𝙓𝙄𝙄.
GOLD RUSH

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[ a continuation of chapter ten ]

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NEW YORK

FAKE DATING MARK Sloan was not my idea of a good time.

It seemed as though Mark appearing at any social event was bound to be some sort of scandal. Eyes followed us from the door to the floor and I had to ignore the very blatant whispering that haunted our every movement. I was momentarily caught off-guard by the familiar uncomfortable tingle that danced up and down my spine and instead, looked over at the man at my side.

He gave me a strained smile.

Right.

We made the unanimous decision to split into two very opposite directions, with him gravitating towards a male dominated bar at the back of the gala and me being left to pick my way over towards the ladies. They all regarded me with skeptic eyes, catching my carefully pieced together posture and my extortionately priced clothing. I braced myself for interrogation and mentally ran the script that Mark and I had agreed on.

We both work in surgery.

Yes, we're very busy.

Oh, we're so very happy.

Yes, we've been dating for a while now.

We're both very career-orientated.

Did I mention that Mark's thinking about pitching a project on skin graft regeneration?

We've never been happier.

Yes, busy! Always so busy!

No, no plans for anything just yet—

Did we mention how happy we are?

I supposed that trying to suck money out of the rich was the sort of skill you never forgot. It was like riding a bicycle, although instead of stabilisers you just needed half a case of champagne and a burning resentment for the people who profited off of the extortionate interest rates on medical insurance. It was pretty easy to get into the flow of conversation and I allowed myself to get swept up; I dipped from conversation to conversation, ignoring the fact that this really was more Addison's sort of thing.

I'd done this a million times, to the point where I could hear a mixture of voices at the back of my head, a blur of Bizzy Forbes and my sister, encouraging me to correct my posture and add an extra gleam to my smile. Old muscles were flexed, faded pleasantries were exchanged and the absence of my sister was discussed in full. 

In fact, more than once, my conversation followed the same Addison-themed structure, with a random trophy wife approaching me and kissing my cheeks as if we'd known each other our whole lives. 

They'd grasp onto my wrist, smile so wide that I could see their full set of veneers and then immediately launch into how I'd grown up so much since they'd last seen me. (I'd never appreciated that sentiment, it was overly patronising and it made me lunge for another glass of champagne.) Then conversation would flow in the same way: 

How is your sister? How is Derek? I didn't know that you were taking part in this year's Gala season? Oh, you're with someone? Who is your new boyfriend--?

Inevitably, Mark would be a damper in the conversation. Just as I'd predicted, he held a pretty stilted reputation even this high up on the social ladder. If I'd, for a second, thought that he'd limited his charm to Addie's social circle, I was sorely wrong. I found myself watching the light in the eyes of women (who had only heard rumours of him) dwindle as they realised that I was Mark's apparent flavour of the week. 

The amount of self disgust that I felt as I watched the cycle of emotions pass behind those cherry picked smiles, was almost overwhelming. Their surprise turned to disappointment which and then to pity and amusement, as if they were glad that they weren't dumb enough to fall for that (again? Some of them must've been again.)

What a pity, I could see it written in their eyes, What a bright girl and what a dumb decision she's made. Wherever did Addison go wrong with her? She had so much potential.

I didn't like their pity. 

A few times, I was so overwhelmingly grasped by the impulse to correct them and tell them that in fact I had taste and I was in fact in a very successful relationship with a corporate lawyer, but every time I'd just have to wash it away with a mouthful of champagne. 

Then my mind would inevitably lead me to Calum and then to the fact that I was a terrible girlfriend and then onto other things like how my happiness seemed to always be conditional on what other people wanted and expected from me--

Yeah, champagne sounded like the perfect idea.

I found myself glancing over Mark in periodic increments, watching him from afar as he passionately pitched his surgical study to a handful of the Manhattan elite. 

He spoke with his hands, with swooping movements that almost spilt his champagne all over the floor. He'd filled me in only briefly on what his plans were, mentioning that he'd been trying to gain momentum to do an extensive surgical trials with new burn revision methods-- that's what this was all about, this was why we were here, all because of a debriding method that Mark thought he could completely reform.

I was, once again, exhausted after talking to three people, and yet Mark was going around the room, charming every person in his path. He was clearly very good at it— he caught my eye as he breezed past and winked. Meanwhile, I was throwing out the same tired cliches:

We both work in surgery.

Yes, we're very busy.

Oh, we're so very happy.

Yes, we've been dating for a while now.

We're both very career-orientated.

Did I mention that Mark's thinking about pitching a project on skin graft regeneration?

We've never been happier.

Yes, busy! Always so busy!

No, no plans for anything just yet—

Did we mention how happy we are?

Happy my ass. My date to the gala was a man who genuinely made my chest fill with dread. 

We'd catch each other's eye as I glided past, caught up in conversations about how Mark and I had (fictitiously) spent a summer in miscellaneous haunts that was famous for the social elite and their transgressions-- they were the silent, passive equivalent of drive by shootings. His lip twitched as I tried to keep my distance as much as possible, all too haunted by the way that he seemed to follow me around the room with his stupid dumb eyes. 

A few times, when I'd glanced over, he was completely absorbed in a conversation at the bar with another woman, leaning into it and giving her a full blast of his stellar smile, one that was guaranteed to make her weak at the knees--

I rolled my eye and grimaced into my champagne.

He really couldn't keep his dick in his pants for one night, all in the name of his surgical funding?

Eventually, at a certain point in the evening (after I'd spent half of the time trying to quell down the revolt against Mark's presence), Mark caught my attention and inclined his chin, as if to invite me forwards.

