Thank you to everyone who reviewed the last chapter. A lot of you were happy that I brought Gio into this story. He's here to do what he does best, bang Betty's head against the wall and make her see what's really going on. He will be in the next chapter.

Because there are no new episodes until January 6, I am going to take a little bit of time to do some more development over the next few weeks. I plan to put out at least five chapters between now and the end of the winter hiatus. I already have chapter 11 written.

This chapter takes place between episodes 4.8 and 4.9. Approximately one week after the last chapter.

Warning: I'm going to do a bit more Daniel Amanda than in the show. As the story progresses you'll see why I'm doing it. Just remember no matter what the story will end with Betty Daniel happiness.

Chapter 10 Who Is Monique Osborn?

Matt Hartley should be happy. He had a fabulous job and he was back with his one true love. But, He wasn't happy, nor was he satisfied with his current situation. He didn't like being an editor. If it was not for Amanda he would be drowning. Despite the whole Bahamas situation, she was still helping him. Of course, now she is cold and distant. She also does the majority of her communication with him via e-mail.

Then there was the whole Betty situation. He had Betty physically. Emotionally and mentally he wasn't so sure. He knows in his mind and heart that she didn't love him. At least, not as much as she loved Daniel. He didn't need Monique to point out the obvious to him the other day. He was in love, not clueless he could see the writing on the wall just as well as anybody.

When he and Betty were alone everything was fine. However, when Daniel is thrown into the mix things became complicated. Betty and Daniel still had their weekly best friend lunch that he was never invited to go on. Unlike before, he can not hang out with Amanda now. Now that Wilhelmina is gone, during staff meetings Betty has taken over her old seat next to Daniel. Matt caught her eating Daniel snack three times in the last week. Betty and Daniel are always touching and hugging each other. Their behavior always screams old married couple to him.

Matt tries to fantasize about him and Betty being together in 20 years. His fantasies usually end up with him catching Betty banging Daniel up against the wall of her office once she becomes editor of Mode magazine. He also keeps having this recurring dream where Betty tells him that she's pregnant and then proceeds to tell him that the baby is Daniel's. He has been having this dream a lot lately.

It probably didn't help that the rumor mill kept talking about Betty and Daniel allegedly having sex in the men's room right before they rescued Daniel from the cult a couple of weeks ago. A tiny part of him wondered if the rumors were true. They were not together at the time so he couldn't be mad if she was having sex with Daniel.

The Betty Daniel rumors got worse when a news story broke this week were a woman is suing the Community of the Phoenix because she got pregnant during level seven. She thought she was having sex with her dead husband. Instead, she was having sex with the person she was partnered up with. Rumors were swirling around that something happened between Betty and Daniel when he was stoned out of his mind. According to the rumor mill, Betty and Daniel slept together during that whole fiasco. Matt could not help but wonder if there was some truth to these rumors.

Every time Matt saw Daniel with Betty he gave him the glare. Daniel gave him the same look. It probably did not help that his father was Dating Daniel's mother. It was another reason for the two men to hate each other. Nothing like finding out your worst enemy's mom is banging your father from the rumor mill. His father did not have the decency to tell him in person. Not that he should be that surprise, Matt found out his parents were divorcing from CNN.

Daniel Meade wasn't his worst enemy anymore even though his girlfriend was most likely in love with Daniel. Monique Osborn was Matt's worst enemy. For some reason the woman absolutely hated him. He knew from reading Amanda's diary recently that Monique and Amanda were friends. He also found out by reading her diary that she hated him for breaking her heart and thought he was an absolute fool for going back to Betty when he knew that she was in love with Daniel. There's also something in her diary about her sleeping with the one person that would make Betty very upset. Amanda came back to her desk before he could finish reading. She hasn't brought her diary back to work since that day a week ago.

He knew that Monique was purposely trying to make his life at Mode as miserable as possible. In addition to spending three days last week at the sexual harassment seminar from hell, she was making him shadow her today. She said he was in such need of training that she couldn't wait until after he took the management training seminar in February. She said some very mean things to him when she dropped by his office two days ago to tell him about the training.

"You need to learn what a real editor does all day and Daniel is too busy with 99 other things to baby sit you. Because your daddy is signing my paychecks until that Prick Connor tells us where the money is you get to spend your day with me. Of course, one of those 99 things Daniel is doing is your girlfriend. Didn't you hear the latest rumor Daniel is engaged in a friend's with benefits relationship with one of his former assistants. We all know what assisted that is don't we dormant. I'm sorry I mean Matt." Monique said this in the most icy voice possible.

