Disclaimer: All the characters belong to the wonderful Janet Evanovich. I am just borrowing..

Spoilers: Possibly all the books up to Twelve Sharp

Content Warning: eventually NC17, maybe?

This is my first try at fanfic so please be kind. Thank you to Veronica for proofing this for me. Without her, it would probably be a mess of spelling and grammar errors!

Stephanie's New Deal Chapter 10

I awoke the next morning to the feeling of someone stroking my back and I knew from the way my body responded to the touch that it was Ranger. I gave a luxurious stretch, a smile on my face before the events of the night before came rushing back to me and wiped the smile right off my face. I rolled my head on the pillow, my face scrunching up against the material of the pillowcase and no doubt smearing whatever makeup that hadn't already been washed off by my tears the night before.

Ranger saw that I was awake and pulled my body closer to him. I could feel heat radiating from his body, warming mine in places that it no longer would if I was smart. But I wasn't feeling very smart, and I was enjoying the contact, and I could feel my body reacting the way it always did to his touch.

My face was still scrunched in the pillow as I tried to hide the state it was in. The last thing I wanted Ranger to see was tear tracks dried onto my cheeks in what was left of my mascara. I should have known better, though. This was Ranger we were talking about, and Ranger never misses anything.

"I'm going to have to talk to my sister about the way she messed up all the plans I had for you last night." I felt my body stiffen at his comment, and the idea that Ranger knew everything that Maria had said to me and that this was his way of telling me that all that she had said was true came to me in a flash. He must have felt the tension that had suddenly appeared in my back, especially since his hand was still stroking it, because I felt his hand slow down and then stop, resting on the small of my back just above my hips.

"For coming for an unexpected visit and interrupting my plans for you," he said, elaborating on his previous thought. I relaxed slightly under his hand and he started applying pressure to the muscles his hand was resting on, working out some of the tightness that had gathered there.

"Is there something I should know?" he asked, his voice quiet.

I kept my face hidden in the pillow, using it to mask the emotions and thoughts I normally couldn't keep off my face, and half expected Ranger to tear it away from me. He found a particularly tight spot on my back and I couldn't help a small moan of pleasure as he began to rub there. All this before I remembered I still needed to answer him.

The trouble was, I wasn't sure how to answer him. The truth of the matter was, I wasn't sure if I believed everything Maria had said, but my insecurities were making it so I wasn't entirely certain I could disbelieve it all either. I was caught in a limbo between wanting to tell him everything his sister had said to me, and packing up my things to get myself out of this entire situation before I could get hurt any more than I already had.

Because I still had a lot to lose. Neither Ranger nor his sister knew about the epiphany I'd had. Neither of them knew that I was hopelessly in love with Ranger.

He shifted beside me and started massaging my shoulders, his hands touching cotton instead of my bare skin like they should have since I'd fallen asleep in my gown from the night before. It was only then that I realized I had been changed out of it. I shifted my head so I could see by looking down without actually raising my head up off the pillow, and saw black cotton encasing my upper body. One of Ranger's t-shirts.

My voice was muffled by the pillow when I spoke, and I completely ignored his previous question. For now, anyways. "Did you put me in this t-shirt when you got here this morning?"

His hand slid beneath the material on the next stroke so that we were skin to skin. He started massaging my sore muscles again before he answered. "I got you changed into the t-shirt when I came in here to check on you last night." He leaned down so his voice was a quiet growl in my ear, and I could feel his breath heating my skin the way his close proximity was already doing. "I hope you don't mind, but I shared the bed with you last night." His lips were so close I could feel them rubbing against my ear as he spoke. "I would much rather share a bed with you than share an apartment with my sister."

The mention of his sister was like a bucket of ice water thrown over my head, and I sat up suddenly under his hands before sliding myself out from under him and sitting up on the edge of the bed with my back to him. His hand slid down my back and out from under the shirt.

"Babe?" he said. "What's wrong?"

I could feel him start to move across the bed toward me so I stood up, fighting to keep the sadness out of my voice. "Nothing's wrong. I just forgot to wash the makeup off my face before I went to bed last night. It's bad enough you have to see my hair in this state, I don't want you to have to see my face all covered in mascara, too." I managed to throw a light-hearted laugh in at the end.

I had started across the room toward the bathroom when Ranger spoke again. "I think it's customary for a husband to see his wife in the mornings, Babe. You're going to have to trust me to cope at some point."

I laughed again, but I'm sure it sounded as hollow to him as it did to me. "Luckily for you, this is all just pretend, so you won't have to worry about waking up to it forever." I shut and locked the bathroom door behind me before I could hear his response.