By the time that I picked my way across the gala and onto Mark's arm, he seemed to have half of the donors listening to him. He'd accumulated quite a impressive circle, all of whom seemed to perk up as soon as I arrived and ran a very casual hand along his back-- this time, Mark didn't flinch at the contact, but instead smiled at me as if we had, indeed, been dating for a very long time. 

It was an affectionate gesture, one that felt out of place on a man whose flirting was so shameless. I bit down on my tongue as his hand found mine, our fingers interlacing so casually, that it made the hairs raise on the back of my neck. It wasn't until his other hand descended to almost flirt with the idea of resting on my ass, that I was reminded exactly why I'd placed myself on the opposite side of the room.

"You boys behaving?" I asked, my eyes boring into Mark's in a silent challenge to continue like that and see what happened. 

His smile wavered into something a bit more dirty and, thankfully, his hand moved back upwards, resting in the small of my back. Mark seemed to move in very subtle movements, the moment going completely under the radar for any spectators. My grasp on his hand tightened considerably.

Try it again, asshole. I was fully prepared to break fingers if I needed to.

"I'm taking the night off," Mark joked, his head turning back to share the hilarity with his ring of investors. Half of me crawled with the sensation of stepping into a ring of men who made more money than they were worth, and the other seemed to shiver at how fluently Mark conducted their attention. He turned to me and gave me his winning smirk, "Gentlemen, this is the girl I was talking about. Elizabeth, let me introduce you to..."

The introduction had me smiling on cue, my fingers leaving his so I could shake the hands of some of the top surgical executives in the country. (I had to restrain myself from burying my heel into his toes. Elizabeth? Asshole.) Just as I'd predicted, a sea of white old wrinkly men faced me, each one seeming to gleam as they took my hand in theirs. 

No matter how far I leant forwards, Mark's hand did not leave my back. He turned his head towards me once I'd finished my polite greetings.

Oh god, the thought of Mark talking to a bunch of men who were old enough to be my father, about me? 

It genuinely pained me to imagine what sort of locker room bullshit had been spewed about me over conversation. I could taste the testosterone in the air. I wondered whether he could see the way my smile iced over and panic briefly flickered across my eyes. He held my eye, hopefully catching the split second of anger that rose in me.

I channelled my inner Kennedy, making sure to be so sweetly polite that I was determined to leave them with cavities. I wondered whether they'd dare to sink their teeth into me, this woman dressed in gold with fire in her eyes and a forever present impulse to fuck shit up, for lack of a better term. 

I found myself looking between these men, disheartened by the fact that to be considered successful in this career, I was going to be successful solely by their terms.

"I'm sure Mark's been saying a lot of great things," I drawled with a smile, shaking off the weight that threatened to crush me. 

"We've been talking about how you're studying medicine at Columbia," He recited all of the words to me just as I'd outlined. While he'd been giving me instructions, I'd been fully briefing him on exactly what I needed to say. Even so, while grasping his arm and using all my willpower to not sink my nails in like a spooked cat, I dreaded the fact that he was more than likely to go off-script. "I've been telling them all the nice things, don't worry."

We'd fallen into the pattern of communicating in gestures and expressions, very microscopic movements in our faces and bodies. It was a familiar code in a room full of people that you weren't familiar with or didn't particularly like. 

Usually, Derek was on hand to receive my exasperated, subtle glances and we were able to share our despair evenly-- however, in this bottomless room and this bottomless glass of champagne, my own reliever was the exact man who was implicit in my misery.

Ass.

"Columbia, that's impressive," one of the investors chipped in, his eyes running the length of me.

"Yes," said another, "You must be very busy."

"Of course," I said, deciding to go very airy naive airy socialite. It was my favourite option when I'd already had enough champagne to fill the Hudson. "Yes, you can say I've had my hands full, hm?"

"You're going to be a surgeon?"

"Yes," I responded with the politest smile, "I'm currently interning at my brother's private practice, Archer Montgomery, perhaps you've heard of him and his research project last year?"

Sometimes, my family name was a bit of a burden, and yet, other times, I enjoyed the way that people's eyes lit up at the mention of it. This was one of those moments-- just the murmur of Archer's name and they were swept up into pleasantries, dazzled by the knowledge of what my siblings had achieved. 

They seemed to brighten so much, suddenly completely interested in what I had to say. ("Yes, I helped him organise the e for his latest study that was published in the Neurology BiWeekly Paper.)

"She never stops," Mark added, attempting a fond glance in my direction. It came off a little sour. "I keep telling her to find some time to take a break--"

I looked over at the investors, catching the very brief chuckle that danced around the circle.

"Between doing all of my exams and helping you with your research proposal?"

Your turn.

I looked over at him, giving him a very clear segue to bring up his research again. To make things even better, a representative from John Hopkins seemed to perk up in interest, encouraging Mark to share his prospective project... and boy did he take his opportunity. 

I stood there, nodding along to his proposal, smiling as if I'd just waltzed straight off of the cover of a 50s housewife advertisement for a state of the art oven. I could tell that he'd put a lot of time and effort into his little speech, but he went about it so casually as if he hadn't even expected it to come up in conversation. He took questions, appearing enthusiastic and passionate about his every word. Ever so often, he'd look over at me and I'd rattle off a line that we'd organised over hors'd'oeuvres at the back of the room.

"He's an expert when it comes to burns, aren't you babe?" I said absently at the end of his string of medical facts and statistics. Mark looked over at me as my hand ran up to the back of his neck, fixing his collar like a nervous twitch. I waved my forearm, showing a small burn that I'd gotten a few days ago. "You should have seen him when we were in the Hamptons last week and I tried to light a candle-- it was as if I'd sawed my own arm off."

