Carl had left to talk to someone else. Gillian and Cal were both sure that they had made it in. With Cal's confidence and Gillian's calm attitude, Carl loved them. They were the perfect pair.

Gillian sipped her wine and looked around the room, trying to get a good feel of the type of people they would be working with.

Cal was doing practically the same, but trying to get a good feel of the type of women he'd be staring at for the next three weeks. One woman, in particular, got his undivided attention for the rest of the night. He didn't know her name, but she was beautiful and her face was full of pain. An offer Cal would never pass up.

"Hello," he said with a charming smile.

She stared back for a moment and eventually faked her own smile. "Hi."

"I'm Thomas Kirby and-"

"I've heard about you," she cut him off. She held a glass of red wine in her hands, but she hadn't taken a sip. He took that to mean that she wanted to be completely lucid throughout the whole night.

"I haven't heard about you. What's your name?" he asked smoothly. He pushed back his blazer and slipped his hands into his pockets, studying her face very carefully.

"Annalisse Koen," she whispered, stretching her hand out.

He looked at her hand, but ignored the offer. "Koen...?" He was trying to place a familiar name.

Dropping her hand to her side, she offered, "My ex-husband is Jack Koen."

"Oh... the, uh... stock-"

"Market guy, yeah," she finished for him.

He stood up straight and said, "It was nice to meet you Annalisse."

"You can call me Anna," she whispered.

He smiled triumphantly, knowing that he had broken the ice. She was allowing him to call her Anna and that meant she was allowing him to be closer. And that meant he had succeeded with his job.

As Cal walked away, Gillian came towards him hurriedly - a terrified look on her face. "What's the problem, love?" he asked, smiling towards Carl as he took her arm and pulled her to the side.

She stared at him seriously and said, "Stay away from that woman."

"A bit jealous?" he asked happily.

"That's Carl's girlfriend and you will get in so much trouble if you do anything with her. Stay. Away. From. Her," she insisted.

"How'd you find that out?" he asked.

"Some ladies at the table were... asking about you."

He looked over her shoulder to the table and smiled. "What were they asking about?"

"I don't think that matters. But I told them you were my husband and they said that you would get in trouble if you were around Carl's girl. He loves being in charge, and he needs to be able to keep control of his own girl."

"You had to tell them that I was married?" he asked, completely ignoring her warning.

"That didn't stop them from being interested in you," she whispered sadly.

He would have noticed the expression, but he was to busy eyeing up the ladies at his table. Anna had just approached that table, and he decided it was time to go talk to some women. "I'll talk to you later, love. Meet some men. Get on their level."

She rolled her eyes and walked away from him angrily.

"Hello ladies..." Cal pulled a chair from the table and fell onto it smoothly, taking a sip of the wine that stood straight in front of his plate.

.:.

"I forgot," he whispered. Cal did forget. He totally forgot that they were a couple. Them ever being together was so unreal to him that he totally forgot.

"Not here, Thomas," she said sternly, shaking her head and walking to the bathroom. "I'm taking a shower."

"Rachel. Men are falling all over you... I can't have a little joy myself?" Cal stood up and walked towards her. "This isn't fair."

"We are married! And you ran after some other woman...! Marriage is sort of a binding thing!" The truth was, she was jealous of the way Annalisse caught his attention and she could even do it when she was 'married' to him.

He wanted to say 'Gill'. He wanted to say something more than Rachel and something that would comfort her. Make her understand that he didn't want to make her uncomfortable with the whole marriage thing. But jealousy? That caught him off guard. "Listen..." he whispered, but before he could keep talking, there was a loud pounding at the door.

"Who is it?" Cal called out.

"Carl. Open up."

Carl rarely came to their actual room.

"What?" Gillian asked when she opened the door.

"I need to talk to Thomas. Right now."

Cal looked up from the blanket that he had busied himself folding and frowned. "Where?"

"Come with me."

.:.

"You were talking to Annalisse," one especially attractive woman pointed out. She had an outfit that would throw him out of his seat if he was staring at Gillian in it. But it was appealing on her. Not to him at least. She was seductively pushing her chest out and slowly eating a strawberry. He wants to laugh at her and tell her it was the oldest trick in the book, but decided against it. He needed information on Annalisse.

She had been at the table moments before, but something had pushed her away.

"Yes I was," he agreed, smiling back and carefully removing his coat. "Is it hot in here?"

