If punching bags could scream, this one would be begging for mercy, but it
sure as hell wasn't going to come from the man punching it. Hunter Hearst-
Helmsley was normally a diligent, focused man when it came to training, but
today his strength seemed inhuman. He didn't know why he hadn't been able
to get any sleep for the past week, but he hadn't and it was starting to
take a serious toll on him. He had awoken last night from yet another
unsettling dream about his wif-about Stephanie, and although he tried
desperately, he couldn't get back to sleep. So at two o'clock in the
morning he had padded his way down to the gym and had been working out ever
since, hoping to work himself into exhaustion or just fill up his hours
doing something, anything, to keep his mind off of actually thinking about
anything, much less Step--her. It was a good plan, but the problem was that
it wasn't working at all. He paused from his rigorous slamming of the bag
for a moment and turned to look at the clock. Hunter blinked
disbelievingly. Eight o'clock. He'd been here for six straight hours, and
nothing. He still was unable to shake that weird, disconcerted feeling that
stupid dream had given him, that feeling like she was in danger or that
something bad was going to happen, and if six hours of pushing his body to
submission wasn't going to do it, then nothing would. He shook his head in
disgust, picked his bag off of the floor and headed for the showers, trying
to think of something to do for the rest of the day. He wished he had to
wrestle tonight, he really needed to pound the crap out of somebody today.
Meanwhile, Stephanie McMahon-Helmsley was rising from the best night of sleep she had had in ages. She blinked blearily at the clock.five after eight. Hmm.shower first or breakfast? She wondered sleepily. Her stomach growled hungrily and she grinned. "Okay, okay. I guess it's breakfast first." she acknowledged the baby. She picked up the phone and ordered room service. "Yes, hi.I'd like two croissants, hazelnut chocolate sauce.um, oh! The eggs benedict sound good.and maybe some whole wheat toast? Oh, no coffee, just an orange juice. Oh, yeah! And milk." She added on. Ugh. She hated milk, but if it was good for the baby, she was more than willing to make the sacrifice. She knew in a few days she'd be dying for coffee, but she was going to do this pregnancy right. She knew Hunter would insist on that, but she was happy to oblige. He was so overprotective, but instead of being stifling, it only endeared him to her even more. Well, while she was waiting for breakfast, she might as well take the shower.
Stephanie looked at herself critically in the bathroom mirror. God, she looked so bad. Maybe she had been depressed or something. She laughed sarcastically at herself.what had she had to be depressed about? She'd only lost her husband and her career.nothing to be upset about there! It didn't matter though, because she would recover what she had lost and get it all back tenfold. But she really had to do something about this. Stephanie sat back down on the bed, fingered through the telephone directory and looked for a decent spa. Her index finger made its way down the page.this one sounded good. She dialed and intending to only make an appointment for a linen wrap and a facial, changed her mind and decided she deserved the works and set up a manicure and pedicure too. She made sure that everything would be finished by four o'clock tonight, which was the time of her appointment with Dr. Lucas and ran for the shower. She hurried through the shower and got out just in time for room service's knock. She wrapped a robe around herself and opened the door, pulling in the cart and tipping the waiter a hundred. She was feeling so good, she felt like spreading the joy and smiled back at the astonished waiter. "Thank you, ma'am!" he said, running off.
Stephanie sat on the bed, looking at the beautifully arranged breakfast, and somehow she was thinking about the first time Hunter had cooked for her, about three weeks into their whirlwind marriage. She hadn't especially even really liked him at that point, he had just been a route to getting control of the WWF, and she knew that's all she was to him as well. The arrangement--their alliance was working out very well for both of them. She remembered waking up to the most glorious smell, and thought that Cook had come into work early, so she had drifted back to sleep. She had groaned when she had been woken up, but her desire to go to sleep had quickly faded when she had realized that Hunter was holding a tray out to her in bed, a small smile on his face. She smiled back, commenting on how Cook might quit, having to get up this early to make breakfast. Hunter had laughed, and just remembering the sound of that gorgeous, deep laugh made her toes curl. He told her he had made it himself. She had laughed in his face, trying to conjure up a picture of this man in a kitchen, and he had pretended to look wounded, but she could tell he was laughing inside. "Hey, it's not going to kill you." He had said. "Well, if you actually made it, I guess I have to give it a try. I am your wife, after all." She had replied, steeling herself for whatever horror awaited her. He forked a fluffy egg and placed it gently between her lips. Stephanie's eyes widened in surprise. "You so did not make that." She told him. "Well, you weren't there, you were still passed out from exhaustion from last night, (she remembered that so familiar wicked gleam in his eyes as he had made that comment) so how would you know? But you seriously don't believe me?"