(Insert Obligatory Upper-Class Laughter.)

It occurred to me, in that moment, why I'd never dated another doctor. There was something about showering Mark with praise for his medical expertise that first, filled me with the need to scream into a very dark, bottomless room, but also made me want to skin myself. Mark appearing so successful filled me with a horror that I would never match it-- I was so hungry for this sort of career that, for a second, I was filled with the mortification that I'd never compare.

Dating Mark, on the other hand, seemed to be some sort of minefield that had me breaking out into hives. I pitied the sort of women that would look at this man and see someone dependable. When I looked over at him, I saw an egotistical ass who seemed to have the whole world hanging onto his every word-- and I got to see it all up close.

I'd always been good at getting what I wanted. Growing up as the youngest child of three to emotionally distant parents, in particular a father who seemed to want to pacify said child with everything she'd ever wanted, had done a very good deal on my determination. As I watched Mark sweet-talk his way into the wallet's of the wealthy, I realised how much of a task this truly was: making him appear as the sort of reliable, stable homemaker type who wasn't going to impulsively make bad decisions that could sink a million dollars in trial funding.

It was Mark. Mark Sloan and I'd somehow been roped into the impossible. It was a flash of an irresistible smile and the way he had everyone gravitate around him, that made me realise something. If one of us was the Julia Roberts of this situation, the cheap whore turned polished socialite, it sure as hell wasn't me.

"And then there was that time in Tulum," I continued, figuring that I might as well really dig in the fake scenarios if I wanted to make things feel real. Mark barely even faltered, I saw him look over at me from out of the corner of his eye, watching how I lied so casually, "I sliced some limes for some margaritas and then didn't wash my hands--"

Mark's arm tightened around me.

"Third-degree burns," He interjected, his brow even crumpling slightly at the thought of it. I looked over at him and gave him my best bashful smile; it was wonderfully easy to fake, a curl of the lip, a slight cringe of the brow and Mark's thumb lazily drew a circle on my waist. "You should have seen it--"

"I had these massive bandages," I drawled, finding a laugh locked away somewhere deep in my chest. "But this man, this man right here managed to do whatever his magic is..." I trailed off, dripping fondness all over the conversation like a candlestick melted to it's mount. "He's an absolute godsend for this skin, I'm telling you..."

"You're forgetting that sunburn you got in St. Barts," Mark chipped back, the two of us tossing around completely fake situations as if we were playing some sort of imagination tennis. My eyebrows raised at that one: I really would've killed to be on a beach somewhere right now. He turned back to the group of men and flashed a charming smile. "I swear, we almost broke up over it. It's not exactly a couple's retreat when you're stuck giving your partner a sponge bath.... You really can't tell a woman not to sunbathe naked, can you?"

The men all chortled as if they were all too familiar with being unable to control their women. My right eye twitched. Somehow, talking about me naked was not how I wanted this evening to go. Stupid dumb fucking handsome fucking dumb stupid ass--

"Hm," I mused, hiding behind my champagne flute. I'm sure he was having a very fun time imagining me naked on some beach in the French West Indies. "Well, I guess I'm lucky you stuck around. It's nice to have the best Plastic Surgeon on the East Coast to hand whenever I want to wear a bikini."

"I'm sure it is!" A man who, notably, had his wife sat right beside him, echoed.

"Never break up with a woman like that," One of the old men wagged a finger as if to instill some sort of wise knowledge onto the Plastic Surgeon beside me. The old Upper East Side croon even shot a wink in my direction. "Always best to get 'em young."

Jesus fucking Christ. Gross.

"I don't know if I'd say that," Mark said, seeming to sense the way I tensed. He looked over at me, our eyes meeting and granting him the full blast of my vague fuck you socialite stare. There was a slight hesitation in his response. "But I'm lucky to have her."

Lucky my ass.

"Watch this space," I hummed lightly, flashing them all tight smiles, "Any hospital is going to be lucky to have me."

That was my cue to move onto greener pastures. I tugged myself out of Mark's grasp, all too well aware of the way his eyes followed me as I crossed back over into safer territories. I arrived with a slimy feeling on my skin, as if I'd just taken a very long, gross bath in a pit of slime. 

My heels dragged a little against the floor but, with more champagne I managed to breeze through; that was the perk of being the aforementioned emotionally distant bitch, she was able to pick her way across the hellfire that was harassment and pretend as if nothing was happening.

I resumed my trawling along the gala floor, making polite conversation with whichever person happened to blow into my path. A few times, I'd actually be caught in an interesting conversation, the type that made me feel less bad about blowing off all of my evening plans. They'd actually appear interested in asking me about my work, engaging with my enthusiasm and allowing me to talk about things that I actually cared about. 

Briefly, I met a lawyer and had to bite my tongue to stop myself from asking whether he was familiar with the man I was actually dating-- that left a tentative, polite silence on my end that was immediately interjected with my continuous rotating door of pleasantries--

Are you familiar with my boyfriend, Mark?

Oh, yes, he's an up and coming Plastic Surgeon.

Really? You haven't heard of him? You should see the reconstruction he did on this patient down in Queens--

"How is it going?"

Mark caught me by the elbow as I swept a nice circle across the floor. His touch caused me to let out a long exhausted breath, my socialite smile wavering slightly as he guided us into a corner. My shoulders dipped slightly and I looked over his shoulder, staring back over at the men.

"Good," I said, relying heavily on my champagne to lie through my teeth like that, "I'm very slowly trying to train out the Pavlovian response women have to hearing your name. Turns out, they all make this face like they've just stepped in dog shit. Not very dependable."

Mark didn't take the bait.

