Gina watched Mary with a very curious gaze. She sucked at her bottom lip while tapping her fingers against the glass of whiskey she held onto. Her jaw shifted from left to right as she was staring at the woman who had captured the heart of her husband. Gina was everything but she wasn't dumb. When she met Michael he was a dejected man, so miserable and so hurt because he had not been chosen by the family as their new leader and by Mary as her companion. Long before they became lovers; Gina heard Michael lament the loss of his precious Mary and his obsession with the woman didn't stop once he married the blonde American "princess". He kept a portrait of Mary in his cabinet. A portrait he never managed to throw away. She saw nostalgia in his eyes when he was thinking about Mary and the way he spoke of her to his friend, Archer. Gina was not stupid, she knew that her husband still had unfinished business with Mary, and the second he saw her, he would not be able to resist the urge to talk to her.
Mary was beautiful, she could concede. She was warm, matronly... and the children around her gathered naturally, comfortable with her presence. It would have been impossible to miss the curves on that woman and Gina briefly compared them to hers, wondering if Michael's attraction to Mary was a fluke or if she was truly the type of woman he was lusting after. With brown skin, luscious brown hair, beautiful green eyes, and beauty spots on her face, it sure seemed that Mary was an exotic beauty. Gina realized that she was almost her complete opposite. Tall, slim, blonde with pale skin and blue eyes, she didn't exactly exude "warmth" when one looked at her. Instead, they could tell she was conniving, cunning, prone to plot against her enemies, and a troublemaker. They could tell she wasn't fully sincere and was a master manipulator. The sight of Mary was upsetting Gina but she managed to keep it to herself and watch her husband instead.
Michael had tried his best to ignore Mary when he introduced his wife Gina to the family. He tried to avoid looking at her, tried to avoid speaking to her but he couldn't do it. As soon as Mary welcomed both of them, he set his blue eyes upon her, fully smitten over her beauty. He almost lost his words and if it wasn't for Gina introducing herself to Mary, he would have stayed mute in front of the nurse. His heart started to beat way too fast for his liking and his fingers were shaking, forcing him to slip his hands into his pockets to hide it from everyone. During the introduction of Gina to the head of the family -Tommy Shelby- He found himself unable to stop looking at Mary who was sitting next to him. How did she become even more beautiful than he remembered her to be? She seemed to have gained some new confidence and the way she looked at Tom could have stabbed him in the heart if Gina wasn't in the picture. He pretended, fairly well, that seeing Mary didn't disturb him and kept things to himself until the formalities were done, Tommy humiliated him once again and Mary decided to take him to the kitchen before he left.
"You're looking good Michael. You're doing great in New York." She leaned against the kitchen counter and looked at the young man who fetched himself a glass of whiskey to drink. He paused for a while, unable to decide what to say next or what to do. She was so close to him. If only he... If only he could have...
"Why are you here? I thought this was family only." He forced himself to sound harsh, perhaps in a bid to put some distance between the two of them and be able to look at her He wanted to hurt her, to see her disappointed face so he could have the strength to push her away but she didn't look at him like that. Instead, she simply sighed and pinched the bridge of her nose.
"I am family."
"It's a dangerous business, Mary. You know that don't you? After barely escaping death because of your first husband, you want to dive back into it with /him/?"
"I know what I am doing and what life I am choosing. You have the same ambition as him...You want his crown and I am not stupid, Michael."
"Watch your mouth, Mary!" He lifted a brow and she crossed her arms above her chest. Her green eyes stared into his soul, forcing him to gulp down his glass of whiskey to find some strength. She was determined, cold, too cold for his liking.
"What I am saying is..." -She paused for a second, glancing at the door and noticing that Gina was staring at them.- "I did read your letters."
It sent a shiver down Michael's spine. She read them? All of them? There were a few where he came close to confessing his love for her, others where he was so dejected and angry that he was awful to her, and finally, the distance he tried to put between the two of them once he met and married Gina. He closed the distance between them, trying to appear taller than he was and more intimidating to her but Mary didn't budge. She looked at him with defiance and didn't flinch. He felt the urge to grab her cheek and force a kiss on her lips. He felt the urge at the pit of his stomach, thundering loudly in his head, pumping through his veins, he still wanted to make her his, even to this day, even if he wasn't...Did he love her?
