Falling for Fitz (5 page)

“
Jo—
Honey
,” said Daisy, softly,
surprised by Josh’s sudden appearance and his commitment to the
role he was playing. “It isn’t what you think. We’re just old
frie—”

“
What I
think
? Are
you
going to tell me what
I
think?”

She tried to signal him with her eyes
that he was getting a little too over-the-top, but Josh and Stanley
Kowalski had become one. She peeked around Josh for a second to
check out Fitz’s reaction, but all she could see was Fitz’s hands
on the table. He had one hand fisted inside the other, cracking his
knuckles. Then he switched and did the same with the other
hand.

Daisy’s mind reeled. Fitz
wasn’t actually priming himself to
hit
Josh, was he?

That would mean he felt
protective of her, or jealo—
No
, she told herself, before her
silly fantasies got the better of her. He didn’t care about her
like that. He didn’t see her like that. Her confusion translated to
furrowed brows and quickened breaths and Josh leered at her in
character.

“
Scared’a me? You
should
be,” said Josh in
a menacing tone, winking at her.

“
I swear to God, if you
don’t back away from her on your own, I will make you.”

Fitz’s voice was smooth and low behind
Josh, cracking like a soft whip with its fierce
intensity.

Josh winked at her again, then leaned
back to look at Fitz with derision, still channeling Stanley
Kowalski with aplomb. “You and what army?”

Fitz stood up so fast, his chair hit
the ground behind him, swiftly followed by Josh who took a quick,
hard jab to the nose and fell to the floor.

“
What the hell, Fitz?”
demanded Barrett, standing up beside Daisy’s chair.

Daisy gasped, sliding off her seat and
onto her knees, reaching for Josh, who was covered in blood and
practically in tears. “That was assault. He mighta broka my
nose.”

Breathless and confused, Daisy looked
up at Fitz with wide eyes.

Fitz ran his hands through his hair
then opened them to her in supplication. “I don’t—I don’t like the
way he talks to you!”

That declaration snapped Daisy out of
her trance-like state.

“
Well, then by all means,
hit him.” She shook her head. “When did you turn into a
Neanderthal, Fitz?”

They’d attracted quite a little crowd
by now, Barrett helping Josh get to his feet, and Emily coming
around the table to take Daisy’s arm and help her off the floor.
Emily pursed her lips and stared at Fitz in disbelief, then put her
arm around her cousin’s waist.

“
This isn’t like you,
Fitz,” Emily exclaimed with wide, shocked eyes.

Fitz’s jaw looked like it was about to
pop from the way he was clenching it and his eyes, which were wild
and furious, didn’t let go of Daisy’s even as Emily berated him. It
was almost like he was seeing her for the first time, and Daisy’s
whole body prickled with awareness.

Barrett was helping Josh to the
bathroom, and Emily directed their course to follow. Daisy looked
back once, just in time to see Fitz pick up the chair he’d knocked
over and stalk out of the ballroom without a second
glance.

***

Fitz gave his valet ticket to one of
the uniformed guys outside, then paced the curb, trying to figure
out what the hell had just happened.

Daisy Edwards, that’s
what.

The summer they spent together had
practically been defined by the way she got him to do things he’d
never consider doing on his own: breaking and entering, public
nudity, trespassing… in his whole life, only Daisy had ever had
that effect on him. She made him so nuts, it was like he’d do
anything for her.

All Fitz knew was that the
minute that asshole had jerked her hand out of his, it took every
ounce of self-control Fitz possessed not to deck him. And then
finally, he snapped. For God’s sake, he’d
threatened
her, telling her she
should be scared of him. He deserved to have his lights punched
out. Fitz highly doubted he’d broken anything, but a broken nose
was too good for Dr. M. He deserved a broken head for mistreating
the sexiest, funniest, most beautiful girl in the world.