"I want you to talk to the investor from John Hopkins," He said in an undertone, leaning close to me. I was sure that from outside, it would've looked like we were having a very provocative conversation. Yet, in reality, I was holding my breath and trying to concentrate on this fundraiser as if it was a manoeuvre across a warfield. "Mention that I worked under John Seever and that man was like a father to me--"

"Okay," I cut him short, nodding, "Sensibility. You have emotions, I get it." His eyebrow raised a little, "Any other requests, boss?"

"A smile would be nice."

I hoped ever so deeply that he was kidding. My gaze teetered on the fine line towards a glare, wondering exactly whether he was ever going to stop being a complete bastard. A silence played between us, one in which I just looked away and cleared my throat, taking a long drawn out inhale of champagne that seemed to run into every inch of my body. 

Sure, I was silent, but on the inside I was cursing him. I wouldn't have to deal with this sort of shit with Julia Roberts or Richard Gere, it seemed to be the Mark Sloan special-- someone so handsome and charming but so rotten inside.

My eye twitched and I pulled my lips back so tightly that I could hear exactly what my mother would've said. (Stop it, if you smile like that you're going to need botox before you're thirty.)

"Of course, baby," I said lowly and through clenched teeth. 

I caught the way his eyebrow bounced slightly, almost inquisitively. There was a moment of the two of us staring at each other, waiting for the other to speak. Mark was grinning in his bemused way that told me his assholery had a purpose every time: and that purpose, so it appeared, was elicit responses just like this. 

"This smile big enough for you?"

He chuckled to himself, "So much rage in such a tiny person."

"So much ego in such a big head," I retorted, the words so easy to come by.

His face was so close to mine, chin tilted downwards and eyes gleaming slightly. He exhaled in a breathy laugh, head nodding as if I had a fair point. (It seemed as though Mark's whole personality was built off of his ego and the awareness that he had a big ego. What a disappointing one-dimensional man.) 

I looked between him and the lingering female attention and decided to make a hospitable conversation.

"So what happened to your date tonight?"

"Hm?"

"Your date," I repeated, gesturing to myself, "Why did you need a replacement?"

"Ah," Mark almost tested the word on his tongue, "I don't wanna talk about Rachel--"

"Oh," I chuckled, "So you know her name this time?"

His lip twitched but he shot me a deadpan glance.

"Yeah, she was memorable."

"Oh wow," I said, eyes widening in a faux look of shock, "So that's what they call women that'll top these days?"

Yeah, that made him laugh. It was an almost winded laugh, as if I'd kicked him square in the chest. His head bopped and his cheeks seemed to almost split from the surprise of what I'd said.

"Honestly," I drawled, taking the chance to speak. It was hard to get a word in when it came to him. "I'm surprised you even remember my name."

"I don't," He joked, and I snorted into my glass. (Something, just a tiny part of me, figured that it was likely not even a joke at all. I think I would've preferred it if he had no idea who I was.) "It is Rachel, right?"

"Asshole."

"You really don't like me, do you?"

His question caught me off-guard. It was a very nice interruption in my swirling train of thought. I gave a blank look, one that seemed to lag behind the processing of his words. He'd smiled as he'd said it. Not that dirty grin, but a genuine smile, that sort that made me wonder whether it was a whole other person stood before me-- his lip curled slightly in amusement, he stepped backwards so we were stood side by side, our shoulders touching as we looked over the gala floor; from here, I could see people glancing at us, still caught off-guard by our union. Meanwhile, it was taking everything within my being to not burst out into laughter.

Instead, I took a nonchalant sip of champagne and raised an eyebrow at him, "What gave you that impression?"

"I don't know," He hummed lightly and shrugged, "I think it might be the way that everytime I touch you... you seem to wince like I've just stabbed you."

I chuckled, shaking my head, "Maybe you should stab me, that would probably be more enjoyable."

That made Mark look over at me, noticeable skepticism in his eyes. The expression reminded me of Derek, the way his brow pinched whenever he was slightly perturbed. He suddenly looked so real, a perplexed man who was vaguely bemused and caught off-guard all at once. 

I found myself very briefly staring at his collar, wondering how many different brands of lipsticks had stained that fabric.

I looked away.

"Well," He said after a beat, "I don't want to stab you." (Thanks? I supposed that was somewhat a compliment.) "I'd at least buy you dinner first."

I rolled my eyes, "And they say chivalry is dead."

"Calum take you out to dinner?"

I could tell he enjoyed the way my eye twitched at the mention of my boyfriend for what felt like the thousandth time. I inhaled sharply, trying to shake the familiar wash of distaste that haunted me. I hated that he even knew Calum's name, I hated how it sounded in his voice-- he seemed to say my boyfriend's name as if it was an inside joke, as if the thought of anyone caring about another person was a completely twisted joke that I wasn't in on. 

It made the seeds of hate that had been sown so early by Addison, prickle in the bottom of my stomach and bile curdle at the back of my throat. I didn't look over at Mark and stiffened very slightly when he placed his arm around my waist, dragging me closer to him.

"Ease up," He said under his breath, "Don't take everything so seriously."

Immediately, my eyes flew to his face, breath catching as I realised how close he was to me. His face was there, just right there. I wished he'd fucking give step back for once-- was he always this physical? Did he know that people were entitled to personal space? He seemed to sink towards me at all times even though I wished he'd lean away-- and there was his cologne too. 

A perfectly balanced fragrance as if every single detail had been meticulously pieced together in some sort of lab. I studied what lingered at the back of his gaze: calculation and amusement, enough to elicit a chill that ran down my spine.

"Stop talking about Calum," I chipped back at him, the rim of my champagne flute on my bottom lip. 

