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From Part 4:“You should send me Montoya more often. I think I like her.”
Lois ignored the taunt and got up from her chair. “So you call me, okay? Got my office number?”
“I tried to lose it, but somehow that didn’t work.”
“Pleasure to see you, too, Bill!” she threw over her shoulder before closing the door behind her. It felt good to know that some things never changed.
*********Part 5:“Would you like more of this excellent dessert, my dear?” Without waiting for an answer, Lex motioned for Nigel to fill their plates again.
Lois made a half-hearted attempt at turning down the second helping, but the butler ignored her. And so now she was faced with delicate pieces of Grand Marnier-laced millefeuille, one of which she’d barely touched, the other one she didn’t even want to think about.
Lex had been particularly cheerful tonight, which had sorely wound her up. A colleague, a *friend* was dead, and her husband didn’t even seem to be aware of it. He had to know, though. LNN was one of the major holdings of LexCorp, and Dave’s death had been all over the news anyway. She hadn’t had the strength to bring it up. Voicing it would probably be enough to send her collapsing into tears.
It had been hard enough standing behind the police line, mere feet away from the chalk drawing on the ground. She’d ignored the brown stains marring the pavement. It had been too easy to imagine Dave’s body lying there, lifeless, blood oozing from his deadly wound. She’d been about to get closer, but an officer had firmly pushed her out of the way. She hadn’t found the strength to insist, especially when she’d seen Inspector Dwight loitering about.
Dwight. One of the most corrupt, dishonest policemen in the city. Even Henderson hadn’t denied that the man was not to be trusted, and Henderson normally never spoke ill of anybody in the force.
She should tell Lex that Dwight was not the right person for the job. With his influence over the city, her husband could probably make sure Henderson was assigned the investigation. His silence on the whole event was getting on her nerves, though. She watched him eat his second helping of dessert.
“Looks like Chef Francois outdid himself again tonight,” he commented after the last bite. Only then did he seem to notice that she didn’t share his enthusiasm. He cocked his head to the side and frowned. “You’ve barely touched your food, my love.”
“I wasn’t feeling hungry.” How could he act as if everything was okay?
“I thought you’d enjoy some of that French food I had the staff prepare especially for you. Don’t tell me you became fussier about food after your taste of the real thing.”
She hid a squirm. “I didn’t really have time to taste much of the food. I was working.”
“I know you were, darling.” He drained the remnants of the dessert wine in his glass and blotted at his mouth with his napkin. “Will you tell me what’s bothering you?”
“David’s dead, Lex! How can you ignore that? How can you act as if everything is okay and normal and just fine? You’re sitting here, tasting expensive food and one of your precious Sauternes, and you don’t even have a thought for the man, a senior employee of yours! How can you be so cold?”
Her cheeks were hot and she had to take a couple of deep breaths to calm herself. Her back slumped and she lowered her head. Pride bubbled up inside her and fought the nervousness she felt at speaking so harshly and honestly to her husband. How was he going to react, though? He wasn’t used to anything more than meek agreement from her. She gave him a careful glance from under her eyelashes.
He looked as surprised as she felt about her outburst. His amused smile didn’t fully conceal his annoyance.
She shuddered.
“It might surprise you, my dear, but I knew about Mr Dooley’s death long before you did.” He dabbed at his lips again with his Irish linen napkin and pushed his plate away. “I can’t say I wasn’t affected. He was a valuable asset to LexCorp. However, you can’t expect tears from me. Not everyone likes to display their emotions in public, and I was always taught to keep mine in check. If you expect me to weep, then you will be sorely disappointed indeed. I feel sorry for Mr. Dooley and his family, and I will send flowers to the funeral and a letter to his family and make sure LexCorp provides for their future if needed. But I can’t resurrect the dead, nor can I prevent crime from happening in our streets. I know Superman used to do that for us, and we were all very grateful for his presence. Alas, he’s not here any more.” His eyes lingered on her face for a moment. “No-one knows what drove him away.”
He rose from his chair and went to the small cabinet at the back of the room. His first glass of brandy was gone in seconds. He poured himself a second one, grabbed his copy of tomorrow’s Financial Times, and sat on one of the large armchairs facing the fireplace. A minute later, Nigel was presenting a box of Cubans to him.