This little verbal show down wouldn't be so bad if she did it in private. Monique "The bitch" Osborn decided to do this in front of his entire team. The only person who wasn't there was Betty. She was having a private meeting with Daniel at the time. That made the situation worse because Megan started making comments about how Betty was probably screwing Daniel in his office instead of meeting with them.

Matt knew he needed to come into his day of shadowing Monique with as much information as possible. If Amanda was not giving him the cold shoulder he would talk to her. Considering that Amanda threw a shoe at him this morning when she saw him kissing Betty it would be best if he just use Google and another source from the rumor mill.

According to the rumor mill, Monique started at Meade publications a few months before Bradford Meade died. She was brought in as a managing editor for Diversity Business. This seems strange because before that Monique was a managing editor at Isabella. Rumor has it that she got in some big blowout with the then EIC and came to Meade publications just to spite the woman. Matt couldn't understand why she did not end up at Mode.

Nine months into her time at Meade the editor of Diversity Business made a very stupid remark. When the then editor Miguel Rodriguez was asked on a morning talk show about how Meade publications could produce a magazine that promoted diversity in the workplace when they also produced a magazine that rarely showed women over a size zero. He responded with the infamous "Of course Meade publications promotes diversity. Our female president used to have a D$%." Even though they removed the last word, everybody knew what the man said. That was not something the head of a diversity Magazine should say in a live interview. Monique's quick thinking saved the magazine from scandal and Alexis named her the new EIC after the dust settled.

Nine months later when Alex left the company, Monique was moved to Player by Wilhelmina against her will. Player was the antithesis of Diversity Business. Everything he heard so far said that Monique was good at her job. He also knew that most of the people who work there before Monique got there hated her. .She had several nicknames including the BIC and the DIC. He knew that BIC stood for bitch in charge. He still didn't know what the D in DIC stood for.

He couldn't find that much more about Monique Osborn on Google, except for the fact that her original last name was not Osbourn. Monique Osborn was born Monique Windom-West of the Manhattan Windom-West's. Matt was sure he went to boarding school with one of Monique's cousins. Osborn was her married name. He knew she wasn't married now because the rumor mill said she was dating some guy who owned the deli down the street from the Meade offices. He couldn't find anything about a divorce on Google. He wasn't able to do any more searching because Betty stopped over after her best friend movie night with Daniel. Sometimes it seemed like Betty was dating Daniel more then she was dating him.

As the e-mail stated he showed up to Monique's offices at seven AM sharp. They would begin a day with a breakfast meeting with Luke Barnes of Atlantic Attire. Monique was trying to get him to advertise in Meade publications after an incident two years ago. After the breakfast meeting, they had a photo shoot for the March babes in bikinis issue followed by an editors meeting. This is just the stuff before lunch.

At 1:00 PM, they had a business lunch with Claire Meade to discuss the budget for the next six issues. At 2:00 PM, they have another advertiser meeting this time with Alexandria's Custom Lingerie. At 3:00 PM, they had a interview promoting the December issue "What every Player wants for Christmas." At 4:00 he would be attending the monthly all editors meeting with Monique. At this meeting all the different EICs will present their ideals to Claire Meade and his father. At 6:00 PM, they would be meeting with the accountants to go over the budget for the January issue. Finally, at 7:00 PM they had a business dinner with another possible advertiser that Monique was trying to get for Player.

"It's a miracle you actually showed up to the meeting on time. Was your girlfriend too busy with the real love of her life to stay over last night?" That statement hit a little too close to home. Betty stopped over last night after spending several hours with Daniel just long enough for a quick hello and a kiss. He was too angry to go back to researching Monique after that.

"I thought you said you were going to be professional?" Matt said to her.

"I work at player magazine. This behavior is professional. If you work around guys who only talk about who they slept with the night before and which female colleagues have the better breasts your definition of professionalism becomes a bit skewed."

"Amanda is not this bitter about me dating Betty again."

"I'm not bitter about the Amanda/Betty thing. I'm bitter because my promotion to Hudson magazine rest solely on my ability to turn you into a good editor. Maybe even somebody who could take my place at Player magazine. Do you even care about the magazine industry at all? You and I are both from the country club set. We hear the same rumors. Rumor has it that you go through possible careers like pre Betty Daniel went through girls." Monique said as she grabbed her jacket from her closet.

