A/N: I didn't want to put this out at the beginning of the week, but family stuff forced me to hold off on it. But I loved reading all your reviews! Thanks to wicked jade (such high praise! Hope you enjoy the Faison POV in this chapter, he's such a sinister and cool villain), saint2sinner (me too! Thank you!), Guest (It's my pleasure, and thank you!), 4gcrazyme (I too, LOVE that scene, and it will definitely be implemented in my story in some way haha), sammy11357 (thank you!), Pound68 (Robin, yeah we're getting into those teen years where she was insufferable lol, but typical for kids that age! In this story, she will have a bit more to deal with than in the original, but it was always interesting how R/A had to walk a very fine line with what they told her. And I agree, Tiffany is such a doll and wonderful to Sean. As for Shep and Kate, hopefully this chapter might go toward answering your question. I actually like them as a duo!), and Bostie (thank you so much! I hope you enjoy this one. FH always did have the most beautiful expressiveness and she still does!).

Chapter 20:

Faison watched her do everything—every flinch and inflection, every practiced gesture. Everything she did seemed meant to draw in her spectators. Some of that had been trained into her, he knew. But he knew even more intimately that she had always been a natural. She had seemingly been created to seduce the world around her…

She calmed the bubbles of her champagne with a manicured hand, the way she had calmed Robert Scorpio earlier. That image wouldn't leave his mind soon. Anna never touched him so easily—oh, she tried… She certainly tried, when she wanted to impress her charms on him, like she did so magnificently with fools like Scorpio. Except, he could see through it even as he felt himself lean into it. He knew too much of her to ever be truly unaware.

"It's hard to say 'no' to Anna…"

He said that to Scorpio once when the man invaded his island, looking for her. He said it just as simple Robert handed over his gun and his open line with the police. Faison would have never done such an idiot thing, but he did stand by his words. The difference between them was that Faison knew he was entranced. He enjoyed the bliss of her attention and he stifled it when he had to.

In a subtle way, he punished her for her familiarity with her ex-husband by invoking their daughter. Though it was almost impossible to tell in this light, he caught the flash of her eyes—a cornered doe in a dark forest.

"She's at a birthday party," she lied so smoothly he wanted to crush her lips until she begged him to stop …until she no longer had any semblance of control. His beautiful little liar. He shrugged.

"But still, I would have liked her to be here…"

Anna waxed poetic about motherhood and children seeking their own company, her eyes boring into him all the while. He backed away from the threat very quickly.

"It's not that I mind being alone with you at all …or should I anticipate a visit from your ex-husband?"

She batted an eye, her voice tripping on the words. "No, I told him to stay away."

He savored the champagne. "I find his petty jealousy amusing. Glad you feel the same."

Her lips quirked up slightly and then bloomed into a genuine smile. "He can be a bit childish," she confessed. But it was said with such fondness that it soured the confession.

"I never understood what you saw in him." He had told her this many times before, but it always bore repeating. The dear girl may have learned a little, but not enough, not nearly enough…

Anna huffed, looking away from him a moment before returning her playful gaze to his. "Do we have to talk about him?"

"Of course." Of course they did, because he couldn't be blind, could he? He couldn't believe what Anna wanted him to: that Robert was her harmless jester. But the moment her smile began to slip, he retreated, preferring to deal with that after. He fixed his cufflink and dropped his eyes to the table. "No. I'd rather talk about us."

The cords of her arms flexed, showing the briefest tensing as he honestly spoke of her beauty and how thirteen years had only ripened it. He refused to let her pass on the compliment—he loved her with all of his being and he wouldn't sell her short. But when he touched her hand, she drifted out of his grip, apologizing for her discomfort.

It was such an honest moment, without explanation, that it endeared him enough to placate her. "It's alright. It's too soon, I know. And I don't want to rush you," he lied. "But together we can …erase the past …and start all over again."

