the back of the knees. “You look good. Eye all healed?”
Jones was a talented artist and photographer who suffered much for his art – which, like print journalism, seemed lately to be in its death throes any way you sliced it. He had recently been reduced to hiding in dark corners of the city trying to catch the latest tabloid darlings screwing in the bushes or snorting coke up their plastic noses in order to make his ends meet long enough to make rent.
His hand went up to his face, then he pulled it away, self-conscious. “Almost good as new.”
El made a clucking sound of commiseration. “Poor baby – who knew Betty White had it in her?”
“She’s got a mean right hook, let me tell you,” he said wryly as Adler closed his office door behind him.
“You two are going to love this new assignment. Full access, and I mean full. It’s a tabloid editor’s wet dream, and we got it!” Vincent was talking excitedly, as if they’d all been in the middle of a conversation.
“Language!” Jones admonished, eyeing Elizabeth.
She scowled at him. “Ain’t you fucking adorable,” she said with a frown, then added, “Where are we going for this major exclusive? Up Miley Cyrus’s ass for her first ever colonic?”
“Your assignment will be Them Weekly’s most sensational achievement!” Vincent enthused, ignoring her. “Peter Burke!”
“Peter Burke?” Elizabeth asked, perplexed.
Adler stared at her, open-mouthed. “Don’t tell me you’ve never heard of him? Scion of the Burke dynasty? Rejected his family’s plans for him after business school to become an FBI agent? Had a torrid affair with that artist, what’s his name?”
Still Elizabeth’s mind was a blank.
“He’s marrying Sara Ellis this weekend?!?”
“Ooohhh, that girl from that one movie with that guy?” El might have heard something. “So?”
Adler shook his head, but still managed to maintain some of his excitement. “’Inside the Wedding of the Century,’ exclusively on the pages of Them Weekly!” he said, and El was only slightly appalled to see him employ jazz hands.
“Or what the kitchen maid saw through the keyhole,” she replied archly, “it’s almost quaint – what is this, 1940? How the hell are we going to get inside? Even the guests don’t know where the wedding will be.”
“Ah ha, so you do know who I’m talking about?”
She scowled at him.
“All has been arranged,” Adler said, all cagey again.
“I am not dressing as a cater waiter again,” Jones warned, and El had to nod her agreement, pointing at him with a thumb, the “me neither” fully implied.
“You won’t have to,” Vincent said, moving over to the doorway that led to the conference room adjacent to his office. When he opened it, El glanced through to spot a handsome young man sprawled in one of the comfy leather chairs like he owned the place. Taking his cue, he walked through into Adler’s office, all practiced ease and blue-eyed confidence. He looked like a bona fide Disney prince, and was just the type that would’ve had her dropping her panties within an hour, once upon a time; these days, she required dinner first.
“Who are you?” she asked, her tone a lot more confrontational than she wanted it to be.
“A friend of the Burke family,” Adler began, “He’s been working in our L.A. field office, and I believe he can help us.”
“Oh?”
“He’s a friend of Peter’s older step brother Ford, who unfortunately won’t be coming this weekend. He’ll introduce you as another old friend.”
“Good ol’ Ford, huh?” El asked, her suspicions mounting. “Tell me, does Burke even know this guy?”
“You might say Peter and I are old friends,” Blue-Eyes replied, and El couldn’t be 100% positive, but his teeth may have sparkled.
“You might also say you’re Neal Caffrey, and you were Peter Burke’s lover for five years,” Jones pointed out.
“Yes, you might.”
“Rumor was you even got married up in Vermont.”
Caffrey’s smile faded.
“What was it Perez Hilton called you two? Neater?” Jones continued, rising and leaning toward Caffrey with faked amity. “And I remember your break-up spectacularly well. You and he were vacationing in the Hamptons on a little racing yacht – the ‘Taurus’ wasn’t it?”
Elizabeth saw the muscles in Caffrey’s jaw bunching as he ground his molars – Jones had hit very close to the mark. “However did you know?” he asked Jones blandly.
“I was the one photographer whose camera you didn’t smash,” Jones said snappishly. “You were terribly nice about it though – just threw it into the harbor.”
“One of those, huh?” El said ruefully, clucking sympathetically for Jones’s poor camera.
“That’s right,” Caffrey said. “Silly me thinking our lives were our own business.”
“He did reimburse me for the camera, though,” Jones pointed out. “Though not the five grand the photo I had of Burke socking you on the jaw would’ve netted me.”
“I’ll write you a check,” Caffrey said without sincerity.
“Always the gentleman,” El observed, and Caffrey shrugged, the tension she’d seen across his shoulders suddenly easing as he plastered on a nearly-convincing smile again.
“I wouldn’t count on that,” he replied. El raised an eyebrow.
“Now then, what are the plans, Neal?” Adler interrupted. “The wedding’s Saturday, today’s Thursday. They should spend tomorrow night at the Burke’s place out in Scarsdale, yes?”
“Now wait just a minute, wait just a minute!” Elizabeth protested, addressing Adler. “There's something not right here. Why would he do this anyway…” Sudden realization dawned, and she turned on Caffrey, her eyes narrowing. “Oh, oh, I get it, now. You want to get even with your ex.”
“That’s my business if I do. I’ll have a car come round here and pick you both up at eleven tomorrow.” He looked Elizabeth up and down. “Oh, and… wear something appropriate, would you?” With that, he breezed out of Adler’ office, leaving Elizabeth spluttering in his wake.
“Well, whattaya… I mean… Who does he…” She was, for once, seriously at a loss for words.
“Here,” Jones said, elbowing her in the side and holding out a handkerchief. “There’s a little spit in your eye – and it’s showing.”
He flinched, but would never let his emotions enter his voice. “Yes, Mother?” He did love her, after all.
“Oh, there you are, darling, whatever are you doing all the way out here?”
Peter looked at the distance from the house to his seat on the patio – all of twelve feet – and sighed inwardly. “Phone reception’s better out here,” he lied.
She eyed him suspiciously. “Uh-huh. And I suppose it’s got nothing to do with the seating charts we were supposed to be working on?”
“Can’t you finish it?” he asked, aware he was whining. “All this wedding stuff’s driving me bonkers. Why isn’t Sara doing this?”
“Sara’s en route from L.A. and won’t be here until dinner time, you are supposed to know that. I promised her we’d do these last few things, now come on, don’t make me disappointed – you’re a Burke.”
“Did that ever mean anything?” Peter scowled; the Burke family was an important business and political dynasty, with Wall Street tycoons, Congressmen, and even a Supreme Court Justice among them.
“Don’t be childish.”
“Yeah, don’t be childish.”
Peter and June turned to see sixteen-year old Diana wander onto the patio, her nose in a thin book. She slouched over to the table where Peter was sitting, the heels of her sneakers dragging as she moved, eyes barely registering where she was going. She walked towards a chair until it scraped against her bare shins, then turned and fell gracefully into it, not losing her place in her reading at all.
“What’s that, sis?” Peter said, snatching the publication from her hands.
“Hey, give that back!” she protested, reaching for it.
“‘An Undulatory Theory of the Mechanics of Atoms and Molecules’,” Peter read. “Aren’t most girls your age reading Twilight or something?”
“Only the boring ones,” she said, snatching the book back.
“Don’t slouch, dear,” June said to her youngest.
Diana scowled, but straightened her posture.
“Some more gifts have arrived, madam,” Pederson their elderly butler said, bearing an armful of boxes.
“Set them down anywhere, Pederson.”
“Very good, madam. And that gift over there?” He gestured with his hand at a flatbed truck just beyond the garden’s edge that held a large, ornate marble fountain, complete with half a dozen cherubs, nymphs and satyrs all over it in various stages of undress.
“Somebody call the Vatican, I think one of their statues went missing,” Diana laughed.
“What the fuuu…dge is that?” Peter colored at his near-lapse in using curse words in front of his mother.
“Good Lord, it’s ghastly. Who’s it from, Pederson?” The man silently handed her a card. “Friends of your father,” she reported.
“Oh, which one? The inside trader or the Ponzi schemer?” Peter and his father had been estranged for months now, and had long been at odds even before that. Their latest disagreement stemmed from Reese’s dealings with some unsavory characters, including that muckraker, Vincent Adler; Peter no longer even remembered why they’d argued, but he had uninvited his father from the wedding.
“Oh, Peter, really. Do be polite.”
“Well, Mother, it’s not like I can turn it off, can I? I am an FBI agent.”
“Former FBI agent,” Diana corrected.
He sighed and closed his eyes. “Former FBI agent. And if Dad keeps associating with these men, it will come to no good. In this day and age, you’re only as good as your reputation, and one – just one scandal, and it’s connected to you every time someone Googles your name. I’m so lucky Sara has managed to keep herself above that sort of thing.”
“It can’t hurt your election chances, either,” June pointed out.
“No, it can’t. She’s really terrific, isn’t she?” Peter couldn’t keep the stupid grin off his face. His fiancée Sara Ellis was talented, beautiful, and in synch with Peter in all things, from religion to politics to social issues. He couldn’t think of a better mate.
“She certainly is,” June agreed enthusiastically.
“I liked you with Neal better,” Diana said.
Peter scowled. “Then why don’t you marry him?”
“I’d rather marry Sara,” Diana quipped.
“That makes two of us.”
“Why are you always so mean about Neal? What’d he ever do?”
“Never you mind, Diana,” June interrupted, “it was between them, and none of our affair.”
“You two could still have an affair,” Diana suggested hopefully.
“Out of the mouths of babes,” Peter said, standing over his little sister. “Just mind someone doesn’t shove a gag in yours.”
“That’s enough, you two. Diana, isn’t it time for your piano lesson?” June said.
“Ach, can’t we cancel that for just one week?” the teen protested.
The sound of someone whistling “Come On, Get Happy” floated to them on the summer breeze, causing Diana to cock her head to the side. “I know that whistle. Neal! Neal!” Diana got up and scampered happily over to the man in question as he wandered around the hedge beside the garden and threw her arms around his neck.
“Diana, my love, you are a sight for these sore eyes!”
Diana wormed her way under his arm and marched with him the rest of the way back to the patio, where he greeted June fondly with kisses on both her cheeks. “You’re as radiantly beautiful as ever,” he purred as she blushed like a girl.
“Caffrey, what the hell are you doing here?” Peter could barely control his anger at seeing his ex here and now, of all times, for a reunion.
“I heard you were throwing a wedding – don’t I come to all of your weddings?”
“Don’t you ruin all of my weddings?” Peter said from between gritted teeth.
“I will say getting married suits you – you’ve never looked better, babe.”
“Tell me, Neal – how was Ford when you saw him in L.A.?” June interrupted, always one for keeping the peace. June’s son by her first husband, Byron, was always a source of concern.
“Yes, how is my big brother?” Peter asked. “Finally drink himself through the new liver?”
“Now, that’s unkind, even for you,” June scolded and Peter’s face turned bright red as he murmured an apology.
Neal breezed over the nasty remark as he removed the straw fedora he wore and gestured with it expansively. “He sends his love. He’s heartbroken, of course, not to be able to come. I thought I’d offer my services as best man as he was unavailable.”
“Thank you, but I prefer a best man I can trust.”
“Still and all, I’m sure you’ll like the friends Ford sent in his place.”
“Friends? That Ford sent?” June asked, confused.
“Yes. A Miss Mitchell and a Mr. Jones. I’ve left them in the south parlor. You should tell them what rooms they’re staying in, June.”
“Rooms? They’re supposed to be staying this weekend?”
“Well, yes – it was Ford’s idea. They’ve been so helpful to him in his recovery that when they said they were coming down here for the weekend, he said he’d make all the arrangements. Has he not called?”
“You really used to be a lot better at conning people,” Peter spat.
“The fabled ‘gut’ in action?” Neal asked, a glint in his blue eyes.
“It’s never steered me wrong before. Hey, wait a minute, didn’t I hear you were hooked up with some tabloid out there in L.A.?”
“Entertainment journalism,” Neal corrected him.
“That’s right – the cleverly titled Them Weekly, yes? I don’t suppose these ‘friends’ of Ford’s work for the same rag, do they?”
“There’s that gut again. Darling, it really is getting a bit poochy.” Neal rubbed his own, flat abdomen and Peter’s face darkened.
“You know, I thought you were pretty low after what you did last time, but this, Neal, is beyond the pale even for you. Bringing paparazzi to my wedding!”
Maddeningly, Neal just kept smiling, and damn him for looking even better now than the day Peter banished him from his life – he thought forever.
“Peter, you’re slipping,” he said, his voice a throaty purr. “There was a time when that stern face of yours used to really get me shaking in my fine Italian leather shoes.”
Peter took a step forward, angry. “I used to think you had retained a shred of decency, even after what you did, but I see now I was wrong.”
“Oh, Peter, darling, please,” June began, putting a hand on his arm.
“Mother, not yet!” Diana said, face avid. “Maybe he’s gonna sock him again!”
“Diana – piano!” June scolded, and bundled the teen into the house.
When they’d gone, Peter rounded on his ex, wanting nothing more than to make Diana’s wish come true and punch Neal in his smirking face. He settled for clenching his fists. “Neal, I won’t stand for this. I want those people out of here and you with them!”
