Miami, Florida – Present Day

Examining her suitcase again, Anna put both hands on her hips and sighed. "I'm forgetting something."

"What?" John looked up from his laptop, the clicking of the keys pausing for a moment as he did.

"I said I'm forgetting something."

"What are you forgetting?"

"I don't know and that's what's bothering me." Anna put her hands over her eyes. "I just have this feeling and it'll drive me mad."

"Do you want to take everything out of your suitcase and have me repack it while you make a list?"

"No." Anna moved her hands from her eyes to press her palms against her temples for a second before dropping them. "It wouldn't help. I'd think I left something off my list and then I'd agonize over that too."

"Too?" John frowned in confusion, "What else would bother you?"

Anna cringed, facing him, "I'd worry you didn't pack my suitcase right."

"Look at us," John returned to his laptop, taking up typing again. "We already sound like a married couple."

"Because I'm losing my mind?"

"Because you wouldn't want me to take over a task because I'd inevitably do it wrong." He clicked something and gave a final flourish to the keys before shutting the lid. "Those are the basics of marriage."

"Sounds damn depressing."

"It had its moments." John reclined back slightly in the desk chair, folding his arms over his chest. "What about your wardrobe of trashy prom dresses?"

"it's 'trash' prom dresses, not 'trashy'."

"What's the difference?"

"One is a question of taste and the other is a question of standards." Anna waved her hand toward the bathroom door, "And they're over there. They all pack in the same vacuum sealed hanger bag."

"And the rest of your equipment?"

"That stays in that bag," Anna pointed, "And isn't to be touched."

"I'll keep my hands off it." John held up his hands, to show them as empty. "But it does make me curious."

"About?"

"About I'm supposed to appear as your boyfriend if I can't touch your things."

"You can touch any of my things that aren't that bag." Anna sighed and sat on the edge of the bed. "It's probably a hairbrush or something."

"What is?"

"Whatever it is I'll find I forgot when I unpack to live a week in a hotel in Ibiza." Anna chewed the inside of her cheek before shrugging. "It's not irreplaceable so it doesn't matter but it is a nag."

"I could always carry an extra bag of toiletries in my luggage for you."

Anna raised her eyebrow at John. "You'd carry spares in your luggage so I didn't have to worry about losing something as stupid as a hairbrush?"

"Why not?"

"Because it's…" Anna fumbled, "It's ridiculous."

"Not if it gives you peace of mind."

"Now you're just trying too hard." She forced herself to stand and paced at the end of the bed. "Is this you trying to butter me up because there's a clause in that contract I signed that I didn't see?"

"I wouldn't do anything as duplicitous as give someone a contract to sign and then change the terms of agreement afterward." John stood as well. "I'm not Darth Vader."

"Very funny." Anna put her hands on her hips. "But all the same… Why?"

"Because I'm an expert at packing and travel and I've always got space in my bags." John shrugged and tucked his hands into his pockets. "I always bring just what I need and maybe one thing more but I've never got anything to take back, like gifts, so I can guarantee the contents of my bags."

"Travel a lot for work?"

"It made the last years of my marriage and the months of my interminable divorce a bit more bearable."

Anna bit at her lower lip, "Can I… Can I ask how that ended?"

"Other than with a lawyer being paid a lot of money to tell me that under the laws of the United Kingdom I was no longer bound to my wife until death did us part?"

"Yes."

John checked his watch, "That's a conversation long enough to take us until the car comes to get us from the airport if you want to eat something now."

"I always get nervous before I fly."

"This time there's not airport security or any waiting in uncomfortable seats before boarding with a hoard of people." John gestured to Anna's things. "If you want we could go there now so you've got the waiting experience."

"I…" Anna tugged at her fingers before throwing up her hands. "We'll get a drink. It might calm my nerves."

"You're nervous?"

"We're about to fly on the nicest airplane I've ever heard about and we've known one another all of… three days."

"And yet we're already dating." John grabbed his jacket and the door, holding it as Anna checked her pockets for her phone, wallet, and keycard. "I promise, I'll get you to your car, flight, and appointments on time."

"I'll hold you to that."

They took the lift down to the hotel restaurant and John steered them to the bar. "One coke with lime and-" He turned to Anna as she took her seat. "What do you want?"

"Water." Anna smiled as the bartender handed her a bottle and clinked it against John's glass when he received it. "The last thing I need is a diuretic."

"I like the taste." John sipped at his drink, "But I think you need something else to take your mind off things."

"I'll trust in whatever plan you've got stewing." Anna played with the water bottle, passing it back-and-forth between her hands. "You did say we'd need to be somewhere else for you to tell me about your first marriage."