"No, there is no way that you can cook." she had trailed off, opening her mouth for another bite of the best eggs she'd ever tasted. But she looked at him and believed that somehow her husband had yet another skill she had never known about until now. Jeez. He was so damn good at everything he tried.he could really make a girl feel inferior, but Stephanie knew she was pretty damn good at a lot of things too. Cooking just wasn't one of them. She had never learned how. Her mother had never cooked, they always hired professional chefs and cooks. Once, when she was ten, she had wanted to make some toast for herself so she had gone into the kitchen and buttered some bread and put it in the toaster. It had melted the wires and all of the rooms around the kitchen had smelt like they were burning for days.thus, Dad had forbidden her from kitchens from that point on.
But here was somebody-not just somebody, her husband, she corrected herself- who had actually gone to the trouble of cooking her breakfast. She couldn't remember the last time anyone had ever cooked her breakfast..and that was because no one had, she realized. No one had ever just made her breakfast, not even Andrew, and this guy was the first one to do so. And he hadn't had to, wasn't getting paid to do it, wasn't getting anything from it, but he had still made her breakfast anyway. She realized she had never told Hunter this, but that was the moment when she had stopped seeing him as a boorish thug and started to think of him as.her husband. It was an unbelievably nice feeling.
Oh, jeez! Stephanie snapped herself out of her thoughts when she realized the scraping noise was her fork trying to get food from an empty plate-when had she finished the eggs benedict? It must be the baby, making her all emotional anytime she saw anything that reminded her of Hunter. Problem was that everything reminded her of Hunter, something he had done, something they had done, something he had said..it was so frustrating! She had known she loved him before their whole separation, but she didn't know if she had realized how much she loved him. Somehow, over the course of only a year, Hunter had become her favorite reason for existence. She had built up everything in her life around him, because for the first time in her life, someone had actually loved her for who she really was, not just because she was their blood, or because she was Vince McMahon's daughter. And she had loved that fact. So she hadn't realized how much she would miss him if they ever were apart because it had never occurred to him that they could be apart, not after everything that was between them. They were connected to one another...they fit each other so well. They were like two halves of a puzzle that no one had ever thought to put together, but once they did, it all just made sense. Did he miss her as much as she missed him? He did, she decided. If he ached for her only half as much as she did for him, if he had thought of her only a third of as much as she had thought about him, she would be surprised if he could even walk straight, she thought to herself as she got dressed.
But soon, they wouldn't be apart at all, in only two days she'd see him for the first time in two months. But first things first, Stephanie knew, and it would be a cold day in hell when she would let him look at her looking like this. Especially since her aim was to remind him of everything he was missing. She called for a taxi, had an incredible day at the spa, and came out looking like herself again, only better because she had some kind of a sparkle in her bright blue eyes that she had only days before had begun to wonder if it would ever return.
She headed for Dr. Lucas' next, refusing to acknowledge the deep fear and nervousness in the pit of her stomach. Everything would be fine. Everything would be good. She kept repeating that to herself over and over, like a mantra. The tests flew by, she hardly even remembered any of them, so focused she was on thinking "good" thoughts. Several hours later, because she had insisted the Doctor rush the tests while she waited in his office, she looked up to see the Doctor's face. She knew instantly the news was good and it felt like a huge weight had lifted from her heart. Dr. Lucas confirmed her intuition. "I am very happy to say that your baby is perfectly fine. We've detected no irregularities, the baby seems to be in very good health. Those falls you told me about appear to have done no damage, but I must caution you against sustaining any falls in the future. Got that? No falls!" he kidded gently.