“Certainly, Your Honor. But first, could I interest you in some small blackmail?” Neal reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a sheaf of papers.
“What’s that?” Peter asked suspiciously.
“An expose, complete with photographic evidence, of your father’s past… indiscretions.”
Peter snatched the papers from Neal and scanned them, saying, “Give me a break, Neal, he would never cheat on June –“ His voice trailed off as he read the pages. “They can’t publish this – it’s all lies. It’s slanderous!”
“Libelous, technically, and yes, they can, because it appears to be true.”
Peter looked at Neal, and saw the truth in his eyes, and not a little regret that he had to be the one bringing this to Peter’s attention. “He really embezzled from the fund?” According to the story, Peter’s father, Reese Hughes Burke, highly-respected Wall Street tycoon, had embezzled from the high-yield mutual fund he’d made his bones on back in the 1990’s.
“The last recession hit a lot of people hard, Peter. He’s since paid it all back with interest.”
“But he still stole over $50 million, Neal. What am I supposed to do with this information?”
“More to the point, what’s Vincent Adler going to do with this information?”
Peter could feel the blood drain from his face. “The family will be ruined. My mother – this’ll kill her, Neal.”
“Don’t worry, it’s stopped for now, if you’ll just allow Miss Mitchell and Mr. Jones to turn in a story on your wedding for Them Weekly. And by story, I mean story”
“I think I’m gonna be sick.”
“Inside the Wedding of the Century of the Week,” Neal continued. “How many beads are on the bride’s designer dress, who’s fucking who, and what did Jay-Z and Beyoncé wear?”
“Now I am gonna be sick. Sara’ll never allow it.”
“She’ll do anything you ask, and you know it. You’re Peter Burke, Honorable Man TM. You wouldn’t know an ulterior motive if one bit you on the ass.”
Peter glared at him, but headed for the house, realizing he had no choice but to go along and make nice with the members of the fourth estate taking up space in his living room.
As he moved through the conservatory within, Diana stopped her piano practice and spun around. “No blood?” she said with exaggerated disappointment.
“Diana!” June admonished from her place at the table, fussing with a flower arrangement. “Peter, what are you going to do about the two reporters in the South parlor?” she asked nonchalantly.
Peter groaned inwardly – nothing got past his mother. “I’m going to lay down and take it,” he muttered.
“Really, darling? Well, then, I’ll alert the kitchen we’ll be five for luncheon.”
“Six,” Neal piped up, dropping his woven fedora onto the table.
“How nice,” June beamed at him. “Six for luncheon.”
Peter loitered near the doorway, glaring at his ex giving the puppy eyes to his mother when a pair of brown eyes appeared in his line of sight.
“Reporters? I can’t believe you caved,” Diana said.
“There are things you’ve no idea about, sis,” Peter said ruefully.
“You can give me ideas, you know,” she groused. “Everyone just treats me like a kid.”
Peter looked down at her kindly. She was so beautiful and, despite her snark and pretense at being a worldly person, so damn innocent. If the story about their father came out, it would hurt her beyond measure – beyond healing, Peter thought. Better she should stay as ignorant as possible for as long as possible.
But it didn’t mean she couldn’t be put to good use in this situation, and that they couldn’t both have some fun at their unwanted guests’ expense. Peter had an idea.
“Hey, Di, what do you say we give these reporters a taste of what they really came here for?”
“Oh, Peter, darling!” June admonished, overhearing. “Do behave yourself – why can’t we just be ourselves!”
Peter raised his eyebrows, all innocence. “That’s what I’m saying we do – we give them exactly what they expect to see and nothing less!” He winked down at Diana.
“Oh boy, this is going to be fun!” she enthused and ran off with Peter, he whispering plans into her ear.
xXxXxXxXx
“What are you doing that for?” she asked him testily.
He gave her a measuring look before answering, “Atmosphere. Want to set the stage for your story. There’s no telling what you’ll need – unless you’ve already made up your mind?”
El rolled her eyes. “I have an angle, but I’m not so sure Adler’ll go for ‘the Bolsheviks had it right.’ What’s that room? I forgot my compass,” she said, wandering – no, teetering was the better word, given the ridiculously high heels and narrow pencil skirt she’d donned in order to “wear something appropriate” to come here – over to a door at the far end of the room.
“It’s the South by South-Southwest parlor by living room,” Jones snarked, taking a photo of the view out of the window he stood in front of. “All this stuff – wouldn’t you know you have to be as rich as god to live in a dump like this?”
“I wouldn’t live here if they paid me,” El said derisively
“Don’t worry, they won’t.”
She stuck her tongue out at him and opened the door, whistling low when she did. Beyond the door was a long room – it could only be classified as a gallery – in which a number of paintings and sculptures were displayed. She wandered in, and her mouth dropped open as she took in the Hockneys – two of them – the Basquiat and the Frank Stella, a portrait of a beautiful African American woman by Warhol and, “Jesus. Fucking. Christ,” she breathed; at the far end of the room, set off with all the appropriate lighting, was an honest to god Van Gogh.
El approached it as she would have approached a wild animal. Or an angel. She got up close to it, close enough to see fucking bristles embedded in the paint. She swallowed, imagined she could smell the linseed oil. Mesmerized, she raised a hand, forgetting herself. She was about to touch it before the clearing of a throat brought her to her senses.
Startled, she stood up straighter. Cheeks burning, she saw the same butler who’d shown her and Clint into the other room standing there, a bland expression on his face.
“Nice painting,” she said lamely.
He just stood there, so motionless he himself might have been one of the objets she’d just passed.
“Is it real?”
He blinked at her.
“Suppose it must be, huh?”
Blink
“So. I should just…” she gestured with a thumb over her shoulder, then backed out of the room slowly.
----
“So what’s this Caffrey guy’s deal anyway?” El was sitting sprawled out on the couch – or was it technically a chaise longue? – in the South parlor. All this waiting around was making her testy. She pulled her iPhone out of her purse.
“Neal George Caffrey,” Jones intoned, flipping through the photos he’d taken so far on the viewfinder of his digital camera.
“What the hell kind of a name is that anyway? Could it be more white bread?”
“Because Elizabeth Mitchell isn’t the whitest girl in the room.”
“I’ll have you know I’m half Irish.”
“Black Irish, huh? And what’s the other half?”
“English.”
“You’re a regular mutt.”
El made a face and hit Wikipedia. “Neal George Caffrey. He’s one of the Newport Caffreys, dahling – whatever the hell that means. Up and coming artist and sculptor. Who makes a living as an artist these days?”
Jones gave her a look. “Not many.”
“I’m sorry, Clint. You were totally the best sculptor at that last gallery opening. I would have made a bid, honest.”
“I appreciate it,” he muttered, and went back to perusing the photos.
El felt bad – Clint really was a talented sculptor, specializing in trash art. The piece in question had been composed entirely out of plastic coffee cup covers and was a scathing indictment of modern corporations’ assimilation and co-opting of popular culture to further their brands, but hell if El had the money or the space in her tiny flat to accommodate it.
She picked up her phone again. “Says here ol’ Nealio is also a philanthropist – how does one get to be that at 30, anyways? And shit – check this out, here’s something from one of the gossip rags – it’s rumored he was arrested as a teenager running a three card Monty scam outside his prep school on the Upper West Side. I’m sure Daddy wasn’t too happy with that.”
She kept reading. “Oh,” she said as she went. “Looks like Daddy wasn’t really in the picture much – left the mom when the kid was like four. Then the mom was in and out of rehab. He was really raised by an aunt named Ellen Parker.”
“I guess even the rich have their problems.”
“As the poet said, ‘mo’ money, mo’ problems.’”
Any further research was hampered by the appearance of the man himself. “Is everybody comfortable?” he asked, apropos of nothing.
“Snug as bugs in rugs,” Jones said, slouching down more in the plush chair he occupied.
El got up and walked – hobbled, God were the balls of her feet on fire – over to him. “Caffrey, you’re sure the family’s going to be OK with two strangers in their midst? Adler won’t be happy if we can’t get this story in on time, and I’ve got two mouths to feed, you know.” She didn’t mention that one of those mouths was her dog Satchmo’s.
“No worries, it’s in the bag,” he said, moving smoothly over to a bar at the side of the room. He poured out a glass of lemonade for himself but offered neither of them anything. “Any friend of Ford’s and et cetera. June will love you, don’t worry.”
“It’s not the mother I’m worried about,” El said. “What about the fiancée? What’s her deal?”
“You’ll have to ask her publicist.”
“How’d they meet?”
“Heaven brought them together, I imagine,” Neal said, with just a hint of bitterness.
He was jealous, of that Elizabeth was certain; she filed that information away for later. “And what about Reese Hughes Burke – the father.” She went back to her iPhone. “Says here he founded the Burke Equity Fund back in the day – that’s where he made his name. And his own personal fortune. Man like that’s not without a few skeletons. Here’s a link to American Banker’s Who’s Who in American Finance – oh, but it’s for paid subscribers only.” She lowered her phone. “Don’t suppose there’s a library in this burg where I could look it up?” she raised an eyebrow at Caffrey. “And I don’t suppose you’d know where it was?”
“I suppose I do – my great-grandfather built it,” he said blandly and took a sip of his lemonade.
Elizabeth didn’t react, and went back to studying her phone. “And what about the groom – Peter John Burke. All I know is he’s running for the seat vacated recently by Senator Pratt.” She scrolled around on the phone. “Poll numbers look good – suppose that law and order stance he’s got must go a long way with the voters – former FBI agent and all. Wonder why he left the Bureau?”
“Are we done here?” Caffrey interrupted, putting his glass down and leaving abruptly.
“Well that’s not much to go on,” Jones says. “I guess you can fill in the blanks later.”
“How about I fill them in right now? Attended all the best Schools – Canterbury, Princeton undergrad, Harvard post-grad. Got the best grades of course – Daddy wouldn’t have stood for anything else. Was on his way to becoming a real Master of the Universe. God, I hate him already.”
El shuddered – already she’d worked herself into a tizzy, which she’d need to survive this weekend, she thought. Her own background was almost boringly normal, but it stuck in her craw that there were still people out there like the Burkes – moneyed and privileged and famous for nothing whatsoever but being famous.
“Peter John Burke – would I trade everything I have to have his life?” Clinton said, getting her attention. He was sitting forward in his chair. “You bet your very sweet ass I would.”
“You aren’t serious? I thought you had more integrity than that.”
“Integrity, schmintegrity, Elizabeth – I’ll take not waking up in a cold sweat because I don’t have enough money to make rent and feed myself over the moral high ground any day of the week.”
El opened her mouth to reply when another person entered the room.
“Hee-eey,” a teenaged girl cooed as she sauntered into the room. She was about El’s height, with coffee-colored skin and large, expressive eyes – simply beautiful, and destined to become more so as she got older. “I’m Diana Burke. You must be Ford’s friends.”
She made a beeline for Clinton, who sat straight up in his chair. She was wearing a tank top cut so low it would give Miley Cyrus pause and short shorts; El noticed with annoyance the girl was able to walk around on her own high heels without the need for a cane or hanging onto nearby furniture. Diana sat on the arm of the chair Clinton was sitting in and leaned into him.
“He-hello,” he said after clearing his throat several times first. El noticed his eyes snap up as soon as he caught himself glancing at the girl’s cleavage.
“How is my big brother?”
“F-fine.”
She leaned farther forward, until her breasts were brushing Clint’s shoulder. “So glad to hear it.”
“Meep.”
“Okay,” El announced, kicking off her shoes and getting to her feet; she walked over to nip this thing in the bud. “You’re Peter’s sister, right?” she asked, moving to Clint’s side to distract the girl. “Are you finding all of this wedding stuff to be exciting?”
Diana straightened up on the chair arm but didn’t stand. Her face fell into a fetching pout. “It’s OK, I guess. At least I get to wear a Stella McCartney to the party.”
“There you go,” El said unenthusiastically.
“Plus, #Petra is trending on Twitter! My friends are gonna be so jealous when I show up in Teen People!” She pulled out her cell phone and began to type enthusiastically into it. “Oh, poo!” she said after several seconds. She looked up, suddenly forlorn, large eyes even larger.
“What, uh, what happened?” Clint asked, keeping his eyes resolutely on the floor.
“Kylie Jenner’s got 23 more Twitter followers than me!”
“Oh no. How tragic,” El said, wondering why she should care.
”Yes, mother, I’ll remember to tell Pederson to bring the Bentley around. Which one did you want, the roadster or the Continental? Or the Continental convertible?”
They all turned their heads as the voice sounded from somewhere just outside the door through which Diana had arrived. A moment later, Peter Burke appeared.
Elizabeth had to admit that the tall drink of water that strode in was very easy on the eyes – tall, with long legs and broad shoulders, he carried himself with confidence and not a little grace. He was tanned, with short-cropped brown hair and an open, friendly face with twinkling, brown eyes that shone with intelligence. He was dressed to play polo: snug-fitting white pants, knee-high black boots, and a tight, maroon shirt that stretched enticingly across his well-defined pectorals. Elizabeth had to stop herself from staring, open-mouthed.