Lois shook her head and remained seated at the table. She hated the smell of cigars; Lex knew that. During the course of their marriage, he had always seemed to avoid smoking in her presence, and she’d appreciated the courtesy. Tonight, though, it looked like he’d decided not to bother accommodating her. Well, that was fair enough. Despite the apparent calmness of his response, she knew they’d wound each other up like... well, like a married couple.
The realisation seemed strange to her, but in fact, tonight was their first real fight... the first one that wasn’t one-sided and didn’t end up with her giving in and letting her husband have it his own way. The thought made her feel rather uncomfortable, and she itched to retreat to her bedroom for the night. Pigheadedness made her choose the opposite solution, and she sat on the armchair opposite Lex’s instead.
“I’ll bring down the slime who did that,” she said as he did nothing to acknowledge her presence. “I’ll make sure he rots in prison for the rest of his life.”
Lex looked up from his newspaper. “And then someone else will take his place and kill for the sake of money.”
“Of course he will, when somebody like Dwight is in charge of the investigation. Anybody could buy that cop.”
“I’ll ask you for the courtesy of respecting that man, Lois.”
“Why should I? Does he respect anybody?”
“He’s a fine policeman.” Lex’s tone left no room for argument. “If anybody can bring down the man who killed Mr Dooley, he can.”
“I’ll make sure he does.”
Lex rolled his eyes and waved his cigar about, obviously uncaring of the acrid smell irritating Lois’s nostrils. “I’d rather you didn’t interfere with the police’s work.”
“Why? What’s it to you that I get Dwight to do the right thing for once? If he can’t do his job properly, then I’ll make sure he has no choice but to find the bastard who killed David.”
“And then what? Take on every criminal in the city? My word, but you’ll be busy for the rest of your life.”
“I’ll bring them all down. Every single one of them.”
He folded up his paper and laid it on the coffee table. “Don’t be ridiculous, Lois. You already put yourself in enough danger as it is, and you know I don’t like that.”
Lois didn’t reply. Conversation with Lex periodically returned to her job and how risky it was, and she was tired of defending herself and her right to do her work. When they had first got engaged, Lex had repeatedly told her she didn’t need to work, and he still seemed to be deaf to the argument that she liked having a job. In fact, he insisted more and more that she stayed in her office and stopped taking risks. One of these days he would lock her in a cage. She held back a sigh. Sometimes her life already felt that way.
“I don’t want my children to lose their mother at a young age.”
She choked on her breath and turned to stare at her husband, who hadn’t looked up from his newspaper. Had she heard him right?
Children?
Lex wanted children?
How come they’d never talked about that before? And suddenly he seemed to believe that it was absolutely natural for her to carry his children and be... be a mother. She shuddered. She’d never wanted children. She was okay with the little brats, as long as they stayed well away from her. Well okay, she didn’t truly hate them, but she just didn’t fancy becoming a mother herself. She admired the women who juggled their career and their life as a mom, but she knew she couldn’t do it. She’d probably end up being worse than her own mother, and the thought sent a chill down her spine.
She opened her mouth to speak. No sound came out. She clapped it shut. Children. Not just that, but children with Lex. With a husband she had decided to leave. Lex’s children. Lex wanted her to be the mother of his children. Why hadn’t she ever stopped to think that he would consider that an expected part of their marriage? She’d been on the pill for so many years that it had never occurred to her to stop once she was married. Lex had never questioned her about it; in fact, she wasn’t even sure he knew about it. He never talked about childbirth prevention when they made love. He probably assumed, like many men, that it was a woman’s role to take care of that. But his comment suddenly made her wonder if he hadn’t just thought they could conceive every time they had sex.
“Lois?”
He was looking at her now, and she shook the puzzled expression off her face. “Nothing,” she said. “We just never talked about having kids before.”
He raised his eyebrows. “I didn’t know we had to *talk* about it.”
“I... Lex, I’m not sure...” How did she tell him that she didn’t have any kind of maternal fibre? He seemed so certain that it was a natural part of their relationship, and... It suddenly struck her that she’d never felt comfortable denying him anything. Saying no to a man who was used to having everyone at his beck and call wasn’t easy, but she was his wife. She had always been determined to be an equal to the men in her life.
“You’re not sure?” His eyes narrowed, and she squirmed under the weight of his gaze.
“I think it’s something a couple would have to talk about. Before they take any hasty decision, that is.”
“What’s hasty about the decision to have a child? We’re married.” He took another sip of brandy. “Aren’t we?”