Stephanie just nodded happily, listening to the doctor telling her what to eat, when to sleep, holding out her hand when he slipped her her prenatal pill prescription. The doctor was slightly stunned when she embraced him tightly so he patted her on the back. She exited his office and Dr. Lucas was quite surprised to find that he quite liked the girl, considering how she appeared on the television. Must be quite horrible to have cameras invading every semblance of a normal life, he sympathized. Dear girl, just so excited to be having a baby..he wished her all the best.
Unbeknownst to him of course, at the exact moment his wife was finding out that their child was fine, Hunter was staring at the amber contents of a brandy snifter and analyzing why he didn't want it. It had been poured from an expensive bottle. Its color was as clear and pure as a dark Mexican topaz. He sipped it. It was tasteless. He couldn't appreciate it anymore than he appreciated his current company.
Stacy Keibler looked at her companion tiredly. She had pulled out all of the stops for this evening. She was wearing a deep red dress with a long slit up the left leg, her hair had been carefully washed, blow-dried and styled for an hour to achieve a "natural look" and she had even put on her lucky lipstick, one that had never failed in it's objective of making her lips irresistible to man.but apparently it was irresistible to this man because it didn't even seem like he knew she was a the table. She wondered whether or not if she even got up and did a strip-tease, if Hunter would even notice or just continue to stare off expressionlessly into space. When she had called him earlier at his hotel to invite him to dinner, she hadn't really expected him to say yes, but she had hoped...and he had accepted her invitation. She had been ecstatic, she had been trying to think of ways to catch him in the corridors at work, "bump" into him innocently at different places, and he never seemed to really acknowledge her existence. When he had accepted the invitation, she had thought maybe all along he had just been stringing her along, playing hard to get, and was ready to stop playing, but now she wasn't sure of that at all. She'd been talking for an hour, trying to engage him in conversation, but he only murmured general yes's and no's during her brief pauses. Stacy was getting angry. Most guys would sell their left arm to get her on a date, and the one guy she actually wanted didn't even seem to really want her there. If that's the way he wanted it, she was just going to go. She had just made up her mind to leave when all of a sudden Hunter smiled hugely. Stacy stared at him, mesmerized. God, he had the most beautiful smile, she thought, dazed. She settled back into her seat, all thoughts of leaving gone. "Wow, what was that for?" she teased, intertwining her small hand in his huge palm.
"Huh?" "What?" Hunter asked Stacy.
"I was just wondering what made you smile like that...you haven't really said much all this evening and-" Stacy paused as Hunter pushed his chair back. She looked at him, bewildered.
"I'm sorry, but I just-I-I-I really need to leave. Thank you for inviting me to dinner, it was great..yeah. Bye." Hunter left three fifties on the table and exited the dinner as Stacy just sat there, glued to her seat, stunned. What had just happened here? Had he actually just left? Left her?!This hadn't happened to her...ever...and she wasn't quite sure how to deal with it. Strangely enough, Hunter's unbelievable lack of manners didn't put her off. In fact, Stacy thought, somehow, she only wanted him more. He was rich, he was powerful, he was the Undisputed Champion.and he looked like a Greek God. God, how much she wanted this man. And I always get what I want, Stacy thought to herself, trying to figure out how exactly she was going to pull this one off. Finally, a challenge worth of her, she reflected.
Hunter hailed himself a cab and folded his long body inside. What the hell was that? He had been having dinner with a beautiful woman...okay, so she wasn't all that interesting, but it had gotten him out of the hotel room...and all of a sudden he felt like he had wanted to do a cartwheel in the restaurant? What was up with that? He hadn't been feeling happy before, it had just happened all of a sudden, this pure, overwhelming feeling of unadulterated joy. It was the lack of sleep, he knew. Making him not know which way was up. But even as he told himself that, he knew it wasn't true. Somehow, in the middle of dinner he had gotten to thinking about his wi- Stephanie. He thought about how she would have ordered a steak, not that pathetic salad Stacy ordered. He thought about how Stephanie would have pushed a bothersome strand of hair back, instead of just twirling it annoyingly like Stacy had done. He thought about Stephanie's rich laugh even when she laughed at his stupid jokes when Stacy laughed her high- pitched God-awful little giggle. Everything Stacy had said, done, he had compared to his wi-Stephanie! Stephanie! He told himself furiously. Stop referring to her as your wife! You're separated! You're going to get a divorce! She isn't your wife anymore!
