Hey! Here it is. The beginning of the end of the second beginning, so to speak... Many thanks for the awesome reviews. To people who have never spoken before - special first-time thanks!

This is slow slogging, I'm afraid, and it may be another two weeks before the next chapter gets finished and posted. But thank you for hanging in and being patient - I swear it's almost over. Another two chapters, tops. I'm sure of it.

As it's been a while, here's a little intro:
When we last met, Janice suggested Jack ask Samantha to dance, and perhaps take her up to the rooftop garden. She then walked away, leaving them to ponder deep thoughts...

Happy Monday...

Too Good To Be True
By: Mariel

Chapter 28

Jack and Samantha sat for a moment, silently considering what Janice had just said.

Jack merely felt surprise at Janice's lack of subtlety.

Samantha, however, felt totally disorientated, not understanding Janice's flippant referral to Terry and the 'romantic' rooftop garden. Nor did she understand Janice's casual palming off of Jack in her direction. Something was wrong here, something critical, but she had little time to work things out before Jack rose and stretched out a hand towards her.

"I guess we'd better do what the lady says," he said dryly.

Samantha looked up at him, then lifted her hand and rested it softly in his. She rose, her heart thudding. Walking gracefully on legs she wasn't sure would support her, she allowed herself to be guided onto the dance floor.

Finding a place to begin, Jack stopped and they turned to face one another.

There was a moment's hesitation.

They had never danced together before. Not like this.

Jack moved first, placing one hand on her waist, and taking one of her hands with his other. She then lightly placed her free hand on his shoulder. A tremor passed through her as something fell into place.

She was in his arms. This was where she was meant to be.

With her following his lead, they danced out onto the floor, moving to music only partly played by the band.

For a while, they remained silent, giving themselves time to become accustomed to the feel of each other and to the movement and rhythm of the dance. Cautiously, Jack finally spoke. "You seem very thoughtful tonight."

She allowed a few bars of music to play before answering. "I guess I am." Holding herself tautly erect, she followed his steps, surprised at how effortlessly she could do so. She felt apart from time and place, as though she could take flight...so long as he held her like this, and there was music...

Though the music, she thought, might not be needed...

"What's on your mind?" he asked gently. "You haven't been yourself for the last few days."

He wanted to ask more, but knew he could not. There were now boundaries he should not cross, things about her life she would not discuss with him because he was her ex-lover, and she had moved on and into the arms of another.

Surprised he had noticed, Samantha said nothing at first. She could hardly blurt out that she had finally realised that she still loved him and wasn't likely to stop. And now, uncertain about Janice and her earlier comments, her worry that Janice, while having an affair with Jack behind her husband's back, was also having an affair with Terry behind Jack's, seemed...she sighed. Perhaps she had been mistaken.

Samantha glanced up at Jack, then quickly looked away. It was impossible to tell what was going on for sure without asking, and she was too afraid to do that.

Her lips tightened imperceptibly. It was complicated. It had seemed an easy thing to do, earlier. Just tell him what she had seen and let him decide what to do. Now, it was different. She might be mistaken, and even if she weren't, was it merely a selfish part of her that wanted to tell him - a selfish part that felt if he wasn't with her, then he shouldn't be with anyone?

And what if, after she told him, he didn't care? Or didn't believe her? What if he announced his 'whatever' with Janice, and carried on?

Or what if there was nothing between him and Janice, and it had all been in her imagination? What then? Would he think her an idiot? Realise her feelings for him and feel pity?

She didn't think she could stand the embarrassment of that.

Her mind a muddle, she opted for stalling. "I don't want to think about it right now," she said. "Let's just enjoy ourselves, okay? It's been a long time since I've done something like this. The band is wonderful, the room's filled with beautiful, happy people..." She looked wistfully about her. His hand was warm upon her hip, and his cologne brought back forbidden memories...

...Fighting the urge to erase the few inches of empty space between his body and hers, she said, "It feels almost too good to be true, doesn't it?"

Jack held her gaze. He wondered what on earth had possessed Martin to leave her alone to go talk with others - and thanked God that he had. "No," he said, "I don't think so. I think this is perfect - and I'm having no problem at all believing it's true."

Samantha smiled, and, unsure of both the look in his eye and how to respond to it, she fixed her eyes on the dancers surrounding them. Something was happening here, but she was afraid it was a fabrication, built on her wishing it to be there.

Lapsing back into silence, the two continued to move with the music.