"My only marriage."

"So far." Anna shrugged a shoulder at John's raised eyebrow. "Decent guy like yourself is bound to find someone who sees that in you."

"Because you do?"

"Exactly." Anna took a breath, "So what didn't the former Mrs. Bates see in you?"

"Ambition."

"That doesn't sound likely."

"I'll put it this way," John leaned over the bar a bit and turned toward Anna. "She's exactly the kind of person my company's current direction benefits. She's helping steer that direction, in fact."

"Your ex-wife works at your company?"

"It's not mine. Not yet." John sipped at his drink, "Something I think she helped facilitate, all things considered."

"What'd she do?"

John opened his mouth to speak, shut it, sucked the insides of his cheeks, and then spoke. "This story goes back a bit, if that's not a problem."

"By all means," Anna opened her hand toward John. "Entertain me with a drama fit for an HBO series."

"This one won't win any awards." John took a breath, "My position in my company was determined from before I was born."

"Sounds like a dynasty."

"That was my grandfather's hope." John swallowed, pushing his finished drink aside as the ice melted. "He built the company, like I said, as a savings and loan. But he proved excellent at his business and as it expanded he turned toward insurance. During that time he met my grandmother, married her, and had my father."

"Following so far." Anna shifted on her stool. "Then what?"

"Then… What normally happens when two generations clash." John bit the inside of his cheek. "My grandfather and my father didn't get along. I don't know when it started but they fought like cats and dogs. My grandfather would say it was because my father was a spoiled little bastard that wrapped my grandmother around his finger. My father would say it's because my grandfather was a stingy miser who didn't want to make his son's like easier and always spoke as if my father should worship the ground my grandfather walked on…"

John sighed, "I don't know which side was telling the truth but it doesn't matter now. Their relationship soured to the breaking point and then shattered when my grandfather forced my father to marry my mother."

"Forced?"

"That's how my father always put it." John shook his head, "My father got my mother pregnant and my grandfather said he needed to fix the mistake. When my father refused he threatened to withhold his inheritance."

"Bastard."

"They could stand nose-to-nose and never look one another in the eye." John nodded, "But my father did marry my mother. And would've stayed with her to keep his money if she hadn't divorced him after the third time he cheated on her."

"I'd repeat my earlier statement but that seems like something I'd have to record and play like a laugh track in this story." Anna shook her head, "And this is your father?"

"Man of the year." John's voice dripped with sarcasm and he flexed his jaw before continuing. "But my grandfather knew about it all and so he took me under his wing. He… For lack of a better word, with less despicable connotations, he groomed me to take over for him when he died."

"Not your father?"

"Absolutely not." John shuddered, "My grandfather, for all his flaws, wasn't stupid. He knew my father would twist the business and he wanted to make sure my father never had the power to build the company in his image."

"I sense a 'but' coming."

"But," John nodded at Anna's wagged finger. "My grandfather passed when I was in my second year at Uni."

"I'm so sorry."

"Thank you." John shrugged a shoulder, "He knew he was going and he set up a very strict series of rules for the passing of the torch, as it were. And those rules stated that I would gain sole ownership of the company when I had my first child."

"And your father didn't like that?"

"Absolutely not." John's fingers turned his glass counterclockwise as the ice continued melting. "He kept his position on the board and found a way to squirm his way to temporary leadership while I 'got to know the business' but since I didn't fight him then and I've yet to have my child, he's basically built the company around himself."

"And you can't just jerk the rug out from under him?"

"I don't have a legal leg to stand on yet." John sighed, "Something my ex-wife saw to when she joined the company."

"And that's why you don't have children?"

"It took me about a year of marriage to realize that having control of my grandfather's company wouldn't be worth trying to have a child with my ex-wife." John shuddered, "I couldn't imagine doing that to a child."

"That says more about you than the rest of your family."

John offered Anna a brief smile. "Not that it would've mattered anyway. My ex-wife was on birth control she didn't tell me about… Which served the dual purpose of allowing her to ingratiate herself with my father and gain her position in the company independent of me while also continuing on with the affairs she had."

"Would've been hard to give you a child that wasn't yours."

"That part wouldn't have hurt as much as realizing all the ways she lied to me." John shook his head, "I don't consider myself a prideful man, on a whole, but the idea that I married a woman who would rather be with anyone but me and only wanted me for the position she gained literally stepping on me… That hurt."

"I can only imagine."

"Don't." John shook his head again, pushing his glass back. "It's a nightmare I wouldn't want to share with anyone."