He had to do something about this connection he still somehow had with her. That joy he had felt in the restaurant.it had to be hers that he was feeling. But how? And more importantly, who was making her that damn happy? Hunter thought jealously, but he was so unaccustomed to the feeling he didn't recognize it. She couldn't be happy when he was feeling like this, no, this just wasn't right. Their connection...whatever it was, he had to get rid of it, cut it, blow it up, make it stop. And there was really only one way he knew how to do that.
Meanwhile, Stephanie McMahon-Helmsley was rising from the best night of sleep she had had in ages. She blinked blearily at the clock.five after eight. Hmm.shower first or breakfast? She wondered sleepily. Her stomach growled hungrily and she grinned. "Okay, okay. I guess it's breakfast first." she acknowledged the baby. She picked up the phone and ordered room service. "Yes, hi.I'd like two croissants, hazelnut chocolate sauce.um, oh! The eggs benedict sound good.and maybe some whole wheat toast? Oh, no coffee, just an orange juice. Oh, yeah! And milk." She added on. Ugh. She hated milk, but if it was good for the baby, she was more than willing to make the sacrifice. She knew in a few days she'd be dying for coffee, but she was going to do this pregnancy right. She knew Hunter would insist on that, but she was happy to oblige. He was so overprotective, but instead of being stifling, it only endeared him to her even more. Well, while she was waiting for breakfast, she might as well take the shower.
Stephanie looked at herself critically in the bathroom mirror. God, she looked so bad. Maybe she had been depressed or something. She laughed sarcastically at herself.what had she had to be depressed about? She'd only lost her husband and her career.nothing to be upset about there! It didn't matter though, because she would recover what she had lost and get it all back tenfold. But she really had to do something about this. Stephanie sat back down on the bed, fingered through the telephone directory and looked for a decent spa. Her index finger made its way down the page.this one sounded good. She dialed and intending to only make an appointment for a linen wrap and a facial, changed her mind and decided she deserved the works and set up a manicure and pedicure too. She made sure that everything would be finished by four o'clock tonight, which was the time of her appointment with Dr. Lucas and ran for the shower. She hurried through the shower and got out just in time for room service's knock. She wrapped a robe around herself and opened the door, pulling in the cart and tipping the waiter a hundred. She was feeling so good, she felt like spreading the joy and smiled back at the astonished waiter. "Thank you, ma'am!" he said, running off.
Stephanie sat on the bed, looking at the beautifully arranged breakfast, and somehow she was thinking about the first time Hunter had cooked for her, about three weeks into their whirlwind marriage. She hadn't especially even really liked him at that point, he had just been a route to getting control of the WWF, and she knew that's all she was to him as well. The arrangement--their alliance was working out very well for both of them. She remembered waking up to the most glorious smell, and thought that Cook had come into work early, so she had drifted back to sleep. She had groaned when she had been woken up, but her desire to go to sleep had quickly faded when she had realized that Hunter was holding a tray out to her in bed, a small smile on his face. She smiled back, commenting on how Cook might quit, having to get up this early to make breakfast. Hunter had laughed, and just remembering the sound of that gorgeous, deep laugh made her toes curl. He told her he had made it himself. She had laughed in his face, trying to conjure up a picture of this man in a kitchen, and he had pretended to look wounded, but she could tell he was laughing inside. "Hey, it's not going to kill you." He had said. "Well, if you actually made it, I guess I have to give it a try. I am your wife, after all." She had replied, steeling herself for whatever horror awaited her. He forked a fluffy egg and placed it gently between her lips. Stephanie's eyes widened in surprise. "You so did not make that." She told him. "Well, you weren't there, you were still passed out from exhaustion from last night, (she remembered that so familiar wicked gleam in his eyes as he had made that comment) so how would you know? But you seriously don't believe me?"
