Chapter Three

Realizing that Pepper had already left for the day and that he was alone, Tony frowned. The sinking feeling he had been experiencing for awhile now only grew stronger. It was close to suffocating him now. She had left and hadn't gotten him his usually morning cup of coffee and breakfast. Honestly, he could have gone without the food and hell, even without the coffee (even though he may suffer all day from caffeine withdrawal) but worst of all, she hadn't even kissed him goodbye. When he heard her scurrying around trying to get ready for work, he had gone outside for a couple of minutes and when he had come back inside, she was already gone. He couldn't remember the last time she didn't kiss him goodbye before leaving. It was so unlike her. Where had they gone so wrong?

The beginning of their relationship had started out hot and heavy. They had made love like two horny teenagers, never able to get enough of each other. Hell, he remembered one specific day they had fucked four times and one of those times was in her office on her desk and in the shower...God. Tony was started to get aroused just thinking about it. Their unchecked desire for each other had gone on that way for months but now...now things were changing. He couldn't remember the last time they made love, and he didn't like it.

He wandered down to his workshop, determined to focus his thoughts on building something and not spending the entire day thinking about Pepper. He tried to work. He really did but as soon as he would start doing something, it would somehow remind him of something Pepper did or said in the past and that led to him worrying about her again. Who was he kidding? He wasn't in the mood to do any work. All he wanted to do was curl up in bed and hold Pepper. His Pepper...

Letting out an exasperated sigh, he threw himself onto his bed, sprawling out to take up as much space as he could. Yeah, maybe he was being a tad melodramatic but he honestly didn't care. He didn't understand what was going on. And he was suppose to be a genius. This shouldn't be so hard for him to figure out. He sighed again. The only thing he did know for sure was that he didn't like what was happening. He buried his face into Pepper's pillow, clutching it to his face as he deeply inhaled her comforting scent. That's when his hands found something hard. His eyes went wide as he pulled out the treasure hidden beneath her pillow. She had left her computer behind.

As he sat up and opened it, it felt like his heart was going to beat out of his chest and short out the arc reactor. He shouldn't be doing this. Pepper trusted him. Doing something like this was spying on her. He shut the laptop. But what if she was hiding something important from him? To be fair, he did ask her to talk to him and she outright refused. How was he suppose to find out what was going on with her if she wouldn't talk to him? He opened it again. But did he really want to know what was going on? What if she was cheating on him? Did he really want to know? Could he even deal with that information? He closed it again.

"Having a bit of an internal battle going on, sir? Is the good or evil side in the lead?"

"Jarvis..." There was a warning in Tony's tone. He really wasn't in the mood for the AI's banter.

"Are you sure you want to do this?" Jarvis asked.

Was he sure? Well, he was damn sure he couldn't live with the ways things were currently going. He needed to know what was going on with Pepper, and if she wouldn't talk to him about it, this was the only way to figure things out. His hands may have been shaking but his mind was made up. "Yep, I'm sure." Not waiting for another reprimand from his AI, he opened the laptop and booted it up. As he scrolled through the documents, nothing seemed to catch his eye. It all seemed to be work related. Her internet search history held nothing that set off any alarm bells. Nothing seemed amiss. That was until he got into her Dropbox where he found a Word document labeled Edward Victoria. Those were two names that didn't sound familiar to him. He couldn't think of a single business contact with either of those names. He opened in up the document and began to read a loud...

Victoria Plotts was in so much trouble. Out of all of the eligible men on the planet, she had gone and fallen in love with the one man she couldn't have, her boss, Edward Clark. Edward was the most attractive man she had ever seen. To her, he was perfect. He was taller than she was in her towering heels. He was nicely built; his back muscles were the reason she had to repeatedly excuse herself from watching him while he worked. If he knew how hot and bothered she got watching him, she would never hear the end of it. His gorgeous brown eyes were accented with thick lashes that even she was envious of. His dark silky hair curled when he let it grow out. God did she long to run her fingers through his hair when it got unruly. She had to stop herself on so many occasions from reaching out and doing just that.

They were close but their relationship was a complicated one. They weren't lovers but they also were not merely boss and employee. It was something else entirely. Something somewhere in the middle of those things and Victoria just could not figure it out where they fit.

