A/N: I have a feeling this fic isn't as popular as some of my others because of the prortrayal of Belle. Rest assured, the longer this goes on, the less she wants to be in this situation. She's going to realise that Gold is not as bad as she seems, and the more that happens, the more she'll wish Regina hadn't gotten her into this mess! Plus, the Rumbelle is going to get going before long, as you may have noticed in the previous chapter... and you'll see in this chapter... plus, plot twist ahoy in the closing scene of this one ;)

(For disclaimer, etc. - see chapter 1)

Chapter 10

Belle woke with a start, sitting straight up in bed and gasping for air. She was used to nightmares, even to strange and outlandish dreams. The work she did, the traumas she had been through in the past, things had a habit of mixing themselves up in the subconscious mind and throwing out the most ridiculous scenarios. Still, she hadn't ever had a dream like this about a mark.

Most people Belle took on were too awful to think of as anything but evil, and few were even physically attractive enough to make an impression in any sexual sort of way. Now here she was, panting for breath as the images from a rather erotic dream continued to dance through her head even though she was awoken.

Gold was far from ugly, Belle was well aware of that. He was the handsome type, older than her by a fair bit, she knew, but he did look good on it. He had money and took care of himself, she had no doubt. His bad knee aside, he was fit and able as anyone ten years younger than himself, Belle was certain. In her dream, he had no cane to lean on and no trouble in walking. In fact he had swept her up into his arms and carried her to his bed with no problems at all.

Belle put a hand to her heaving chest and tried to calm her breathing as her mind caught up to what happened next. Obviously she had no real idea what kind of lover Robert Gold would be, her mind had simply thrown together her own past experiences and enhanced them tenfold until she woke up quite overcome from her imagined throes of passion with her supposed boss. He had made her scream and she'd loved every second of it.

"I don't want that," she said aloud to herself, but her body betrayed her in every way it possibly could.

Belle did want it. She wanted the reality of that dream she had just experienced so much right now that it hurt. Her stomach lurched when she realised what that meant, dampening her ardour considerably. She wanted the mark, the enemy, a man so amoral and corrupt...

Belle's thinking took a distinct turn then. What proof did she really have of any of this evil behaviour by Gold? Perhaps he wasn't the world's most kind and considerate boss or man, but she had worked with him a whole month now and had yet to see any real evidence of his being so very bad. There were meetings and phone calls she wasn't privy too, of course, since she had yet to go as far as bugging his office. Back with the team, that would've been Step One with most marks, but with someone like Gold you had to be a little more stealthy. Belle didn't have access to the best tech anymore, not without contacting the others and taking risks. Some bugs were just too easily spotted and so she did things the old fashioned way. She wondered now if taking a technological route might have made getting evidence against Gold that much more simple, and not put her in the position she was in now, quite literally flirting with danger.

Calm as she was now from the dream that had startled her awake, Belle swung her legs out of bed and padded along to the kitchen. She most definitely needed a glass of water after all that, but she moved and fetched her drink on autopilot as her mind spun on. She had no solid evidence of bad business dealings by Gold. He had certainly proven to be a gentleman with women, even when he was practically offered them on a plate. He snapped at Astrid and others who worked for him, but Belle had to admit any employee that incurred his wrath that way thoroughly deserved it. She was surprised that he hadn't sacked more of them by now. He was pleasant to talk to and made her feel comfortable in his home when she was upset. He cheered her up, genuinely and completely, and didn't even lose his cool when she broke what she knew for a fact was be expensive chinaware.

Belle sipped at her water as she thought some more. The only actual evidence she had against Gold had come from Regina, and that in itself could easily be wrong. Big businessmen were always presumed to be somewhat crooked. To get as high and mighty as they did, their means had to be as foul as they were fair at times. It was true enough that many a powerful man and woman quaked at the name 'Robert Gold' meaning he had to be ruthless and that they knew his hard reputation. That wasn't evidence, merely good rumour, since that was all reputation was, nothing solid until it was proven with real evidence. Belle couldn't help but keep coming back to the fact that she had no true evidence of what Gold might or might not have done that was so very bad. She had believed Regina and a whole lot of rumours from the old days. When she and her team went after a mark, they checked them out thoroughly, gathered all the facts to show that these men and women were as bad as their clients professed, that the stories checked out. On this job, Regina had been Belle's primary source, and everything else she had gathered herself was mere speculation, nothing concrete. Of course Regina would want rid of Gold, he was her main rival. Whether or not he had done anything she accused him of was beside the point to someone like Ms Mills.

"Stupid girl!" Belle berated herself, slamming her free hand hard against the counter top.

She should have checked more thoroughly into this con, she knew she should. Panic had been what fuelled her, worry and fear of what would happen if she refused to do as instructed. Regina had threatened Belle with the one thing that would guarantee her co-operation, hurting the friends that had become her family when her blood relations were no longer around to care.

Now it was too late and there was no way out. Well, that wasn't strictly true, Belle realised, laughing humourlessly at the very idea of her only alternative. She could tell Gold the entire plan and bring him over to her side, but as much as she had no evidence of his being so very bad, she had nothing definite to say he was good either. No doubt he would love to see Regina brought to her knees, but he and Ms Mills could just as easily be plotting together behind Belle's back.

Putting her face in her hands, Belle forced back the scream of frustration that rose in her throat. This was getting ridiculous. Two in the morning was no time for such considerations. She was going to drive herself completely mad if she carried on and would be no further forward in knowing the truth.

