Undercover Lovers Chapter 4

Disclaimer: I do not own the Mortal Instruments series.

A/N: Thank you so much for the reviews and follows! I'd also like to thank marmaids for the amazing love and support.

Clary POV

I woke up dreading the morning that was ahead of me. It was going to be long, arduous and irritating, and that was just the dress shopping. I hadn't factored in that I would have to spend the day with my new valet/bodyguard, Jace. I got up and got myself in my dressed in something casual but comfortable that wasn't covered in paint. It ended up being a long, white dress with brown gladiator sandals that snaked up and down my legs. The stark colour of the dress made my hair look like fire.

I walked into the living and realised that it was almost 9:30. I began rushing about and grabbing the necessary things for today. I was almost ready when the buzzer sounded and the receptionist's voice rang out through the room.

"Miss Clary, there's someone here to see you. He says he's your boyfriend."

"Yes Dorothea, I'm just coming down now," I said in a huff. I was not impressed that he told Dorothea, the woman that ran the reception, that we were a couple. I made my way down the lift and when I got to the bottom, I stalked straight past him with a frown on my face. I walked out towards the door but not before I turned and waved a little at Dorothea. I got to the new car that Valentine had given to Jace to transport me about and waited for him to unlock the door. Once inside I looked at him and was about to begin yelling. I looked at his face and got slightly distracted. The morning sun was practically creating a halo around his head and was showing of the angular lines of his face. As an artist, I could appreciate how elegant his face was. However, as a human being, I could appreciate how much I wanted to grab each side of his face and just kiss him. Wait...What?! I shook my head to rid my head of such thoughts and snapped out of my little world. He was still looking at me but he had a smirk on his face now.

"You done staring, Red? Were you going to ask something?" He said and put his hand on my chin and closed my mouth slowly. I hadn't realised that I was staring or that I was seconds from catching flies. The skin when he had touched my face burned with little pinpricks and then I realised his hand was moving slowly up the side of my cheek to my ear and tucking away a stray that I must have missed it whilst doing my hair. His hand lingered a little longer than it should have done and the look in his eyes showed that Jace himself was getting distracted by something. I cleared my throat and he bolted back into his seat and put the key into the ignition.

"Yes, actually. I was going to say that I was extremely annoyed with the fact that you thought that you could go around telling Madame Dorothea that I was your girlfriend." I said with a scowl. "I really don't appreciate it."

"Oh how quickly you dismiss our love, Red." He flirted with a smirk. I just rolled my eyes at him in response. "And anyway, how do you expect me to explain to her that I'm your new bodyguard because your father is the biggest mafia boss on the east coast."

"You're right, you're right. I wish you had given some other reason though like you were my cousin or something along that line."

"Now, where's the fun in that?" He said as he took his eyes off the road for a moment to wink at me. We sat in silence all the way to the dress shop. When we arrived, Jace practically jumped out of the car and ran around the other side to open the door for me. He opened the door with a flourished bow and closed the door after me. We walked into the dress shop together and I was quite in awe. On one side of the shop, there was rack after rack of wedding dresses, bridesmaids dresses and cocktail dresses. They included every colour of the rainbow and were made out of the most luxurious fabrics. I was dying to run my hands all over the silks and velvet. On the other side of the room, it was a completely different story. The walls were lined with expensive suits to fit every occasion. There were even shelves that were home to top hats, bow ties and bejewelled canes.

I made my way over to the ladies dress counter and the tall, blonde-haired woman behind the desk smiled at me. I could somehow feel Jace's presence behind me and guessed he wanted to help me pick a dress out rather than getting his own tuxedo ready.

"Is there something I can help you with?" The woman greeted coldly whilst looking me up and down. I could immediately tell that she, for some unknown reason, she saw me as a threat. Then I saw the look she had in her eye when she noticed Jace behind me. She suddenly perked up and leaned forward slightly, shoving her chest forward. "Well hi there handsome. I'm Kaelie and if you're looking for a real woman, I'll gladly be of service."

"Come on sweetheart. I need to pick out a dress for our engagement party" I said, my voice dripping with venom, as I turned to Jace and began to make my way over to the dresses on one side of the room that were obviously cocktail dresses. I don't know why but I couldn't help but feel an overwhelming sense of jealousy when I saw another woman flirting with Jace. I just pushed the thought to the back of my mind and left it there to die. When we got to the dress section, Jace was still looking at me in wonderment.

"What?" I snapped at him then quickly regretted it when I realised he had done absolutely nothing wrong. "What's up?" I said again in a softer tone.

"I'm just quite surprised that you can go from yelling at me for saying we were dating to saying yourself that we were engaged." He said looking at me with his arms folded and leaning back slightly. I could tell he was enjoying every minute of this and I hated it. "Please do tell where on earth that came from."

"I...Just...Erm..." I stuttered, not knowing what to say to him really. I didn't know myself where it had come from so I couldn't give him an answer even if I wanted to. "Come on, let's get this over with." And with that, I turned away from him towards the racks. I looked at all the dresses and realised I'm quite new at this sort of thing. I didn't go to my high school homecoming and prom and I hadn't been big on shopping as a teenager so I was in over my head. Jace seemed to know what he was doing though because he was sifting through the dresses and pulling out one after another. I picked a couple I liked and then we made our way over to the changing room.

"Here. Try these on." Jace said as he handed me 2 dresses. I already had 2 so in total, I had 4. I sucked in a long breath and prepared myself to try on the first dress. I started with a dress I'd picked and I didn't like it on me at all. It was a short, lemon coloured dress that puffed out at the waist that made me look like a sherbet lemon. As soon as I walked out I hadn't even managed to open my mouth before Jace shook his head with a frown.

