My dear little broccolis 💚💚💚

💚 So this story is a three-chapter story. I enjoyed writing it a while ago, and I hope you will enjoy reading it now, even though it's ... atypical.

READ & REVIEW, DON'T BE A SILENT READER

Love, Mina 💚💚💚

💚 No Strings Attached 💚

The terms were quite simple, and yet, he couldn't follow them ...

‼️Rated M - {Out Of Characters/All Human/Alternate Universe}‼️

‼️Angst/Drama/Language/Sadness‼️

‼️Clary Fray/Jace Wayland‼️

💚 READ & REVIEW, DON'T BE A SILENT READER 💚

Part 2: Clary's Pov (2,1K)

"I swear, I told you everything that I know. Please, please don't kill me," The man pitifully begged, but Clary didn't care. She never really cared. He was a target, and now that he had told her what she wanted, he needed to be eliminated.

Clary woke up with a start, her body covered with sweat. For a long minute, she tried to catch her breath before laying back in the bed and closing her eyes. This was something that happened quite regularly to her, and the reason why she never actually slept with any guy. She didn't need to explain what her nightmares were about.

The only guy that slipped through that rule was Jace.

The night of Camille's wedding, she hadn't even realised that she had fallen asleep in his arms. And she was so grateful that she did not have a nightmare that day. That would have been complicated to dodge. Especially since Jace liked to pay attention to her and what she would, and would not say.

In her life, Clary had always been careful to not form any relationship with anyone. Ever since Valentine came back for her after her mother's death, she had cut down any sort of attachment to civilian life. The only exception was Camille. More than once, Valentine had warned her that Camille was a liability for her, but she couldn't let go of her only friend, her sister in so many ways.

Camille had been there when Val hadn't. She had helped him when her mother had started getting sick, and before Val popped back into her life, she had sheltered her (well, her parents did).

Of course, her current occupation meant that she couldn't be the friend Camille needed, but Camille never minded. She understood. She understood that Clary accepted this lifestyle because this was what her only living parent was doing. She understood that Clary suddenly disappeared to 'never come back. She understood that they would never be able to go out for coffee or anything.

Clary was always careful when she visited Camille. She always made sure no one had followed her, and always met her in that decoy apartment she rented, so no one could tell where either of them lived. Not that she actually lived anywhere. But her lifestyle also had its downside. She couldn't be Camille's bridesmaid or the Godmother of her daughter. She only met her husband once at the wedding. And … she had met Jace.

Jace had been a fluke. A wonderful, amazing, dreamy fluke. She never saw the same guy twice, and she never felt anything more than sex for anyone. She couldn't. Relationships were a liability. Having people in her life made them and her vulnerable to her enemies. And the list was long.

But Jace had somehow managed to convince her to give him a go. And … she would be lying if she said she didn't like it. Over the past two years, she had felt how their relationship became something more than carnal, how he would pour himself out to her, how he would get upset for her when he would see the bruises on her body, how ... he cared for her.

She appreciated how, without her ever telling him, he would comfort her, by touching her in a different way, that made her feel less vulnerable, made her feel safe. Those moments were the ones she had liked the most. The ones when she had just come back from a risky mission, and Jace would just kiss away her vulnerability.

More than once, when they were recovering from their coitus, she would picture herself meeting Jace with a whole different life for her. A life where she didn't bloom in secrets, lies and shadows. The life Jace believed she had. In this life, she was a journalist, and she was Camille's official best friend, Godmother to little Izzy. And she would stay the night with Jace to sleep in his arms and go on dates with him.

But the reality was different. Even if she had wanted to settle down, like some irresponsible agents did, and build a family, it was impossible with Jace. He was some famous billionaire whose face came in magazines every year in the fortune 500.

It had been a month since she left him in that hotel room when all he did was being honest with her. And she regretted every single one of her decisions that led to that moment. She never should have talked to him at that wedding, and even less agreed to that relationship. It broke her heart in the end, but worst. It broke Jace's. And she would never forgive herself for that.

She had ceased all contact with him, burning her number off the records, making herself virtually disappear. She even stayed away from Camille during that whole month. She was hoping that this time apart would be enough for him to move on, because this was all she could do now, hope that he would forget about her, and move on. Find himself a nice little wife that would give him cute little children.

Today, she was seeing Camille for the first time since the 'breakup'. In fact, she never told Camille about any of it. Camille was highly suspicious that Clary and Jace were seeing each other, and she had warned Clary that Jace had a difficult past when it came to love. This actually made her pause their relationship when Camille told her. For more than six weeks, she didn't meet with Jace, but when she finally did again, he told her himself about Lilith Demon Edom.

She doubted Jace ever found out about it, but the week after, Clary virtually destroyed the woman. It was so easy to ruin someone's life nowadays, technology made it look like child play. And since she had hurt Jace, Clary hurt her back where the demon cared the most, her money and comfort. In the blink of an eye, she found herself penniless, without a house or a car.

