Hello, hello, hello! For those of you new to the story, welcome! For those of you new to me, welcome! For those who've been to this story before, welcome back, and to those who have been with me since the beginning, I am eternally grateful for your support and patience and understanding.

I've been struggling with this story and how to tell it. As some of you know, I lost all my outlines, notes and chapters for this story when my laptop broke a few months ago. Rereading it, trying to remember all the places I wanted it to go, there were some things that I wasn't happy with, some things I wanted to add or change.

So I've decided to edit and re-upload my chapters. The general storyline has not changed, so feel free to skip these chapters right to the new one, but I've definitely added some additional content, some direction, and some fluff. :)

During my hiatus, I've been writing, working on other projects, and wrestling with a part of my past that I've not yet been strong enough to deal with, but I'm hoping to be back and better than ever, and hold myself accountable for updating!

Thanks for sticking with me through thick and through thin, just like we stick with our faves from the Mortal Instruments. 3

I'm putting the same A/N at the beginning of all updated chapters, so if you're reading this right now, feel free to skip it every time following. I love and appreciate every single one of you. And for whoever needs it, you are not your past. You are not the wrongs done to you. You are worthy and strong and so entirely perfect. Please know that.

Love you all.

Dancing With Demons

Chapter 13: Big Mouths Means Bad Business

Song: quit - LANY

It's Clary's first day at the office, and she's hesitating outside my door. Even the frosted glass can't mask those cherry curls that cascade down to her waist, can't conceal those determined emerald eyes. She holds a cup of coffee in her right hand, her other clutching a purple planner to her chest. I chew my lip to contain my smile, counting the seconds it takes her to build the confidence to knock.

Forty-seven.

Half the time it took Simon when he first began.

"Come in," I tell her, pretending to be utterly fascinated with something o n my computer screen so that she doesn't realize I've been watching her. "Good morning." My greeting startles her, like she hadn't expected an exchange of words or a hello at all. She falters on the black heels she's wearing but catches herself so quickly I almost don't notice.

Almost.

Her hands are shaking around the paper cup as she sets it on my desk, steam escaping through the hole in the lid. I'd recently become used to the unintentional cold brews delivered by Mark, who tended to get sidetracked on his way back to the office. "Here's your coffee, Mr. Herondale." I can't help the way it arouses me when my name falls from her lips, so I attempt to inconspicuously shift into a more comfortable position.

"Thank you…Mrs. Herondale." I add the last part particularly deeply, quietly, like a dirty secret. It has the desired effect, pulling a red blush to her cheeks and a shy smile to her lips. She recovers faster than I expect, as most women enjoy hovering in the bubble of my attention and appreciation.

Clary, however, has begun to flip through her planner, ticking off the day's mundane schedule. It truly is just a day at the office, with meetings discussing my legitimate businesses rather than the illicit dealings I'd been consumed with as of late. "I've already loaded everything onto your digital calendar, so you should receive notifications on your computer." I scroll through my Macboook until I find the schedule.

"Thank you, Clarissa." She flinches at the sound of her full name. "Clary," I amend quickly, taking note of the sudden tenseness in her body. "That will be all." She nods in response, escorting herself from the room without another word.

I watch her hazed frame settle in at the desk on the other side of the wall, contented by just watching her exist, performing the simple tasks of answering the phone, replying to emails, sorting the mail.

I'm only released from her spell when my office door opens again, a dark, slender figure obscuring my view.

"Alec," I greet curtly, allowing annoyance to slip into my voice. He didn't knock. He never does. I allow him to assume that is what I'm upset about as he throws himself into the chair across from me, offering a shrug as an apology.

"Is that her?" he asks, jerking his head in the direction of my new secretary, who is currently twisting her beautiful, crazy curls into a tight bun. I raise an eyebrow, and Alec takes that as an invitation to continue. "She's…different than I'd expected."

"And what did you expected," I bite out, knowing the answer before it escapes his mouth.

Blonde.

Busty.

Sex on legs.

Surely not the petite redhead in a modest pencil skirt with a violet blouse buttoned to a professional height.

"Nothing!" His voice has raised defensively as he puts his hands up, like I might put a bullet in him. "I just…your sudden marriage…it doesn't make sense to me." I log into my laptop.

"One day you will." The last person I'd expected to keep secrets from was Alec Lightwood, but he tends to be closed-minded about certain things, and marriage to a demon is most certainly one of those things. "So do you have a reason for being here or…?"

"Hey, did you get a load of Jace's new secretary? She actually smiled and said hi," Isabelle announces, flopping down in the chair beside Alec. "Definitely an upgrade from the last one—Alice."

"Aline," Alec and I correct at the same time with a distinctive eyeroll. Isabelle is not threatened by many things, but being raised in the Shadowhunters, surrounded by men, women frighten her.

Though she'd never admit it.

"That's the new Mrs. Herondale," Alec informs her with a teasing grin.

"You're joking!" Isabelle laughs. "That little thing?!" She clutches her stomach, and I lean back in my seat, trying to keep the hostility from my expression. "Oh shit, Jace, she must be hell in bed because Angel knows you're not keeping her around for anything else."

Anger flares in my chest, hot like a branding iron, but I wrestle it back down. "Our union was formed under certain circumstances, which, when the time arises, the two of you will be made aware of." Isabelle's jaw goes slack. I cut a glare at her. "She's not fucking pregnant, if that's what you're thinking."

She relaxes slightly. "I give her a month."

Alec scoffs. "A week, maximum."

"For what?" I've finally allowed an emotion into my voice. Exasperation.

"Before you kick her to the curb." Isabelle's blasé way of writing off my marriage startles me, forcing me to wonder what kind of man I am in her eyes, in everyone's eyes.

"Seriously," Alec continues, "the longest relationship you carried was with that Faerie—Kaelie. And that was only sex. Your wife is bound to annoy you more than any hookup." My eyes trail their shoulders, out the door, to the woman sketching absently with a phone pressed to her ear.

"Enough about you relationship. Do either of you have a legitimate reason to be bothering me right now?"

"Is that Jace's wife?!" Max yells, bursting through the door, his hair sticking up in all directions as he slides his phone into his back pocket. "She's a fucking smoke show!"

"You told Max?!" I accuse at the same time Izzy groans about how absolutely nobody says smoke show anymore. "We are going to have a serious discussion about gossiping and privacy and knocking," I emphasize the last one, "but for now, I have important business to attend to, so if you will, get the fuck out."