I shook his hand off of my waistline and turned my head away so I could turn to the waiter and replace the champagne glass that Mark had lost-- he needed to drink champagne, everyone at these drank champagne no matter whether they liked it or not. He needed to be like everyone. He needed to be liked.

He also really did need to stop bringing up my boyfriend.

"Why?" He asked, clearly very amused. 

I knew that he'd expected a tongue-in-cheek reply, a light repartee that was so common in conversation between the two of us. A cheap jab, a dirty shot--

"Because pissing me off is not what you want right now," I responded, matter-of-factly. Mark's eyebrows raised. "Because no matter how much you deny it... You need me. You need me happy and co-operative and to fake smile my way through all of those conversations with those shameless gross old men over there-- You want happy Beth. You don't want to see me pissed off. You don't want to see me take things seriously, believe me."

"Isn't that what we do?" He asked, his breath fanning my face as I tilted my head, "You say something about me being a whore, I say something about you being a pushover control freak-- We're joking around. We're joking. It's what we do--"

"We're 'dating'," I corrected, cutting him short, "We're not who we usually are. This isn't what we usually do."

He didn't date. He'd said that so many times before. We were pretending to be people we weren't: Mark was pretending that he was a million-dollar man, the sort of guy who could be happy with a wife, a picket fence and a handful of kids. 

Meanwhile, I was pretending that I wanted to be there, that I wanted to be the one who had to sigh dreamily after Mark's every word-- that I wanted to be Mark Sloan's flavour of the night.

Mark seemed to bite his tongue. I could see the way he paused, considering exactly what I'd just said-- it was as if he was actually listening this time. He listened to what I said and he listened as we rejoined the crowds of the social elite, lead by my gilded smile and the sort of conversation starters that Addison had engrained into me. 

He listened as I built him up to be God's gift to the burned and cosmetically unhappy, spewing crap about how Mark was the best man for any job-- 

(Later on, I'd wonder whether he knew how many favours I did for him. I'd wonder whether he really understood the Mark Sloan I built in the minds of all of those investors because I took so many creative liberties with his character. I built so many little bridges and made them virtually fireproof.)

We both work in surgery.

Yes, we're very busy.

Oh, we're so very happy.

Yes, we've been dating for a while now.

We're both very career-orientated.

Did I mention that Mark's thinking about pitching a project on skin graft regeneration?

We've never been happier.

Yes, busy! Always so busy!

No, no plans for anything just yet—

Did we mention how happy we are?

Meanwhile, he held onto my waist. Where he touched, my skin burned. I could feel it blister and bubble under the fabric of my dress. True to his name, he sure knew how to leave a mark.

I felt like the enigmatic housewife of a psychothriller, a Stepford wife that was just unhinged enough to know things that others didn't. My grasp on my 'boyfriends' shoulder was tighter than it appeared, my smiles were sharper. 

I forced Mark to hold that champagne flute and forced him to say nice things to not very nice people-- we were playing the game, doing exactly what we needed to do to get him this money.

Yes, I practically was saying to each person who would listen, Mark Sloan is worth a million dollars.

Privately, I just wished there had been a better way to do it. We were, admittedly, a good team. I found myself waltzing around the room with a clutch full of contact numbers scrawled on the back of serviettes. (I was pretty sure that half of them had the wrong idea. They'd seen the thigh-high slit in my dress and assumed I was, literally, the Pretty Woman type. Secretly, I felt a lot more like Olivia Pope than a Vivianne.) I wished that I didn't have to stand here with a man I really disliked, pretending as if we were the next John and Jackie. 

I didn't like how fake it felt-- how, every time Mark's looks shifted something inside of me, I wished that it were Calum.

I really, really wished it was Calum holding my hand like that.

"We're a good team."

Those words came while we sat in the towncar. The same towncar. The same bottle of champagne sat on the console in between us. I hadn't touched it. I was full of bubbles, full of champagne to the point where the world was turning dreamy. 

(A part of me knew that I needed to sober up. Calum didn't drink and he didn't like it when I came home tipsy. Instead of my champagne flute, I held onto a water bottle tightly, waiting for the world to right itself.) 

When I looked over at Mark, tearing my eyes away from the city that never sleeps, the champagne made him look almost like a Greek tragedy.

When I looked over at Mark, I saw him for what he was: a surgeon who desperately wanted to make his name on the East Coast, a man who was willing to do anything for the sort of credibility everyone around us had. 

He was hungry. He was addicted to whatever high that fame could give him. My grip on my water bottle tightened and I let out a very unfeminine snort, shaking my head as I looked back at the city.

"We are," He mused. He was stone-cold sober, I could tell it from his easy smile. It was reflected back to me in the window, his charismatic eyes glimmering over my shoulder against the dark outside. "We're a good team. Who would've thought--"

"Control freak, remember?" I said, my voice not betraying how much I'd had to drink, "You were in safe hands."

"I don't get how Addison just hides you away," He said, this time turning his head so he could stare out of his own window. I smiled weakly to myself, flushing ice water through my teeth until it was practically painful. "You're good at this shit... at milking all of those rich old bastards for their money. You'd be an asset at those funraiser and yet she just uses you for free slave labour, huh?"

I wasn't sure whether I was truly further gone than I thought I was-- was that a compliment? Was I so drunk that I was hallucinating Mark Sloan giving me a compliment? 

My brow furrowed as he met my gaze, blue eyes sparkling and expression nonchalant. My bones were still wired from the thrill of being undercover; the feeling of being like some super agent that had a very super-secret task to complete. It'd skewed my judgement, I was sure of it. Either that or Mark was being excessively nice for a reason.