To be honest, Clary was quite proud of herself. Especially the bit where she broke into the woman's place and added to her conditioner some hair removal cream. Now the demon was nothing.

As Clary entered her decoy apartment, she found that Camille was already there, making coffee, and as soon as she saw her friends, Clary inquired,

"Where is my baby?"

She rarely saw Izzy, and she always liked to take the little girl in her arms and cover her with kisses and hugs. Camille shrugged, and let Clary know, "With her father. They went to cheer up her uncle."

Clary's smile faded, but she ignored the dig. She knew she deserved it. She never should have entangled herself in that situation, to begin with. And now, she did worse than the bitch troll, she broke his heart, and never told him why. At least the demon owned up to her cheating ass.

"He's really devastated, you know. You shouldn't have let it go for so long," Camille gently said, and this was in moments like that when Clary knew that Camille was her true friend.

Instead of sugarcoating her, and immediately taking her side because she was her friend, Camille was telling her the hard facts, and putting her in front of the hard reality of her mistakes. Still, she defended herself by letting her friend know,

"He knew what he was getting himself to, Camille."

"No, he didn't."

It was true. She never told him why she didn't do relationships, so of course, he would think he could change her mind. "You know why I can't do relationships."

"And he doesn't. You spent two years with the guy. And don't even think of lying to me and saying you don't feel a thing for him. Two years! And I know there were times you were in Seattle just to see him. And really, what you did to his ex, that's a woman in love talking, not a spy helping out a booty call."

"Jace Wayland is the last person I can associate myself with," Clary gritted through her teeth since it seemed that Camille had forgotten that the point of being an undercover agent, was the secrecy of it all.

The blonde woman gently squeezed her hand, showing her sympathy as well as she could. "I know Clary. It's just … you're both so miserable, and I love you both as if you were my own siblings. I don't want either of you to be hurt. Jace is really down, I've never seen him like that and you …"

Clearly looked down at her hands, her heart breaking as she realised what she had to do. Val had been telling her for years on end to fake her death, so the people who knew her would have a way to move on, without the everlasting hope that she would come back. And she had always refused. She didn't want to give up Camille.

But … this was selfish of her. Now Camille was caught in the middle of this situation, and the man who made her feel so special and safe was hurt. This month didn't help him one bit in moving on from her. She was going to force him to move on. And this time, she wouldn't be able to keep her heart-sister with her.

She took a deep breath, and turned to Camille, so she could remember every detail of her. She hugged this one friend that she had since kindergarten, that one friend who didn't mock her for being an orphan when her mother died when they were ten, that one friend who had kept her secrets ever since. And she whispered in her ear,

"I love you, Camille."

.~°~. .~°~. .~°~.

The very next day, she went to see her father, so he could help her orchestrate her death. In fact, all her life, she had believed that her father was dead, because this was what he did when she was born, to protect her, and yet when her mother died, he still came and brought her into that world. Because she didn't have any other family. In retrospect, she wished he had left her with Camille's family. She wouldn't be feeling so miserable now.

Ever since he had brought her to the agency, they had been working together. They were close, but they didn't have a father-daughter relationship. More of a mentor-student one. But as she explained her desire to Valentine, he looked at her with that strange look that she had never seen on his face before.

"Did you have a fight with Camille?"

"What? No! I just realised that … you're right. I can't hold people back. And it's the best way they can move on."

Valentine kept looking at her, before carefully telling her, "Leaving you and your mother had always been my biggest regret, Clary. If I could do it all over again, I would do it differently. I know what we're doing is important. But at the end of the day, being with those you love is more important."

.~°~. .~°~. .~°~.

Two weeks after that cryptic message, Clary had planned her perfect death. She would come out of a gym, and get involved in a car accident. Valentine had helped her get everything ready. Fake records, dentures, bodies, explosives. she had already changed part of her appearance. She had dyed her hair and was now wearing a wig to match her natural colour. All was ready for her to die and be reborn as someone else.

What she didn't expect was to see Jace there. This was a part of town she knew he never went to. After all, Jace, being a billionaire, was posh. And yet, there he was, looking at her as surprised as she was. He started walking to her, and all she could think was to get him away from the perimeter. Everything had been calculated to the millimetre. She was telling him to leave, when the explosion occurred, sooner than planned. She was much too close to the vehicle and felt herself being projected in the air. As her body was thrown back on the floor, she looked around, glad to see that Jace was unharmed, and before she could try to move away from the scene, something hit the back of her head and sent her into another world.

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.~°~. .~°~. .~°~.

💚Your thoughts and opinions are always welcomed💚

💚 So, Clary is a spy ... and she broke her own rules for Jace.

💚Well, let me know what you thought of this chapter. What was your favourite part?

💚 Cassandra Clare owns the names of the characters from the TMI franchise, Everything else is mine (including the mistakes and grammar errors).

Love, Mina 💚💚💚