He knew her shame couldn't bear it, and when she skittered away from the table bodily, he followed, unable to resist pressing her. He stroked a finger against her neck and back, feeling his mouth wet at the sight and the feel of her. "Have you made up your mind about Monte Carlo?"

Her voice trembled and dissolved into breath, it was maddening. "Let's just see what …tonight's like. Why don't we?"

"One step at a time." Once he had started stroking her, he couldn't stop until she moved out from under his touch, and not even then. She ran away to take a generous mouthful of champagne and he drove her back towards his arms. He wanted to dance with her because they already were in this dangerous waltz of her coquetry and his wanting. Every time he gave her a taste of his glass prison for her, he saw her teeter on the edge of it. She wanted it …she didn't want to want it. He tasted her neck; he consumed it, and she allowed him to because it was all that she could allow herself.

It was different from the way she hid within Scorpio—the way she clung so cloyingly to the man that was so much smaller than what she truly was.

But that would be dealt with in time.

The phone rang in the house before he was ready to let her go and she was so eager to get it, though he had no intention of letting her do so. But then Robin appeared, holding the phone out to her mother. "Daddy."

"What, Daddy?" If Anna was surprised (and Faison wasn't entirely certain that she was), he was not. Still, he couldn't stop the rise of his ire when his Anna departed her attention to Scorpio.

"I have company," she told him with a raw edge to her voice. Like he wouldn't have known it or like it wasn't the entire reason for his call.

"No. I will speak to you later, okay? Goodbye."

She had dismissed him, but they both knew that her dismissals would not affect the man. If Faison had to credit one thing to Scorpio's name, he was persistent.

When Faison had arrived, Scorpio had been engaged to the Delafield woman. Things had since changed, and not in a favorable way. But Scorpio himself was not the crux of this issue, was he? A nuisance, yes. But without Anna's permission, he was nothing.

And together, Faison had to admit, they sickened him. That was a product of close observation, he supposed. But how could one ignore Scorpio's graceless stomping and bulldozing in Anna's life? Ever the hero, it would seem he would give up anything for her—which was old news of the highest order, though Port Charles would seem to be fascinated by the idea. The man was determined to remain the same reckless youth he had always been, a hapless Peter Pan resolved to secure his Wendy forever, even if he could never be with her.

But Anna …she did allow it, didn't she?

He watched her end the call and say something to Robin—surely, she would spend time elsewhere during their date.

Robin, who called Scorpio "Daddy". His lip curled slightly. The girl looked like her mother, and Faison genuinely liked the girl, but she was also another sign of Scorpio's dogged presence. If there was no child, it was quite possible that he wouldn't have to deal with Anna's past love. And what did it cause Anna to feel for Scorpio?

That was the difficulty.

Anna had been so very careful to leave Faison in the dark about her current relationship with man anchored for years in her life, and he was certain that was a deliberate act on her part. It only proved that he may have something to worry about.

Faison could deal with Robert Scorpio, but carefully. If he lost Anna in that process, he lost his entire reason.

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"Is this becoming a pattern for you?" Kate said to the next man who walked through the door.

"What?" Shep asked, crossing his arms with a smirk. She was beginning to pick up on his expressions, and she knew he was sensing a flirtation. Maybe she was.

"You. Dropping by without a reservation, alone…"

"I did make a reservation, with your dear Mary," he nudged his chin toward her reservation book. "Go see."

She did see, though she half-wondered if Mary didn't mention her booking a reservation because she was in on this with Shep. "So you did! I can seat you right now then."

His hand wrapped around her arm as she grabbed a menu, his grip warm. "Well, I was hoping not to be alone, you see. Would you have dinner with me?" He smiled winningly. "A girl's gotta eat."

"A girl's gotta work as well," she answered ruefully. "You picked a bad night, I'm afraid. I didn't schedule any extra staff and we're booked solid."

"Then at the risk of sounding like a too-interested party, I'll just take my seat, have a bite, and watch you work. And let's say if you have any time for some chit-chat, you'll know where to find me." He held up his hands at her skeptical look. "I did make the reservation, after all…"

"After all," she conceded, waving the menu toward a nearby booth. "Right this way, then."