"Isn't that the point of this arrangement?" Anna gestured between the two of them. "We're supposed to share things that are personal because, inevitably, we'll have to answer for them in front of people who know the right answers."

"And we don't want to look like idiots when we say the wrong thing?"

"Exactly." Anna settled on her stool, "And I think your ex-wife's an idiot."

"Do you?"

"She could've had you and the company position." Anna leaned closer to John and lowered her voice conspiratorially, "Although, between you and me, I think I'd rather have you than the company position."

"You don't strike me as someone made for cubicles or offices."

"Not at all." Anna pointed toward the ceiling, "Hence why there's a vacuum bag upstairs of rubbish prom dresses."

John smiled at Anna, "True enough. But my ex-wife and I met through the company so I think she wanted that long before she thought she could get me too."

"What's she bring to your father's crusade anyway?"

"An almost feral need to destroy all of her competition and a deep-seated desire to destroy all the happiness she sees." John snorted and Anna matched his laugh. "But, in all seriousness, she greatly enjoys making money off the backs of others."

"Sounds horrible."

"She's the child my father wishes he had." John sighed, "The only thing about my marriage he was happy about was finally having someone who understood him. And he was more overjoyed than I was about my divorce because it meant he could truly show why he spent time with me at all: to be near the Machiavellian machinations of my ex-wife."

"If I didn't know better, I'd think there was something between them… Like in a not-great-for-holidays kind of way."

"Don't think I haven't had the thought myself but no, they're a marriage of like minds, not carnal pleasures." John checked his watch. "Ah, I promised I'd get you to the car on time and if we go now then we'll be waiting when it pulls into the turnaround."

Anna gave a little laugh, "And here I thought I'd spend all the time pacing back and forth in the room."

"What are boyfriends for?" John extended his hand and helped Anna from her stool.

"About what you're already doing." Anna eyed John, "If I didn't know better I'd think you were very good at this fake-relationship thing."

"That's the trick," John leaned toward Anna's ear and lowered his voice as if sharing a secret. "If you act as though it's real, and you want to keep the person, then it all comes exceedingly naturally."

"Good advice." Anna took John's hand, sliding their fingers in place to interlace them. "I'll make sure to match your actions."

"I'm at your service, Ms. Smith."

"And I yours, Mr. Bates."

Bombay, India – 1935

Anna chewed the inside of her cheek as she watched the demonstration for safe handling of the machetes. Studying the group under training, she made a note on her pad before turning back to them. A voice at her shoulder almost had her jumping and she barely caught her breath to smile at John's presence. "You gave me a start there Mr. Bates."

"Apologies." John winced, "My mother used to say that I needed to wear a bell to warn her when I was approaching."

"I might recommend the same here but we've got none to spare." Anna pointed toward the gathered group below. "You've made marvelous progress with them."

"As long as injuries are down then I'm doing my job."

"And you're still meeting quotas, which I find impressive." Anna pivoted to look at him. "I've had fewer men in my field hospital in the last three months than the three weeks previous to your arrival."

"Then your suggested changes are successful."

Anna blinked at him, "Excuse me?"

John frowned in confusion, "Do you not remember?"

"Remember what?"

"What you told me, the first day I arrived." John cleared his throat and shifted in place. "You told me, the first day I arrived, that I needed to shorten the hours, better train the men, and lower the daily quotas. Specifically you said that the men were tired, underfed, underpaid, and overworked. So I thought that reducing the accidents and injuries would keep our workers and help us meet our commitments."

"And you listened?"

"Of course I did." John straightened, "So I got them better fed, work them less, and pay them better than before. And you were right, of course. The morale has increased, as has the trust, and our overhead costs have decreased dramatically. More to the point, there is less blood on the crops."

Anna pursed her lips at him, failing to hide a smile. "And you've earned the respect of those who work for you."

"I wouldn't say that."

"Why not?"

"I don't make a habit of trying to compliment myself." John shrugged, "It's not my way and I don't believe in tooting any horn in my favor."

"Would you allow me to toot one in your favor?"

"That would depend on the songs you know for the horn."

"None. I'm not musical."

"Shame," John leaned close to Anna's ear, "I would've loved to hear the kinds of music I could draw from you."

Anna shivered, despite the heat. "You shouldn't speak so frankly, Mr. Bates."

"Is it indiscreet?"

"You could say that." Anna leaned away from John.

"But you wouldn't?"

"No." Anna held his gaze. "I'd only say that you spoke of a hurdle in the way of knowing you better and, as far as I know, it still exists."

"And that stops you?"

"I don't tread where only pain waits for me."

"Says a woman working in an Indian field hospital."