I scoffed lightly, "I'm not sleeping with you."

He rolled his eyes.

"Do you really think... every time I say something nice, I'm trying to get in your pants?"

"Yes."

I didn't hesitate with my answer. I was sure of it. Mark, on the other hand, seemed to disagree with that assertion, his eyebrows raising at my quick delivery. (As I said, I really hadn't hesitated at all.) Everything he did had this air of having an underlying meaning; whether it was his kind words or that saccharine smile, I knew his intentions could not be trusted. Immediately, I was reminded of how hard Carly had had to cry to get this son of a bitch out of her system.

"I can be a nice guy," He said. He had a teasing smile on his face but he was noticeably dead behind the eyes. That lingering sparkle had been drained dry, leaving nothing but a slight frustration that made the hairs on the backs of my arms raise. "And before you say I can't-- I can be. Don't be so quick to judge."

My lip curled slightly.

"You're not nice."

"I am."

"You talked about me being in a bikini in front of people I one day want to be employed by," I said it dryly, as dry as the champagne that was slowly working its way through my system. I was more mortified about it than I let out, just watching the groove dig itself between Mark's eyebrows. "A nice guy wouldn't do that. A man in a relationship would not do that--"

He held up his hands in surrender, "Fine, that was a douche move--"

"It was a gross move," I corrected, the champagne toying with my temper, "It was disgusting--"

"It was a mistake."

"And the representative from Lincoln... Nathan Vanderbilt?" My brow scrunched as I attempted to recall the slimy man's name, "He spent the whole of the conversation just staring down the front of my dress. He was talking to you while trying to getting his hand on my ass--"

"I thought you could handle yourself," There was a muscle that jumped in his jaw, one that made my chest twist very slightly as I turned completely to face him, drawing my knees up onto the chair. It told me that he'd noticed that. (Of course, he had, the male sex's answer to fembots probably had a radar for flirtation.) "Nobu, remember?"

"I can," I said. (I could. I had dealt with it, for the record. I'd signed up for many undesirable things that evening but having some ancient museum-worthy fossil's grubby fingers on my skin had not been one of them. I'd need a tetanus shot.) "But a man in a relationship would have handled that. We needed to work into the cliches. Really sell it--"

"It worked," Mark said. He appeared almost defensive as if he couldn't follow exactly what I was criticising. His shoulders tensed and his face grew stormy and I just stared, watching a hurricane form in front of my eyes. "I have people who are going to call me back. Sure, I don't have all of the money, but it worked-- I have enough to make some arrangements and get things organised-- don't say I didn't do well--"

"I'm not saying you didn't do well," It was my turn to frown. "I'm just saying you could have done better."

That was the truth. It could have gone better. 

There were so many times where he'd appeared completely disconnected. I'd found him flirting with a bottle girl down by a table and had to drag him back into the game-- Mark had done okay. If I had to grade him, I would have given him a C. He was far, far away from a million dollars but he was right, he'd made a start.

With a slack jaw, I realised that this was the downfall of his code of conduct. He was so proud of his code of conduct, but at the end of the day, when it came to dating he didn't even know how to properly fake it.

"That," I said tightly, "That's me being nice."

I was giving him constructive feedback. I was doing more than the favour I'd promised him. I was being nice. Addison would have been bitchier about it, I knew that for sure, and, I didn't know much about Rachel, but she probably wouldn't have said anything of substance. Everything I'd done this even had been to help him, against my better judgement. 

I'd helped build him into a skyscraper and now I was helping him maintain his foundations when I left. As soon as this car stopped I was going to be kicking off my heels and washing my hands clear of him.

Good riddance to that.

Devil be damned if I was going to need to teach him how to act like a normal person. I wasn't going to be some sort of fixer-upper, cleaning him up until he was squeaky clean. I wasn't going to teach him how to be some perfect citizen, perfect husband material. If Addison wanted to do that, she was perfectly welcome and probably had the time-- 

I was here for one night only and I was going to regret the fact that throughout all of this, improving Mark's chances of success had probably just hindered mine.

"You're not very nice."

Mark's voice appeared small. He said it sheepishly, like a kid who had just been scolded by a teacher. It made my lips twitch with amusement. I looked over at him. He was staring at me, watching the profile of my face as I heaved a deep sigh, pushing hair out of my face. I caught the way his eyes followed a single strand of hair as it was brushed aside.

"I'm not nice," I replied, "I've never claimed to be nice."

That was true. 

If I remembered rightly, during one of our first conversations I'd told him I was a bitch by genetics. He didn't correct me on that, either. He opted for chewing the inside of his cheek and looking out the front of the towncar, over the driver and over at the red stoplights of the cars in front. 

There was something about the way he sighed, almost wistfully, that made me think he didn't get driven around much; he struck me as the sort of person who was determined to drive themselves everywhere. Many surgeons were. I was well established as the sort of person who couldn't handle things spiralling out of my control, but I could tell from the way that Mark was no different.

"I'm good," Mark said matter-of-factly as if that was a normal reply. "I might not be nice but I'm good at a lot of things. I'm good with people. I'm good with my hands. I'm good with my mouth too--"

"God, I can't believe you've made me into this person," I groaned to myself, shaking my head. I turned to him and grimaced at my own words as I said them: "I have a boyfriend."

"Why do you constantly assume that I'm trying to sleep with you?"

It was a question that far more frustrated the second time around. I could almost hear the confrontation in it as if he was asking the universe why he'd backed himself into this sort of corner, why exactly he had to find women who were willing to do him favours. I could see it in his eyes too, the way that a spark flickered, one more raw than the first.