"Thank you!"

He seemed so happy to be here, even if his initial plan hadn't worked out. Kate found it very flattering, and she was beginning to hope that she wasn't getting the wrong idea. "Is this really how you want to spend the night?" she asked succinctly.

He slid into the booth and looked up at her with an almost boyish expression. "In the spirit of honesty, I might have been told that this would be a good place to be for potentially breaking news. My boss isn't too keen on it, but I thought I'd check it out."

"What do you mean?" Kate asked, feeling the cold bucket of reality wash over her. "'Potentially breaking news'?"

He realized belatedly that he had stepped in it and hastened to rectify. "It's nothing that you need to worry about, just some dumb gossip that might hint at a bigger story. But I was only trying to hit two birds with one stone, if you will."

"And was I the bigger bird?" she asked with some coldness. "Enjoy your meal, Mr. Casey."

She should have known there was an ulterior motive when the likes of Cassandra Clark was making the rounds tonight, making Katherine wish dearly for a bouncer. She studiously ignored any attempt Shep tried to make at getting her attention for the next two minutes, dealing with the inanities of Lucy and Larry Ashton. But then in walked P.K. Sinclair and Anna, who was dressed to kill.

At odds with her dress, Anna's posture was almost shrinking from Kate as she stood beside the author, and Kate forced her suspicion meter to take no notice of it. But something was up, something was definitely up. She exchanged a look with Shep, who had also straightened in attention, before she remembered that she was angry with him.

"Right this way, I have a very special table for you," she said flatly. Shep's booth was directly across from theirs, a prime spot to watch their interaction.

So this was why the press was buzzing around her club tonight? Perhaps they wanted a repeat of the scene from two weeks ago, when Robert arrived to dramatically arrest his ex-wife's supposed date. The only difference being that Anna was here and Robert was nowhere in sight.

For now.

But Kate was on alert, just waiting for something to blow up and end up splashed all over the papers tomorrow or the next day. It was a self-fulfilling prophecy when she started to hear voices raised and Larry Ashton's son punched Scott Baldwin in the face. Ned stormed off with Dawn, and Tracy Quartermaine fluttered around Scott, attempting to nurse him. Kate just wanted them all to leave. Cassandra had already produced a notepad and was scribbling something, but Kate assumed this was just a bonus prize for her. She was definitely going to consider some security in the future.

Port Charles seemed to be charged with an unpleasant force of energy, and it was spilling over even into her business. Maybe especially into her business…

"Didja get a load of that?" Shep muttered in her ear. She jumped and turned to look at him. He seemed satisfied that he had successfully snuck up on her.

"Of course I 'got a load of that', who didn't?" she shot back, crossing her arms. "You should really return to your booth, I'm sure the waiter will be back shortly with your food."

"I didn't come here to eat, Kate, I came here to see you," he answered, when it was clear that she wasn't going to forget their earlier conversation and joke around with him. "I'm sorry that I gave you the impression that I wasn't—"

He trailed off and Kate looked up to see why. Robert had just walked through the doors. "Well, this is a surprise," Shep muttered sarcastically. "I actually do think I see my waiter coming, if you'll excuse me…"

He abandoned his mission before Robert could approach, and the Commissioner was distracted anyway by Scotty pushing past him with a rude remark, still wiping his lip with a handkerchief.

"Am I late for the floor show?" he quipped as Tracy followed Scott out.

Kate pushed her long hair out of her face in stress. "I don't know what's got in to everybody tonight."

"Yeah, where's a copper when you need one?" Robert said, referencing Scott's snide remark.

"Did you make a reservation?" she asked, turning her attention to her seating chart.

"Nooo…" he drew out the word sheepishly. "I just thought—"

"You just thought you'd get a seat on a busy night without a reservation? I'm assuming you want to sit near them." She nodded to Anna and Faison's uncomfortable dinner.

