Lucy Monroe Cut Scenes

Remember...these are CUT scenes and to get the entire picture of Marcus and Veronica's relationship before their story in Goodness Had Nothing to With It, you need to read Come Up and See Me Sometime.

Veronica slid into the driver’s seat of her ancient Honda Civic, shivering as the cold autumn wind blew into the car with her, chilling what little warmth the sun’s rays had accumulated in the car’s interior. There had been a time when she loved these brisk, sunny days of fall more than any other time of year. She had once reveled in the fragrance of the changing season, the feel of the cold air on her face as the rare blue skies smiled with almost benevolent light on her. Now these cold, clear days only meant higher heating bills with more to come as winter loomed ominously on the weather horizon.

Cranking the car’s engine, she felt gratitude when the usually recalcitrant starter caught on the first try. At least one thing had gone right today. Jenny’s appointment with the doctor certainly hadn’t. His words still rang in Veronica’s ears, making her chest tight and her heart constrict with terror and pain. Disease resisting treatment. Organs degeneration possibly irreversible. One year. Maybe two at the most.

She had not felt this much fear since the State Patrolman had come to her door to inform her of her parent’s death, leaving Veronica to break the news to her younger sister, Jenny. Stupidly, Veronica had believed at the time that nothing could hurt as much, nothing could be worse than a freak boating accident taking two of the most important people in her life and leaving her with the terrifying responsibility of raising Jenny.

She’d been so wrong. So very wrong. Jenny the only person on the face of the earth whom Veronica loved, or was allowed to love she amended. There was another person who had claim on her tortured heart, but he had no interest in it. Jenny was definitely the only person alive who loved Veronica. And Veronica had to stand by watching the once beautiful, vivacious teen become an ailing shadow of what once had been while the very life force drained bit by bit from her.

The only hope the doctor had been able to give was no hope at all. He’d informed Veronica that a hospital in France was experiencing success treating her sister’s rare blood disease. The treatment was not approved by the FDA and wasn’t even slated for testing in the states until the following year. She felt like a woman on the edge of a canyon with a raging fire consuming the brush behind her, coming closer and closer and knowing she could do nothing to reach the safety promised on the other side.

The kind of money it would take to finance a year’s stay in France and pay for the ground breaking medical treatment was as far from Veronica’s grasp as the love of the man her heart insisted on pining for. She beat her hands against the steering wheel, glad she had already dropped Jenny off so her sister could not see the angry despair that Veronica could no longer contain. She couldn’t fail Jenny now.

“Type these up and put them in the St. Clair file before you leave tonight, would you?” A sheaf of papers, littered with scratched out words, notes in the margins and taped on snips of newspaper text landed on the desk in front of Veronica with a distinct snap.

Not tonight. She almost groaned out loud. She was so tired. She needed to go home. To bed. To sleep. Something she did very little of these days. Jenny was staying the night with her best friend because the school district had the following day off for an in service day or something. Too ill to attend school any longer, Jenny had maintained a few of her old friendships throughout her illness. Her relationship with Carrie was one of them.

Carrie’s mother knew the routine, knew how to handle Jenny’s weakened state and Veronica had been looking forward to the overnighter with more anticipation than she wanted to acknowledge. It made her feel guilty to be glad Jenny was with Carrie tonight, instead of waiting in their pokey apartment for Veronica to come home and put on one of her nightly “We’re going to beat this thing and everything will be fine,” performances.

Tonight, Veronica could go home and regroup, be weak with no one to see her, no one to be hurt by her grieving and fear. And she could let herself sleep, really sleep, not having to dread that moment she would waken to Jenny’s cries – either from nightmares or pain.

It was just one night, but it meant so much. “I’d prefer not to work late tonight, Mr. Danvers.”

Marcus Danvers leaned against her desk, his jean clad muscular thighs right at eye level. “What’s up, Miss Richards? Got a hot date?”

She hated that mocking tone in his voice. He acted as if the prospect of her having a date was so unbelievably amusing. Well, she wasn’t laughing. Maybe she wasn’t stacked, leggy and blonde like most of the giggly tarts he dated, but she wasn’t totally unattractive and it wasn’t completely beyond the realm of possibility that she might have a date.