Another woman smiled and whispered, "Now that you're here."

He pretended to not hear it and looked over at Gillian. Truth be told, Annalisse was super sexy, but not his kind of woman. He wanted to be back at the hotel with Gillian, but knew that when they got there she was going to fake a fight or something to remove him from the bed. "Stay away from her," the first woman almost hissed.

"Why? She's a beautiful woman..." He turned slightly to get a good view of her backside. Letting a small whistle escape his lips, he knew he had gotten to them.

"That's Carl's girlfriend."

"Is it now?"

"Yeah. He'll kill you. Literally."

"Maybe you just want some of me for yourself." Gillian had walked over to the table and caught the last line, feeling the jealousy tug away at her.

"Maybe I do," said the second.

Cal hadn't noticed Gillian's appearance, but found himself saying, "Sorry ladies, but I'm married to..." He turned around to find Gillian, but smiled widely when she was right behind him. "To this lovely lady."

Gillian smiled and took his hand. "We better be going."

"Why? I was just getting started here."

She frowned and pushed him away from the table. "Bye ladies."

Snarling in her general direction, the girls started talking about what they would do if they got their hands on Cal, which only made Gillian more frantic to leave. "Thomas!"

Cal, totally forgetting that was his name, completely ignored her, holding Gillian's hand. He quietly made small talk with the beautiful woman beside him and bobbed his head slightly.

.:.

"We're going to send your wife on a... special mission," Carl announced once they were far away from Gillian.

Cal frowned and asked, "Why kind of special mission?"

"Well, there's this guy and we really want him as a customer, but things are working to well. We want Rachel to get in there and 'persuade' him." Carl smiled and nodded, hoping that Cal got what he was saying.

Cal played dumb and asked, "Persuade him how?"

"You know how girls work. I don't want to go into detail. We need this customer. His name is Jack Stringer. She'll be perfect. She's hot, she's kinky..."

Cal drifted off, realizing that she was totally kinky. When she was around Carl at least. Carl liked to be around that kind of woman, but Cal was now regretting her decision to do it. Had Ben told her to? Now he realized that she was going to have to pay for her actions but turning some guy on so he would by drugs from them. He wanted to leave. He wanted to be done with this. He didn't want Gillian being forced into things like this.

"Why are you telling me?"

"You have two more days with her. Then she's leaving for a while to get this guy in our hands." Carl stood up and said, "Do something special. She'll be falling over some guy in a matter of 48 hours. Don't waste your time."

"Thanks... for, uh, letting me know," Cal whispered, standing up as well and running a hand through his hair.

Carl nodded and was gone.

.:.

Annalisse had soft hands. Hands that wondered over his chest and to just the rim of his jeans. He knew it was wrong and he knew that Gillian would get mad at him and that Rachel would need to as well. If Carl found out, he would be totally pissed, but standing here with a half naked and too sexy to describe Annalisse was too much for him to just say no.

Her lips and tongue played around just below his ear and he shivered with every touch. "God, Annalisse," he moaned when lifted her knee to just between his legs. "You're such a cock tease," he said, chuckling slightly.

"Sh..." she whispered, nibbling slightly on his ear lobe.

He took in a deep, shaky breath and looked down at her back at the only thing keeping her from completely revealing herself. A little clip. He could easily put his hands there and take her red, lacy bra off, but decided that he wanted her to make the first move. And she did soon enough, unbuttoning his jeans and pushing them down slowly so they would rub him in all the right places. She earned herself a straggled groan from his lips and could feel the sweat on his chest. "Damn, it's really hot in here," he whispered.

.:.

He stared at Gillian who was staring at him expectantly from the bed. She had her legs crossed in front of her and her arms folded over her chest. Not in an angry way, but in the way that she had nothing else to do with them. "Well...?"

He crawled onto the bed beside her and took one of her hands. She let him do it without hesitation and smiled at him. Now - having her scoot over slightly into his arm - was when he actually regretted what he did with Annalisse. This was probably his only chance to have Gillian willingly be with him. He needed to take advantage of that. And now, thinking about Annalisse, just made him feel gross and dirty. "I'm really sorry about Annalisse."

"That's old news..." she whispered, but she obviously sounded hurt. It was weird, because they weren't actually a couple.

Maybe they were.

A/N: Thank you SO much for all of the reviews and alerts and favorites. You readers really made my day! I hope this lived up to your expectations!