Robert said nothing, but he smirked, and that told her everything. And a spiteful, brilliant idea came to mind. She nodded at her chart. "Silly me! I see here that there is a reservation!"

"Huh?"

"Yes, the other member of your party already arrived, in fact. Let me take you."

Robert was still speechless and clearly had no idea what Kate was doing, but he did follow. Kate could feel Anna's eyes on their backs, sharp. She assumed Anna's date was also curious. Robert didn't appear to understand what was going on, even when Kate stopped at Shep's booth.

Shep looked between them and put the pieces together quickly. "No, come on…"

"I have your guest right here," Kate chimed. She almost pushed a dazed Robert to sit down and dropped the menu on the table. "You two have a good time. And we're tapped out on brawls for the night, just something to keep in mind."

"Brawls? Is that on draft?" Robert asked cheekily. But Kate had walked away, allowing a mischievous smile to bloom on her face. If everyone else was going to act childish tonight, she might as well join in.

Even as she had a terrible, foreboding sense of something being wrong. She was in the dark, and she could push away that feeling.

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"Well, this is just great," Shep sneered, looking downright miserable. "What did you do to piss her off?"

"She's perpetually pissed off at me these days. What did you do to piss her off?" Robert challenged right back. "I thought you'd been making friendly with her."

"I was trying, no thanks to you. I was doing well until I opened my big mouth, and really, that's your fault too."

Kate was right, even if a little sadistic. Robert had a great vantage point of Anna and Faison from where he sat. There didn't appear to be much talking going on. Shep elbowed him.

"Because of that!"

"What?!" Robert hissed, glaring at him.

"You. Stalking your ex and her dates. You're front-page news these days for your antics, or haven't you noticed?"

"Give it a rest, Shep. I've heard this already from about six different people," Robert said with boredom. Anna was visibly crawling out of her skin, breathing like she was in a heat wave with no cooler escape. She spoke a few words to Faison and he touched her. "Better yet, you don't need to make conversation with me at all."

"And given your presence here tonight, I guess you didn't take the advice of six different people. Or are these people that hate you?"

"Hardly." For such a typically unreadable face, Faison watched Anna like she was a natural wonder of the world and Robert marveled at the obviousness of the former DVX Head. It was like seeing a frog do the tango. But Anna admittedly had worn a dress that would leave any man in the room devouring her with his eyes. Faison was a mere mortal in that respect. "But I don't see you winning any popularity contests either."

"Comes with the territory," Shep said. "I didn't get in this business to be liked, but you joined your business to fight crime, didn't you? Unless Cassandra Clark had it right and that was just another stepping stone in your quest for Anna Devane."

Anna left her table, presumably to go to the restroom, and Robert rose as well. "Excuse me," he said to Shep as an afterthought, who scoffed audibly.

He rounded the corner and Anna walked right into him, her body slight and overwarm. "Go away," she said as a greeting, but he didn't care anymore whether she wanted him there or not.

"We're going to go over here and talk," he said with a lull in his voice to calm her concerns. It must have worked, or she didn't want to make a scene, but she let him pull her into a vacant alcove. The space was tight. "Is he giving you a hard time?"

"No! He isn't…" Anna said quickly and with a sense of general frustration. "He couldn't be a more sensitive escort." She looked up at Robert as if daring him to contradict her words. "He keeps telling me how beautiful I look. We're gonna have a good time when we go to Monte Carlo and he keeps touching me," she said through clenched teeth, closing her eyes.

Robert couldn't handle this. He might have been so ill-prepared to watch her do this that it couldn't have been a bigger cosmic joke. And to see her hate it just as much was his undoing. His hand grasped her slender arm and he pulled. "We're outta here."

"No!"

He let her go, but only with all the control he possessed. His protective instinct was kicking into overdrive and only her word was keeping it at bay. "Why continue with this?"

"Because if we go now, he will know that we are doing something."

