A/N: Thanks for the reviews and sticking with this increasingly long story. Hope you enjoy the chapter, reviews would be very much appreciated so why not leave one! :)


Trish practically skipped to Shane's locker room. She'd played her part to perfection, and if things went her way, she would have Chris. She thought about having Chris and Shane both hanging off her every word. She liked the idea. She knew Shane had been indifferent to her at first, but after what she'd just done, he had to want her more than ever. She wanted him to want her.

Shane was rich, and rich was something good, actually, it was something great, and something she very much wanted. Shane was pretty good-looking too. He wasn't on par with Chris, but that's why she would have Chris too. She could have the best of both worlds, Shane's money and Chris's undivided attention. It was pretty clear Chris and Stephanie were headed downhill, not that she thought it would end any other way. Shane had told her briefly about how they hadn't even really been together before they were married. How could any relationship last like that?

"Did you see what happened?" Trish asked excitedly as she walked into Shane's office. "I was perfect, don't you think?"

"You were okay?" Shane said blandly, as if distracted by something else.

"Are you kidding me?" she scoffed, wondering if he had actually watched what just happened. Stephanie had a film crew with her, they had to be taping, everyone had to see it, there was no way Shane hadn't. "I was great, did you see their blowup?"

"Yes, I saw, and it was fine."

"Fine?" Now she was getting angry. How could he be so flippant when she'd done exactly what he asked? Not only had she done what he asked, she'd done it with such success she wouldn't be surprised if Chris and Stephanie announced their divorce next week. "Just fine? I don't think so, they were pissed off at each other."

"Yes, they were," Shane nodded.

"And that's exactly what you wanted," Trish said, "I did exactly everything that you wanted."

Maybe there was some other tactic that would break this seemingly frigidness. Trish walked around Shane's desk and ran her finger across his back, letting it linger on his shoulder. Shane still seemed distracted so Trish pushed his chair back and took a seat in his lap, leaning forward and pressing her lips to his neck.

"Trish, what are you doing?" he asked.

"Trying to loosen you up," she told him, grabbing his tie a little and forcing his head down as she tried to kiss him. He moved his mouth away at the last second and she frowned. "What is wrong with you? You wanted me to go to Chris, and make sure that Stephanie saw us and got the wrong idea. That's exactly what I went there and did."

"I want them to break up, when they break up for good, that's when I know you've done your job right," Shane told her coldly.

"Well, unless you're blind, Shane, you would have seen that they're practically already there," Trish countered, mad that her contribution was going largely unnoticed. Shane was supposed to be worshipping at her feet for helping him.

"But they're not there yet," Shane argued back. "I need him completely out of her life. I need the old Stephanie back."

"I don't even know who the old Stephanie was," Trish said for lack of anything better to say in that moment.

"She was a pushover. She didn't have this…I don't know, bold streak in her," Shane frowned. "She did whatever me and my dad told her to do. She never even questioned anything. And she was supposed to marry Andrew. She was supposed to marry him and go live with him, and let me take over everything."

"Maybe that was never her," Trish said. "Maybe she was never supposed to be that person."

"What do you mean?"

"You were shoving her into this box, but maybe she was never meant to be in it. Whatever, Shane, I've done my job. Stephanie is angry with Chris, and I doubt she's going to forgive him now."

"You don't know that."

"You don't know that it won't work either," she got off of him. It was obvious he wasn't going to return her affections tonight. She would just have to try another time. Shane was worth hundreds of millions; it wouldn't be that hard to give him up considering the motivation of all that money.

"Get out of here, Trish, if you manage to break them up tonight, then you can come back here," he told her.

"Don't order me around, Shane," Trish told him angrily, "I'm not some pawn for you in your game. If I wanted, I could tell Chris and Stephanie exactly what you're doing, so I don't think you want to get on my bad side."

Shane hadn't considered that and he looked up at her, trying to act contrite. "I'm sorry, you're right. I am glad that you're helping and hopefully this can all be over soon. I just want what's rightfully mine. Stephanie shouldn't have snatched it right out from under me."

"That's better," Trish told him. "Don't worry, if I know my own tricks, and I do, the two of them will be well on their way to Divorce Court soon enough."

Chris laughed as Stephanie danced around their bed later that night, eating some ice cream. "You're absolutely nuts, you know that, right? I mean, I thought when I got you to marry me without ever even having a normal conversation with me was pretty crazy, but now I just see that you're crazy all the time."

"I'm sorry," Stephanie said, "I'm just glad that everything worked out. Shane probably thinks we're calling up our lawyers right now. Oh, I can't wait to see his face when I drop the bomb on him. He's going to freak out, I just know he is. He's going to be so angry, but you know what, I won't even care."

Chris just laughed a little more at her, "I'm going to enjoy seeing him taken down a few pegs too."