I gave my head a shake to clear it from the tears that were threatening to develop again. I had done enough crying the night before and I wasn't going to do it again if I could help it.

A hesitant glance in the mirror showed me that while it was pretty bad, my makeup wasn't nearly as horrific and smudged as it could have been. It looked like a lot of it had been washed off by the tears and I felt a pang of guilt at the fact that Ella would probably end up being the one to clean it up off my pillowcase for me.

I used the bathroom and started the shower without pausing to consider whether Ranger would need to use the facilities. My Burg girl attitude was making a small return and I wasn't feeling very charitable toward him at that moment. As far as I was concerned, he could go back up to the seventh floor and use the bathroom there, even if it meant he had to do the pee-pee dance down the hall in full view of whoever was monitoring the building's cameras. In fact, at that point, if he had said anything about my lack of consideration for his bodily needs, I would have been very willing to tell him what he could do with those needs before calling off the entire charade that was our engagement.

And that brought my mind back to the issue at hand. As I washed myself in the shower, I realized I needed to figure out if I could still go through with the hoax of our engagement. I knew that every moment I spent with Ranger, my heart was further at risk from him. I equally knew that nothing was going to change Ranger's mind about whether a relationship could work between us; he wasn't going to back down on his concerns. Until Maria had opened my eyes, I never knew exactly how much I was putting at risk by holding out even a small amount of hope. She may have been a bitch to me, but before Maria had told me all those things, I had been content to operate in a state of denial and tell myself I could take whatever it was he was willing to offer me and accept that alone.

I knew better now. I wanted it all. And I knew there was no chance I was going to get it.

With those depressing thoughts, I finished washing myself and rinsed under a stream of water that may have been just slightly less warm than it had been for the rest of my shower. I took a bit of pleasure at the idea that Ranger might be forced to have a less than steaming hot shower – the water heater in the building was too good for him to ever have to suffer an actual cold shower if he didn't want one so I knew not to hold out hope of that.

I toweled myself off before wrapping myself in the robe that was hanging on the back of the bathroom door and then spent some time combing out my hair. I will admit that I was stalling in hopes that Ranger would not be in the apartment when I got out.

Amazingly, there was no sign of him when I finally got out of the bathroom. I decided not to look a gift horse in the mouth, and rushed through the process of getting myself dressed, taking only a moment to stop and call my dad for a ride. I hadn't seen my mother since the entire charade began, and while I knew I should be rejoicing in that and milking it for all it was worth, I was a little worried about her and wanted to check up on her health, as well as their home's booze levels.

And if it meant I could avoid Ranger and the thinking about the entire situation for a while, all the better.

My dad called my cell when he was a block away from the building and I told him where to meet me on the street. I disconnected and hesitated the briefest of moments before I made my decision. I picked up my duffel bag and jammed all of my belongings into it, scooping the toiletries into side pockets even though they were still wet.

I also made extra sure I left all the jewelry, including my fake engagement ring, on the bureau.

I took one last look around the room to ensure I hadn't missed anything before closing the door to the apartment behind me and speedwalking down the hall to the elevator. I was hoping to avoid seeing anyone on my way out of the building ... Okay, I was hoping avoid Ranger and Maria ... but if I could avoid seeing anyone at all, it would be that much better.
Luck has never really been on my side, but it held out a little for me because as I was standing there waiting for the elevator, Lester and Bobby showed up behind me after leaving their respective apartments. I figured I was just lucky that Ranger wasn't with either of them. They both nodded at me before starting to talk about a takedown that was planned for later that day. I stood there, staring at the blank elevator doors, trying to tune them out and hoping they would be the only people I'd have to see as I left, when the elevator finally got to our floor and we had to wait until Ram, Zero, Manny, and Hal got off before we could enter it. In all the time I had spent in the building, I didn't think I'd ever seen that many people outside of the control room, and now they were all showing up as I tried to make my quiet escape.

Lester and Bobby were silent in the car as it moved down, but when the doors binged open at the garage floor, Bobby spoke up.

"Are you taking one of Ranger's cars, Steph?"

I bit my lip for a moment before answering. I tried to keep my tone light.

"No, my dad's picking me up. I promised my mom I'd come visit today because she hasn't seen me in a while. I think she's just looking for someone to talk to instead of my grandmother."

They had both heard stories about my grandma so they laughed at that. I started making my way toward the garage doors when Lester spoke up.

"Hey, Bombshell, what's with the duffel bag?"

I closed my eyes tight and took a deep breath before turning around to look at them. "Just some clothes I'm going to wash over at my mom's."

"You know that Ella will do that for you, right?" Bobby offered.