"Look. I think this whole thing has gone far enough." At an ordinary time, she would have mocked him for trying to order her around. Instead, she looked at him almost gently, trying to ease him and probably realizing that he was more torn apart than he was letting on.

"I'm in control." She smiled a little, but it only made his stomach churn.

"There's gotta be another way."

Her eyes dropped to his chest with some gravity. "There isn't. His feelings towards me are all we have."

"Has he said anything at all about friends—anything we could use to—"

"No, he hasn't."

"Then why bother with this?!" he demanded.

"Because …he'll slip up. Just let me play the game, will you?"

He was astonished that she was being so patient with him right now, but it frightened him all the more. "Just what kind of game are we talking about here?"

Anna only looked at him, not going to dignify the question with an answer given all of Robert's years as an agent. He wasn't stupid. He just wanted her to say it aloud and realized how reckless she was being and stop this whole deal.

"I don't like it."

"You think I do?" she asked with some disgust. He pounced on it.

"Then why bother?"

She let out a cry of irritation and shook her head. "Just leave me alone, okay?" At odds with her demand, she stepped toward him and touched his chest, keeping those depthless eyes steady on him.

"Go away and leave me alone," she said in something almost low enough to be a whisper. He exhaled, upset and wanting it all to just drain from his body but she lingered, adjusting his lapel and pleading with her eyes until she read acquiescence in his.

He was a sucker, and he usually gave her what she wanted. He noticed she had taken to putting her hands on him when she wanted her way lately. His gaze softened in her hypnosis and satisfied, she turned and disappeared into the bathroom.

Robert returned to his seat, not caving to the temptation of looking toward Faison. Shep was chewing on a piece of broccoli, a fresh plate of food before him.

"I got you a drink. A martini seemed too apropos, if you know what I mean. And I don't know what you take, so I settled on scotch."

"Why?" Robert raised his eyebrows at the reporter, unable to interpret what the gesture meant.

"I figured since you're doing nothing to help your situation, you might like to have a drink and take the edge off. Kate just walked by looking more pissed-off …if that were possible. I thought she might have seen you doing something you shouldn't be doing."

"Well, I wasn't."

"Well then tell me," Shep shifted in his seat, and Robert assumed that whatever was on his mind, he'd been dying to ask since he got stuck here with Robert. "What's your problem with Sinclair? You're really going to great lengths to disrupt the guy and there has to be a reason.

"I used to think that I made your head explode, but I have nothing on him." He took Robert's silence as an invitation to go on. He poked his fork in the air. "My instinct? You have history with him. Hell, maybe he has history with you and Anna, that would go a way to explaining all the animosity." He stabbed another stalk of broccoli.

Robert forced himself not to react. He tapped his fingers against the table and leaned back. "That's quite the story you've invented, Shep."

"It's a theory. Potentially, an accurate one. I used to think Anna was all the fire in your relationship, but I've gotta say, now she's cool as a cucumber and you're the one boiling over."

It was funny how so many people didn't see how Anna really felt. Robert couldn't see the coolness that Shep was describing, but he had known her for so long, that there were certain things he had to be attune to. Her discomfort was one of them.

"My other theory?"

Robert sighed, about ready to leave now that Anna wasn't going to let him interfere. He was going to take Shep's opinion for the road. "What?"

"You are certainly in love with her. And I think most of what they're writing is actually dead-on, even if it's yellow journalism. But they would never know any different, would they?"

A waiter brought Robert the scotch and he blinked at the amber liquid, tilting his head toward his companion after a moment. He wanted to ask 'who' he was supposed to be in love with, but they both knew who he meant. Anna. Last week, he would have denied that immediately from Shep Casey.

Last week was not today. Robert smirked and toasted the reporter before kicking back the scotch in one fluid motion. "Thanks for the drink, mate."

He left.

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Faison watched as Scorpio threw back his liquor and left the reporter-man to himself. He waited for Anna to return, and it would have been a patient waiting, if not for the seething anger that was beginning to reveal its ugly face in the depths of him.