“Oh Di, there you are. Mother was looking for you. You’ve got an appointment with your stylist or something.” He paused to inspect his fingernails.
“Mon dieu!” the teen exclaimed, and jumped to her feet. “I forgot! If I don’t get there now, they’ll give away the Monique Lhullier!” She dashed from the room, shouting for her mother.
“Well, hello,” Peter said. He slapped the riding crop he held against the top of a boot and turned to greet El and Clint, who stood. “You must be Ford’s friends. I’m Peter Burke, though I suppose you must know that already. Any friends of my brother’s and et cetera. So nice to have you for the weekend.”
“We’re happy to be here,” El lied.
“Too bad Ford couldn’t be here – it would have been nice to have one of the men in this family stand up with me.”
“Where’s your father?” El asked.
“Good old Dad,” he replied breezily, and smiled. “I hope you’ll consider coming to the wedding too? Sara – my girl – she’d love to have you.”
“That was more or less the idea.”
“Everything’s kind of a mess, of course, but my mother’s on top of it. Women are so good at party planning! Oh, is that a camera?” He reached for Clint’s camera, which he still held in his hand.
Clint was loath to part with it – El knew it’d set him back a pretty penny. “I--I take pictures with it,” he stammered.
“Well I hope you'll take loads. We hired Annie Leibovitz to do the wedding portraits, of course, but no media on the day itself. Miss Bennett, can you imagine anyone sinking so low as to work for a tabloid?”
“I imagine I can’t,” she said, cheeks coloring.
“Oh, but you’re some sort of a writer, aren't you, Miss Bennett? Fashion, is it? Or blogging? I love a good blog. Is it one of those ones with lots of cats?”
“I am a playwright,” El replied through clenched teeth.
“Really? Aren’t you a clever girl. Have any been produced?”
“You could say so.” El’s play, “Us. Talking.” had won the New York Drama Critics Circle Award for best play six years before; her follow up had stalled in pre-production and then a bad case of writer’s block had kept her from producing anything of value since. She took the job with Adler to make a few bucks as a freelancer. “One of them has.”
“Only one? Doesn’t sound like much for a girl your age. I don't mean to criticize. You've probably got other interests outside your work. Like those cat blogs!”
El felt her hands curl into fists; she calmed when she felt Clint’s steadying hand on her shoulder.
“Oh, that’s it – you two are together, aren’t you? I should have assumed. You look so well-matched.”
Clint stammered wordlessly and withdrew his hand as Burke turned and addressed him for the remainder of the conversation. “I think you’ve got your hands full with that one,” he said to Clint conspiratorially. “But I have always thought it was a good idea to allow your woman to have outside interests, don’t you? I insist my future wife keep her career for at least a little while – it’ll make her so happy.”
“Outside interests? Outside of what?” Clint asked, giving Elizabeth the side-eye.
“Why, outside of me,” Peter said with a laugh and crossed to pour himself a glass of lemonade. “But that will have to change when she has our children, of course. Then she’ll have to put all her focus on that. Priorities and whatnot.” He turned, fingering the lip of his glass. “And you, Mr. Jones, what is it that you do?”
“I – I’m an artist by trade.”
“How thrilling. I’m a big fan of art – especially Thomas Kinkade. Do you know his work?”
“I can’t say that I –“
“Oh, it’s just loaded with symbolism,” Burke enthused and Elizabeth suppressed the urge to roll her eyes. “Is your work? Loaded with symbolism?”
“I think it’s rather a bit too subtle for some audiences,” Elizabeth commented.
“Oh?”
“Clint’s work is meant to make people uncomfortable in their complacency and privilege.”
Burke frowned. “It’s supposed to make you think?”
“Yes.”
“I wonder what’s keeping my mother,” he said, and left the room.
Elizabeth watched him go, looked at Clint, then back at the door through which Burke had disappeared. “What just happened? Just who’s doing the interviewing here?”
“You don’t suppose he caught on, do you?” Clint asked.
“No, he was born that way – entitled and clueless.”
“Can we leave now?”
“Don’t tempt me. But if we don’t, we’ll never work in this town again – Adler’ll see to that.”
“Oh my, you must be Ford’s friends. I’m Mrs. Burke.”
Elizabeth turned to see an absolutely stunning and elegant woman enter the room – she could see where young Diana got her looks. She peered at Elizabeth appraisingly.
“You’re very pretty,” she said rather plainly.
“Uh, thank you?”
“I suppose that should not be a surprise – Ford collects attractive people.” She turned her head as Peter re-entered the room. “Isn't she pretty, Peter?”
“If you like that,” Peter shrugged, not looking at Elizabeth.
“Will you have lunch with us on the patio?” Mrs. Burke asked, and moved away, not waiting for their answer. She held a bejeweled hand out for Clint to take in the crook of his arm. “How nice to have us all together this weekend – we’re all so busy lately, it feels like holidays are the only time we can properly see each other. “
Elizabeth struggled to shove her feet back into her shoes and catch up to them. She was at a perfect angle to see Diana sidle in from somewhere to their left and pinch Clint on the ass before taking his other arm. He yelped and stumbled.
“This is my daughter Diana,” Mrs. Burke said breezily.
“We’ve met,” Clint said, obviously squirming, but they’d arrived at the table set for lunch before Elizabeth had a chance to rescue him.
“How wonderful we can all be so chummy already,” June was saying. “I expect my husband at any moment, and then you’ll have met the entire family.”
El raised an eyebrow – she had read rumors of estrangement within the family during her impromptu research a few minutes earlier, and now couldn’t wait to see how it would play out.
“Hello, hello!” came a musical voice from somewhere behind them and Elizabeth turned to see who it was. A stunning redhead glided across the patio, tall and slender and graceful, and El felt suddenly short and dumpy by comparison. She straightened up her back to her full five feet, two inches plus shoes.
“Darling! You’re early!” Burke said, and at least he seemed sincerely glad to see his fiancée. He greeted the redhead with open arms and a kiss. The young woman actually kicked her leg out behind her, making El want to puke right then and there, only she’d skipped breakfast that morning in order to pack for the weekend and had an empty stomach.
“This is my fiancée, Sara Ellis,” Burke said by way of introduction. “Binky, these are friends of Ford’s – Miss Mitchell and Mr. Jones.”
Binky? What the fu – “Please call me Elizabeth.”
Sara’s hand in El’s was perhaps a bit bony, but it was warm and soft, as was her smile. “I’m glad to know you,” she said.
“She’s a writer,” Peter supplied.
“I’m afraid so,” El said self-depracatingly.
“Oh, don’t apologize,” Sara replied. “I have a great respect for the written word. I wouldn’t have my job if it weren’t for writers.”
“My, what a surprise, look at all the people,” someone said, and El turned around again, reflecting that this was getting to be more and more like a French farce by the minute. The man who’d entered was short and bald, with thick, dark glasses on his face. He wore a short-sleeved, button-down shirt open at the neck, khakis and espadrilles, and held a straw fedora in his hands.
“DAD!” Peter said, perhaps a bit too loudly as he went over to address the man, who flinched visibly at his approach.
“How great to see you, Dad – what a surprise!” Diana said, running to kiss her father on the cheek; the man looked a bit shocked at all the attention, but he hugged the girl back fondly. Elizabeth didn’t think he looked much like a Master of the Universe, nor like the man who’d fathered those particular children, but she allowed it Diana’s mother was very attractive – there was no accounting for taste.
“Hello. My. Wife,” Burke père said, sidling over to June, who eyed his attire disdainfully, but nevertheless smiled at him when he kissed her on the cheek.
“Well, now, isn’t this cozy?” June said as the butler squeezed two more place settings onto the table.
“What’s he doing here?” the elder Burke exclaimed, and Elizabeth as well as half the party now assembled whirled around to spot Caffrey leaning nonchalantly against a potted tree.
“How now,” he said, a crooked smile on his face. Elizabeth thought this couldn’t get much better, and wished she’d thought to bring a tape recorder.
Caffrey strode forward, a hand outstretched to the bride. “I believe best wishes are in order,” he said. Sara gave him her hand and as he bent over it, he said, “You look a little pale, my dear. I thought all brides were meant to be blushing? Don’t worry about it, I know exactly how you feel. Run, don’t walk.”
An exaggerated shutter-click sounded beside her and Elizabeth glanced over to see Clint had taken a picture of the hand kiss. Noticing, Caffrey smiled dazzlingly at the camera.
Peter was at her side in the span of a breath, a hand in the middle of her back. “Running. You’d know a lot about that,” he practically growled at Caffrey.
“I only know what you taught me, and you were only too eager to chase me away,” he replied as Peter advanced on him like he’d like to hit him.
“Come now, darlings, don’t fight – we have guests,” Mrs. Burke said with a light laugh. “They grew up together, you know,” she said to Clint and El, “oh, how they’d bicker and row.”
“How nice,” Elizabeth responded, eyes not leaving the two men.
“But you seemed to like a little trouble every now and then, Peter – at least when we first started,” Caffrey continued, then addressed Sara. “He needs trouble every now and then, Sara, and lots of it.”
“He won’t be getting it from me,” she said, looking up at Peter adoringly.
“That’s too bad. Sometimes I think you should have stuck with me longer, Peter – gotten what you needed.”
“I thought it was for life, but the nice judge gave me a full pardon,” Peter replied.
Caffrey’s smile got wider, like a shark’s. “You would know all about judging.”
Peter returned the smile, and honestly, El thought they’d either throw down right then or else start screwing like rabbits, the tension was so thick. The click of Clint’s camera beside her was enough to break it.
“Oh look, lunch is served,” Mrs. Burke said, and swept them all to the table in her wake.
“Oh, hello,” Mr. Burke said to Elizabeth as he took the seat next to hers. “You’re one of the bridesmaids?”
“No, I’m not.“
“So you don’t know her? The bride?”
“We’ve only just met today.”
“Good, then you won’t mind it if I gossip. She can be a bit of a stick in the mud.”
“You don’t say?” El said, smelling a story there. She eyed the happy couple, who were conferring on something at the opposite end of the table.
“Plus she refuses to help me expose the fact that Hollywood is run by an international cabal of Illuminati, who are intent on subliminal mind control experiments through YouTube videos.”
“Um, really?”
He dropped his voice to a hoarse whisper, “Do you really think baby monkeys ride on pigs of their own volition?”
“I suppose… not?”
“Exactly,” he said, tapping the side of his nose with his forefinger. El thought he was a little bizarre to be a Wall Street icon, but she supposed it took all kinds.
“Dad,” Peter interrupted. “Please don’t bore the guests with your wacked-out theories!”
“They are not ‘wacked-out,’ Suit, and you’ll do well to heed my warnings before mixing yourself up with the very establishment that’s been perpetrating the entire thing!”
“Who – me?” Sara said, when he gestured at her.
“I haven’t worked for the Bureau in two years, you can stop calling me Suit,” Peter said.
“You’re running for Senate – that’s even suitier.”
“That’s not even a word.”
“Don’t distract me with facts. I clearly failed to bring you up properly.”
“Darling,” Mrs. Burke said, leaning over and taking her husband’s hand in hers lovingly, “your jokes are flying right over the heads of our guests.” If El wasn’t mistaken, June was also digging the heel of her shoe into the tender flesh of the man’s ankle under the table. “Please play nice.”
“Yes, June,” he said, chastised.
There was a sudden flurry of activity as Diana got up and ran into the house; she soon returned to the doorway and gestured for her mother, who joined her inside. A moment later, Peter stood, looking pale and a little angry.
“Uncle Mozzie!” he said rather too loudly to a tall, older gentleman who stood in the doorway now, Diana and June both behind him, looking apprehensive. “What a surprise, I’d have thought you’d be at home preparing for the party tonight!”
Peter excused himself and went into the house, sweeping the older man, June, and Diana with him. The door shut with a slam, leaving the rest of the guests staring after them all in a bit of shock.
“Hasn’t this been fun?” Caffrey said with an almost vicious glint in his eye. He grabbed a bottle of wine that the butler had just brought in an ice bucket and thumbed the cork out of it with a loud POP. “Who’s for some champagne?”
xXxXxXxXx
“You were the one who wanted to present this image of the perfect family!”
“But not with your Uncle Mozzie – honestly! I love him, and he’s my oldest friend, but there’s no way I’d have married him!”
“Well, it would have worked if he hadn’t shown up.” He turned to his father, who was having a happy reunion with Diana in the corner of the room. “I thought I asked you not to come.”
Reese Hughes Burke raised a dignified eyebrow and approached his son. “And I thought this was still my house, and you all still my family. I missed your first wedding, Peter, I’m not about to miss this one.” He held out a hand to June, who came to his side and took it, kissing the back of it fondly.
“Mother?” Peter said, throwing a betrayed look at June.
“He deserves to be here, Peter, no matter what your issues may be.”
“You can just forgive him, then? After all he’s done? The – the women?” Rumors of his father’s cheating had run rampant for years, though Peter had no proof of it.
“What he has done has been to keep a roof over our heads and make us all very comfortable, Peter,” June said very sharply.
“But June, he’s betrayed you, and –“
“And that’s between us, my boy.”