"No, there is no way that you can cook." she had trailed off, opening her mouth for another bite of the best eggs she'd ever tasted. But she looked at him and believed that somehow her husband had yet another skill she had never known about until now. Jeez. He was so damn good at everything he tried.he could really make a girl feel inferior, but Stephanie knew she was pretty damn good at a lot of things too. Cooking just wasn't one of them. She had never learned how. Her mother had never cooked, they always hired professional chefs and cooks. Once, when she was ten, she had wanted to make some toast for herself so she had gone into the kitchen and buttered some bread and put it in the toaster. It had melted the wires and all of the rooms around the kitchen had smelt like they were burning for days.thus, Dad had forbidden her from kitchens from that point on.
But here was somebody-not just somebody, her husband, she corrected herself- who had actually gone to the trouble of cooking her breakfast. She couldn't remember the last time anyone had ever cooked her breakfast..and that was because no one had, she realized. No one had ever just made her breakfast, not even Andrew, and this guy was the first one to do so. And he hadn't had to, wasn't getting paid to do it, wasn't getting anything from it, but he had still made her breakfast anyway. She realized she had never told Hunter this, but that was the moment when she had stopped seeing him as a boorish thug and started to think of him as.her husband. It was an unbelievably nice feeling.
Oh, jeez! Stephanie snapped herself out of her thoughts when she realized the scraping noise was her fork trying to get food from an empty plate-when had she finished the eggs benedict? It must be the baby, making her all emotional anytime she saw anything that reminded her of Hunter. Problem was that everything reminded her of Hunter, something he had done, something they had done, something he had said..it was so frustrating! She had known she loved him before their whole separation, but she didn't know if she had realized how much she loved him. Somehow, over the course of only a year, Hunter had become her favorite reason for existence. She had built up everything in her life around him, because for the first time in her life, someone had actually loved her for who she really was, not just because she was their blood, or because she was Vince McMahon's daughter. And she had loved that fact. So she hadn't realized how much she would miss him if they ever were apart because it had never occurred to him that they could be apart, not after everything that was between them. They were connected to one another...they fit each other so well. They were like two halves of a puzzle that no one had ever thought to put together, but once they did, it all just made sense. Did he miss her as much as she missed him? He did, she decided. If he ached for her only half as much as she did for him, if he had thought of her only a third of as much as she had thought about him, she would be surprised if he could even walk straight, she thought to herself as she got dressed.
But soon, they wouldn't be apart at all, in only two days she'd see him for the first time in two months. But first things first, Stephanie knew, and it would be a cold day in hell when she would let him look at her looking like this. Especially since her aim was to remind him of everything he was missing. She called for a taxi, had an incredible day at the spa, and came out looking like herself again, only better because she had some kind of a sparkle in her bright blue eyes that she had only days before had begun to wonder if it would ever return.
She headed for Dr. Lucas' next, refusing to acknowledge the deep fear and nervousness in the pit of her stomach. Everything would be fine. Everything would be good. She kept repeating that to herself over and over, like a mantra. The tests flew by, she hardly even remembered any of them, so focused she was on thinking "good" thoughts. Several hours later, because she had insisted the Doctor rush the tests while she waited in his office, she looked up to see the Doctor's face. She knew instantly the news was good and it felt like a huge weight had lifted from her heart. Dr. Lucas confirmed her intuition. "I am very happy to say that your baby is perfectly fine. We've detected no irregularities, the baby seems to be in very good health. Those falls you told me about appear to have done no damage, but I must caution you against sustaining any falls in the future. Got that? No falls!" he kidded gently.
Stephanie just nodded happily, listening to the doctor telling her what to eat, when to sleep, holding out her hand when he slipped her her prenatal pill prescription. The doctor was slightly stunned when she embraced him tightly so he patted her on the back. She exited his office and Dr. Lucas was quite surprised to find that he quite liked the girl, considering how she appeared on the television. Must be quite horrible to have cameras invading every semblance of a normal life, he sympathized. Dear girl, just so excited to be having a baby..he wished her all the best.
Unbeknownst to him of course, at the exact moment his wife was finding out that their child was fine, Hunter was staring at the amber contents of a brandy snifter and analyzing why he didn't want it. It had been poured from an expensive bottle. Its color was as clear and pure as a dark Mexican topaz. He sipped it. It was tasteless. He couldn't appreciate it anymore than he appreciated his current company.