The valet pulled up with
his Mercedes CLS-Class silver sports car and Fitz stomped to the
driver’s side, giving the valet a twenty before plopping down in
the supple leather seat. It felt good stepping on the gas, but Fitz
didn’t want to go home. If he did, he’d probably just end up
getting drunk, remembering the curve of Daisy’s neck in that
ridiculously skimpy dress, the way her cheek felt beneath his lips
as she’d turned her head, the way her eyes had looked when she’d
taken his hand. Jesus. Nine years had gone by and he still wanted
her just as much as he had that summer. He slammed his hand on the
steering wheel once, twice,
threefourfive
times until the heel
of his palm ached.

He certainly hadn’t
expected to see her tonight. Frankly, he’d never expected to see
her again, and then there she was in the Hotel DuPont ballroom out
of the blue—still so unbelievably beautiful, so sexy and vivacious,
making him laugh about the boring deals he worked on every day,
making his blood rush like wildfire and his body harden with want
for the slightest touch. That was the thing about Daisy; being
around her was like a drug to Fitz. It felt so good, so exciting
and exhilarating, it’s like he’d do anything to hold onto that
feeling. It made him foolish and imprudent. So much so that he’d
actually hit her fiancé.
Hit
him. Fitz groaned, shaking his head, furious with
himself.

After half an hour of self-criticism
and rebuke, he found himself pulling up outside of Stratton’s
apartment building. He found a parking spot and crossed the street,
nodding to the familiar doorman and using his spare key to take the
reserved elevator all the way to the top floor. Once there he
knocked on Stratton’s door, then unlocked it himself.

If Stratton was thrown off by an
impromptu guest at ten-thirty, Fitz wouldn’t have known. He barely
saw his brother’s face as he bee-lined past him to the kitchen,
opened the fridge, took out a bottle of Stella Artois, and
proceeded to chug the whole thing. Then he opened another, placed
it on the counter and tugged at his bowtie. Stratton sauntered into
the kitchen a minute later and found Fitz halfway through the
second bottle of beer.

“
Wow. Good time
tonight?”

Fitz shook his head, taking another
sip, then brushed past Stratton, shrugging out of his tux jacket
and flopping onto the black leather couch with an exhausted sigh.
“No.”

Stratton reached down for the remote
and turned off the TV, then sat down in a black leather chair
facing Fitz.

Fitz looked up, grateful for the quiet
refuge of Stratton and his apartment. While Barrett was sternly
commanding, Alex was a manwhore playboy, and Weston was the
attention-seeking youngest, Stratton was socially-awkward, but
quiet, intense and thoughtful. Fitz loved all of his brothers, but
in moments of personal crisis, Stratton was his go-to
man.

Fitz ran his hands through his hair.
“I punched a guy in the face, Strat. At the Gala. I…I punched
him.”

Stratton’s eyes bugged out
of his head behind his glasses and he leaned forward, resting his
elbows on his knees. “
You
? What the hell? What
happened?”

“
Do you remember Daisy
Edwards?”

“
Vaguely. Felix’s niece,
right?”

Fitz nodded. “She stayed with Felix
and Susannah the summer she was seventeen. I was twenty, almost
twenty-one. We—we were together.”

“
I don’t remember this.
Like how?’

“
Like, I was crazy about
her, and we fooled around all summer on the sly.”

“
Oh. Wow, really? Huh. Why
on the sly?”

Fitz shrugged. He didn’t have a good
answer other than the excitement of it. Their secret love affair
felt illicit. Risky. Everything Fitz wasn’t, and yet he’d loved
every second with her.

“
I don’t know. That’s just
the way it was.”

“
Okay. Then
what?”

Fitz reached for his beer and took a
long swig, hoping it would numb him a little, but it didn’t help.
He hadn’t articulated the details of that summer to anyone for a
very, very long time. In fact, aside from Daisy, his mother was the
only person who even knew about what had happened. He sat back on
the couch, rubbing his lips and chin with his fingers, unsure of
where to begin. He finally decided just to cut to the
chase.

“
I got her
pregnant.”

Stratton’s neck jerked
forward and he straightened his glasses. “What? What the hell,
Fitz?
You did what
?”