“I don’t get you sometimes,” Peter said, stung by her taking his father’s side – she always had and it was clear she always would. If only she knew how much of it was based on lies and deceit, he wondered how she’d feel then. But no, he would not be the one to bring that up, not here, not to her. She was the woman who’d raised him, and he would never hurt her.
“I think I’m a pretty open book, Peter,” she said sadly, but he was already gone.
She loved libraries; loved the dusty smell of paper and ink and bindings, the tactical pleasure in turning pages, the accomplishment inherent in discovering the fact that tied together whatever it was she was writing at the time. Sure, online research was more efficient, but being here where she could lay her hands on the sources was far more satisfying.
The research librarian hooked her up with the volumes she was looking for to provide local history and background on the Burke family, and she made her way to a sturdy wooden table in the corner of the reference section so she could get some research done. She was very surprised to find Peter Burke already there, his nose buried in a volume.
“Why, Mr. Burke, I didn’t expect to find you here,” Elizabeth said when she’d happened upon him. She would normally have retreated without a word and left him to his privacy, but she was so surprised to see him that she spoke aloud.
“Miss Mitchell,” he said, and actually stood up when she approached. “Please, call me Peter.”
“Only if you call me Elizabeth,” she said to him. He held out a chair for her and she took a seat – how unlike the vapid and shallow man she’d encountered earlier. “I must say, I’m surprised to find you here.”
“Surprised I read, or that I do it in a library?” he asked, an arch expression on his face.
“A little of both, maybe,” she admitted as he sat back down across the table from her.
“I love this place,” he confessed. “I used to come down and read to little kids when I was in prep school. There are a lot of memories in these old walls for me.”
“That’s nice,” Elizabeth said. “What brings you down here this afternoon?”
“Your play,” he said, holding the book up so she could see its cover. “I wanted to read it, and they had a copy here. It’s not available for e-readers.”
“Oh.” She said, suddenly self-conscious; she’d have to talk with her publisher. “How do you like it?”
“I like it very much. It’s very emotionally complex for what appears to be a comedy.”
“That’s what the critics said,” El told him. Too bad that hadn’t translated into box office – while well-received, her play was no great commercial success, and she got no bites from Hollywood for film adaptations, as had been rumored at the time of the play’s debut.
He looked her in the eyes, his own shining. “I feel as if I’m looking into your soul when I read it.”
“Ha! That isn’t so easy.”
“It’s not at all – is it? But it’s not at all what I expected. Neither are you. You seem like such a smart aleck, so hard and cynical on the outside, and then you write something like this.” He brushed the pages with his fingertips, almost a caress. “Which one are you?”
“Can’t I be both?”
“No. No, I think the hardness is a defense mechanism.”
“Do you?”
“I know a little about that,” he said wistfully, his eyes suddenly soft, and how had she not noticed the intensity and intelligence there before?
“I wish I’d seen the production,” he went on. “The character of Julian – he’s you, isn’t he?”
“Yes,” she admitted. No one ever picked that up – instead they assumed the woman, Angel, was the stand-in for Elizabeth.
“I love his strength – it’s undeniably… feminine, if I may make that observation.”
“You may.”
He stared at the wall as he pulled his thoughts together. “There’s a resoluteness to him, firm yet still compassionate, that I’m afraid is all too lacking in characters written by men.” His eyes met hers. “I’m sorry,” he said self-consciously, “you probably don’t want to hear my two-bit analysis – you’re a serious writer.”
“No, no – your observations are valuable – and astute. I’m happy you’ve pulled that out of the text on first reading. It’s like you’re inside my brain.”
He grinned at her. “I suppose mine is a very feminine outlook on life, then?”
“Or mine is very male,” she said with a laugh. “But what does gender matter? We’re all people. Aren’t we?” She leaned forward almost without knowing it, her hand inching forward until it was resting on his wrist.
“Yes,” he said simply, and then winced when a librarian approached and shushed them. “Say, I dunno if you’re doing much of anything else this afternoon, but I was going to head back to the house and go for a swim. It does wonders for clearing the head, and I’ve got a lot to clear my head of, let me tell you! Would you like to come along?”
He smiled at her, his brown eyes sincere and open, and she suddenly found herself intrigued and interested in this man. Despite the distasteful first impression she’d gotten, he was seemingly sensitive, and it was an interesting angle to him. Her research into the family could wait – she wasn’t about to turn down an hour with the groom and future Senator himself.
“I sure would,” she answered, and she watched as he marked his place in the book, then stood and offered to carry her laptop case for her. He checked the book out and they left the building, talking of other plays they both enjoyed as they walked out of the center of town.
They were soon walking along a country lane that had no sidewalk – nothing but a greenbelt beside the road, a split rail fence with a vast tract of land beyond that to their right. When a car passed, honking its horn at them, it startled Elizabeth so much that she screamed, a little.
“Are you all right?”
“I am, I’m sorry,” she said, a hand over her heart. “Just a little jumpy today I guess.”
“Well, here,” he said, walking ahead to a join in the fence. He lifted the two rails out of their posts and motioned for her to precede him through to the other side.
She eyed him like he was crazy. “Won’t the people who own this land mind that we’re trespassing?” she asked.
He shrugged, “It’s part of our place.”
She suppressed the urge to whistle – the Burke “place” was probably still two miles from here at least, at least the house was.
“This is a short cut,” he said as she walked through and he did the same, then replaced the rails in the fence.
They walked across a large field that had grass growing on it at about knee-height. She imagined it would all be harvested as hay in the fall. “This place is really nice – did you grow up here?”
“Yep – used to ride horses up and down this very field. It was a good childhood, more or less.”
“I read that your mom died when you were little.”
“I was six. June was my Auntie June then – she was my mother’s roommate at Sarah Lawrence.”
“So did tragedy make old friends into something more?”
He laughed nervously. “Something like that. It took a long time for them to get together finally. I think I almost wanted her for my mother more than Dad wanted her for a wife.”
“She clearly loves you very much.”
“She’s one of the best people I know. She’s always supported me – more than my father ever did.”
“What did she think when you joined the FBI?”
“She didn’t like the fact that I’d be putting myself into dangerous situations, potentially, but she saw why I wanted to do it. She respected it.”
“And why did you want to do it?”
“Because I thought I could make a difference.”
“And did you?”
“It’s not for me to answer that.”
“You don’t know?”
He shrugged. “It’s all kind of subjective, isn’t it?”
“Your publicist doesn’t think so – you had a 93% case closure rate.”
“My division had a 93% closure rate – we were a team. It was a team effort.”
“Why did you leave?”
“What’s my publicist say?”
“That you wanted to pursue a political career.”
“Uh-huh. And what does your research say? What will you put in your story, Elizabeth?”
He stopped walking and she turned to look at him. She was unsurprised he knew why she was there – the story that his older brother had sent her here was never going to hold any water. “It says you’re a rich, entitled snob who couldn’t hack a blue collar job, even if he was investigating white collar crimes.”
“Does it?”
“I don’t believe either. I think the truth is somewhere in the middle.”
He nodded, and a look of infinite sadness passed across his face that he quickly suppressed. He then turned to continue walking toward the estate.
“Hang on, you should watch it here – it’s a little muddy,” he said, guiding her around a sodden area with a hand at her elbow.
“Thanks – these are my favorite kicks,” she said, eyeing her Chuck Taylors. “So, you gonna kick me out when we get back?” she asked after several more minutes’ walk.
“No.”
“Why not?”
“You’re already here. You’ll write what you want now regardless of what I say or do. Maybe you’ll write something good.”
“This’ll be no celebrity puff piece, you know, Peter, no matter who I write for. My readers expect the truth from me, and I won’t be easy on you if the story goes that way.”
“I didn’t say you’d write something easy, I said you’d write something good.”
“Oh. OK then.”
xXxXxXxXx
“Including a kayak?” Elizabeth asked, eyeing the Olympic-sized pool with wide eyes.
He laughed and dropped her laptop onto a chair before going inside one of the cabanas to change. When he emerged, she had already changed and was waiting for him, wearing a navy wrap over a matching swimsuit, both of which brought out the darker undertones in her bright blue eyes. He crossed over to a small patio table and poured them each some of the iced tea that sat waiting in a pitcher the staff had set out.
“This place is kind of amazing,” Elizabeth said to him. “Do you and Sara plan to live here after you’re married?”
“I don’t know, actually. Sara’s got her career, and I’ve got mine.”
“The timing seems a little off, then – you’ll be in Washington if you win the election.”
“My dear, the timing has been determined by the election. If I had my way, we’d have eloped to Vegas. But – I know my family wants this. They want to see me happy, and I want to make them happy, so… wedding of the century. I honestly can’t wait ‘til it’s over.” He sipped his tea and muttered without thinking, “Last time was so much easier.”
“Last time?”
Peter bit his lip; he’d said too much already – he wasn’t about to tell her anything about his relationship with Neal. But before he had a chance to change the subject, a loud, trilling whistle sounded from somewhere close by. “Dammit, speak of the devil – there’s Neal. Listen, don’t leave me alone with him, will you? If you’re here, I’ll be sure not to…”
“Sock him on the jaw?” she asked.
It wasn’t what he was about to say, but it suited well enough. “Something like that.”
He turned in time to see Neal approach from the east side of the pool. He’d removed his jacket, and Peter noticed how toned and tanned his arms were where they were exposed by the short sleeves of the polo shirt he wore, its fabric so fine it was nearly sheer, and Peter could see the tank he wore underneath, the pert nipples beneath that... He had to clear his throat.
“Hello, Your Honor,” Neal said as he dropped the bag he held onto a nearby chaise.
“Hello,” Peter replied, frowning at the hated nickname. “Fancy seeing you here.”
“June and I were just catching up, and she asked me to come find you,” he said, taking Peter’s glass from his hands and taking a sip. “She wanted me to tell you she still needs you to review seating charts or something. How full your life is now, Peter, how rich and fulfilling.”
“I’m happy with it,” Peter said acidly. “I like the domesticity of it. The stability.”
“Yes, I suppose you had no hope of ever having that with me.”
“Tell me, Neal, will you do me a favor?”
“For you? Anything.”
Peter stepped forward and put a hand on Neal's shoulder. “Go home.” Then he rather childishly dug his thumb into the sensitive skin along Neal's clavicle until he winced. “Do you mind telling me what you’re hanging around here for?”
Out of the corner of his eye, Peter spotted Elizabeth moving away. “Oh, please don’t go, Elizabeth,” he said to her.
“Oh no, please don’t go, Elizabeth,” Neal repeated, and she turned back to face them both, an uncomfortable expression on her face. “As a writer, this ought to be right up your alley.”
“Yes, don’t miss a word,” Peter said, his eyes still on Neal.
“But look at you, Peter,” Neal said, dislodging Peter’s hand, but holding onto the wrist. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you so perfect. What do you think, Miss Mitchell? Isn't he the absolute paragon of considered wisdom and judgment? You’d think he was the very embodiment of Solomon himself. A monument to moral perfection.”
There was a hard glint in Neal's eye, and Peter pulled his hand away, his entire body tensing.
“Now girls,” Elizabeth said, a note of alarm in her voice.
Peter calmed himself. “We’re talking about me now? Hoo-ray,” he said acidly, and turned away.
Neal turned and approached Elizabeth, leaning his hip against the chaise. “Your writerly ear will appreciate this character insight, Elizabeth. You know: in case it’s needed.” She raised her eyebrows and Peter winced inwardly to think of the effect this little scene would have on her story, but there was nothing for it now.
“What to say about Peter Burke? Well, he’s generous to a fault,” Neal continued, “other people’s faults, that is. Such as my own marked youthful enthusiasm.”
“Is that what we’re calling it?” Peter scoffed. “I thought you lacked all impulse control or consideration for the consequences of your behavior.”
Neal flinched at the words, turned to look at him again. “I considered plenty, and would have made it all right if I’d had the chance to explain. But you weren’t going to give me that, were you, Your Honor? For better or worse, Peter, that’s what we said. You left before I had any hope of fixing anything.”
“You were in a position to fix nothing, and all I saw was your selfish weakness, and it led to –“ Peter stopped himself; he wasn’t so angry that he’d spill this secret in front of a stranger, and one from the press at that. “You know what it led to,” he muttered instead.
“Yes, my weakness,” Neal said bitterly, and looked away. “Weakness, Elizabeth – that’s what he abhors. And once he finds it – case closed, guilty as charged, you are sentenced to life. One day, I woke up to realize he’d already – oh forget about it.”
“Say it.”
The pain and anger in Neal's eyes was as fresh as the day they’d parted. “That you’d already appointed yourself my judge, jury, and executioner, and I had been sentenced with no opportunity for parole.”
Peter scoffed and turned away. “You would remember it that way.”
“And what do you think happened, Elizabeth, when – oh, she’s gone.”
Peter looked over and she was nowhere to be seen. “I suppose I’m not surprised, the scene we’re creating,” he said. “At least we won’t see this dirty laundry aired on the pages of Them Weekly. Look, Neal, why exactly are you here? To dredge up painful old memories?”
As usual, Neal answered with a misdirect, “What are you trying to do with this marriage to Sara? How can you even think of it?”
“Sara Ellis is everything you're not. She’s real and she’s honest in ways that have never even occurred to you, I’m sure.”