"And the look on Trish's face, did you see it?" Stephanie giggled, sitting down next to Chris and offering him a bite of her ice cream. He let her feed her and smiled his thanks. "She looked positively petrified, but I think on the inside, she was probably acting so smug, like she thought she was really winning. She's so easy."

"Yeah, she is," Chris said, just enjoying how happy his wife was. He liked seeing her happy. He just liked her. He was finding more and more that he was really willing to do just about anything to keep this smile on her face. When she was happy, he was happy. She was so tied to him now, so ingrained in his system.

Stephanie sighed and laid down next to Chris, putting her empty bowl of ice cream on the nightstand next to her. She grabbed Chris's hand, which was chilled from holding her bowl, and she gave it a squeeze. "What are you thinking right now?"

"What kind of institution I'm going to have to put you in pretty much," he confessed with a wink. She laughed and turned so she could cuddle up to his side. "I'm thinking of one with gardens, but then they might give you garden shears—"

"Stop," she pinched him in the stomach. "All of this is going to be over soon, and then my brother will have to go lick his wounds back in Connecticut. Maybe I can really publicly fire him, like my dad so loves to do, that would be funny."

"I want to be in the ring when that happens," Chris said, his phone ringing. He grabbed it from the nightstand and he looked at it, but it was a number he didn't recognize. "Hello?"

"Chris, hey, it's me, I hope you don't mind me calling this late, but I just wanted to apologize for what happened earlier and see if you were okay," Trish said. Chris pressed his finger to his lips to let Stephanie know she had to be quiet and she nodded silently.

"Trish, that's really sweet of you to call me," Chris said, laying it on thick as he rolled his eyes at his wife. She covered her mouth so she wouldn't giggle and he gave her a look that only made her want to laugh more. She sat up so she had a little bit of distance between the two of them so if he made her laugh, she could make her great escape.

"I just wanted to make sure you were alright."

Stephanie's phone buzzed from her pocket and she plucked it out, standing up and away from Chris, walking into the other room. It was her mother, and she furrowed her brow. "Mom?"

"Stephanie, oh, I'm so glad I caught you, I was afraid you'd be asleep," Linda said.

"No, what's wrong?" Stephanie asked. Her mother sounded a little bit harried, and she was a little afraid something had happened to her father. Despite them being mostly on the outs, she didn't want anything bad to happen to him. He was still her father, and for that, she loved him. "Is it Dad? Is he okay?"

"Of course, nothing could take down your father that easily," Linda gently joked. "I wanted to check in on you. I didn't get a chance to watch the show earlier, but I recorded it, and I just got a chance to watch, and I saw what happened with Chris. Are you okay?"

"Oh," Stephanie hadn't even thought about her mother watching the show. She didn't know quite how to play this. She didn't enjoy lying to her mother, and with the lies she'd been telling lately, it was piling up. Still, her mother still talked to Shane, and if she told the truth, there was a possibility that Linda wouldn't keep the secret and ruin everything. She hated to do it, but like she had in regards to how she and Chris became a loving, married couple, she'd have to lie.

"What's going on, sweetheart?"

"I guess…I guess I probably should have waited a little longer before I married Chris," Stephanie said, dropping her voice a tiny bit, not so Chris couldn't hear (he was still being "comforted" by Trish), but so she sounded sadder than she actually felt.

"Oh, sweetheart, I knew this would be a problem," Linda said. "Relationships take time. They take time, and they take a great deal of maturing with each other. You can't just expect to meet a man and then marry him. It just doesn't work that way."

"I know, Mom, I should have known."

"You're young, you weren't sure what you were doing," Linda said, "maybe things just aren't going to work out, but you're allowed to make mistakes when you're young. I don't want to say that Chris is a bad man, I'm sure he's not, but what happened tonight, sweetheart, that happens a lot in this business. It's a tricky situation, you know that, you know what I've been through with your father."

Linda kept prattling on, but Stephanie trained her eyes towards Chris. Her mother's words rang true, but not for this. She trusted Chris, but there was that small, tiny fissure that let her mother's words seep in just the tiniest bit. This business was filled with fickleness that didn't exist in other areas of the real world. One day a wrestler and a diva could be in a relationship, and the next, they were kaput. It was the nature of the beast, this silly, almost incestuous beast that was wrestling. Chris was different though, and she had put her entire world in the palms of his hand. That was a double-edged sword though because she left herself vulnerable.

One wrong move, and Chris could crush her entire world.

"I just want you to be careful," her mother's voice floated through the haze. Stephanie looked again at Chris and he was smiling at her, making a noose sign and making her laugh a little. Then he made a "yapping" motion with his hand and she grinned even further. Yes, Chris could crush her entire world.

But she didn't believe he would.