Fitz shook his head, biting his bottom
lip. His voice was low and throaty when he continued. “It was an
accident. We used a condom, but she was a virgin and we sort of
started, then stopped and started again and then finally, you know…
and it broke.”

“
Jesus, Fitz.” Stratton
looked at Fitz thoughtfully. “Pregnant. You said you were about to
turn twenty, right? You went to England at the end of that summer.
She got pregnant and you went to England?”

“
We didn’t know if she was
pregnant or not. She went home the next day.”

“
Oh,” said Stratton,
sighing heavily. “Then what?”

“
Well, I proposed. The
morning she left I asked her to marry me, just in case.”

“
What?
You did what
?” Stratton asked for
the second time, eyes bugging out of his head.

“
I asked her to marry me.
Gave her my high school ring to make it official.”

“
And she said
yes.”

Fitz swallowed, remembering her puffy,
frightened eyes as she’d taken the ring and slipped it on her
finger.

“
She did,” Fitz whispered,
wincing at the memory.

“
You know? I would’ve
believed this story from Weston or Barrett. I would’ve
expected
it of Alex.
But
you
?”
Stratton shook his head back and forth in shock, adjusting his
glasses. “Well, what happened then?”

“
Remember when I was home
that fall? Right around Columbus Day? Just for a night out of the
blue?”

“
Yeah. You came home from
London for a weekend. Mom said it was a special visit.”

“
Daisy was in car accident
coming home from school on a Friday afternoon. She called me in
London, and I hopped on the first plane to Newark and came home.
Went right to the hospital. She miscarried.”

“
Oh. Oh, man. I had no
idea, Fitz. Jesus. I’m sorry.”

Fitz swallowed the lump in his throat,
nodding at Stratton. “I went back to see her again right before my
flight left for London on Sunday. I told her to keep the ring, that
I’d still marry her anyway.”

“
And?”

“
And she threw the ring at
my head, said that she hated me and I’d ruined her life, and I
should go the hell back to London and never bother her
again.”

“
So you did.”

“
So I did,” he whispered,
the terrible memories making him feel sick to his stomach. He
suddenly remembered he hadn’t eaten anything all night. “Got
anything to eat, Strat?”

“
I’ll order pizza. Hang
tight.”

Stratton took out his cell to order
food, and Fitz unbuttoned another button in his shirt and finished
the rest of his beer. It felt both good and awful to replay the
events of that fall. Good to remember how much he had loved Daisy.
Awful to remember her angry eyes and tear-streaked face when she
told him to get lost.

“
Then what?” asked Stratton
softly, returning to sit down.

“
Then nothing. A few months
later, on Boxing Day, I asked Emily how she was doing, and she told
me that Daisy had moved out to California to live with her mother.
She was gone. Just like that.”

“
You never reached out to
her? Never called or wrote to her or anything?”

“
I wanted to. But I forced
myself not to. I got her pregnant, Strat. She was seventeen and she
trusted me and I got her pregnant and then, God, she lost the baby.
If she never wanted to see me again, the least I could do was honor
her wishes.”

“
Wow,” said Stratton,
leaning back in his chair, staring at Fitz with
compassion.

“
If she’d ever written to
me… ever called… ever needed anything, I would’ve dropped
everything, anything, to help her, to see her, to…”

“
Hey,” said Stratton
thoughtfully. “You didn’t mean to hurt her. You were really just a
kid too.”

“
No. No, I wasn’t. I was
twenty. She was a teenager. I knew better than to get involved with
her, but there was something about her.”
There’s
still
something about her.
Fitz shook his
head back and forth, feeling miserable. “She was so beautiful and
young and fun. Everything was a game. Everything was exciting with
Daisy. I’d never known anyone like her before—all the girls in
Haverford were so, I don’t know, like sisters or something. I’d
known them my whole life. She was like a runaway train, and I just
wanted to hitch a ride and… I don’t know how to explain it, but I
felt more alive that summer than I’d ever felt before.”
Or since
, he thought
sadly. “There were no rules. There was just Daisy.” He looked at
his brother, horrified to feel a burn at the backs of his eyes.
“And then she was gone.”