The concessions she made for this man, for Scorpio, never ceased to boggle the mind. She allowed his harassment of her. She allowed him to send her away with young Robin. She made herself smaller to suit his substandard, grotesque needs. Oh, he remembered the girl that tried to walk away from the DVX …for this man who was so unworthy of her notice.

Why did she continue to reduce herself for him?

He would extract an answer from her, without her saying a word.

She slipped into her seat and he glanced sideways at her. "I missed you."

"You did?" It was a soft, caustic response that gave him pause.

"I ordered another bottle of champagne." He poured it.

"I don't want anymore—"

"Of course you do," he continued to pour it, asserting control in their play. Her dark eyes were on him and he didn't waver. "Besides, it will ease my disappointment at your little rendezvous with Scorpio, just now."

"I ran into him, that's all."

"Yesss." He drew out the word to stay her excuses on Scorpio's behalf. All he had aimed to do was to raise the subject. This had to be done delicately. "Anna. I know." He toasted her and she was caught in her own curiosity through his failure to elaborate. So she leaned in, as if commiserating.

"What do you really feel about Scorpio?"

Anna was looking for honesty, for his trust. Yet …did she deserve such a thing?

He looked at her after he drank. "You could know the answer to that if you asked a different question."

"What?"

He lit his cigarillo, keeping it loosely pinned between his fingers. "What does Scorpio feel about me?"

Anna looked away briefly, as the conversation was not moving where she clearly intended it to. But he remained silent, forcing her to offer some conversation. "I think you both are carrying dislike for each other, really," she responded.

"And where does that leave you?"

Anna stopped breathing. He marked the moment it happened and nearly smiled at the transparency of her.

"Robert is the father of my child," was all she managed to offer.

"Indeed, he is."

Yes, she needed to remind him that she chose to marry, and carried Scorpio's child willingly for nine months, when she wouldn't have touched him freely at all. "Scorpio is quite a …difficult man to cooperate with, I've found..."

She watched him move the cigarillo to his lips, inhale, and exhale in painstaking, deliberate movement. "But I also know …that it is a question of what you must do."

When his eyes made their slow path to hers, all he could see was the pain of a distant and perhaps, still-fresh memory. He wondered if she was playing a game with him, or if he was prodding a wound of hers without provocation. He was inclined to believe the best in her, but he wouldn't, if Scorpio continued in this way.

"Robert can be quite difficult," she said.

Faison smiled. "Robert, yes. He has caused you quite a lot of trouble over the years, hasn't he? I would hate to see him …continue to cause you …any pain."

"You may leave Anna. But after you complete one last assignment."

"I don't want to do anything else! I don't want to do anymore—"

"Anna."

"—assignments!"

"It's not a matter of what you want. It's a matter of what you must do."

Her eyes changed and he knew, oh he knew that he had lost her this time. And someone, someday, would pay for that; for all the lost time he was about to accrue. They would pay.

He continued, as if he spoke of the weather, the mist in the air. "And, if you refuse …well I would hate to think about the consequences. We wouldn't want anything to happen …to this 'other man' …would we?"

Anna was always a pale, English rose, but Faison was well to notice every minute change about her. She sat beside him and her pallor was different. Again, she didn't engage in discussion with Robert's ex-fiancée as they took their leave, though he had heard that they were supposed to be friends.

Perhaps he had given her something to think about? It was hard for her—to have given her heart so young and foolish to someone like Scorpio. And that time of disconnecting would be a trial for her, because Scorpio was like a dog: low, and unable to understand anything but his own needs.

However, it was no matter. Faison was sure that Anna understood him very well, and soon …his answer would be extracted.

A/N: You can probably see that Faison is far more suspicious of Anna here (while he is blind to her due to his feelings in some ways, I would also guess that he would be hyper-aware of how she might feel toward any "competition", especially Robert). And the story continues to turn …more Robert/Sean/Anna next time! Reviews are, as always, very appreciated!