I smiled tightly. "Yeah, I know. But I feel bad with all the work she already does for me, so I thought I would save her some trouble and just take care of them myself." I smiled again. "I might need an excuse for a break from my mom, anyway, and this will give me the opportunity to hide in the basement a bit."

Bobby nodded as though that made sense, but I saw Lester frown. He seemed to be weighing his words before he spoke.

"Is everything okay, Steph?"

I forced a smile again. "Yeah, of course. Everything's fine. I should go, though. My dad will be waiting."

I turned around and half-ran out of the garage before they could ask any more questions.

My dad was silent the entire way to the house, but it was a comfortable silence, not one that suggested he was mad or disappointed in me. Just like clockwork, my mom was waiting at the door when we pulled up, but there was no sign of my grandmother. And if my eyes didn't deceive me, my mother was waving around a bit on her feet.

"You're re-really sure you don't want to marry Josheph?" she slurred to me once I got inside. The fumes from her breath could have been lit from six feet away if I'd had a match.

"Yes, mom. I'm sure. Joe and I are finished."

"And you're sh-sure you want to jump into marrying Ranger? You don't know all that much about him."

I was saved from answering that one by the ringing of the house phone. My mom lurched her way into the kitchen and I heard her say hello as the door to the kitchen swung shut.

I put my bag down on a chair and went into the living room. My dad was already in his easy chair, a game on the TV.

"Where's grandma?" I asked.

"Out with one of her crackpot friends. If I'm lucky, she'll get arrested and live out the rest of her life in a jail cell," was his response.

That seemed like a pretty good conversation ender so I stood in the doorway for a while but couldn't really get into the game. My mind kept whirling with everything that had happened and it was more than a little distracting. Less than twelve hours ago I had been happy. I had been so damn happy that I had allowed myself to get fully sucked into the sham that was my engagement to Ranger. I couldn't stop kicking myself for allowing myself to forget that it was all a sham, that nothing was really happening between the two of us. I had let down my guard and gotten my heart broken for it.

I gave my head a shake and it occurred to me that I hadn't heard anything from my mom for a while, so I decided to go check on her. I walked into the kitchen and found her sitting on her telephone stool, passed out with her back against the wall. How she had managed to stay upright was beyond me.

I called for my dad to come help and the two of us got her moved out to the living room where we put her on the couch to sleep off her bender. My dad then settled back into his chair as if everything was perfectly normal. He flipped channels for a bit before finding an old Ranger's game on one of those Sports Highlights channels and eased back to get lost in the oblivion of television sports. I decided that he had the right idea and plunked myself down in the matching easy chair.

A couple of hours later, my stomach was rumbling and the game was coming to the end.

"Want something for lunch?" I asked my dad as I hefted myself out of the chair. I didn't bother to keep my voice down because my mom was out cold if her snoring was any indication.

"There's some stuff in the fridge for sandwiches," he said without taking his eyes off the screen.

I wandered into the kitchen and pulled out all the fixings for sandwiches when their doorbell rang. I knew my father wouldn't get it because my mom and grandma always raced each other for the privilege, so I went to go see who it was.

I opened the front door to find Ranger standing on the front step. I felt my heart stutter in my chest at the sight of him, but I like to think I remained outwardly calm. I unlocked the screen door and pushed it open before turning around to go back to the kitchen, allowing him to open the door for himself. I heard him say hello to my dad and exchange a few comments about the statistics for whatever team it was my dad had turned the TV to in my absence before he followed me into the kitchen.

I stood there with my back to him, pretending that all my attention was on my task when really I was just using the opportunity to suck back the tears that were developing behind my eyes. I wasn't ready to face him yet. I wasn't good at talking about my emotions at the best of times, and I wasn't in the mood to do it there with my parents for an audience, even if one of those parents was currently passed out.

"Do you want to tell me what it is I did wrong?" His voice was quiet even in the silence of the room, and I had to strain to hear him.

I didn't turn around, just kept working on my sandwiches and so he said, "Stephanie, tell me what I did and I'll do whatever it is that needs to be done to fix it."

I couldn't help it. A tear escaped and started its way down my cheek. I didn't want to wipe it because Ranger would know I was crying, but at the same time it's never comfortable to have tears slowly sliding their way down your face. And it might have gotten into the sandwiches!

I pulled an onion over and sliced into it a couple of times, more because I wanted the cover than because I wanted to have any on the sandwiches. Ranger must have heard me sniffle because suddenly he was there behind me, reaching around me to pass me a Kleenex.

"Thanks," I mumbled as I accepted, and I took a moment to wipe my eyes and blow my nose before tossing it and getting back to my preparations.

Ranger's hand stilled mine as I went to make another slice.

"Babe, please talk to me."

I sniffled again and walked around him to find another Kleenex.