The question hung between them, or it felt like it was, and Lois’s discomfort grew as her husband stared at her, maybe waiting for confirmation that she thought of them as a married couple. “Yes.” Had the answer come out quickly enough to appease Lex? “Of course we are. But children... I’m not sure I can take care of a child.”
“Nonsense!” He looked down at his newspaper, seemed engrossed in it for a few seconds, then turned his head again. “Of course, if you keep leading dangerous investigations, children are just not going to happen, because you won’t be there to mother them.” The smile about his lips died, and there was a cold edge to his voice as he spoke again. “When editors like Mr Dooley send you on wild goose chases like he did last week, you’re risking your life.” His gaze was penetrating, and Lois fought the urge to shrink into her seat. “More than you may know. But then, reporters have that suicidal habit of poking their noses into dangerous places, don’t they?”
“I’m not - ”
“Must be what happened to that former partner of yours... What was his name again?”
“Clark...” She paled.
“Clark.” Was there contempt in his voice as he spoke the name, or was her imagination running wild? “He must have gone too far and met his fate. He probably died in a sewer somewhere, and nobody ever found him, because whoever got him was upset enough to make sure he really disappeared from the face of the Earth.”
Ice formed around Lois’s heart, and her gut clenched. Her fists tightened around the arms of the chair. Panic bubbled in her and made her muscles ache, but she fought it bravely and kept her face impassive. It was ridiculous. Lex was only worried about her taking too many risks in her job and, in a way, he had a point. The iciness of his words had been in her imagination. Just in her imagination. And his mention of Clark was pure coincidence. After Clark’s disappearance, many people had believed him dead. Even Jimmy. Even... herself. It was no wonder Lex had thought about that possibility, too. There was nothing to be afraid of. Concern over the divorce procedure she would have to go through was making her paranoid, that was all.
She sneaked a glance at Lex. He had returned his attention to the paper in his hands and was now fully ignoring her. She wanted to get up and sneak out of the room. Mostly, she wanted the panic to go away instead of rising constantly. She was going crazy. Paranoid. She’d never been paranoid before. The whole thing was just ridiculous. She pushed it away, determination finally winning over silliness. She took a slow and silent breath. Gone. It was gone. She was fine. She would bid her husband goodnight and retreat to her room. And she would sleep soundly. And tomorrow morning, the whole conversation would look like every one of the disagreements they’d had over the past six months. No different.
Okay, so they’d had what could come closest to their first fight at the end of dinner, but that didn’t mean things had changed.
Wait a minute! What did she care that things changed? She was about to tell Lex that she wanted out of their marriage. It wasn’t like she needed to patch things up with him. In fact, she should use this opportunity to broach the topic with him. It was going to be a difficult conversation, but the more she postponed it, the harder it was going to be, and -
“Come to bed.”
It was a command, not an invitation, and all her thoughts about talking to Lex about ending their marriage flew out of her mind. A hint of fear sneaked its way into her mind once again, and she found herself nodding mutely in agreement with his request. She knew what it meant. He was going to have sex with her. Oh god, he was really going to have sex with her.
She tried to look calm as he led the way into her bedroom - for some reason, their sex life always took place in there. She’d seen the inside of his bedroom maybe once or twice in the time they’d been married. It consisted of a large bed stuck between two mahogany bedside tables. She knew there was an en-suite bathroom, though she’d never been invited to look, and Lex seemed so keen on his privacy that she’d never dared explore when he was not home. She gave herself a mental shake. And she called herself a tough reporter! Still. There was nothing to investigate, and one thing that her experience with Superman had taught her was that you could lose people by trying to invade their personal space. She hadn’t wanted to do that with Lex. He had been the only person who hadn’t let her down after the Planet was destroyed... unlike Perry, who had gone into early retirement, Jimmy, who had moved out of the city, and... well, and Clark.
Clark was back in her life now, though. He loved her. And she loved him. And they were at the start - or what could be - of what she’d been looking for all those years. She wouldn’t lose anything if Lex let her go. Quite the opposite. She would win the unselfish love of a man who was decent, caring, honest, and everything she had ever dreamed of.
Lex was looking at her expectantly, and she nodded to the bathroom. She didn’t need to say anything. She knew that by the time she came out, he would be in bed and waiting for her. He would expect her to be responsive to his passion. She could only hope he would make it quick and return to his own bed.
*********
tbc...