“An actress? Really?”
“I love her as I never even began to love you.”
Neal looked stung, but he seemed to suppress it. “You’ve sold yourself short, then.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means I can’t believe you’d settle for someone so obviously beneath you.”
“Careful, Neal, your elitism is showing.”
Neal looked insulted. “You know me better than that. When I say she’s beneath you, I mean it’s because she’s not even remotely your intellectual or emotional equal. You could marry a hotel maid and I’d cheer you if I thought she’d challenge you. But this one – she’s as shallow as that kiddie pool over there.
“Go ahead and marry her, though, and good luck to you. She’ll never challenge you as I did. Not your mind, not your heart, and certainly not your –“ His eyes drifted south of Peter’s belt.
“You’re filthy.”
“As I recall, that’s how you liked me best.”
“You have a lot of contempt for me,” Peter observed.
The anger left Neal's eyes, but not the pain as he stepped closer. “Not for you, Your Honor, never you. I hate something inside of you, I hate what it’s made you into. The man I fell in love with could give people the benefit of the doubt, used his compassion to see all sides of a problem – he wanted to make a difference in the world. But now – now you’re this detached, implacable thing. No one is immune to your judging them, and no one can ever measure up to your standards, either. It’s that prejudice I have contempt for, and your narrow mindedness.”
It was Peter’s turn to flinch. “Oh, is that all?” he asked, hurt but not wanting to show it.
“It’s the gist. You know, you’ll never truly succeed, Peter – not at being a real man – until you learn to have some regard, some charity, for simple human frailty.”
Peter’s eyes stung, but he blinked back the tears. His entire body shook, and he was afraid of what he might say or do next. He took a step back.
“Well, should I be worried to see this twosome?” a female voice interrupted them, and Peter saw that Sara had arrived. Her tone of voice suggested light playfulness, but there was concern in her eyes.
“No need. I’ll be on my way,” Neal said and excused himself. “I left you a wedding present,” he said, indicating the gift bag he’d left on the chaise before walking away.
“Everything all right?” Sara asked, placing a hand on Peter’s arm. She always could sense when he was in a bad mood, and he loved her for it. It took a physical effort for him to release the tension from his muscles, and it was largely due to her presence.
“It is now, because you’re here,” he said and bent to kiss her on the cheek.
She reached a hand behind his neck and guided his head over to kiss her on the mouth instead. “That’s what I needed,” she breathed, and he kissed her a second time.
He smiled but looked away, still hurt and angered by Neal's words and not wanting to have to explain. The pool behind them gave him the perfect distraction to clear it all from his head, so he crossed over, climbed the ladder to the diving board and executed a near-perfect full gainer into the water. He swam underwater nearly the entire length of the pool and when he resurfaced, at the opposite end, he saw that Sara was removing something wrapped in tissue paper from the bag Neal had left behind.
“It’s the Taurus!” he said, resting his arms on the edge of the pool and blinking up at her.
“The Taurus?” she asked, wandering over to him.
He reached out a hand and she handed it to him; he was not mistaken, it was a perfect replica of Neal's racing yacht. Peter set it on the surface of the pool and watched it bob on the water, fascinated. “It’s a yacht that Neal designed and practically built himself. We sailed it up and down the coast of New England the summer –“ he paused. The summer we fell in love, he meant to say, but didn’t. “One summer long ago, when we were kids,” he said instead, and peered at the thing closely, remembering.
Neal had once said that the Taurus was a representation of all their relationship had meant to him. He said he thought of Peter every time he worked on her; he’d carved and polished the wood for the railings inside himself, said that every touch of sandpaper or brush of stain was a caress meant for Peter. Peter also remembered her maiden voyage; he and Neal had made love on nearly every flat surface, and even a few upright ones, to christen her.
“My, she was yar,” Peter said almost without realizing he’d spoken, lost in the memories.
“Yar? What’s that mean?”
“Oh, it means… easy to handle, quick to the helm. Fast, bright – everything a boat should be. Until it develops dry rot, that is.” He pushed the thing away and the loathing he felt at that moment was for more than his ex. He hauled himself out of the pool and sat on its edge, hands pushing the water from his face.
Sensing his inner turmoil, Sara crouched behind him and put her arms around him, despite his being soaking wet, and kissed him on the ear. “I don’t know what you and Neal talked about, but put it from your mind, my love. He’s not good enough for you, and he never was. How could he be? You’re perfect, and he’s – ”
“I’m really, really not, Sara.”
“You are from where I’m sitting, and that’s all that matters. Since the day I met you, I admired your high principles and your immutable sense of what how things should be.”
“Some would call that judgmental.” he said miserably.
“And who is better qualified to judge than someone like you?”
“You shouldn’t say such things.”
“You’re an important man, Peter – you’re a Burke,” she continued, ignoring his unease. “Decisive and unswayed by public opinion or private interests. You can judge because you’ve a right to, because you’ve been born to it, and frankly because sometimes people need that in their lives.”
“Who’s to say I’ve the right to judge? Not me. I don’t ever want that, I never have.”
“Of course you do – you’re running for the United States Senate. Now come on, we’re running out of time to get ready for the party at your Uncle Mozzie’s.” She kissed him again and stood, waiting for him with her hand outstretched.
Peter stood, took her hand, and let her lead him back to the house.
----
Peter adjusted his cuff links as he strode into the library; June had planned a small champagne toast with just the family before leaving for Uncle Mozzie’s, who’d arranged a rehearsal dinner that included neither the wedding rehearsal nor any dinner. Upon entering, he cursed his own punctuality, as the only other person in the room was his father.
“Good evening, Dad,” he said in a clipped voice.
“Peter,” Reese said with a nod. “I’d offer you some champagne, but I think your mother would kill me if I opened it yet.”
“I’m not averse to the harder stuff,” Peter said, indicating the glass of amber liquid his father held. Reese poured him two fingers of Scotch and handed him the glass. Peter accepted it and poured a very small measure of water in, then strolled over to the fireplace as he sipped it.
“I know we’ve had our differences, Peter, but you’re getting married, and – I don’t want to leave things so unsettled between us. How can I ask you to forgive me?” Reese asked in a low voice.
Peter felt himself tense; he had hoped to avoid this conversation for at least the weekend, if not forever.
Throughout his life, Peter had had to live with the whispered rumors and raised eyebrows that always surrounded his family. Decades before, his great-grandfather, the original Peter Burke, had made most of his fortune through rum-running during the Great Depression, and of course there were all sorts of sordid tales real and imagined that surrounded that. Once World War II happened, the old man invested it all wisely in munitions and defense contractors, and thus the family’s initial fortune was born. Peter’s grandfather, Hughes Forster Burke, had legitimized them all by being elected to the Senate and, eventually, had made an unsuccessful run for the White House. The rest of the family followed similar career paths, either making careers on Wall Street or in Washington – some had done both – making business and politics something of a family business for the Burke clan ever since.
Peter’s father, Reese Hughes Burke, had gone his forebears one better by establishing himself as a force to be reckoned with in the 1980’s and 90’s, making his own personal fortune almost immeasurably vaster. But his rise was not without its own whiff of controversy, and his dealings with shady characters such as Vincent Adler and Edward Walker were openly whispered about.
Peter had had to live with those whispers since he was a teenager, when it was hard to hear those things about the father he worshipped perhaps too much. Harder, still, to learn now that they were true. At least, that’s what the documents Neal had shown him proved.
“There’s too much at this point, Dad,” he said.
“When you were a boy, you looked up to me, thought I was your hero.”
“There was a time when you were. But what is it they say about becoming a man? I need to put away childish things.”
It was a low blow and Peter knew it; his father lashed out, bitterly, “Like your ideals and your compassion?”
“You’re one to talk.”
“I’m a lot of things, Peter, but unfeeling isn’t one of them.”
“I got it somewhere.”
“Yes, and I wish I could figure out where. Someone or something taught you to be this way, Peter, and it wasn’t me. You think you’re the outlier in this family, you think you’re better than any of us.”
Peter scoffed, but Reese silenced him with a sharp, cutting move of his hand.
“Don’t deny it, you’re ashamed of this family in spite of all the advantages it’s gotten you. And I don’t know what it is that makes you so blind to the fact that all you see are your own preconceived notions of who or what we are. But the truth is we’re all flawed, Peter, every single one of us, and for the most part we’re just trying to make a life and protect our loved ones.”
“Loved ones? If I thought for a minute that was even a consideration, maybe I could forgive you, Dad. But we both know what’s not true.”
“Then you don’t know me at all. Or you haven’t taken the time to see. That’s your problem, Peter – you look but you never see. You judge and then that’s it – no hope of appeal. That’s what broke you and Neal up.”
“There were a lot of things that happened between Neal and I, but what everyone seems to be forgetting is that it took two people to break the relationship apart.”
“Yes, but one person to bury it. Did you ever give him the chance to make it right, son?”
Peter slammed his glass down on the sideboard so hard it left a dent; the sound was loud, shocking. “Do not presume to understand what happened between me and my ex-husband!”
“I don’t, I assure you,” Reese said quietly. “But allow me to offer a bit of fatherly advice, something I’d have thought you’d learned by now, but it is my role to teach all of my children, so what the hell.”
Peter rolled his eyes.
“There’s a difference between judgment and being judgmental, Peter, and sometimes the line can be a fine one. Now, god knows I’ve not set a stellar example of prudence in my life, and I’ve got a lot to regret, but I’ve never held people’s faults against them.”
“And I do?” Peter scoffed.
“Continually.”
“Thanks, Dad, that’s a great pep talk on the eve of my wedding.”
“Someone had to kick you in your ass.”
“What’s this? What’s this? Starting without us?” June’s voice trilled happily from the doorway. “But ah – you haven’t touched the champagne yet, good!” She swept into the room, kissed her husband, and took the bottle out of the ice bucket, handing it back to him.
“Can I have some?” Diana asked, entering.
“You’re underage!” Sara said, playfully admonishing.
“Aw, come on,” Diana complained.
“You can have a sip, no more,” June said, and the teen smiled happily.
Peter stood along the wall where he’d been when they entered, not really listening. He wasn’t sure whether to be annoyed at the interruption or relieved that the uncomfortable confrontation with his father was interrupted. What had been said was such a mirror of what Neal had said. He never thought of himself as anything but honest, but maybe he was just drinking his own Kool-Aid. He didn’t like that two very important men in his life seemed to have very similar opinions of who he was – were they right?
He took the glass of champagne Sara gave him, accepted the toast from his mother as graciously as he could manage, and prayed for this whole weekend to be over with so he and Sara could get on with their lives.
xXxXxXxXx
“These people really know how to throw a party,” she said aloud, taking another sip from another glass of champagne – she’d lost count of how many she’d drunk hours ago.
“They do, don’t they?” said a voice beside her, and looked up to find Peter Burke leaning against the bar in exactly the same way as she, elbows resting on the bar and facing the party at large.
“It’s the groom,” she stated, and then frowned; she tended to state the very obvious when she was drunk.
“It’s the playwright,” he answered and they beamed at each other, then turned their eyes back to the party and the dancing going on before them.
“Is that a Kardashian?” El asked.
“No. That is,” Peter answered, pointing unsteadily.
“Oh. Who’s that then?”
“Starting wideout for the Jets.”
“Oh. He’s pretty.”
“What time is it anyway?”
“It’s after 3:00. In China, it’s later than that.”
Peter hiccupped. “If we were in China, I’d be married now.”
“Or maybe it’s still yesterday in China,” El mumbled. Time zones were confusing.
“I’m going home after this dance,” he told her.
“Dance?” she asked, and then realized he’d taken her into his arms. “Oh.” He moved her around in lazy circles, heading vaguely toward the dance floor.
“Sara doesn’t like to dance - says she doesn’t enjoy it.”
“Well, I do,” El thought it important she tell him.
He started singing “The Way You Look Tonight” even though the band was playing a Cole Porter song.
El rested her head against his chest and closed her eyes; when the room began to spin faster than she was, she opened them again. “There was a Chinese poet who was drowned –“
“Lovely ... Never, ever change,” he crooned unevenly. “Keep that breathless charm.”
“He was trying to kiss the moon in the river,” she continued, letting her head drop back so she could look up at him. She realized he was holding her up more than her own legs were. It was nice.
“Won't you please arrange it? 'Cause I love you... Just the way you look tonight.”
“But he wrote beautiful poetry.”
“I’ll bet he did.”
“Peter, I’m heading back,” a female voice said as a hand tapped Peter on the shoulder.
“Sara,” Peter purred, then spun El gently and handed her off to his fiancée. El pulled Sara along with her for three more dance steps before Sara stepped away, looking annoyed.
“Wow, you’re really pretty,” El observed.
“Thank you.”
“I guess it’s not all Photoshop.”
“Nope – plastic surgery and baby fat injections.”
El’s eyes went wide. “Really?”
“No.” She turned to Peter as El continued to sway in place. “Darling, I’m beat – you coming?”
“I’m going home after this dance.”
Sara got up on her toes to kiss him, but he was turning to look at Elizabeth, and her lips caught him on the cheek instead. “I’ll just go and get the car, then?” she said pointedly and left.