"There's nothing to talk about," I said. "I just didn't want you to see me with all that makeup on my face this morning."

"Is that why you packed up all your stuff and took off for your parents' house? Because you didn't want me to see you with streaked makeup?"

Dammit. I stood where I was, my back to him again as I tried to figure out what to say. I should have known he would check the apartment first if he had been looking for me.

"Lester told me about seeing you with your bag when you left," he said, interrupting my thoughts.

Stool pigeon, I thought with a scowl.

"Well, like I told Lester, I needed to wash some stuff," I tried to bluff. I wasn't sure why I was trying to hide the fact that I'd moved out.

"You needed to wash all your lotions and makeup?" he asked, his voice even quieter if possible. I knew from past experience that when Ranger was mad he got quieter, but I still didn't want to have this discussion there at my parents'.

I reached down deep and found my own anger. Anger that Ranger's sister had spoken to me like I was a nobody trying to take advantage of Ranger, anger that Ranger refused to budge on his rules about relationships, anger that I'd allowed myself to get into this situation, all of it came rising up and I finally got up the nerve to face him. I turned around ready for a fight, but found that the expression on his face made my breath catch in my chest again, because instead of the blank face I'd so gotten used to seeing from him when we were having a conversation that had anything to do with our feelings, I saw what could only be pain.

"Why did you leave me, Babe?" he asked, his voice almost a whisper.

I swallowed hard and tried to figure out what to say that would give him something without giving away everything that I'd come to realize about my own feelings.

"It just finally hit me what I was doing, and it scared me." I thought that was a good answer because it was both the truth and less than the full story.

Ranger stood there for a while, his eyes locked on my face, no doubt assessing what I had said. It must have passed his bullshit test because he finally closed his eyes and sucked in a deep breath.

I stood where I was, waiting for whatever it was he was going to say, and was surprised when he crossed the room to wrap me in his arms.

"I know I'm asking a lot of you, and I'm sure this is putting a huge strain on your relationship with Morelli," he said into my hair. I realized that somehow the Burg grapevine had passed him by and he didn't know Joe and I had broken up for good the night before. "If I could, Babe, I'd stop all this right now because the last thing I want to do is hurt you."
I almost laughed at the irony of that, but managed to bite it back.

He sighed against my hair and his arms tightened microscopically, almost as if he was afraid I was going to run away.

"Don Hamilton called me this morning. It's why I went looking for you in your apartment." He pulled away enough to look down at me.

"He and his wife have invited us to a dinner party they're hosting for some of their friends. It's tonight."

I must have frowned slightly, thinking that it didn't give me a lot of time to get ready – I already knew I would go with Ranger. He might not love me the way I loved him, but he was still one of my best friends, and I would do anything for him. But he must have read my expression to mean that I was unhappy he was asking yet another favor from me because he added, "I promise that if tonight makes you uncomfortable, I'll find a way to work around it and you won't have to come along to anything else as my fiancé."

I gave him a small smile. "It's fine, Ranger. We can go to this tonight. I'll need to go shopping right away to find something to wear, though."

His expression lightened with obvious relief that I was still willing to play along and he lifted his hand to stroke a finger along the side of my face. "They said it's just casual, just a group of friends getting together," he said, as though it mattered.

I gave him a small, pitying smile. "Trust me, that still means I need to find something nice to wear in order to show the women why you would pick me to be your fiancé."
He gave me a peck on the top of my head. "You don't have anything to prove, babe. And every man there will look at you and know that I'm the luckiest man on the planet."

My smile froze on my face and Ranger must have seen a change in my expression, but all I said was, "Be that as it may, I need to go shopping."

He grabbed the one sandwich I had managed to complete and put it on a plate before wrapping his arm around my back to guide me out of the kitchen. He passed the sandwich to my father, who accepted it with a nod, and told him we were going to have to leave.

I leaned over to give my father a kiss and when I was done I turned to find my purse and found Ranger holding it, as well as my duffel bag, and waiting for me.

"I figured you would need this to get ready."

I nodded in agreement and hesitated briefly when Ranger held out his hand to me. I bit my lip as I took it, but I don't think he saw. Or if he did, he didn't bother to comment on it.

"Ready to go?" he asked me.

"As ready as I'll ever be," was my response.

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I hope you all enjoyed the chapter. It was pretty emotionally exhausting for me to write. Please let me know what you thought of it, and what you think should happen to Maria in the end. I really agree that the woman needs to experience some payback!

Real life is still pretty busy, but my goal is to have one chapter written per week and so far I've managed to keep up with that since the kids went back to school.

Let me know what you think of the story so far. I love reading everyone's thoughts.

-Josie