He resolved himself into thinking that it wasn't love but lust and that she broke his heart way too hard for him to recover. He wanted to believe that he was trying to hurt Tommy and that Mary was the perfect way for him to achieve his goal. It was easy to say when he was still in the USA. It became harder to just think about it when she was standing in front of him. Mary, beautiful Mary, with a body made for sin and a face carved by the angels. He resisted the urge to steal a kiss because the door was wide open and anyone could have walked in. Instead, he allowed his hand -the one that wouldn't be in full view of the crowd in the living room- to move up and hold a few locks of Mary's hair. He didn't dare to move closer because if he did, he would have kissed her. Instead, Michael touched her neck, oh so slightly, and that made her shiver and tilt her head to the side, in an attempt to make him stop touching her.
"You read... All of them?"
"This is a dangerous game you're playing Michael...I answered as politely as I could, so you would know that this... whatever this is you're trying to do couldn't happen." She said, swatting his hand away. Michael growled and hit the counter with his fist.
"Don't think I didn't understand where your affection was going. You chose him."
"It's always been him. Polls knew... Lizzie knew...John knew... Hell, even Arthur knew. I made my choice a long time ago and unlike Carter, this time I know exactly who Tommy is and the kind of life I am going to live."
"I wanted to protect you from this!!! You're going to let someone with the touch of Death near you. He kills anything he touches, Mary. He killed John, Grace...He will kill my mother if she stays with him and he will kill you too." She shot him one of her angry glares. She refused to start a commotion that would bring the whole house to the kitchen and add some fuel to the existing feud between Tommy and Michael. Instead, she sighed deeply and waved her hand so he wouldn't try to touch her again.
"The path both of you have chosen is a path made of death, blood, and grief. You haven't faced what he had to face so you don't know just yet how dangerous the path you're walking is.... but give it time. Give it time and you will see that to wear the crown is to make the hardest choices and take the risk of losing everything! I read your letters and I know what's in your heart, Michael. Let it go! Let me go!" She said, hitting at her chest. "Keep me out of it and if you have issues with Tommy let them be about the business. Let them be about it and nothing else! You're married now, be a husband to Gina, be a father to your future child, build a life with her."
"She's not /you/! Don't you think I have tried to forget about you? Mary Colson? You haunt my dreams! you're in my head when I'm awake. Gina is wonderful but she's not you!"
The confession, the one he was dreading to make escaped his lips and Gina could see the terror on the face of Mary. She guessed right, her husband was still in love with Mary. He still wanted her to be his. What truly motivated him was unknown even to himself. Greed? Lust? Ego? She rejected him while plenty of other women fawned over him. Perhaps he wanted to own her, perhaps he was still lusting after her but one thing became certain in the eyes of Gina, Mary Colson had to die in his heart. If she couldn't be killed in this life, then she would be in the heart of her husband. Gina would double her efforts to make him forget the woman -who clearly didn't want any of this but Gina didn't care about it- and she would succeed. Mary covered her mouth and shook her head.
"These are the words you're using, but if you truly meant these you wouldn't have sent Archibald Worthington to try and seduce me. He slipped up and mentioned you when he tried to force himself on me. I was disappointed in you, hurt.. because despite everything I still cared for you. I still did... but you sent him and he nearly raped me... now you want to pretend you love me? Do you want to pretend you care for me? Michael, I can't believe you. I realize how stupid of me that was to take you there, I wanted to calm your temper and encourage you to do better for both of your sakes and here you are... telling me... " She shook her head- "I should go."
She left the kitchen, walking fast, almost running back to Tommy's arms. She left and refused to look back as her heart was racing in her chest and she was afraid of how Tommy would react if he ever heard what happened in that kitchen. She was worried about the future because it became clear as day that Michael wasn't done. He wasn't done. He was just starting.
-TBC-
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