"Where my hands go is different from where I'll allow my heart to wander, Mr. Bates." Anna took a breath, "And while I enjoy the flirtation we've established, I will not put myself in a position to be injured by any disingenuous actions… Intended or otherwise."

"That is wise." John swallowed, "But the... hurdle, Ms. Smith, is one of prior commitment. A commitment still to be resolved."

"Are you married, Mr. Bates?"

"No."

"To be given in marriage, then?"

John nodded, "I'm… Engaged. And while distance would've seemed to part me rather profoundly from the lady, she insists that the letters I write are simply a matter of the humidity and heat affecting my brain."

"I didn't think men were subject to the whims and whimsy of the weather." Anna sighed, "Just as I don't believe women are ever seriously taken by the vapors."

"I believe my directness with the lady to be final but it's not been enough to stop her." John extended a hand but withdrew it before Anna could respond. "I do hope to put her petitions to rest."

"As do I." Anna offered John a small, sad smile. "And I respect the honor you have in not acting on anything until you've resolved your prior commitments."

"I wouldn't sully your honor."

"I never considered it a possibility." Anna nodded at him, "I'd best be about my work, Mr. Bates."

"As should I, Nurse Smith." John's hand reached out and brushed her arm. "I do wish things were different."

"So do I." Anna almost opened her mouth to speak, to possibly add something, to say… Instead she could only nod again and leave the balcony of the field hospital.

In fact, she left the field hospital altogether. With the new rules and regulations under John's administration, the beds lay mercifully empty save for one victim of dysentery and another working through a bout of malaria. Both slept under the covers of their mosquito netting and the careful eye of Sybil.

Anna thought Sybil might have said something to her but in the fug of her thoughts it did not register. Responding with something equally unclear on her side, Anna took her things and went back to her small bungalow inside the plantation compound. But the slow beat of the fan, doing nothing to dispel either heat or humidity, drove her as mad as the papers she thought she might organize but merely swam before her eyes.

All of it drove Anna outside. Through the fields, the broken fence, and to the edge of her waterfall-fed pool. There she sat, listening with half-an-ear to the buzz of the landscape but hearing nothing and seeing nothing but the unclear, unfocused view before her almost-unblinking eyes.

Not that she could explain her emotions. Or even justify why, in the middle of the day, she sat far away from any possible shadow of obligation or commitment. Instead her thoughts bubbled and percolated, almost forming into thoughts she could string into intelligible sentences before dying away to leave her as morose and confused as before.

After a stretch, enough time for the sun to move and shine at the corner of her eye with enough force to be a step above annoying, Anna went to move. As she did her ears perked up, conditioned to always listen for the sounds of the wild, and she froze in place. The soft scrape of scales over the dried leaves and sand had Anna twisting slowly to gain view of the snake as it slithered closer.

As far as she could tell, it was not conscious of her. Her presence had, to that point, been relatively non-invasive as she perched on a rock above the water but Anna knew that only a fool predicted the mind of an animal. Especially the mind of the spectacled cobra that wound and slipped toward the water, hissing softly as it tasted the air.

She held her breath, forcing herself to calm the way one of the visiting yogis had instructed she and the rest of the women of the plantation during one of the spurts of fancy the Lady of the House endured when she was committed to learning more about the local culture. It slowed her heart rate but left her fingers quivering and her skin prickling as the adrenal response fought from the primitive part of her brain to engage the basic survival functions. Anna, more conscious of the struggle than she had ever been, forced her intelligent brain to control her breathing, seeking in a second to achieve mastery over millennia of conditioned instinct.

Swallowed as slowly and softly as she could, Anna practically vibrated in place when the snake paused below her for a second. A shift in the wind, sending wisps of her hair from her sweat-slicked cheeks and neck, pushed her scent in the snake's direction. Its head raised from the dust, the head hooding as it sought its prey with black eyes, and tasted the air with its flicking tongue. Anna held her breath but slowly retracted her hand to her belt to find the knife there. Her fingers closed around it just as a noise came from the bushes.

Both she and the snake turned their heads. For a half a second Anna prayed it was a mouse or a bird or even a mongoose. Instead it was John and, before Anna could cry out to warn him, the snake darted faster than she could follow. Her hand wrapped over the handle of her knife and she whipped it out to throw. A second too late and a sliver too far to the side as she watched, in horror, as the snake whipped out with coiled muscles practiced from generations of evolution to sink its fangs into John's leg.

A second later her knife joined the wound as it sank through most of the snake's throat, halfway decapitating it. John hit the ground, landing heavily as Anna leapt from her rock to run to his side. Her hand slid the knife free, noting the blood already running from the snake and the cut she left next to the snake's head, and finished removing the snake's head. The body fell free and Anna kicked it away as John's leg immediately spasmed.