Finishing her glass of water, Belle took herself back to bed. She forced herself to think of better things, how happy Mary and David were now, and how she might get to visit with them one day when this job was over. Soon she had fallen back to sleep with a content smile at her lips... at least for now.

Robert Gold looked out of his window at the moonlit city. He should've gone home tonight, taken himself away from the office where he already spent too many long hours. The apartment wasn't really far enough to let his mind take a break, but it was convenient. He came up here with Belle and then finished off some paperwork. By then he couldn't be bothered to drive or even hail a cab, and so he had taken himself up to the bedroom on the very top floor of the building. Sleep came fairly easily in the beginning, but a disturbing dream had awoken him abruptly and since then he had not dare try to rest again.

Sipping at the large brandy he held in his right hand, his left leaned heavily on his cane as he stared out of the window still. It was a beautiful enough view, but his dark eyes were not really seeing it, they never did. Skyscrapers and such only held so much charm. Gold much preferred home, the rolling green hills and fields of his dear bonnie Scotland. Coming to America sometimes seemed like such a mistake, and yet it was a necessary move in order to achieve so many objectives. Some of Gold's reasons had been the basis of his dream, mixing in with too many fears he harboured deep inside his blackened heart.

"Where are you son?" he muttered, before turning away from the window.

His eyes drifted to the bed he had abandoned half an hour before. Part of his dream there had been less dark and yet still equally as disturbing to him. A grown man of the world like Robert Gold was used to the occasional erotic dream, but this was different. Belle was different, that was for sure. She was like no other woman he ever met, sweet and innocent in one breath, seductive and desirable in the next. His dream had shown both sides of her in glorious Technicolor. Crying in his arms like a broken child in one scene, and then another had her straddling him atop his own desk, making his whole body quiver with her touch. Gold closed his eyes at the imagined memories and pushed them away for fear of what those kind of thoughts might do to him. He had to keep a clear mind where Isabelle Hart was concerned, not least because he wasn't sure yet if he could completely trust her.

Nobody could be as genuine as Belle. Strangely, that was what made Gold suspicious. She was either entirely what she seemed or the world's greatest actress. Gold just couldn't quite decide which. There was no concrete evidence to suggest she was anything but what she appeared, and yet he couldn't quite allow himself to believe it. She was so decent and pleasant to him, so alluring sometimes. She had to know that her behaviour often constituted flirting, surely she could never be so naive as to not notice. Women weren't that way with Gold, at least nobody he hadn't paid to be so. Most were extremely wary of a man with his reputation, but not Belle.

Shaking his head clear of such ridiculous thoughts, Gold moved to place his now empty glass on the table in the corner. He was reminded by the simple move of Belle with her cup earlier today. She looked so mortified that she had put a chip into the piece of china, when in truth it mattered not one bit to Gold, as he told her.

Perhaps she really was as sweet and naive as she seemed. Certainly she could be as endearing as she was seductive sometimes, whether she realised either quality existed in her or not. The mixture of them could prove almost too intoxicating to bear, but Gold knew he was stronger than that. No woman was going to throw a spanner into the workings of his very intricate plans. That was what he told himself, even if a voice in the back of his mind did tell him he was a fool to believe it, as he took himself back to bed.

"Was it really necessary to bring me here at this time of night?" he asked just as soon as she came into the office.

Regina tried not to react to the fact the visitor was sitting in her chair, his feet propped casually on her desk too.

"How did you get into this room?" she asked, narrowing her eyes.

He looked completely unabashed as he smiled in an almost mocking way.

"Now that would be telling, wouldn't it?" he told her, dropping his booted feet to the floor then and standing up. "Can we get to the point of why I'm here now? Your message was pretty vague."

Regina said nothing, just stalked around the office to take her rightful place behind the desk, gesturing for her visitor to take the other seat. He declined and stood leaning on the back of it instead, waiting for the explanation he'd now asked for twice, to no avail.

"I know about your plan to propel yourself into riches since you already lost much of what you made with your old team of charlatans," said Regina succinctly, watching just a flicker of confusion pass across his face. "Don't ask how I know, because we're both well aware of the fact I won't reveal my sources anymore than you would be willing to reveal yours."

"Agreed," he nodded once, that familiar smirk coming back to his lips. "Still doesn't explain why I'm here."

"You're here because I have a job for you, one I know you won't refuse," she smiled as close to evilly as could be imagined on a human being's face as she tossed a folder onto the desk in front of him.

It was reminiscent of her meeting with Belle, and she knew it. Her scare tactics had worked well enough with that young woman, no reason to think her old team-mate couldn't be played in just exactly the same way.

"You've been busy," he said flatly, finally sitting down to properly review the contents of the folder.

One packet of information outlined the role he was to take on in an almost unbelievably stupid con. The other sheaf of paper told of a job already in progress, with Belle shoved in the middle of the whole mess. If he was understanding this deal correctly, he was supposed to walk into his old friend's grift with one of his own, in an attempt to accelerate a dangerous situation into a worse one, with a view to bringing Robert Gold, notorious man of business, to his knees. If he refused, he had no doubt Belle would pay the price one way or the other. Worse, Regina could easily come after the innocent man that was his elderly father.

"So, Mr Booth, do you think you can handle my assignment?" Regina asked him, licking her lips almost as if she meant to be seductive.

"Of course," August told her with a forced smirk, getting to his feet in one swift movement and turning to leave. "I'd say it was a pleasure, Ms Mills, but you now how I do hate to tell lies."

To Be Continued...