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A/N: Sorry for the long delay. Hopefully with New Beginnings winding down, I'll update more consistently. :)

Thanks for everyone who has read and reviewed so far. :) I'll try to be better.

Chapter Four:

This could only happen to me.

I mean, really. I go out for my bachelorette party, chance upon the only man who has ever tempted me to cheat in my entire life, offer him what is not an invitation but certainly not a rejection, and he walks away from me… and then he's the famous Gil Grissom I've been waiting to meet for months.

…Seriously, I planned my wedding around this conference, not entirely but in large part because I wanted to see Gil Grissom speak. It would have worked far better if we'd gotten married this weekend rather than next… we'd had to switch our wedding venue about three different times because I'd been unwilling to move the date a week up. Jace had teased me that I was going to leave him for some middle-aged entomologist.

Apparently he'd been rather more accurate in his prediction than either of us had realized.

Regardless, the room was quieting and my shocked pose in the middle of the aisle would soon draw more attention than I wanted. I hurried up to my two friends who were equally surprised to find the man from the night before who they'd jokingly referred to as my future affair about to give our lecture, and we slid into three available seats in the third row.

I tried to play it off like it was nothing, despite the way his eyes burned into me the entire time he spoke. I think he was talking about a double murder in a garage, but I can't be sure—I was fighting off the burning feeling in my cheeks and the burning feeling between my thighs simultaneously and every time I glanced up, his soft lips were turned up in a smirk and his blue eyes positively struck me. I was trembling by the time he wrapped up his lecture and invited everyone down for questions.

I wanted to rush out of there, but I wasn't certain my knees could handle it, and anyway there was quite the back up of people trying to get out around the people trying to ask him questions… many of them women. At least I wasn't alone in my lusting over a middle-aged entomologist. Jace would be so happy.

I snorted at my own thoughts and forced myself to take a deep breath, before I seriously lost my cool. I reminded myself that I was a professional, at a professional conference, listening to a lecture given by a professional in my field of expertise, and despite the fact that I'd absolutely heard none of the lecture I'd scheduled my wedding around hearing, that didn't mean I couldn't walk out of here with my head held high and return to life as usual.

And I intended to do just that. I stood up, put my shoulders back and my chin up, and without exchanging a glance with Kim or Anne, I moved out of our row and into the throng of people moving slowly towards the exits.

I mistook how many people were waiting to ask him questions—I had thought I had time to get past him before half of them cleared, but most were headed towards exits which were suddenly far clearer than a moment before. The pace picked up, the crowd cleared, and I was exposed.

"Sara!"

I let my eyes close briefly, grit my teeth, and made my way over to him. I raised an eyebrow and gave my best attempt at dry, sarcastic indifference. "Dr. Grissom. …Or was it 'Vegas'?"

He smiled at this, which was not the response I'd been going for. I was hoping he'd been as embarrassed of the previous night as I was… or, at least, that my use of his nickname would evoke the otherwise lacking shame I myself felt. "It's a small world, apparently. …You work at the lab here in San Francisco?"

I pursed my lips. "I do. Listen, I've got another lecture coming up…"

"Well then I'll make this fast. …Can I buy you dinner?"

My mouth opened uncertainly but I was already shaking my head. "I… I was at my bachelorette party, last night. I'm engaged. I… I'm getting married in a week."

He didn't half as put off as I would expect him to be—he just grinned. "So… Is that a no?"

I grit my teeth. "It's a no." I turned to walk away again, but he grabbed his papers and hurried to catch up to me.

"Okay. I get it. You're going to be a married woman, after all. No dates. …What about coffee?" At my disbelieving glance and raised eyebrow, he cleared his throat. "As colleagues. I'm sincerely interested in hearing your response to my lecture and the theories proposed therein. …And if, as colleagues, our conversation gradually shifts from the lecture to other topics, well that's perfectly innocent, isn't it?"

I shook my head. Despite the obvious attraction I felt for the man, I was a loyal woman. I would not cheat. "No, it isn't perfectly innocent and you know it. I really need to get to my lecture, Dr. Grissom."

He frowned and stopped walking, prompting me to do the same and forcing the people behind us to veer around us in irritation. "Can you really walk down the aisle and promise yourself to another man when you know what's between us?"

I narrowed my eyes in disbelief. "…Between us? There is nothing between us! I had a drink with you, in a bar, in a large group. I didn't even know your name until this morning!"

"And if I'd not been a gentleman, last night? If I'd pushed my luck… put my mouth where we both know you wanted it? Taken the kiss that I'd paid for…? Would you be able to say that nothing would have come of it? Would you be able to say that you wouldn't have thought about it… felt that it was more than a meaningless encounter occurring as the product of too much alcohol and all-too-encouraging friends?"

I swallowed, tearing my eyes from his because I couldn't handle the intensity. They were just so beautiful… so blue… and they were piercing through me in this moment. "I… I don't cheat."

"Then don't. You don't have to kiss me… you don't even have to date me. Just… spend some time with me, this week… as colleagues or friends or… acquaintances. …Let's get to know one another. …Can you really swear away the rest of your life without at least finding out if there's something here that's worth pursuing? …Something more than what you have with what's-his-face?"

I breathed in deeply for a moment, caught up in the conviction of his words and the unavoidable truth and logic. We did have… an attraction. …A connection. Would it be foolish to get married without exploring it? I shook my head, letting my own anger flare up and chase the words from my head. "I love my fiancé. I love him and I… I don't need to see what's here, because he gives me everything I want."

I turned to walk away from him, and this time he didn't follow me, but he did call after me. "I'll… be at the same bar… tonight. Come see me. …Come see… where this is going."

"It isn't going anywhere!" I called behind me, still trekking towards the lecture I was surely late for, trying to push 'Vegas' from my mind.