Stacy Keibler looked at her companion tiredly. She had pulled out all of the stops for this evening. She was wearing a deep red dress with a long slit up the left leg, her hair had been carefully washed, blow-dried and styled for an hour to achieve a "natural look" and she had even put on her lucky lipstick, one that had never failed in it's objective of making her lips irresistible to man.but apparently it was irresistible to this man because it didn't even seem like he knew she was a the table. She wondered whether or not if she even got up and did a strip-tease, if Hunter would even notice or just continue to stare off expressionlessly into space. When she had called him earlier at his hotel to invite him to dinner, she hadn't really expected him to say yes, but she had hoped...and he had accepted her invitation. She had been ecstatic, she had been trying to think of ways to catch him in the corridors at work, "bump" into him innocently at different places, and he never seemed to really acknowledge her existence. When he had accepted the invitation, she had thought maybe all along he had just been stringing her along, playing hard to get, and was ready to stop playing, but now she wasn't sure of that at all. She'd been talking for an hour, trying to engage him in conversation, but he only murmured general yes's and no's during her brief pauses. Stacy was getting angry. Most guys would sell their left arm to get her on a date, and the one guy she actually wanted didn't even seem to really want her there. If that's the way he wanted it, she was just going to go. She had just made up her mind to leave when all of a sudden Hunter smiled hugely. Stacy stared at him, mesmerized. God, he had the most beautiful smile, she thought, dazed. She settled back into her seat, all thoughts of leaving gone. "Wow, what was that for?" she teased, intertwining her small hand in his huge palm.
"Huh?" "What?" Hunter asked Stacy.
"I was just wondering what made you smile like that...you haven't really said much all this evening and-" Stacy paused as Hunter pushed his chair back. She looked at him, bewildered.
"I'm sorry, but I just-I-I-I really need to leave. Thank you for inviting me to dinner, it was great..yeah. Bye." Hunter left three fifties on the table and exited the dinner as Stacy just sat there, glued to her seat, stunned. What had just happened here? Had he actually just left? Left her?!This hadn't happened to her...ever...and she wasn't quite sure how to deal with it. Strangely enough, Hunter's unbelievable lack of manners didn't put her off. In fact, Stacy thought, somehow, she only wanted him more. He was rich, he was powerful, he was the Undisputed Champion.and he looked like a Greek God. God, how much she wanted this man. And I always get what I want, Stacy thought to herself, trying to figure out how exactly she was going to pull this one off. Finally, a challenge worth of her, she reflected.
Hunter hailed himself a cab and folded his long body inside. What the hell was that? He had been having dinner with a beautiful woman...okay, so she wasn't all that interesting, but it had gotten him out of the hotel room...and all of a sudden he felt like he had wanted to do a cartwheel in the restaurant? What was up with that? He hadn't been feeling happy before, it had just happened all of a sudden, this pure, overwhelming feeling of unadulterated joy. It was the lack of sleep, he knew. Making him not know which way was up. But even as he told himself that, he knew it wasn't true. Somehow, in the middle of dinner he had gotten to thinking about his wi- Stephanie. He thought about how she would have ordered a steak, not that pathetic salad Stacy ordered. He thought about how Stephanie would have pushed a bothersome strand of hair back, instead of just twirling it annoyingly like Stacy had done. He thought about Stephanie's rich laugh even when she laughed at his stupid jokes when Stacy laughed her high- pitched God-awful little giggle. Everything Stacy had said, done, he had compared to his wi-Stephanie! Stephanie! He told himself furiously. Stop referring to her as your wife! You're separated! You're going to get a divorce! She isn't your wife anymore!
He had to do something about this connection he still somehow had with her. That joy he had felt in the restaurant.it had to be hers that he was feeling. But how? And more importantly, who was making her that damn happy? Hunter thought jealously, but he was so unaccustomed to the feeling he didn't recognize it. She couldn't be happy when he was feeling like this, no, this just wasn't right. Their connection...whatever it was, he had to get rid of it, cut it, blow it up, make it stop. And there was really only one way he knew how to do that.