"Nope, take it off. You look ridiculous."

I went back into the changing room and picked one of the dresses he has picked for me. It was dark blue and floor length. I put it on and felt pretty but there was something missing, I could just feel it. I walked out and Jace just looked at me with his head tilted. I could tell from his expression that, like me, he couldn't fathom the missing piece.

"It's nice but it's not right."

The next one was my second dress. It was black with small embellishment around the neck but the worst thing about it that I didn't notice when I took it off the rack was that it was impossibly short, even on me. I walked out to show Jace still pulling it down my thighs but it didn't work. The more I pulled it down my leg to hide my butt, the more cleavage it showed. Jace stared at speechless for a couple of seconds and then pulled himself back to the real world.

"You cannot wear that. This is a ball, not a street corner." He said, visibly startled.

"I completely agree!" I said as I span around. However, because the back wall of my changing room was a mirror, I caught Jace just having one last look at me, or rather my behind. "Are you quite finished?" I snapped, popping his bubble as I closed the curtain between us. I could almost feel him smirking to himself as he reclined in the chair he was sat in.

My final dress was the last on the Jace picked out it was floor length and emerald green coloured. I had on large slit up the leg of it that went to the top of my thigh and a halter neck with no back. I put it on and immediately knew that it was the one. I felt like a princess and looked like one too. I pulled the curtain back and Jace looked at me in awe. This time the look wasn't perverted or in poor taste, it was just pure admiration. Then his eyes started to darken slightly and he cleared his throat.

"I knew that this one would be the right one. You look amazing." He said but in a rough voice that told me, he was thinking about other things. I could feel my face approaching the colour of my hair extremely rapidly.

"I'll just be one second then we can go and get your suit," I said a little to fast and practically ran back into the changing room. I leaned against the wall and breathed in and out slowly.

10...9...8...7...6...

Jace POV

5...4...3...2...1...

I counted in my head whilst breathing. I couldn't believe how much of an effect that a girl in a dress could have had on me. I was Jace Wayland for Raziel's sake. But she was entirely beautiful and that was undeniable. I couldn't help but want to go up to her, pull her close and kiss her like there was no tomorrow but I couldn't. She was part of a case and the daughter of my father's killer. I pulled myself out of my own thoughts and when Clary emerged from the changing room, we walked over to the suit section. It didn't take long for me to pick out a plain black suit and make our way over to the counter to pay. Kaelie was still there but she wasn't flirting with me like before, she just rung up the clothes and took the money. Clary and I walked out of the shop in silence but I decided that I couldn't handle it any more.

"You want to go get coffee or something?" I said, hoping to drag the day out a little bit longer.

"No, not really." She said whilst looking down and my heart sunk. "But I would love to get some food, I'm starving. I know this great little diner down the street that we could go to!"

"Ok, that sounds great." I said and we set off towards the diner. We walked for a while in comfortable silence and then a gust of wind blew up the street. I looked down at Clary as she shivered in her thin white dress.

"Here. Have this." I said whilst draping my jacket over her shoulders. She wrapped herself in it and looked up at me gratefully. My heart couldn't help but skip a beat when she looked at me like that. She saw me looking at her and quickly looked away but not before I saw the crimson spreading from her neck to her cheeks

"I...uhh...thank you." She said, awkwardly.

When we got to the diner, we sat in a booth, facing each other. After a minute or two of looking at the menu, the waitress came over to us.

"Hi, welcome to Taki's. I'm Aline and I'll be serving you today. What would you like?"

"Coconut pancakes, please." Clary and I said in unison. We both looked at each other and laughed.

"Two orders of coconut pancakes coming right up." She said with a smile as she bounced away. I looked at Clary and tilted my head slightly.

"I didn't take you for a coconut pancakes kind of girl if I'm completely honest with you."

"And what type of girl do you take me for?" She said with a small smirk on her face and a gleam in her eye that I couldn't quite place.

"Oh, wouldn't you like to know," I said whilst I raised an eyebrow and she just licked her bottom lip slightly. "I took you for a good girl. But, in the immortal words of 5 seconds of summer, good girls are bad girls that haven't been caught." She blushed furiously at that and was about to respond when the waitress came back with our pancakes.

"Here you go and if you need anything else, don't hesitate to shout." She said with a smile and turned to walk away. It was nice to not be ogled by girls 24/7 sometimes. Emphasis on the sometimes. We ate our pancakes in silence and the paid for the meal whilst leaving a healthy tip for Aline. Once outside, we walked back to the car which was a couple of blocks away. Clary and I made small talk in the car whilst on the way home about the weather and the ball. Turns out that the ball we were having was to raise money for a homeless charity that was actually just a way for Valentine to make money and get people working for him like slaves. The charges against Valentines were beginning to stack up and were growing.

"I've had a really nice time today Jace, thank you." Clary said when we pulled up outside her building. "I'd invite you up but it's getting a bit late. How about another time?"

"That'd be nice, thank you." I said with a smile plastered across my face.

"Oh, by the way, you looked really nice in that suit." She said and leaned over and placed a quick kiss on my cheek. She then said goodbye again and jumped out of the car and stood on the pavement waiting for me to drive away. I gave her a small wave and then pulled away. When I had gotten far enough away from her building, I pulled over and stopped for a minute. Placing my hand on my cheek, I felt like my whole body was floating.


A/N: Oh gosh, so the feelings are there! Some slight Clace there and even more to come in the next chapter! Keep your eyes peeled. Also, I'm almost at 1000 views and I'm so giddy about that! Please review! I love constructive criticism. Until next time...