She lifted her head so she could meet his eyes and almost stopped breathing. She wanted to cry, only she never cried anymore. When would her stupid body stop responding to the sight of him like this? It wasn’t as if he’d ever flirted with her, or encouraged her to see him as anything other than her boss’s right hand man or acknowledged her as anything other than CIS’s one secretary. He treated her much like he would a piece of office furniture that could type and take messages.

The last thought made her face go stiff. She could feel it happening. Her jaw tightened and the skin across her cheekbones felt like freeze dried sushi paper. “My personal life is of no concern to you, Mr. Danvers. Isn’t it enough that I do not wish to work late tonight?”

He smiled, his even white teeth flashing at her from the perfectly formed curve of his all too masculine lips. “Come on, Veronica.”

He only called her by her first name when he was trying to talk her into doing something. She fell for it every time, too. It was the only time she felt like she might actually be a person to him, not an automaton. With a sense of angry helplessness, she felt herself weakening.

“It will only take you an extra half-hour at most,” he cajoled, “Alex wants this stuff input tonight, but I’ve got to pick up Cherry in less than an hour and I still have to go home to change.”

Her gaze flicked back to the stack of papers he’d dropped on her desk. An hour’s worth of work more like. Deciphering his notes was a lot like talking to her elderly next-door neighbor who was practically deaf and knew about six words of English. Difficult.

“If you think it will take so little time, why don’t you call your friend and postpone your date?” she asked in her most reasonable tone.

He sighed and managed to look regretful. “We’ve got tickets for an nine o’clock show. We’re having dinner at the new restaurant on the waterfront first. I really can’t be late.”

“What makes you assume my plans are any less important?” She didn’t know where the question came from.

From the look of stunned disbelief on Marcus’s face, he didn’t either. She’d always caved before. She didn’t know what made her push this time, maybe just the fact that she felt close to the end of her personal resources. When they were gone, she had nothing else to draw on – except prayer and she wasn’t sure anyone was listening anymore.

Then Marcus laughed, his head tipping back, the tanned column of his neck vibrating with his amusement.

She felt heat scorching up her cheeks. It had been bad enough when he’d mocked the prospect of her having a hot date, to have him out and out laugh at the idea hurt. She grabbed the papers and spun her chair so she faced her computer and couldn’t see the tall, blonde hyena making all the noise behind her.

After clipping the notes to the plastic extension connected to her monitor, she opened a file and started typing.

He sounded subdued, but she told herself that was just her imagination and she didn’t bother to reply. She continued typing, the silence behind her telling her he had not left yet. What was he waiting for? Did he expect her to thank him for the opportunity to stay late doing his work? She couldn’t deny that the overtime hours would be a welcome boost to her finances, but she certainly didn’t think it merited an expression of gratitude.

Finally, she heard him leave, then the sound of his office door closing, then the tread of his feet as he returned. He had to walk by her desk again to exit the building.

The footsteps stopped at her desk. “Veronica, I really do appreciate you doing this. I’ll make it up to you.”

How? Maybe he’d buy her an oilcan. That would be a nice gift for the office robot. “Mr. Danvers,” she said without turning to face him.

“Don’t call me Veronica. Using my first name implies a personal relationship and we don’t have one. I would prefer you not do so again.”

“We’ve worked together for three years. Don’t you think it’s time we dispensed with the formality?” He sounded angry.

She couldn’t imagine why. They’d worked together for three years and he’d never once so much as asked her how her weekend had gone on a Monday morning. He knew nothing about her. Nothing about Jenny. “No.”

“Are you all right?” The words sounded drug out of him. “If you’ve got something really important to do, I could call Cherry and cancel dinner before the show.”

Flicking her eyes to the scribbled on sheets, she deciphered a sentence, took note of the arrow pointing from it to a newspaper clipping and then turned her attention back to the computer screen. “There’s no need. My plans will wait.”

This was getting painful. “You’re going to be late, Mr. Danvers. You had better leave.”
Without another word, he did.

Marcus finished entering the changes his morning meeting with Alex had generated for the St. Clair file and a few others. After saving the file and then clicking it closed, he stood up and stretched. His linked hands brushed the ceiling above him as he extended his arms upward and came up slightly on the balls of his feet. Maintaining the invigorating stretch, he rotated his head, hearing small pops as his neck released tension.

