Dance with the Devil: Chapter 33

Viki had rarely seen Blair this livid before.  The woman had slammed the door so hard, it didn’t even close.  Viki turned to Danie.  “Go into your room,” she said, gently.  Danie left, fear in her eyes.

Clint moved to Blair.  “This isn’t the place to discuss this,” he said.

If Blair heard him, she didn’t acknowledge him.  “Danie is not Todd’s daughter?” she asked again.

“Please, Blair, sit down,” Viki said to her.  When Blair remained standing, Viki literally tugged her down to the couch.  The woman turned her face away from her, starring daggers at an unseen person.  “Blair, listen to me.  We just learn of this when I got back to Llanview.”

“Just before Viki got home, Danie showed up at the door in tears,” Clint began.  “She was telling me what happened when Viki walked in the door and she gave the full story to her.”

“What did Danie say?” came the question in a slightly calmer voice.  She was still furious with Tea, but she needed to know the whole story.  Then she needed to decide what to tell Todd.

Viki let out a sigh.  “It seems Danie wanted to come and see Todd, but Tea wouldn’t allow her.  Tempers were raised and Danie told her she couldn’t be kept from her father and she would come and see him.  That was when Tea told her that Ross Rayburn was, in fact, her father.”

“The poor girl was in tears and has been staying with us since then,” Clint added.

Blair had finally reined in her anger and felt sorry for Danie.  The girl had been yanked around from one father to the other for the last few years.  First Ross, then Todd, who was actually Victor and then to Todd when he had returned.  “I’m sorry if I scared her.  My anger was not directed at Danie.”

“I know that.  Truth be told, I’m angry with Tea myself.  It seems her goal was to get Todd,” Viki said.

“Well, in a way she did think she won.  She had Todd.  But it wasn’t Todd, it was Victor,” Blair thought out loud.  It had always irked her how much he loved Danie, to the extent of putting Tea’s daugther before her children.  Of course, this was before they had learned it had been Victor Lord, Jr. 

“Until Todd Manning came back,” Clint said as he sat down and Blair saw it all.  She noticed Todd’s interaction with his daughter.  It was stilted without a breath of fatherly warmth.  And Blair knew that was not Todd.  He was never like that with his children and he wasn’t even like that with Sam.   

Blair stood up and looked at the door to Danie’s room.  “How did Tea even get away with it?”  When neither answered, she knew how.  “She faked a DNA test.  Wow.  Well, she never was the most scrupulous lawyer.”  Blair turned to the door to the hall.  She began to move to it when Clint grabbed her arm.  “What, I have to go tell Todd what that bitch did.”

“I don’t think we should tell him, yet,” Viki said.  When she got a look, the older woman explained, “He’s been through so much in the past year, what with learning about Victor and Danie, Victor’s shooting and the trial, learning he was a grandfather and losing Hope…” Her voice trailed off.  “Now with the surgery and the uncertainty of Victor and his own mental health.  Clint, Danie and I agree, he shouldn’t know yet.”

“He knows,” a voice said.  They turned around and saw Todd in his wheelchair at the door.  He came further in the room and looked at Blair, Clint and Viki.  “Hell, I’ve known since I came back.”

“Todd,” Viki said, a question forming, “what do you mean you knew?”

Todd gave his sister a look but ignored the question and went to Danie’s door.  He knocked and heard her ask who it was.  “It’s…it’s me,” was all he could say.  She opened the door and surprised to see him.  “I think we need to talk.”  She allowed him in and the door closed on his fiancée, sister and her fiancé.

“Is there something wrong?” Danie finally asked.

Todd nodded.  “I want to apologize to you,” he began.  She gave him a curious look.  “I don’t know what you know about me, so if you’ve heard this already, I just need to say it  in order to explain.  Victor Lord had more than one illegitimate child, as I’m sure you know.  Me, Victor, Tina and another son, I think his name was Tony.  You can ask Viki, not that it’s important.  Well, when I learned about the bastards he fathered, and I’m including myself in that category, literally and figuratively, I vowed I would never do that.  I was married to Blair, we had lost one baby and we were hoping to have one and I only wanted children with her.  And it worked out that way.  We had Starr and then Jack.”  He looked off to the side.  “Then there was your mother and I out in the middle of nowhere and  she and I…” He was lost for words.  “Then I was taken from my family and when I came back, there were my kids and there was Sam and you.  I don’t know why, but I immediately felt a connection to Sam.--”

“It was because he was Blair’s son,” Danie interrupted.  “At least, that’s what mom says.”