"Don't you mean pre Molly Daniel?" Matt asked as he got up to follow her out the door.

"I meant what I said. You and I both know Daniel is in love with Betty. We both know Betty is in love with Daniel. You know in your mind that your relationship with Betty is not going to go anywhere. Your mind knows you and Betty will not be together in 20 years. It's your heart that doesn't know any better." Matt just gave her this icy glare as they walked out of the front office. How dare this woman he barely knows say these things? It didn't matter that on some level he knows she is right. In His mind, he couldn't see himself with Betty in 20 years unless she was dating Daniel on the side.

As they walked past the desk in front of Monique's Office she stopped for a moment to speak with a blond woman who handed her a binder and an updated version of her schedule.

"Matt this is my assistant Candy. Unlike you she has never missed a crucial business meeting to make out with her significant other. Has anything horrible happen yet Candy?" Monique asked as she started to read over the binder.

"Half of the swim suits for today shoot didn't show up last night and the photographer canceled."

"Why did the photographer cancel?"

"She says she has H1N1." Candy said with a laugh.

"The real reason?" Monique said with a sigh.

"According to her friend in accounting, her boyfriend of two years proposed to her last night and they are celebrating today."

"You think she could come up with something more original. Call her agency and tell them that we will not be using her services anymore. Matt can you tell me where your boss Daniel is going to be today?" Matt knew that Betty told him at some point yesterday what Daniel would be doing today. He completely forgot.

"I'm not sure. I don't keep up with my boss's schedule. I am not his assistant." Matt said snidely to her. He had no idea why she was asking this.

"Rule number one of being a good editor: always know what's going on in your own office. Although maybe in your case, you don't want to know. You might accidentally find out your girlfriend really was giving Daniel a BJ in the men's room a few weeks ago. It doesn't matter, I will call Amanda." As Matt contemplated Monique's words, she was finding out the needed information from Amanda. Daniel will be spending most of the morning at a photo shoot on the other side of town and Marc will be with him.

"Thanks Amanda. Tell your new special friend that I said hello and I'll see him before the editors meeting at 3:40 PM." Monique said to Amanda as she ended the call. Matt was too focused on the fact that Amanda had moved on. He shouldn't be surprised. Although if she really moved on, why did she throw a shoe at him yesterday?

"Candy call Cliff St. Paul and see if he'll do the photo shoot. Tell him his ex boyfriend will not be in the building this morning and will pay him double his normal fee."

"Got it" Candy said writing herself a quick note.

"Then I need you, Rachel and Richard to go raid the closets at Hudson and Mode for any swimsuits they didn't use for their issues. I don't care what the labels are. The trashier the better. We're not selling clothing; we are selling the player lifestyle. I will have my blackberry with me. Let me know what's going on." Monique said as she handed the binder to Matt.

"What is this for?" Matt asked her as he started looking at the book.

"That is my background binder for every single meeting or photo shoot I have today. My suggestion is that you look through the binder during the drive to the restaurant. We have 20 minutes before you and I have to make nice with a homophobic misogynist so he will actually buy ad space in not only Player, but your magazine as well. I forgot to tell you that you'll be delivering a pitch for Mode magazine as well."

"What do you mean I'm selling him on Mode?" Matt said in a panic.

"Daniel wouldn't let me have you for the whole day unless you were able to get some work in for Mode as well. At each of these meetings you will be delivering a sales pitch for these advertisers' to buy space in Mode. I am sure a professional like you would be able to give an impromptu presentation. However, I'm not completely evil. I provided you with both the Player and Mode magazine sells figures for the last 12 months as well as other information you may need for the presentation. You have until we get to the restaurant to put a presentation together."

"No wonder they call you the BIC." Matt mumbled under his breath as they got in the elevator.

"They only call me that because they're scared of me and what I can do. You don't want to know what I can do to you. By the way, the reason why Amanda is not that upset about you going back to Betty is because she's having a just friends sex relationship with Daniel to get back at her. Amanda actually like you a lot and you break her heart by going back to a woman who is in love with her best friend. However, we don't have time to deal with that mess right now. I have to avert a fashion shoot catastrophe and you have a sales pitch to prepare. Everything you need to know is in section C." Monique said as they made their way to the town car in the basement. As Matt began to read through the material and mentally prepare his presentation, he thought of brand new nasty things to call the woman sitting next to him. This is going to be a very long apprenticeship.

To be continued