He’d been at this desk for three solid hours, pursuing elusive information on several companies via the internet and phone calls. Yesterday, he probably would have asked Veronica to enter his notes for the cases he’d worked on, but he hesitated to this morning. He knew she had plenty of work of her own to keep her busy, but he’d always just assumed she didn’t mind a little extra.

Until yesterday evening. She’d told him she didn’t want to stay and he’d cajoled her into doing it anyway. And he was feeling guilty as hell because of it.

Right, bosco. You’re feeling guilty because you hurt her. He lowered his arms and stretched to one side. Okay, so he’d seen a flash of pain in her eyes before she’d turned around and started typing. He stretched to the other side.

He might as well have stayed and done his own typing. Instead of focusing on Cherry’s sexy, little red glitter dress and the body it encased, his mind had stubbornly dwelled on cloudy gray eyes looking wounded. Dinner had been a disaster and so had taking Cherry home afterward. He’d left her with a kiss at the door.

Not because she wanted him to. She’d made it clear in all the subtle and not so subtle ways a woman used to tell a man she was available and willing, but he hadn’t been interested. He’d been feeling too damn guilty.

It hadn’t helped that when he stopped at Veronica’s desk this morning to thank her again for staying late, even her glasses hadn’t been able to hid the fact those same cloudy gray eyes had dark circles under them that could have passed for hockey pucks. She’d been irritatingly polite as well, dismissing his apology and thanks with a small inclination of her regal little head and then gone back to her work as if he wasn’t even there.

He hadn’t liked it and that bothered him. Since when had it mattered if the CIS secretary noticed his presence?

He’d made it a habit not to care what anyone thought of him since he was ten years old, the year he’d learned that bastard sons didn’t have the same status as legitimate ones. His father had pretended not to know Marcus when they ran into each other in a public park and Marcus had refused to acknowledge the tie ever since. His father’s first wife had died when Marcus was thirteen and his father had finally married his mother, but by then, Marcus had had no desire to play happy families.

He’d built a wall around his emotions and every year, he added more bricks to it. He would never again put himself in the place of needing someone’s approval for his sense of self. He refused to love. Love made you vulnerable. Look at his mom. She’d spent years as a rich man’s plaything because she loved him. Their subsequent marriage couldn’t wipe out the pain she’d endured as his father’s dirty secret.

Irritated by the direction of his thoughts, he spun around to face the door and stopped. Veronica stood in the opening, her somewhat unfocused gaze fixed on him. A rapid pulse beat at the base of her throat, for once exposed by the shallow scoop neck of her plain gray tunic style blouse.

It reached her mid-thigh where her long, straight wool skirt continued down well past her knees. The outfit was typical of CIS’s buttoned up secretary, the unmistakable outline of excited feminine flesh pressing against the knit shirt was not. Veronica Richards was turned on.
If he was any judge of women and he knew no one who would deny that claim, he was the one who had done it too. Had she stood in the doorway watching him stretch? The thought had an unexpected effect on his own flesh. It was a good thing his signature Hawaiian shirt covered the now very tight fit of his jeans. “Did you need something, Veronica?”

Her body jerked at his words and her eyes lost their glazed look. She stepped into his office. “I’ve asked you not to call me that.”

“Hmmm… Don’t like your first name? I think it’s real pretty, but we’ve all got our little quirks. Do you prefer Ronnie, then?” He didn’t know what was driving him, but he wanted a reaction out of her.

She drew herself up like a queen facing her court. “I’ve already told you what I prefer. Miss Richards.”

“Nope.” He sighed, trying to make it sound regretful. “No can do. I’m just not comfortable with that level of formality any more.”

Red slashes marked the smooth, pale skin of her cheeks, but she didn’t retaliate.

She stared at him, edging back toward the door. “No, but that’s not why I came in here.”

Maybe he should get business out of the way first. “Okay. I'll bite. Why’d you come to my office?”

“Mr. Trahern wanted me to tell you that he left for an afternoon meeting and didn’t expect to be back in today.”

Marcus nodded, clasped his hands and stretched them out in front of him until several small cracks could be heard. “Okay. Now answer my question.”

Who would have thought their little office robot could have such a sexy, husky voice? “Yeah. Question. As in: Did you have lunch yet?”