"You're Mark Sloan," I said. It was self-explanatory, but in pity, I continued. "You'd try to sleep with a fire hydrant if it had boobs."

He turned his head away and rolled his eyes.

"Jokes on you," He murmured to himself as he cast his gaze out across the passing street. "I'm more into asses."

I rolled my eyes, "Makes sense coming from an ass."

***

────── Mark didn't need me. He'd made that adamantly clear.

He'd told that to Addison to, as she'd then relayed to me over the phone. 

Just as I'd graded him, he'd graded me: Nice girl but a bit too high strung. 

I didn't exactly know what the marking criteria was but I figured that worked out as a B. It didn't satisfy me, I'd always been an overachiever-- I'd scoffed about it over brunch and defined Mark exactly as he was: Not a nice guy. Too much of an ass. It was needless to say, Addison had taken my side on this one.

He didn't need me. When the invitations to more balls and investment galas popped up he managed to find girls who would fit the role he needed. Apparently, I was too judgy and controlling and had approached it too professionally. That had made me laugh; of course, I'd approached things professionally, I'd been there for my job and my job only. 

I wasn't like whatever girl he'd sink his award-winning fingers into, thrumming off of the excitement of being Mark Sloan's plus one and waiting excitedly for the moment he'd whisk them behind a closed door and work his magic.

He didn't need me-- so why was he standing outside my apartment in a suit and flowers.

I froze on my doorstep. It was a week after the gala at Lincoln and I stared at the plastic surgeon as he drew his collar up to shield himself from the rain. I'd been dressed prepared to accept my pizza delivery, exactly what I'd expected to answer the door to-- I had a cardigan wrapped around a tank top and some sweats, my eyes squinting through the gloom of a rainy Friday night on the Upper West Side. 

At first, I'd thought Mark was just a bad hallucination, a side effect of the fumes that billowed out of the subway grates on the street, but then he started speaking.

"Hi."

I didn't realise that he knew where I lived. 

He was looking up at me as I teetered on the threshold, toeing the liminal line of the cold outside and the warmth of the (over-charged) heating of my apartment building. I was stuck in between the sound of the New York street and the door I'd left ajar two floors up, spilling the title soundtrack of Pretty Woman as I attempted to watch it for the second week running (and here Mark wasm, interrupting it for the second week running too.) 

A chill blustered its way past me up the stairs, biting at my face and tousling my hair. Rain flirted with the idea of drenching the flip flops I'd thrust my feet in before dashing for the door.

"How did you...?"

He was wearing the same suit that he'd worn to Lincoln but with a different tie. 

It was blue and matched his eyes. Behind him, a car was pulled tight against the curb. It wasn't a towncar this time and I had a sneaky suspicion that it was his. It was a nice make, expensive. He was parked illegally. My eyes drew to the flowers in his hand and my brow furrowed even further.

"Addison," Mark said as if I should have been able to guess who'd told him where I lived. I felt oddly transparent as if Mark knowing where I lived was high treason in our sisterly bond. He rubbed at the back of his neck almost sheepishly. "I almost didn't find it--"

"What are you doing here?"

I was hesitant, wary. I shot a glance up and down the street, noticing that everything was normal. The street was filled with the same people, the same cars were trundling past and the same windows were lit with commuters coming home. Everything was normal; everything but the man stood at the bottom of my stairs. 

That looked like a very expensive bunch of flowers, less gas station last-minute-pick and more like the sort of flowers my sister used to decorate the dining table in the apartment she shared with Derek. My nose twitched; in fact, this all seemed to smell like Addison. 

I blinked at him, hoping that he wasn't about to say exactly what I thought he was going to--

"I have a business dinner on the Upper East Side," Mark said, grimacing as the rain got a little heavier. The weather had been gloomy all day and only seemed to intensify with his every word. Slowly, I folded my arms over my chest, shifting my weight from one side of my body to the other. "It's in two hours and there's a free bar."

A sigh came from deep within me. I leant against the door.

"Mark--"

"They have champagne," He continued, barely bristling at the way my face contorted, head shaking very slowly. He didn't give me a chance to speak. "I called ahead and they said they have champagne. Good champagne. Really expensive champagne, and it's free. The restaurant is dark too so you don't have to worry about only having two hours to get ready and you can sit far away from that Vanderbilt guy. He's really boring with small talk anyway--"

"Mark."

"They sent you an invitation," Mark was clearly very determined to speak over me. He didn't give me a chance to say no. It was weird to think that, despite how much he loved to talk about himself, I was pretty sure this was the most I'd heard him speak. "When I was RSVPing they asked if you were coming. I said you were so I'm going to look like an idiot if you don't--"

I stared at him, my brain running at a thousand miles an hour as I attempted to gauge what exactly he was saying. He sounded desperate (was Mark Sloan, the great Mark Sloan, desperate?) and his flowers were already wilting. 

I looked between the bouquet and his smile that seemed a little too unhinged, idly wondering whether Addison had written him this speech out on cue cards-- it struck me, then, how lucky Mark was to have Addison reluctantly in his corner. He had a lot to thank Derek for.

"You already look like an idiot," was my tired interjection.

Mark cut himself short, his blue eyes swirling as he stared up at me. He looked oddly small, although I supposed that was just from the advantage I had the top of a set of brownstone steps. As he spoke, the quiff of his hair seemed to descend slowly, wet from the rain and dragging like the tail of a sad dog. 

I tilted my head to the side, noticing how he barely flinched in the rain-- he seemed to internalise my comment and then, after a few moments, his lip twitched.

"Yeah," He said eventually, "Yeah I do."