“She’s nice,” El said into Peter’s chest as he took her in his arms again and they swayed against each other. “I like her.”
“I like her too. I’m marrying her. Everyone likes Sara.”
“Everyone likes Sara,” El parroted. “Except for Neal Caffrey.”
Peter frowned and stopped dancing. “I need another drink,” he said and headed back to the bar.
“Something wrong?” El asked, following. He took a bottle of champagne from the bar and handed her a glass full.
He looked away. “Something someone said to me today.” He paused for so long she thought he’d forgotten her. “Some of the things I always thought were so terribly important I find now are the other way around, and –“
“Here we are!” Sara sang, coming to collect him. Elizabeth saw she had her wrap on, and she grabbed him by the elbow to take him away.
“I was leaving after this dance,” he protested weakly. He handed the bottle of champagne off to Elizabeth.
“I’m afraid not,” Sara said. “It’s time for all good boys to get to bed.”
“What if I’m no good boy?”
“Don’t be silly, Peter, now come on.”
“He just wants a dance with you,” El pointed out.
“He’ll have plenty of chances tomorrow,” she shot over her shoulder as she led him away.
“Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow,” El muttered, hugging the nearly-full bottle against herself and wandering towards the edge of the patio. “I’m gonna be hung over like a dog, tomorrow! I’ll tell you who’s going to be unhappy tomorrow – Neal George Caffrey!” She blinked self-consciously at a passing waiter who eyed her for her drunken outburst. “Boo!” she shouted at him then laughed at his comical departure.
Neal George Caffrey, she thought, he really is going to be unhappy tomorrow. She recalled how the man had hung around the family all day, the hurt look in his eyes as he watched Peter and Sara together, when he didn’t think anyone was watching.
That’s a man losing the love of his life, she thought. And what wasn’t to love in Peter Burke? He was handsome, surprisingly intelligent, and honorable. Who would want to lose that? She no longer believed that Caffrey had been sticking around all day to be a thorn in Burke’s side, and he wasn’t doing it because he wanted to bring El and Jonesy here to enact some elaborate revenge plot. No, there were other reasons, and she meant to suss them out.
----
“Hey!” El said, leaning into a limo parked in front of Mozzie’s house and startling its driver out of a light doze. She pointed drunkenly forward. “Follow that car!”
The driver peered through the windshield and then out of his window. “What car?”
El snapped her fingers exaggeratedly. “Darn, I always wanted to try that one.” She climbed into the back seat. “Do you know where Neal George Caffrey lives?”
“Yes, Ma’am.”
“Drive on then, Jeeves!”
Somewhere in the back of her mind she realized Jeeves was a valet and not a chauffeur, but it was too late to apologize.
----
“Neal George Caffrey! Neal George Caffrey!” El yelled through the open window as the car pulled into the circular drive of a beautiful stone home that Frank Lloyd Wright might have designed for all she knew, it was that stunning.
“Neal George Caffrey!”
When the car came to a halt, she realized she was on the wrong side in relation to the front door, so she scooted over the back seat in her ridiculous gown she’d had to borrow from her friend Lauren Cruz and pushed the door open. She got out, but realized she’d forgotten her champagne, so she bent over to retrieve it from where it was – on the other side of the car seat. Shimmying forward on her belly, she retrieved it, then backed out slowly until her toes hit the ground, then she used her hands to push herself upright. She grinned at her achievement as she stood, swaying only slightly on her feet, and slammed the door shut.
Patting the car on its hood, she said to the driver, “Well, you’d better get back to the ball before you turn back into a pumpkin and six white mice!” He drove off and she turned toward the house. “Neal George Caffrey!” she shouted with her eyes closed, “Neal! George! Caffrey!”
She opened her eyes. “Oh,” she said, noticing the lights had come on inside the house.
“Hello the house!” Wasn’t that what they said in Shakespeare or some such? She used the large, brass knocker on the door as it was the more evident than a doorbell.
“Neal George Caffrey!” she shouted into the man’s face as he opened the door, blinking sleepily at her as he tied off his robe.
“Miss Mitchell, what a surprise,” he said, voice a bit scratchy. He ran a hand through his unruly hair and it was suddenly once more… ruly.
“How do you do that?”
“Do what?”
“Never mind,” she slurred, pushing past him into the house.
“Have a seat,” he said as she walked through to the library and had a seat on the low, sectional couch that looked as if it’d come straight from the set of a Rock Hudson/Doris Day movie.
“This room? Is very swanky,” she told him seriously.
“I’m glad you like it,” he said.
“It’s rrrrretro. I’ll bet you’ve gotten into a lot of girls’ pants on this very couch.”
“Well, I prefer boys, actually.”
“Of course you do.”
“And there really haven’t been too many since –“ He cut himself off.
She raised an eyebrow at him. “Since what? Since you divorced?”
He looked away.
“Since you met him,” she said, with sudden understanding. She pointed at him. “He was your first love.”
“First and only,” he replied, like he said it all the time, though she could see in his eyes it was a lie.
She stood and pressed the champagne bottle into his hands. “You need this more than I do, buddy.”
“Thanks,” he said, walking it over to a deco-style bar at the side of the room and pouring a glass full. When he returned, he handed it to her, but she was too distracted by all the books on the shelves.
“You have a lot of books in here…” she leaned over and snatched one from a nearby shelf. “You have my play!”
“I read a lot of contemporary plays.”
“But this is my play.”
“Reading keeps my mind… occupied.”
“Does it help you to forget?”
“Forget what?”
“Your unhappiness?”
He handed her the champagne glass. “No.” He returned to the bar and poured himself a brandy.
“Are you still in love with him?”
When he didn’t react, she felt bad. “I’m sorry, was that a very personal question?”
Again he didn’t answer.
“Are you still in love with him?”
“What do you think?”
“I think you like to hurt each other.”
“I think it is very one-sided.”
“Which side?”
“Did you have a purpose for being here, Miss Mitchell?”
“Elizabeth, please. I came for a drink.”
He gestured at her glass, but she’d already emptied it. He went to retrieve the bottle.
“I wonder if you really know him,” she said.
Caffrey raised an eyebrow. “You think you do?”
She ignored him and went on, “He’s the full package – kind and intelligent, noble and honorable.”
“Perhaps you should marry him.”
“I think you’d rather.”
He scoffed. “I don’t.”
“I think you still love him.”
“I think you are drunk.”
“Doesn’t stop me from seeing, Neal. Why haven’t you told him?”
He mumbled a reply she didn’t catch.
“What?”
“I said, he will never forgive me, and you can’t be with someone you think has betrayed everything you stand for.”
Her eyes widened. “What did you do?”
He sat down on the opposite end of the couch and didn’t look at her. But Elizabeth wasn’t just a good journalist – she’d always had an innate talent for reading people, and even drunk she could tell Caffrey wanted to talk. She got up and moved closer to him, sitting down on a bent leg and leaning towards him.
“Was it that bad?” she asked sympathetically.
“Peter had to leave the FBI because of me. Because he couldn’t be with me and be a Federal agent at the same time.”
“Why not?”
“Otherwise, he’d have to arrest me and put me in prison for a very long time.”
Elizabeth’s eyes widened with understanding – if Peter had to arrest Neal for some crime, questions would be raised about his own knowledge and involvement; he would be automatically suspected of either a cover-up or being an accomplice.
“You know, it started out so long ago – I was practically a kid at the time,” he went on, his eyes looking far-away and pensive. He sighed, and then told his story.
“When I was young, I was a very talented artist. I am not just saying that – they were calling me a prodigy, the next Michelangelo. There was nothing I could do wrong – the Sorbonne, the Art Institute, UCLA – they were fighting to get their hands on me before I even graduated prep school. So I went to Paris.”
He smiled. “Can you imagine what a 17-year old kid with nearly unlimited funds could do in Paris?”
“I can’t.”
“Well this one ran out of money,” he laughed bitterly. “I had an allowance from my trust fund, but couldn’t touch the rest until I turned 30. My family paid for university and the apartment, but the rest was on me, and I liked to party. The people I hung out with then liked to party with me. Eventually, the money ran out.”
“What did you do?”
“When I was in prep school, I knew a guy called Hale. He was kind to me, taught me how to do small cons – shell games, three card Monty, that kind of thing.”
“Did you get caught?”
He shook his head. “I met Vincent Adler.”
El’s eyebrows hit her hairline. “Seriously?”
“I tried to scam him out of a hundred Euros, and he asked me what the hell I thought I was doing wasting my real talent hustling on street corners.”
“He knew you were an artist?”
Neal nodded. “And he knew my father. He said he wanted to offer me a commission – reproductions of some minor works by some major artists, nothing too fancy, for his private collection. The pay wasn’t a lot – better than I was making, and enough to get by on – and nothing that would have given anything away.”
“What do you mean?”
“He was very specific about the materials I used, and the techniques – for authenticity, he said. But what he was really doing when I was done was having the paintings aged to look like the originals. Then, he’d hire someone to steal the originals, and substitute my work for them. Ever hear of Woman Ironing by Picasso?”
“No.”
“Neither did I before I forged it. Eight years ago, it hit the news in Chicago that its owner discovered that the one in his collection had been replaced by a forgery.”
Elizabeth gasped, covering her mouth with a hand. “Was it yours?”
Neal’s face was drawn and pale. “It was. It’s the only one of my copies to surface so far, but a little-known fact with art theft is that the statute of limitations begins when the theft is discovered.”
“But you didn’t steal them!”
“I have no proof of that.”
“What happened to the originals?”
“More on that later.”
“OK, so what did you do when you figured it out?”
“What could I do? I went to Adler and told him I was through with him. He… laughed at me. Then I left, came home to the States and I didn’t see him for another four years. In the interim, Peter and I reconnected after he graduated Wharton, and, well…”
“You fell in love.”
He smiled fondly, remembering. “We were friends since I was 8 and he was 10, but when we found each other again, it was like we saw each other… really saw each other for the first time. From that point on, we were inseparable.” He huffed a small laugh. “Even when he went to Quantico, I got an apartment in Virginia and saw him whenever I could. He asked me to marry him two years later.”
“So what happened?” Elizabeth asked, suddenly sober. She almost dreaded hearing the answer.
“Vincent fucking Adler,” he replied bitterly. “We were married a year, and sailing up to Canada on my yacht The Taurus for our anniversary when Adler cornered me.”
El could see the muscles bunching in his jaw as he ground his teeth together. He took a long draft at his brandy and winced as the liquid burned its way down his throat. “What did he do?” she asked.
“He had a load of stolen art he wanted me to smuggle back to the States for him – some of it very familiar to me, some of them the originals of pieces I’d forged years before. He said a rich boy like me would barely be looked at by the Coast Guard. He also said there were forgeries out there with my fingerprints on them and all he had to do was make a few phone calls.”
“He blackmailed you?”
“It’s what he does, right?”
“I suppose so. But didn’t Adler care that your husband was an FBI agent?”
Neal laughed bitterly, and there was real pain in his eyes. “That was his plan in getting me to smuggle the art, don’t you see? Adler couldn’t wait to get his hooks into Peter – think what he could do if he could have an FBI agent in his pocket. And if he could finally stick it to Reese Hughes Burke, his old business rival at the same time? That was just icing on the cake.”
“I thought they were partners at one point?”
“Keep your enemies closer and et cetera.”
Neal noticed El’s glass was empty and offered her a refill; she declined with a shake of her head. “What happened next?” she asked, not wanting to make him say it, but still sickly fascinated.
“Peter found the art just before we made port in Montauk,” he said, his voice hollow. “He accused me of being the same dissolute wastrel I had been in college.”
“He used those words?”
“And a few others. He said he ought to arrest me then and there.”
“What did you do? I mean, obviously you didn’t tell him what was going on with Adler.”
“I couldn’t. Instead, I threw it all back in his face, as if it was his fault. How would it look, the husband of an FBI agent – and a Burke at that – married to a low-life smuggler? We said a lot of very nasty things to each other. And then he hit me.”
She flinched, but he didn’t seem to have noticed.
“He accused me of using him, and then he hit me in front of about a half dozen paparazzi, who were there to harass some rapper or something.”
That explained why he’d destroyed all the photogs’ cameras, Elizabeth realized, including Jones’s.
Neal went on with his story, “I have never seen anyone look as guilt-stricken as Peter did afterwards. Like he was in horror at what he was capable of. And I – I pushed him to it, Elizabeth – me and only me. He resigned from the FBI a week later. He couldn’t keep working there and harbor a criminal. At least in the end he loved me enough… to let me go.”
Neal looked at Elizabeth, tears in his eyes. “But he compromised everything he stood for by doing that, by letting me off the hook. I ruined him.”
Elizabeth reached out and grabbed his hand, squeezing it. “I’m truly sorry, Neal. Have you never told him what really happened?”
“It’s better this way – better he should think I’m an asshole than to know the real truth. But now Adler is back to ruining all our lives again, and I’m like a puppet dancing on his string – again. He’s got this expose he’s about to run on Reese, and it’ll ruin the family.”