Using her knife she cut into John's trousers, fighting the speed of the snake venom as John fell back to lay prone on the ground. Carefully, she slit the wounds from the still embedded fangs wider and noted the venom sliding from his leg as she fit her finger under the snake's jaw to slowly draw the fangs from John's skin. Tucking the head, wrapped in her apron, into a pocket, Anna reached over and unbuckled John's belt. He had yet to respond but Anna fought the worry in herself as she snapped his belt free and wrapped it just under his right knee and tightened it to the point that John's skin turned blue before she tightened it even further.

Finally allowing herself to breathe, Anna picked up the snake body and ensured that blood still flowed from the wound she left in John's leg before finally addressing him. "I need you to breathe slowly, can you do that?"

John barely blinked at her so Anna put her hands on either side of his face. "Listen to me, very carefully. Breathe slowly. Count to three on the intake, hold for three, release for nine. Repeat. Do you understand?" He nodded slowly and Anna began breathing with him, ensuring he followed the pattern on his own before breathing normally herself. "I need to get help. You need to continue breathing slowly. It'll lower your heart rate and slow the venom moving through your blood. I've tied off your leg but if I leave it too long you'll lose your leg and that might not stop the venom taking over your system. Do you understand?"

John nodded again and Anna forced herself to swallow. "Do not allow yourself to fall asleep. You'll feel tired and you might feel like you can't breathe but you must stay calm and you must stay conscious. Do you understand?"

When he nodded for a third time Anna finally allowed herself to stand. "I'm going for help. I can't lift you on my own. I'll be right back." As she turned to go one of John's hands grabbed hers and squeezed. She squeezed back before releasing his hand as she ran.

Her chest tightened and ached by the time she reached the plantation. But showing the body of the cobra and holding out the head did what her struggling lungs could not. Within minutes the body of the snake was in the hands of the cook while Sybil took the head to Doctor Clarkson to take the venom before they extracted the fangs. And moments after that Anna was in the back of a lorry with three men and a stretcher, taking relative strangers to her quiet place.

But none of that mattered as they found John, his body twitching as his breath came in wheezing gasps. The three men lifted him onto the stretcher and into the lorry, Anna immediately taking her knife to his leg again to try and open the fang wounds to excise more of the venom. A part of her wondered if it would be better for him to simply draw the blade over his throat to end the pain that trembled throughout his body but instead she checked his pulse and his skin to try and ascertain the progress of the venom through his body. The only thing that offered her any comfort was John's struggling breaths still followed the steady progress she advised and his hand found hers.

They carried him into the field hospital, hurrying him into Doctor Clarkson's surgery as he and Sybil immediately set to trying to apply an experimental antivenom to the wound. Anna, her body shaking as the shock of the event finally hit her, nearly collapsed into a nearby chair and watched as Doctor Clarkson and Sybil worked quickly and carefully over John's twitching body. Each minute stretched to eternity until Sybil finally drew back and let out a breath.

Anna was up in a second, coming to the other woman's side and grabbing at her arm as Sybil jumped at the touch. They both took a moment to breathe, as if that could slow the thunder of their hearts, and Sybil gave Anna a smile. "It's alright."

"Is he-"

"You acted extraordinarily quickly." Doctor Clarkson spoke from the other side of the table, where John now breathed a little easier but still quivered occasionally. "Most of the venom is out of his system and we've applied… It's experimental and based on some local remedies but we'll see if it works to counteract what venom got into his bloodstream." He put a hand on Anna's shoulder. "But you stopped most of the progress with your tourniquet and his breathing. He's alive right now because of you."

Anna could only nod and swallowed as Doctor Clarkson and Sybil left her alone with John. Her fingers moved to his hand and slid into the relaxed grip there. But the second her hand was in his, he squeezed her hand. Anna almost moved back, sure it was a muscle contraction due to the venom still in his body, but when John's hand did not loosen Anna noted the barest of cracks in his eyelids.

"You should sleep." She heard herself say but did not move her hand from his.

"I have to thank you."

"No, you don't."

"You saved my life." John's words scratched against his throat and Anna almost sobbed at the sound of his voice.

"I'm just…" Anna wiped at her eyes with her other hand, only just now noting the blood on her uniform, the dust and the dirt, the grime from the day, and the general layer of sweat from anticipation and the unrelenting heat. "I just thank God you're alive."

"Yes, thank God." John sighed and a slight smile came over his face. "And you."

Anna buried her face in his chest and cried, her hand still holding his.