With her red hair, pale freckled skin, and long slender legs, Victoria was pretty. She knew that she was but she wasn't even close to being as beautiful as the women she knew Edward desired. After all, being his personal assistant, she got to deal first-hand with his one-night stands the morning after. They were all drop-dead gorgeous. Super models and porn stars. Busty and beautiful. Who was she kidding? He wouldn't...couldn't ever really want her and even if he did, she couldn't bare to think that she would become just another notch in the famous Clark bedpost. That would destroy her.

She sighed heavily as she watched Edward from her place at the table as he lead the meeting. He looked good today. Extra damn good dressed in his newest Hugo Boss suit and the hot rod red tie she had personally picked out for him. His hair was styled, his mustache and goatee perfectly trimmed. Why did he have to look so damn good and be so damn unreachable? She sighed again, secretly yearning for him to cross over to her in several long strides, take her in his arms and kiss her senseless. She would do almost anything to feel that goatee of his brushing against her sensitive skin, his hot breath on her neck...

"Did you get all that, Miss Plotts?"

Victoria's attention snapped back onto Edward who was staring at her intently, waiting for her response. Everyone at the table turned to face her. It was then she realized she had snapped her pencil in half. Oh crap. She was suppose to be paying attention. She was suppose to be taking notes, not fantasizing about her boss. Edward's tone with her was strictly professional but the way his chocolate brown eyes were looking at her and the curve of that delectably kissable mouth was anything but...

Tony had read enough. He was on his feet a beat, only barely managing to not knock the laptop off the bed as he began to pace the floor in front of him with focused determination. He didn't know what to make of what he was reading. "The woman in the story is obviously Pepper but who the hell is that Edward Clark guy? I'm gonna kill him." His hands became tight fists at his sides as his pacing increased in intensity. If he kept up this momentum for long, he was going to create a new hole in the floor. Like he needed another one of those... Pepper was obviously using her writing as some sort of outlet. Now he just had to figure out what it all meant.

"Sir, need I remind you that your middle name is Edward and that Clark isn't that far off from Stark. The male character described in the story does seem to be modeled after you."

"Only a little bit taller." Tony grumbled under his breath because he sure as hell wasn't taller than Pepper in her killer heels.

"Just a little bit, sir?"

Jarvis' quip froze him in place. "Jarvis..." He growled another warning a loud, half tempted to reprogram the snark right out of the rebellious AI right then and there. His height was a sensitive subject. He didn't need to be reminded on a daily basis that he wasn't tall. He already knew that. When he met with his competitors, they made sure to point it out to try and put him off his game. But he also knew that Jarvis didn't mean anything by his remark so he pushed his anger back down. After all, there were more important matters at hand. "Are you sure Pepper is talking about me, J?"

"I do believe so. You were Miss Potts' boss for years, and I do believe you have that same Hugo Boss suit that Mr. Clark was wearing in the story. You even have the same tie."

Jarvis' observations hit him like a ton of bricks. Holy shit. He was right. Pepper had given him that exact tie for his last birthday. In fact, she had described its color to him as hot rod red. "But why would she feel the need to write this at all when she's already got the real me?" He lowered himself slowly back onto the bed, trying to wrap his head around everything.

"When was the last time you were in a meeting?"

"Ummmm..." That was a good question. Tony hadn't the slightest idea. Once he had made Pepper the CEO of Stark Industries, he simply didn't go to any meetings anymore, even if they requested that he attend. He couldn't count the number of times Pepper tried to get him to go with her to a meeting because he would understand what was being talked about. After all, he was the engineer, not her. In fact she had outright begged him a few times. He had still turned her down, and she had eventually just stopping asking him. Fuck.

"When was the last time you showed up to something on time?"

"Ummm..." He honestly didn't have an answer to that either. This line of questioning was going to give him an aneurysm.

"I believe the answer you are looking for is...never."

Tony let out a laugh at Jarvis' straightforwardness. "Geez, Jarvis. When did you get so snarky?"

"I learn from the best, sir."

So that's what Pepper had been doing when Tony popped into her office unannounced that day. She had been writing. She had been writing this story about the two of them. That's why she had acted so strange when he suddenly appeared. It was then Tony got an idea. "Hey J, bring up Pepper's meeting schedule for the rest of the day." A mischievous smile played at his lips. If Pepper wanted to be Victoria Plotts, then he was going to be Edward Clark.