Realization dawned on Elizabeth. “That’s why we’re out here, isn’t it – this piece on the wedding? Adler’s forcing you to do it so he gets the story. Weddings sell, and royal weddings doubly so. Who’s the closest thing this country’s got to royalty if it’s not the Burkes?”
“Exactly. And don’t think Adler’s done using the evidence he’s got against Reese yet, either. Just wait ‘til Peter wins his election – then he’ll have a Senator in his pocket.”
El bit her lip, suddenly realizing. “What if I told you I had something on Adler – something that might make him back off?” she asked.
“I’d say tell me all about it,” he replied, leaning towards her.
“Vincent has a storage warehouse downtown on Gansevoort Street where he keeps – all kinds of interesting things.”
“You’ve been there?”
She nodded. “What can I say, the man had a crush on me once upon a time. When we first met, he took me to dinner a few times. One night, we wound up there. I think he thought it would impress me to see all this stuff he’s got there – all kinds of paintings, and he said he had to keep them there for safe-keeping because people would try to steal them from his homes.”
Neal scoffed. “Sure – a warehouse in the meat-packing district is safer than his many mansions.”
“You think those artworks were stolen too?”
“He’s clearly been acquiring these pieces over the years, and he’s got to keep it all somewhere. Whether he keeps them or sells them, I don’t know, but I’m sure I wasn’t the only artist he conned into helping him with the forgeries. I can’t believe he showed you.”
“I think he thought it’d help him get into my pants.”
“Did it work?”
“What do you think?”
“I don’t know what I think.”
“Let’s keep it that way.”
There was a knock at the door, and Neal went to answer it. El was surprised to see who it was. “Clint? What are you doing here?”
He shoved his hands into his pockets. “I was looking for you.”
She had to admit, he looked adorable in his tuxedo just then. “Aww, that’s so nice.” He blushed deeply, and she really had to do something about his crush on her – like ask him out someday soon. “How’d you find me?”
“You have to stop propositioning chauffeurs.”
“I did nothing of the sort!”
“So what are you doing here?”
“Research,” she said cagily. “But it turns out we’re sitting on a much bigger story than this goofy wedding. What do you think about turning the tables on ol’ Vincent Adler?”
“I think he’s a powerful man who can make our lives very complicated if we do,” Clint said, ever the pragmatist. But then he added, “I also think he needs to be taken down a peg or three.”
“Hooray,” Elizabeth said, standing.
“What’s the story?”
El gave him the bullets as Neal left the room. By the time he returned to the library, now dressed in casual clothes, El was pacing around the room like a caged lioness and Jones was eyeing her carefully.
“You’re scary when you have a fire in your belly,” Jones observed.
“Let’s hope it’s not indigestion!” she laughed, suddenly giddy and with a hand on her belly.
“Who’s up for a ride into the city?” Neal asked, pulling on a jacket.
“I’ve got a car I borrowed from the little guy.” Clint held his hand at about a five-foot level.
“You know, he’s not really Peter’s dad,” Neal informed them both regretfully.
“We figured that out almost immediately, sweetie,” El told him, mirroring his cadence.
“Yeah, it’s not like there’s a family resemblance,” Clint added. “Plus, that man could never get Mrs. Burke, not in a million years.”
“Oh, I wouldn’t underestimate him – he used to date supermodels back in the day,” Neal said.
“Blind ones?” El said.
Neal and Clint both winced.
“Wait a minute, what are we going to do once we get there? I mean, it’s not exactly Fort Knox, but I’m no good at breaking and entering,” El pointed out.
“Luckily, I am,” Neal said.
Both El and Clint’s eyebrows shot up.
“My friend Hale taught me a lot more than petty cons,” Neal informed them sheepishly.
“You, Neal George Caffrey, are a man of hidden talents,” El said.
“Some of them are even useful,” he replied and grabbed a beat-up old fedora from a nearby coat rack.
Neal and Jonesy were on their way to Manhattan. She’d given them the address of Adler’s warehouse on Gansevoort St. and then asked them to drop her back here – she knew she was too drunk and tired to be of much help to them. Damn all that free champagne, anyway!
She was just about to try the doors when a groan from one of the chaises alerted her to the fact she was not alone.
“Peter?”
“Miss Mitchell?” He sat up, blinking; he was hugging a bottle of champagne.
“Elizabeth,” she reminded him. “What are you doing out here?”
“Forgot my key.”
“What happened to Sara?”
“She’s staying in the gatehouse – something about me not seeing her in her dress, maybe? What are you doing here?”
“I never had a key.” She moseyed over to him and dropped onto the chaise atop his feet.
“Did you enjoy the party?” he asked, pulling his legs up.
“Sure. What is it they say? ‘The prettiest sight in this fine, pretty world is the privileged class enjoying its privileges.’”
“That makes you sound like a snob. Are you a snob, Elizabeth?”
“Probably. You really gonna marry that woman, Peter?”
“Probably. I mean: yes.”
“I don’t think she’s the one for you.”
“Because she’s beneath me?”
“Well, yes.”
“And you aren’t?”
“I didn’t say I was for you.”
“You just think you know what’s good for me.”
“Someone has to. You’re meant for better things, and you need a good person by your side, one that compliments you.”
Peter snorted. “Better things. Everyone says I’m meant for better things, and then they say I’m a judgmental, elitist prig. Well, what am I?”
“You’re exceptional.” El surprised herself with this pronouncement, but nearly everything she’d seen about Peter had convinced her it was true.
“I’m just a man.”
“A man like any other?” She made a dismissive gesture.
“Yes.”
“Well, you’re a man who’s Bogarting that champagne, that’s for sure – give it over.”
He handed it to her and she took a swig. It was warm but at least the bottle was nearly full; she took two more swigs.
“I don’t think I’m exceptional,” he insisted, sitting up and turning sideways, resting his feet on the ground. She scooted closer to him and pulled her legs up, sitting Indian-style, hiking her dress up so she could do so, then arranging the skirt between her legs so as not to give anyone a show – she had some dignity.
“You are, though.” She handed him the bottle and he took a swig.
“Not until I learn to have some small regard for human frailty,” he said quietly, almost to himself.
“You do, though. I’ve seen it.”
He laid his head in his hands. “You only think you’ve seen it. If I ever had it, I left it behind long ago.”
“Where? How?”
He handed her the bottle and looked at her thoughtfully. “You know, when I joined the FBI, it wasn’t just a colossal ‘F you’ to my father’s plans for my life – I thought I could make a difference, I really did. Because of my education, I was assigned to the white collar crimes division, and I was very good at it.
“But the job… it changed me. I started seeing guilt in everyone I met. Everyone’s motivations were suspect, every person I met – every person I knew – had an angle, and it was up to me to find it. I don’t know how it happened – I wasn’t like that before, and I don’t know that I even realized what I was doing – but I saw guilt everywhere. I didn’t like what that did to me, what it said about me, but I couldn’t see a way out, and I couldn’t stop myself.”
“What happened?”
He laughed bitterly. “What happened? Well, I found it, didn’t I? And where I least expected it.”
Elizabeth winced, because of course she knew he was talking about Neal, but she also knew the truth behind that betrayal. “Did it have to be so black and white?”
“It is always black and white.”
“Oh. Then maybe you are just a man.”
He laughed again. “And it took me this long to figure it out.”
“It’s what you do with that knowledge that will ultimately matter, Peter.” She went to sip from the bottle again and frowned when she noticed it was empty.
He smiled, and it made his eyes crinkle appealingly. “You seem awfully young to be this wise,” he observed.
“Thirty’s about time to wise up,” she replied, with a shiver; the night had gotten cooler than she’d have expected and her gown was strapless. He took his jacket off and draped it across her shoulders, then put his arm around her, rubbing her arms to warm her. His hands were large and very warm. She leaned into him with a sigh and he pulled her closer, his other arm around her now.
She craned her head back and kissed him chastely on the corner of his mouth. “I could fall in love with a man like you, Peter. In a different universe, I think I do.”
“I’ve only ever been in love with one person,” he murmured, his eyes closing.
“Really? Who?”
“What the hell is going on here?”
“Sara!” Peter said, stiffening. He disengaged from Elizabeth and they both stood, Elizabeth wincing at the sheer volume of Sara’s voice.
“I knew something was going on! Oh, how blind I’ve been!”
“Shhh! You’ll wake Diana – her bedroom’s just up there!” Peter hissed at her, pointing.
Sara didn’t seem to care much about the sleeping requirements of the modern teen, and Elizabeth didn’t think she blamed her.
“That is exactly my last care at the moment, Peter. How could you do this?”
“Do what? I wasn’t –“
“Please don’t lie to me! You’ve been acting strangely ever since I got here today, and now I see why.”
“It’s not what you think, Sara,” El said.
Sara held up a hand. “Do not presume –“ she began to say, but stopped herself, shook her head, and turned to Peter. “You are not the man I thought you were.”
“Well, you’ve got that part right,” El said.
“If it’s any consolation, I’m not the man I thought I was either,” Peter said.
“Do you know how little I care about your existential crisis? Tomorrow – I’m sorry, today – in a matter of hours, 200 of our closest friends and relations are going to be here to watch us get married, Peter. What am I supposed to tell them? That you couldn’t even make it past our vows without cheating?”
“I am not a cheater.”
“Well, you do a perfectly good impression of one. I would have thought you’d at least have some sense of propriety, or common decency. I’m to be your wife, Peter, did that not enter into your head tonight before you decided to make a fool of us? Or of me? I can’t even look at you.” She turned to go.
“Sara, please –” Peter began, going after her and stopping her with a hand on her elbow.
She looked up at him, expecting god knew what, El thought, but when he seemed to have run out of anything to say to her, she visibly wilted.
“If you’ve got nothing more to say, then I’ll be going – it’s late, and I am tired. Good night, Peter.” She strode to the edge of the patio and El thought she saw her pause for just a second, waiting for him to come after her and beg her to take him back. When he didn’t, she ran back in the direction of the gatehouse.
“Ouch,” Elizabeth couldn’t help but say eventually.
“I guess I lost our first fight,” Peter said, looking shell-shocked. He sat back down on the chaise heavily and buried his head in his hands. “How do I fix this?”
El wondered if he ought to, but didn’t say it. “I think it’s too late to try to do anything. Let’s get you to bed and you can think of a way through it in the morning.”
“What am I, Scarlet O’Hara? Tomorrow’s another day?”
“Something like that.”
A moment later, a servant, investigating the noise, came and let them into the house. Elizabeth held out a hand to Peter and tried to pull him to his feet, but only fell over. In the end, they helped each other up, and staggered into the house.
xXxXxXx
“How now, the groom!” said a cheery, familiar voice and Peter groaned audibly.
“Moz,” he greeted and move stiffly out of the door. He spotted a coffee service set up not far away – though in his condition, it could well have been miles – and limped over to it. His entire body ached – from his abdominals to his neck – and he had no idea what might have happened to make it so. Well, he could guess, of course – the hangover was a dead giveaway and likely culprit for the headache and nausea, but what the hell else had he got up to the night before?
“Hair of the dog?” Moz asked, hoisting an obscenely over-garnished Bloody Mary in front of his face. One whiff of the horseradish – and was that salami on there? – made Peter want to hurl.
“No. Thanks. Coffee.”
Someone handed a cup of black coffee, and he smiled at them. “Blessed creature,” he said into the frowning face of his little sister.
“You sure took enough time to get ready. It’s past noon.”
“Time is relative,” Peter told her and limped over to sit at the nearby table. It felt like it’d been hours since he woke, since he was only able to move comfortably – that is, without the urge to vomit – in short bursts. As it was, he’d not been able to tie his tie, and his jacket – he couldn’t remember what he’d done with it.
“The guests are already arriving,” Diana said, her voice spitefully loud and way too close.
Peter peered across the formal gardens beyond the patio to the tents erected on the broad expanse of lawn beyond and saw that, indeed, guests had begun to arrive. What the hell time was it? He fumbled in his pocket and pulled out a wristwatch – which revealed that it was nearly 1:00. The wedding was supposed to start at 2:00.
“What’s this?” he said, peering at the watch – it was not his, and it was clearly a woman’s; he set it down on the table.
“It’s a watch – how quaint,” Diana said with a scowl, and only now was her obviously foul mood apparent to Peter. “You look very pretty,” he told her, hoping that would take care of it.
“Thank you,” she said, though the frown didn’t leave her face. “You look like ass.”
“Thank you,” he replied and chugged his coffee. He held the cup to her, pleading mutely, and she took pity on him and went to get him a refill. He set the watch on the table – he’d found it in his room and nearly stepped on it, and had no idea whose it was, though it appeared to be a woman’s watch.
“Some party last night,” Mozzie said, taking a seat across the table from him, a knowing grin on his face.
Peter blinked at him. “Yes. It was. Thanks for hosting.”
“I’ve heard there was quite the after party back here, though I’m not so sure you’d call it that – party of two, more like.” He waggled his eyebrows suggestively.
Peter stared at him, uncomprehendingly. “I’m sure I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“Don’t you?” Diana said with a hint of disapproval to go with the general tone of hostility radiating off of her. He shook his head. “Why don’t you ask that ‘journalist’ then?”
Peter could hear the air quotes. “Elizabeth? What’s she to do with… anything?”
