A/N-So many updates! I hope you've enjoyed all (nine?) of them. Ha. Reviews would be just darling.

And Happy Belated New Year, btw.

My resolution is to stop making resolutions.

1:30 PM

Sunday, December 24, 2006

Xx

Rachel emerged from the bathroom with damp hair within an hour, mildly depressed but even more sullen. She glared at Alec as he smirked at her.

"What?"

"Nothing." Her gaze froze even more coldly on him and he sighed, nodding his head distractedly at her as he packed his laptop bag. "The shirt. Blue. It's a nice color."

Her head snapped down to her three-quarter sleeved, v-neck shirt that Alec had picked out in the store a few days ago.

"You should like it. You bought it."

Rachel sat on the couch, but Alec gestured her to her feet. "No time. Come on. You have your jacket? Let's go."

She nodded and followed him out the door, pausing only slightly in the doorway. He rolled his eyes.

"The apartment isn't going to walk away while we're gone, Rach. Now come on."

"If you love me, Alec," she pleaded quietly, reserved, "please don't do this. Please don't kill my uncle. I have no pride left, and I'm begging you."

He shook his head. "This isn't my business, sweetheart. I'm just doing my job." He grabbed her arm and led her to the elevators.

Rachel didn't move the whole way down, but when the doors began to open she pulled herself from his grasp.

"Don't," she whispered.

Alec made no reply, but she noticed his neck and shoulders tense considerably as he led her out to the car.

"Don't bother trying to run."

She looked at him and didn't reply.

"You know I'm faster than you."

Sending a glare in his vicinity, she let him herd her into the car. As she buckled in she noticed Alec sitting silently in his seat. Staring at her.

"What?"

He blinked and sighed, starting the car. "Nothing."

"Okay."

They'd pulled out of the driveway and were nearly there before Alec spoke again. "We're almost there."

"Good."

Sure enough, within five minutes they'd pulled up to a rundown café on the main street. A broken sign hung from the roof that read the Shorebridge Café. Rachel wondered vaguely where the name came from. She saw no shore, and she saw no bridge. But it was a café.

She was trembling badly when Alec cut the engine. This isn't happening. She spotted her uncle's clean black BMW parked solitary in a corner. She saw Alec turn to her, his face uncertain.

"What?" she snapped, her voice constricted by the tear in her throat.

"If I had the choice, Rachel, believe me, I wouldn't be doing this."

"It's not just what you're doing that bothers me," she murmured. "It's that you seem to take such pleasure in doing it."

He grabbed her by the nape of her neck and drew her closer to her face. She moaned in pain and tried to pry his tightened fingers from her hair. "Sto-"

"I don't take pleasure in killing people, Rach," he hissed. "I don't take pleasure in it at all. Some days, I wonder what the hell I'm doing here. None of this makes sense. I don't even remember how I came to work for this company. Or me. I mean, what the hell is wrong with me?"

"I know one thing, though," he said, and suddenly the grip on her neck was lessened. It was still there, an incontrovertible pressure, but suddenly a gentle passion overcame the violent fury.

"What's that?" Rachel was still biting back tears, afraid.

"That something about you is undeniably familiar, but I can't place my finger on it. It's like I knew you once before or something, because right now I have the strangest feeling of de ja vu."

Rachel couldn't help it. She raised a hand to slap him. He's trying to be romantic. He's trying to gain my trust.

And I believe him.

I don't want to believe him.

THW—Alec caught her hand before it hit hard and pinned it to her neck.

He smirked at her. "What was that for?"

"You try, Alec, but you'll never fill me full of your sycophantic bullshit." Rachel clenched her jaw as he said this and he gripped it tightly in his fingers.

His eyes were alight with whimsy and mirth. She detested his playfulness. "It's not bullshit, Rach."

Rachel anticipated his next action. She was getting good at that. She could see when he was going to hit her, when he was going to yell, or, in this case, when he was going to kiss her.

When he moved in, she had her plan all set in her mind. But got distracted by his lips dancing over hers. I don't like this.

I hate it.

No.

I like it.

So, when she acted, it was a little broken due to her uncertainty, not as forceful as she would have liked.

Alec growled into her mouth as she bit down on his tongue and tried to shove him away. Unfortunately, her mouth maneuver appeared as forceful passion and her shove was weakened, her hands grazing his chest.

It wasn't supposed to be like that. God, what am I doing?

His tongue slid over hers and his hands encircled her waist and it became very difficult for Rachel to ignore the situation.

Alec was kissing her.

And she was enjoying it.

"What's going on?" she accidentally let the words spill from her mouth and into Alec's. He smiled into her lips.

"I didn't think this needed explaining, Rach," he murmured.

She managed to push him away. He just sat there, touching his mouth and smiling in the same goofy way. "I don't want to kiss you."

"I think you do."

"You're going to kill my uncle in ten minutes. I don't want to kiss you."

"First of all, Rach," he sighed, pulling the keys out of the ignition. Back into stone-cold killer mode, she noted, a bit sourly. "It's not me who's killing your uncle. I didn't arrange this project. I didn't ask for it. I called him, and I watched you. That was my job."

She fell silent. "I want this to be over."

"It won't ever be over. You're in too deep."

"Like I had a choice in anything?"

He stared into her eyes. "On the contrary, Rachel." He wordlessly climbed from the car and took her arm, locking the door behind them.

As they began their trek inside to the café, he leaned over and whispered in her ear,

"You had a choice in everything."