She shook her head, her eyes fixed on the muscles flexing in his arms. He flexed again just to watch the slight widening of her eyes before letting his arms fall back to his sides.

Her answer didn’t surprise him. She rarely left the building for lunch, except to take a walk around the property when weather permitted and she often didn’t even stop for a sandwich at her desk. No wonder she was so thin. For some reason that thought really pissed him off. He didn’t like to think of Ronnie skipping meals.

He strode forward, took hold of her arm and pulled her with him out of his office. “Then you can come have it with me.”

“What?” she practically screeched. “I can’t leave the office, Mar— Mr. Danvers. What would Mr. Trahern say?”

“He’d say you need to eat. You’re practically skin and bones as it is. And call me Marcus or I might have to get hostile.” He smiled to let her know he wasn’t threatening her, but she didn’t smile back.

She just stared at him as if he’d lost his mind. “I can eat a sandwich at my desk.”

“Tell me the truth, Ronnie. Secretaries who lie get computer gremlins in their keyboards.”

“Why?” He was curious. She was usually so efficient, the concept of her forgetting anything intrigued him.

She kept her eyes averted. “I got up late, so I was rushed this morning when I left.”

She’d slept in and she still looked like she hadn’t seen a bed in a week? Guilt surged up in him again. “How late were you here last night?”

She gave a small huff, looking adorably irritated. Like a little brown wren with her ruffles feathered. “I left a little after six thirty.”

He was losing it. Adorable? It wasn’t a word he had associated with her before and doing so now had a strange affect on him. “How little?” This was worse than getting one of his dates to tell him how old she really was.

No. It wasn’t all right. “I thought there was about a half hours worth of work and you’re telling me you stayed almost two hours. What happened?”

Her head came up and she blasted him with the silver fury reflected in her eyes. “I’d entered the first two pages when I realized I had misread one of your side notes. It changed almost everything I entered and where it was supposed to be in the file. Okay? Anyway, at the best of times your writing is about as easy to decipher as some newly discovered ancient Sanskrit.”

“You can’t read my writing?” Why hadn’t she ever said anything? She’d been deciphering his notes for three damn years and never asked a single question.

She shrugged, the silver in her eyes fading to gray. “It’s not worth losing sleep over. Lots of secretaries have to decipher less than perfectly clear notes. It’s part of my job.”

Without conscious thought, he reached out and touched the skin just under where her glasses rested against her face. “But you did lose sleep over it.”

Her body had gone very still the moment his fingertip made contact with her skin. His gaze dropped to her lips. They were parted slightly, letting out small puffs of air. Their pretty pink curves looked pouty and slightly swollen as if she was asking for him to kiss her.

He dropped his hand the second he realized he was about to oblige her. He couldn’t kiss her. She wasn’t his type. He dated voluptuous, flamboyant women who knew the score, not little brown wrens who probably expected a marriage proposal to follow a satisfying romp in the sack.

He had to get them out of the intimacy of the office. Knowing that Alex was gone for the afternoon was doing strange things to Marcus’s libido. A satisfying romp with Ronnie was sounding better and better by the second. He couldn’t help wondering how her pointed little nipples would taste, how sweet that usually prim and buttoned up mouth would be.

When she didn’t move fast enough, he grabbed her coat, leaving her purse because he didn’t know where she kept it and dragged her out to the car. He should have taken Cherry up on last night’s offer. He was just sexually frustrated. That was why the thought of Ronnie naked was making him sweat.

He’d call Cherry again tonight. Maybe drop by for an after work drink. Yeah. That’s what he’d do.

Veronica stood beside the hospital bed in the semi-private room and laid her hand on the waxen pale cheek of her sister. Jenny slept on, continual exhaustion now a debilitating side effect of her illness.

The doctor had recommended a blood replacement transfusion in hopes it would give Jenny a few more months to live as well as improving the quality of her life for a little while. He’d outlined the risks to Veronica and Jenny on their latest visit. Jenny had been so tired and apathetic, she hadn’t expressed an opinion either way. Veronica had approved the procedure with the desperate knowledge she had no choice.

Two days later, her sister awaited the transfusion they all hoped would reverse some of the disease’s side effects, two days when every day felt like a withdrawal from an already overdrawn account. If the transfusion were successful, Jenny should regain enough strength to make the trip to France and withstand the demands that would be put on her weakened body by the treatment that could very well lead to a cure.