Diana’s scowl deepened and she handed him another cup of coffee. “I saw her coming out of your room this morning,” she hissed.
A sudden recollection flashed through his mind, of Elizabeth smiling kindly at him from above him; they were in his bedroom, and he was lying down. “Don’t be ridiculous,” he said unconvincingly.
“I don’t think it’s even a little bit ridiculous!”
Peter could see she was very upset. “Di – what… whatever it is you think you saw –“
“What am I supposed to do when the minister says, ‘If anyone has just cause for these two people not to be married’? I can’t lie!”
“I’m not asking you to lie.”
“I don’t think they ask that question unless you request it,” Mozzie added helpfully.
“Not helping, Moz.”
“Just sayin’. You know, in case you want to make a change? Because I can personally think of several reasons...”
“Shut up, Moz! Besides, there isn’t any minister, remember? It’s the town’s mayor.”
“Hello,” another voice interrupted, and Peter glanced up to see his father had arrived. “Diana,” Reese called, “I think your mother wants to have a look at you.”
“It’s on my Instagram – I look fabulous.”
He scowled at her until she slinked off, dragging Mozzie with her to act as a buffer.
“Hello, son,” Reese said, coming closer. “You look how I feel.”
“Remind me not to attend any more of Mozzie’s parties,” Peter groaned.
“They do go on and on,” Reese replied. “Still, I had a great time dancing with your mother. My back may not agree with me, but it was fun.”
Peter peered up into the familiar face of his father and it might have been the hangover messing with his perception, but the man beamed at him with the mixture of pride, love, and humor he had always shown him. Peter cleared his throat. “Look, Dad, I’m sorry I was a shit to you last night.”
“Last night?”
“And for the last few years,” Peter amended. He stood, letting his head hang down, feeling exactly like his 16-year old self when he’d gotten into a fender-bender with his brand new car. “I know have always wanted to do right by the family, and it’s not for me to judge you for it.”
Reese moved in closer and began to tie Peter’s bowtie for him. “Peter, I’ve done many things I’m not proud of, but I own my mistakes,” he said seriously. “And if the chickens come home to roost, well, then, I’ll deal with it. But I’m happy you understand my motivations, at least. All I have ever done comes down to what I thought was best for the family.”
Peter looked up and smiled into his father’s blue eyes. “I know. Sh-should we hug it out, or…”
Reese smiled. “We’re WASPs, son – all public displays of affection are to be conducted in private.” He looked around. “And seeing as we’re alone for the moment…”
They hugged, and though Peter knew that it didn’t make everything right, he was willing to believe it would at least last for the rest of the day.
“I’m proud of you, son,” Reese whispered, and they parted, slapping each other on the backs and making manly noises.
A moan behind Peter got both their attention.
“Elizabeth?” Peter said, taking in the pitiable creature that stood in the doorway from the house.
“When did daylight start to hurt?” she asked, eyes so squinted they were nearly closed. She put a small hand up in front of her face to shield the sun out of her eyes.
“’round about the second or third bottle of champagne, I think,” Peter answered her ruefully.
Reese went to her side and helped her to the table, then fetched a glass of orange juice for her. “Thank you, Mr. Burke,” she murmured, eyeing the glass suspiciously.
“Drink up, my dear – the sugar will help, trust me,” Reese told her, patting her hand, and she dutifully did as bidden. “I’ve got to get back to the tent and talk up the mayor,” Reese went on. “I’m sure he’ll be looking for a campaign contribution.” He walked away, leaving Peter and Elizabeth alone.
“Nice day for a wedding,” Elizabeth commented, not opening her eyes. She sipped delicately at her juice. “What’d it set you back?”
“Nothing,” Peter replied distractedly, “don’t you know we rich get things for free all the time.”
“Of course – how could I forget?” She peered up at him. “You look like death warmed over.”
“So I’ve been told.”
“I suppose that’s to be expected after last night. Is that my watch?”
Peter flinched – so the watch was hers. He had another flash of memory, of Elizabeth kissing him. He suddenly felt light-headed and sank into a chair opposite her. “Last night,” he repeated.
“You don’t remember,” she said, and he wasn’t sure if she sounded accusatory or not, but his heart began to race.
“Remember…”
“Jesus, I thought we were drunk, but not that drunk. You’re really telling me you don’t remember what happened?”
He swallowed. “What happened…”
Elizabeth looked him up and down, “I suppose that explains the monkey suit.”
“Monkey suit?”
“You possessed by a parrot? Stop repeating everything I say.”
“Repeating…” he shook himself. “What exactly happened last night?” he asked. His hand crept up to his throat and he stopped it – what was he doing, clutching his pearls? “I remember drinking at the party, and we danced.”
“You’re an OK dancer.”
“Thanks, you’re not so bad yourself. And the next thing I remember –“
“Hello, Peter.”
Peter froze at the voice behind him. Sara. Suddenly, it all came flooding back – the party, his conversation with Elizabeth, the fight with Sara. He rose and turned as Elizabeth groaned and laid her head on her forearms.
“Honey,” he began.
She stood at the edge of the patio, dressed in a stunning couture suit and white gloves, for heaven’s sake – she always did have a flare for fashion. She fingered a small white envelope.
“I’m not supposed to see you today, I thought. Not until the ceremony,” he said. “Isn’t it bad luck?”
“You’re not supposed to see me in my wedding dress,” she corrected, and the smile on her face was very sad.
He went to her, laid a hand on her arm, and she stiffened. “Sara? I know what you think you saw last night, but I swear it’s not so bad.”
“I know.”
“Well then, let me try to explain further. You see, everything’s been so crazy the last few days, with the wedding prep, and there were these tabloid people.”
“I know,” she said insistently. “I know all about the complications, and your past, and your family – the whole circus side show.”
Peter flinched. Side show?
“But Peter, the last day has only served to prove something I’ve known was true and been afraid to acknowledge. We shouldn't be together, and we certainly shouldn't be getting married.”
“What? No.”
“We have different journeys to take in life, Peter, different needs and lifestyles, and I honestly don’t think I can keep up with yours – I’m just an old-fashioned girl, you know? Here –“ she handed him the envelope. “The note explains it better.”
Lifestyles? “Sara, please.”
She reached up and shushed him with a finger on his lips; he noticed she was trembling. “I need to go.” Her voice caught as she spoke. He reached out for her, but she took a step away. “No, don’t – if I let you touch me, all my resolve will crumble.”
He could feel his eyes fill with tears. “Honey!”
“Good luck, Peter. I hope you’ll be happy.” With a sniffle, she turned and hurried away, Peter watching her go until she turned around a corner of the house and was out of sight.
I’ve just been left at the altar, he thought numbly. What the hell was he supposed to do about that? Also: lifestyles?
“Wow, that was… Wow,” Elizabeth said as he stumbled back towards the table. “I’m sorry, Peter, I really am. But for what it’s worth, I think you’re better off without her.”
“Do you?” he asked darkly. Just who the hell did she think she was, coming here and having an opinion on his life?
She nodded, but looked sympathetic. “And I think you know it too, deep down.”
Why did everyone profess to know what was best for him all of a sudden?
A loud and familiar whistle sounded from somewhere inside the house, and Peter’s heart rose even as his stomach fell. Neal.
Elizabeth rose as Neal emerged from the house, dressed in linen pants, a blazer and an open-necked shirt. Behind him stood the photographer, Jones, still apparently dressed in the tuxedo he’d worn to the party the night before. Peter felt an illogical pang of jealousy for one hot second that he decided pointedly to ignore.
“You’re back!” Elizabeth said, rushing over to them, her hangover apparently forgotten in her excitement to see them.
“We are,” Neal drawled.
“Did you get what you needed?”
“And then some,” Neal replied.
“He had files there, too,” Jones told her. “Lots and lots of files.”
“With lots and lots of incriminating evidence?” she said hopefully.
“Let’s just say I now have enough evidence to keep Adler away from all of us, for good,” Neal promised.
Elizabeth made a gleeful whoop! and clapped her hands like a happy child.
“What do you mean, ‘us’?” Peter asked, joining the three of them.
Neal looked at him and his lip, as if caught at something; he’d clearly given away more than he’d intended in front of Peter.
Peter was used to that look – he knew it usually spelled trouble. “Neal? Neal, what have you done this time?”
Still, Neal kept his silence, and Peter could feel the old anger and frustration boiling up inside him.
Elizabeth let out an explosive sigh and rolled her eyes, breaking the mood. “Oh for chrissakes, did you two ever stop to consider where you’d be if you just freaking talked to each other?” she asked, exasperated.
“What?” Peter asked, incredulous. Neal just looked away mildly.
“You!” she yelled, smacking Peter on the upper arm. “And you!” She smacked Neal on the chest with the back of her hand and he flinched. “Are a pair of boneheads. Don’t you see that everything – everything – that’s happened is, in some strange and twisted way because you’re both still in love with each other?”
When they both stared at her with open mouths, she cursed under her breath and continued, “Peter, did you know that Vincent Adler has been blackmailing Neal into doing a lot of the shady things you’ve accused him of? And it’s been happening since the poor guy was 19?”
“What?” Peter was shocked.
“Yes. That’s why he was smuggling that art on the yacht, and no other reason.”
Peter could feel the blood leaving his face – all these years, he’d thought the absolute worst about Neal, and he had had no other choice. “Neal?” he said, looking at him, but Neal kept his eyes on the floor.
“An you,” Elizabeth barked at Neal, and he looked up. “Did you know that Peter was already disillusioned by his job at the FBI? He hated it and was probably already looking for a way out.”
“Is that true?”
Peter shrugged; it was his turn to stare at the ground. “I didn’t like the ways it changed me…”
“Neither did I,” Neal said
“And did you know, Peter, that the only reason Jonesy and I are even here this weekend was so that Neal could protect you and your family?” Elizabeth went on.
“What?”
“Adler said he’d hold onto the evidence on your father if I brought the reporters to your wedding,” Neal explained.
“And you did it? You came here to protect us?”
“You’re the only real family I’ve ever had, Peter, you know that.”
“I do,” Peter said, stepping closer to Neal. “Or at least, I did, once, and I forgot. Oh Neal, look where my stupid pride and suspicions have brought us. Can you ever forgive me?”
“Hey, don’t forget about his martyr complex,” Elizabeth interjected helpfully, pointing at Neal. “It didn’t get either of you anywhere.”
Neal gave her a dirty look, but when he looked up at Peter, his eyes were filled with such guilt and pain. “There’s nothing to forgive you for, Peter.”
“There is, Neal. There really, really is. I forgot everything our marriage was supposed to be about, and all because I failed to trust you. You should hate me forever.”
“I could never hate you, Peter.”
Peter grasped Neal by the upper arms and looked into his eyes; they were so wide and filled with the love Peter remembered seeing there so long ago. Had it ever really left? So much time had been wasted.
“Hey, can you guys kiss now? It’d be really, really hot,” Elizabeth said, annoyingly avid. Jones pulled her away by the arm.
If Peter didn’t want to do it so very much, he’d have given her a dirty look. Instead, he pulled Neal closer, leaned in, and kissed him. It had been so long since they’d done this, but the initial awkwardness immediately gave way to the old familiarity as Neal’s mouth opened and he sighed into Peter’s mouth, turning his head and leaning into him. When Neal reached up and ran his fingertips lightly along Peter’s jaw, Peter noticed that he was trembling – they were both trembling. Breaking the kiss, Peter took Neal into his arms and held him tightly against him.
“I’m so sorry. I love you so much!” Neal murmured into Peter’s neck, and Peter kissed the side of his ear.
“Me too, Neal. I never stopped! Never!”
Seconds later, Neal stiffened against Peter and he pulled away. “Wait a minute – what about Sara? You’re supposed to get married today.”
Peter winced, chagrined that he’d completely forgotten all about that and about Sara in the last few minutes. “Oh, well, that’s pretty much over,” he said. “She already left.”
“I’m sorry, Peter, I really am,” Neal said sincerely. “She didn’t deserve to be a casualty of all of this.”
“I’m sorry she got hurt,” Peter said. “But I’m not sorry to have you back in my life.”
Neal kissed him again.
“Aww, so sweet,” Elizabeth said, smiling up at them both. “If only you two could demonstrate your newfound devotion to each other in some way…. Oh looky over there – it’s a wedding that someone has thoughtfully set up across the lawn. How convenient.”
Peter gave her the hairy eyeball. “Has anyone ever told you how annoying you are?”
“I do on a daily basis,” Jones answered.
“Yeah, but you hardly ever mean it,” she replied softly, then got up on her tiptoes and kissed him on the cheek. Jones blushed deeply and slipped an arm around her waist, kissing her long and hard. When they parted, she looked up at him as if seeing him for the first time. And for the first time since he’d met her, Peter saw that she was speechless.
“So what do you think?” Neal said, getting Peter’s attention. “They’re already expecting a wedding over there. And Diana’s all dressed up already.”
“We’re going to need witnesses.”
“Well, we’re already dressed up,” Jones pointed out. Elizabeth nodded.
“Meh – why not? Wanna do this thing, Neal?” Peter agreed.
“That is the most romantic proposal I have ever received,” he replied with a smile.
“Just as long as it’s the last.”
