She had the urge to hit something, to hurt something it was totally involuntary, and she knew it was totally irresponsible. Because that was not how she needed this whole thing to play out. It wouldn't work that way, not with this adversary. That was exactly what he wanted, and come hell or high water, Gillian Foster was absolutely not going to give him what he wanted.


Gillian stared down at the small marking in front of her, completely fixated and absolutely livid – she couldn't remember the last time she'd felt such an out of control level of anger. And that included all the times that Cal had driven her to the edge of sanity and back during the better part of the last decade. No, this was a new level of fury; the kind that she'd seen in the faces of countless others over the years, but never once experienced for herself. Raw, powerful, irrational emotion that made her want to drive across town and tear that smug asshole down, inch by inch.

Her fists were clenched so tightly that the muscles in her forearms began to tremble, and her fingernails were actually cutting little gauges into her palms. She ignored the stinging sensation it caused until she finally looked down to find a tiny spot of blood in the middle of her right hand.

Shit.

First and foremost, she knew she had to calm down. This guy wanted her to come unhinged. He wanted her to lash out – to act before she spoke, despite the consequences. Obviously, he wanted her to lash out at Cal, and Cal alone. He probably had no idea she'd already figured out his identity. That watermark was just an oversight on his part. Lucky for Gillian, she'd had the patience to look, and the good sense to listen to Loker when he suggested it.

She dabbed a tissue against her palm, took a deep breath, and tried to take her own advice. Calm down. Her eyes fell closed for a second as her pulse began to slow down. When she opened them a moment later, her first instinct was to call Cal. Because regardless of how they'd left things, and regardless of how far away from her he'd planned to run, she was absolutely positive that they would handle this together. And after the dust settled, they'd try behaving like grown ups for a change and see where they stood with each other.

It was a plan, at least. A starting point. The details would just have to fall into place later.

Gillian lifted her bag onto the desk and began to dig through the mess she'd made inside it, hunting for her cell phone. She had no idea what to say, exactly, but she definitely owed Cal an apology. A big one. For those awful things she'd shouted at him, for not trusting him in the first place… and for walking away each time he tried to explain himself.

She'd apologize first, and then ask him to come back so they could talk face to face. But she absolutely would not tell him about that watermark over the phone – because if her gut reaction had been severe anger, then Cal's would be complete and total wrath. The kind that would end with his bruised fist and someone else's broken nose, if not worse.

She knew they had to plan their next move very carefully. Because Loker and Torres were both right – if this guy had already stooped so low as to send provocative photographs to their workplace through an anonymous messenger, then what was to stop him from going further? Staking out their houses, or their office, or even their employees just to prove some twisted point?

And with that thought, Gillian felt a shiver run through her. Something had always seemed a bit… off… about this guy, but she'd never been able to put her finger on what it was, exactly. Just some nameless, generic feeling of uneasiness, but never to the point that she'd gone out of her way to avoid him.

Her thoughts drifted back through the previous few weeks, and she remembered at least a handful of times that she'd met this man in passing – always in a crowded public setting and always briefly. The same kind of random, chance encounters people have every single day and never give a second thought to the 'why' of it all. Things like bumping into each other in a crowded store or on a crowded sidewalk. Unimportant, ordinary events.

At least, they'd seemed that way to Gillian at the time. Now with the benefit of hindsight kicking in, it all felt deliberately planned… like a cruel con.

She felt goose bumps running up and down her arms, felt a heavy pang of tension in the pit of her stomach as everything just clicked. All of a sudden, she knew exactly what point he was trying to make. She knew exactly what his motive was. And it made her sick to realize that if she'd just listened to Cal when he tried to warn her weeks ago, then maybe none of this would have even started in the first place.


Gillian tucked her phone between her shoulder and her ear and frowned as she heard it click over to Cal's voice mail again. She'd made at least a dozen calls and sent a handful of texts so far, but nothing. No answer, no reply… not a word from him since he walked away from her hours earlier. It was totally unlike him to avoid her completely, and she was really starting to worry.

And so by the time her thirteenth call still went unanswered, she'd begun to pace a pathway around her office, out into the hallway, and halfway to Heidi's desk. Nervous energy. She still felt the need to do something. Sitting around waiting for Cal just made her feel like she was spinning her wheels.

A few minutes later, during her third loop through the hallway, she finally heard it – the unmistakable (yet slightly muffled) voice of Johnny Rotten singing somewhere in Cal's office. She rolled her eyes and sighed. Turns out he wasn't avoiding her at all; he'd just left his phone behind.

She followed sound of the ringtone into his office and then finally spotted the cell on his desk, forgotten among a few short stacks of files. As soon as she disconnected the call, the phone began a series of incessant, shrill little beeps designed to alert someone of the missed messages. She pressed one button, just to make the noise go away, and then Cal's wallpaper photo became visible.

The tiny image on his screen took her by surprise. There they stood, arm in arm at the annual Lightman Group Christmas party, the day Cal returned from Afghanistan. It was a candid shot – they stood inches apart, smiling and laughing and looking decidedly… together. Cal's arm was wrapped around her waist, and her hand rested against his chest as she leaned into him slightly. And there was no denying the emotion that shone from his face as he stared into hers.

Gillian felt weak. Physically and emotionally weak. She felt a thousand butterflies in her stomach, and her pulse started to race again. Part surprise, part guilt, she guessed. She trailed shaky fingertips over the image and then sank into Cal's chair , never taking her eyes off the small screen.

It felt odd to be in there without him. It felt intrusive, somehow, to be sitting in his office surrounded by his things and his presence and – though she felt self-conscious to have noticed it in the first place – his scent, without him physically there with her.

Jesus, his scent. Where the hell had that come from? It's not like she ran around sniffing the man all the time, but it was definitely there. Spicy, sweet… definitely him. God damned pheromones. Gillian sighed and placed the phone back on his desktop, and then leaned further back into his chair. She closed her eyes and felt herself begin to relax – begin to forget all the stress and chaos and total bullshit that had been dumped into their laps in the last few hours.

A moment later, that nagging little voice in the back of her head piped up again. This time, instead of screaming at her that she was behaving like a jealous lunatic, the little voice was soothing and compassionate. And its message was clear… wait for Cal, apologize, and move forward. Together.