How was it that I found myself in this conundrum again, feeling the exact same indecision and reluctance that had filled me as Addison had pleaded down the phone the first time?

 In fact, it was almost as if this whole situation had reset itself-- not only was Mark back in the same suit with the same sparkle in his eye, but my boyfriend was sat upstairs waiting for me with the same movie. It was as if I was stuck in a constant time loop, throwing my shoes back into a groundhog day that spiralled around one single man--

"Flowers?" I asked, raising an eyebrow. He looked down at them as if he'd forgotten they were there. They were getting wet in the rain and looked far from happy.

"Yeah," Mark said, just as he'd said it the first time. "I think that's what nice guys do... right? When you're in a relationship you buy flowers?"

I chewed on the inside of my cheek. Calum liked to buy me flowers on his way home from work. The first time he'd done it, I'd cried. It'd been such a sweet gentle gesture that had had me wondering whether this was as good as it gets. 

Mark's flowers felt like a failed attempt at trying to convince me back into his desperate mission. I, similarly, had the strongest feeling that they were Addison tailored and picked. My head filled with the image of Addison attempting to coach Mark on flower arrangements, the two of them crowding over a catalogue dedicated to her go-to florist.

I stared at the bundle, my nose wrinkling as I recognised what lurked within it. From here, I could see the yellow roses bristling in the wind and I'd spent enough time with Addison to understand the language of a well-put-together arrangement. Yellow roses meant forgiveness, I'd learnt that when Addison had apologised once for accidentally trapping my fingers in a taxi door.

Yeah, I thought to myself as I fought the impulse to smash my head against the door, the message is received Addie, loud and clear.

She wanted me to go. 

She wanted me to help carry Mark through this. 

As she had so many times in the past, she was tagging me along into something I really couldn't care less about-- Clearly, she'd put a lot of effort into getting Mark to my doorstep with flowers too, as if he'd just waltzed out of some Rom-Com movie. That made my stomach twist. I didn't need a fake boyfriend when I had a man I loved dearly just sat upstairs.

"You said you didn't need me," I reminded him, raising my eyebrows as the hand holding out the flowers seem to lower. I watched the way his smile wobbled into something a bit more awkward, his brow wrinkling. "Remember?"

"Yeah, well," Mark shoved his hand into his pocket, "I still need the money. I only got two investors and I need more."

Ah, I nodded, realising why this was all happening, The job wasn't done.

The only problem was, this was a job that I didn't want, nor that I had even applied for. It annoyed me that Addison had just automatically assumed that this was as easy as I got-- it was also ironic for her to practically thrust Mark onto me while she'd spent so much time telling me to stay away. It didn't make sense. It also made me realise that I really was a last resort; Mark must've been truly desperate to listen to anything my sister had to say.

I sighed again. I was doing that a lot lately.

I really didn't feel like babysitting Mark again. 

It was enough to raise my blood pressure and put me at serious risk of a heart attack. I really didn't feel like forcing myself into some Addie-appropriate dress and heels. I really didn't feel like pretending chasing Mark a room to stop him from flirting with wanton women was something I'd happily choose to do. 

The first event hadn't been a disaster but I definitely wasn't in a hurry to do it again by any means. Mark was intolerable and my boyfriend deserved my time more. But, admittedly, I guessed that it made my dreary evenings a little bit more interesting~

"What's my name?"

It was a test, the sort that was make or break. Mark hadn't expected it, it appeared like a random question, but it really wasn't, not to him. I was challenging his tendency to throw women aside when he was finished with them and completely wipe their names from his mind. I was challenging the memory he'd labelled as shit, challenging the fact that I'd been tossed aside just like the other girls. 

For the record, I wasn't like the other girls, not in the edgy special way, but by the simple fact that it was going to be a cold day in hell until I was just dismissed as a notch on his bedpost.

I wasn't exactly sure whether Mark freezing was a good sign. He stared at me, his brain ticking over as the rain weathered him down. I chuckled to myself, eyebrows raising as I fought the urge to close the door in his face. Oh wow. Oh fantastic--

His lips twitched, "Elizabeth."

My surprise was overshadowed by the way my eyes narrowed.

"Beth," Mark corrected after a beat. "Your name is Beth."

Dammit, I kissed my teeth as I tossed a glance up in the direction of my apartment. I'd really hoped that he'd forgotten it. At this point, I was really looking for excuses to say no. I could still hear the sound of the movie playing and the whistle of the wind as it hurtled in from the street and up towards my apartment. 

I wish it would blow me with it. I wish I could just go back into my apartment and spend time with my boyfriend as I'd intended on--

"Beth," Mark said, causing my head to turn back to him. The rain had gotten heavier and now he was grimacing through the weather, his suit jacket pebbled with raindrops. "I need you."

Oh fuck.

(He needed me.)

My breath tumbled through me, a deep inhale that I used to inflate my dwindling sanity. We held gazes for a hot minute, Mark's eyes narrowing as water ran down his tragically handsome face. I could see it plastered across his face in the most candid, fleeting moment-- he needed me. 

He really did. He very clearly had absolutely no idea what do without me. He needed someone to force that glass of champagne in his hand and contrive fake stories about limes in Mexico. He needed someone. He needed me.

And boy, wasn't he going to regret it.

My nod was choppy.

"Give me forty-five minutes." My words almost got lost in the wind, but what didn't get lost was the briefest look of relief that washed over him. I stepped back, grimacing as he stepped upwards, clearly intending on entering my apartment-- I regarded him like a wet dog pawing to get inside. "You can wait in the car, Sloan."

The last thing I saw of him, as I closed to the door, was his crooked smile.

The last thing I thought was: fuck looks like I'm going to have to take another rain check on date night.