All Veronica had to do was raise enough money to make the trip and the treatment possible. Right. Oh, God. It was hopeless. Hopeless.

If only she had taken her sister in sooner for tests, maybe they could have prevented the disease from escalating. If she hadn’t thought the easy bruising and inexplicable bouts of tiredness were just part of the hormonal changes in her sister’s growth toward womanhood, Jenny might be at cheerleading practice right now instead of a hospital.

The doctor had denied that scenario, but Veronica couldn’t dismiss the feelings of guilt. She hadn’t taken enough notice of her sister’s growing frailty. She’d been too busy working and trying to finish her business degree. And now Jenny might die because of Veronica’s neglect.
The weight of guilt and her own lacking ability to provide the funds necessary for Jenny’s treatment pressed down on Veronica, making it hard for her to breath, much less think rationally. She couldn’t stay here any longer. She had to get away from the constant reminder of her failings. Every antiseptically cleaned inch of the hospital room reminded Veronica that she had failed to protect and provide for Jenny.

After brushing her sister’s cheek one last time, she turned to go. But when she reached her little car in the lot outside the hospital, she realized she did not want to go home. She could not face the empty apartment that was itself another testament to Veronica’s inability to provide for her sister. Jenny didn’t even have a room of her own, but the one bedroom unit was all Veronica could afford with her portion of the medical bills eating up the majority of each paycheck.

She remembered Marcus mentioning a bar on Portland’s eastside. He’d been telling Alex what a happening place it was, loud, crowded and dimly lit. It sounded like somewhere she could lose herself and right now, Veronica wanted to lose herself very much.

Walking into the Broken Boot, Marcus let the sound of raucous voices, squealing electric guitar and nearby feminine laughter settle over him like a concealing blanket. After watching his best friend get married to the last woman on earth he should have even dated, Marcus needed a drink. He’d stayed away from the champagne at the short reception following the wedding. He hadn’t wanted to risk saying something to Alex they both might regret.

Something like, “What the hell do you think you are doing marrying the daughter of the man you want to destroy?”

Alex was a big boy. He could make his own choices, but somehow Marcus just couldn’t share Alex’s sanguine belief that Isabel wouldn’t be all that affected by the demise of Hypertron. And she was a nice lady. A woman who didn’t deserve to be hurt, but then what woman did?
Marcus had a lot of respect for women, if not a lot of trust in them. He also respected his boss and best friend. That’s why he’d supported Alex in his decision to marry Isabel. It was also why Marcus was inwardly set on preventing anything ugly happening down the road between the two of them if he could at all help it. Hell, he’d tell Isabel the whole CIS – St. Clair partnership in the deal was his idea if the need arose.

Angling up to the bar, he raised his hand to get one of the bartenders’ attention. He succeeded in snagging the eye of a redhead who made Marilyn Monroe look like Uma Thurman. She put the hourglass in hourglass figure and her tight “Broken Boot” shorty T-shirt worn above a miniskirt that barely covered her panties made it obvious that none of it was padding.

She hustled up to lean over the polished flat surface of the bar. “What can I getcha, sexy?”
He smiled at her blatant flirting. “I’ll take a bottle of that local brewery’s beer you keep on hand.”

She cocked her head, thrusting her chest out until he thought her T-shirt might combust from the strain. “Comin’ right up.”

While he was waiting for the redhead to come back with his beer, he turned and surveyed the rest of the bar’s interior. The dim lighting made it difficult to recognize familiar faces, which was why it took him a few seconds to believe what his eyes were telling him. Sitting by herself at a small table for two in the far corner sat Veronica Richards.

She was drinking something in a tall glass, her attention fixed on the couples gyrating to a Jimmy Hendrix tune on the dance floor. What was she doing here? Was she on a date? If so, why was she sitting alone? He took in the lack of a second glass, or coaster on the small table in front of her and decided she’d come by herself. But why? This was not her scene, he was sure of it.

He turned back to the bartender, paid for his beer, grabbed the dark, long necked bottle and headed toward Ronnie’s table.

He couldn’t leave her to sit alone. Who knew what kind of lowlife might decide to hit on a little brown wren sitting alone and looking too vulnerable for safety’s sake.

Scenes Cut from Come Up and See Me Sometime