“I am sorry if I treated you different.  But in my heart, I never thought you were mine.  You…always seemed more Victor’s and you were a wonderful daughter to him,”  Todd said sadly.  “I do still think of you as family, but more like Sarah or Jessica or CJ.  Definitely higher up than Natalie and in the penthouse compared to Kevin or Joey.”  He began to wheel himself out of the room when Danie embraced him tightly and he returned it just as much.  “I meant what I said.  You are…were a wonderful daughter for my brother.”  The door opened and they came out.  He turned to Danie.  “I don’t blame you for any of this.”  Then he looked at Blair.  “But I want an explanation from Delgado.”

“I was stunned by what she said and the fact that she didn’t even try to deny it,”  his sister said.  “Todd, Tea really did love you, way back then.  But she knew you would always love Blair.”

“So this little stunt was round three in the Blair vs. Tea match, according to Viki,” Blair said in a blunter manner.  “She thought she could dangle a daughter in front of ‘Todd’ to win his affections.”

“Yeah, ‘cause I was always so forthcoming with her and sex,” he muttered, to the appalled expression of Viki and Danie.  He ignored his big sister’s reaction like he usually did.  “I think I need to go back down to Llanview and have a little chat with her.”

Blair shook her head.  “No.  Look, I need to go down and coordinate some of the moving.  Let me have a little chat with her.”  Blair wanted a piece of Tea before Todd could get to her.  “After all, so much of this has been aimed at me.  She set me up to find out the truth and knew I would be all too eager to spill the beans.”

Viki could only imagine how that chat would go.  “Blair, I don’t think that’s such a good idea.”  She had images of the lawyer going through a window again.

Blair had the same thought, but shook her head.  “Oh, don’t worry, I will assure you that no bodily harm will come to her.”  She looked at Danie with sympathy for a minute.  “How are you holding up?”

Danie answer came shakily.  “I never really had him as a father, so it wasn’t as traumatic as I would have thought. Besides, we came to an understanding,” was all she said. 

“Yes and I think Viki will agree with me about what we talked about,” Todd said.

Viki looked at her brother curiously.  “What would we agree about?”  She had a hopeful gleam in her eyes.  The one thing about her brother that she knew for sure, he always had a soft spot in his heart for children.

He gave her one of his shy smiles.  “Danie is a niece any aunt or uncle would be proud of,” Todd said as he waved his hand between them.  Viki returned the smile and gathered the girl up in her arms.  Todd and Blair left the room and Blair closed the door.  Once they were in the hall, Todd said to her, “I agree with you that you need to go ‘coordinate’ the move,” he said, emphasizing his comment with air quotes.  “Just one request.”

Blair stood before him with her arms crossed.  “What is that?”

“Just make sure you don’t need a lawyer after you talk to her,” Todd said with a smirk, also remembering his then wife being pushed out a window.

She was ready to smack him when she remember Jack, Sam and Starr.  “We’ll have to tell the kids.”

“Yeah, but not right now.  I’ll talk to Danie in the morning and ask her not to say anything just yet to them.  Besides, we really have been playing musical families lately,”  He looked at his watch when they got back to their room.  “The furniture store should have enough stuff delivered tomorrow that we can get out of this place, right?”

“Oh, what, I thought you wanted to stay here with your buddy.” Blair said playfully. 

“My buddy?” he asked, unsure of what she was talking about.

“You know, Carly Jacks.  The woman you were trying to make me jealous with,”  Blair continued.

Todd pulled Blair into his lap.  “Blair, I think you should know by now, you’re the only woman for me.”  He kissed her passionately.  When the kiss ended, he continued softly,  “I’ve always felt a connection to you from the first time we met at Rodi’s and especially that first night together at Christmas.  It’s brought me back from the dead, from my own self-loathing and even from the depths of hell that I was in for eight years.  I love you.”  He rolled the chair into their bedroom and she closed the door with her foot.

She smiled at him.  “You said once that everything good in your life you had because of loving me.  Everything I have, good and bad, is because of you.  You have understood me always and I realize now, I will never be able to replace you.  I have tried, but they never worked out.”

“I guess that makes us the definition of soul mates?” Todd said as he leaned in for another kiss.  “And to think how it all started.”

“That stupid Nat King Cole song,”  Blair agreed.  She paused, remembering another night.  “The night of the premiere, you dared me to forget you.  Was that why, was that what you were referring to?” she asked as she began to undo his shirt.

He removed her suit jacket and went to work on her blouse.  “You finally got that reference.  You’re usually quicker than that.”  The blouse off, he began kissing her breasts.

“Well, Mr. Manning, you left me quite stunned that night,” she said between breathes.  Then she paused and looked into his eyes.  “Are you sure you want to try this again?”

Todd paused for a minute, remembering the last time he’d been in this situation.  How nothing had happened for him.  But he hadn’t thought of her and her needs.  He nodded then kissed her softly again.

The kisses intensified as the clothes were shed.  They only broke apart to move to the bed.  And it was there they were lost in each other for the night.

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