-XXX-

One song later, the bandleader announced their first intermission. Reluctantly, Jack and Samantha made their way back to their table. As he guided Samantha amongst the other couples leaving the dance floor, Jack noted a familiar face sitting at one of the tables and paused. Torn between needing to speak to that person and wanting to remain with Samantha, he placed a staying hand on her arm. "Samantha, I see Stephano Rossi. I don't want to be too long, but I do need to speak with him for a couple of minutes. Would you mind?"

Acutely aware of his warm hand lingering on her skin, Samantha took a brief second to remember who Stephano Rossi was, then shook her head. "Of course not," she assured him. Not wanting to leave things so that she would not be with him later, however, she quickly said, "I'm heading for the ladies' room. How about I pick you up on the way back?"

Jack nodded, relieved that she was not affronted by his desertion. He squeezed her arm gently. "Sounds good. I just have a couple questions to ask him," he reassured her. "It won't take long."

Samantha's expression showed her curiosity, but she kept her questions to herself. She knew Jack. If he wanted to speak to Rossi, there was something left over from the Blackwell case that still disturbed him. He'd tell her what that was in his own time. When his hand slowly left her skin, she knew it was time for her to leave. Turning away, she headed towards the doorway leading to the washrooms.

Unconcerned with how it would look to be seen with a suspected member of the Mafia, Jack moved to sit beside Rossi. Glad that the other guests at the table appeared to be busy elsewhere, he asked in a casual tone, "So, how's it been going?"

Rossi turned and looked at him, his eyebrows raised. "Agent.Malone," he answered. "Hello." He looked at Jack's attire, then commented dryly, "Unless the FBI has raised their dress code considerably, I assume you're here as a guest this evening, and not come to question me."

Unsurprised by the man's calm acceptance of his presence, Jack said, "That's right." With wave of his hand, he said, "I hope you don't mind; I saw you here and wasn't sure if you'd heard the latest news about Georgina's case. I thought you might be interested."

Knowing Jack's approach held more than the offer of information he had no right to be giving away, Rossi paused, then said, "Word on the street says you continued investigating even after the case was turned over to the NYPD."

Jack nodded, not terribly surprised that the other man knew. A man in Rossi's position would be privy to much information that many would wish he weren't. "That's right," he said, "and we found the man we believe murdered Georgina two days ago. I wasn't sure if you'd have heard that yet, or not."

Jack watched as Rossi's face stiffened.

"You found him? No. No, I hadn't." He stopped, obviously gathering his thoughts, then said, "Thank you. It's good to know the sonofabitch has been caught." He looked across the room, his eyes focussed on something only he could see. "Who is he?" When Jack didn't respond, he said in an undertone, "It would have been better if I'd found him first. Compared to what he deserves, his treatment by the justice system will be far too good." He turned towards Jack and said in a cold tone, "I'd be interested in knowing which prison he's sent to."

Jack's eyes widened as a piece of the puzzle he'd been struggling to put together fell into place. "I'm not at liberty to say who we've taken into custody, but the evidence we have against him will put him away for life."

The other man took a slow sip of his wine and then turned to look at Jack more fully. "That's not even half long enough; not for what he's done." He shrugged. "It won't be difficult for me to find out who and where he is." Setting the matter aside, he sharpened his gaze. "But you have something you want to ask me. I owe you, for what you've done for Georgina, so ask anything you like."

"Anything?"

Rossi's eyes glinted. "Almost anything," he amended.

Jack was blunt. "Why did you go to visit Jason Blackwell after his wife's disappearance? Were you having an affair with Georgina?"

Rossi looked at Jack with dark eyes. Waiting to think before answering, he finally admitted, "Yes, I was. And I visited Jason because I needed to be sure that he had had nothing to do with her disappearance." He tilted his head to one side. "No one ever suspected anything between Georgina and I. Only Victoria, whom Georgina told everything to, and Blackwell - because of my visit to him - ever knew. You are very perceptive."

Jack shrugged. "It's my job."

Rossi sat back in his chair and regarded him with dark eyes. "Yes, I suppose it is. And you are good at what you do. But something tells me you have something else on your mind."

Jack smiled and inclined his head.. "I do."

Rossi made a gesture indicating Jack should continue.

"Did you have anything to do with Georgina's father's death?"

Rossi stiffened, and lost his easy-going manner. Eyes narrowed, he said, "Perhaps I should have restricted this conversation to only one question. You're stepping dangerously close to the wrong side of 'almost anything', Agent Malone."

Jack could tell he wasn't totally opposed to continuing with the line of questioning, however, when Rossi added, "I don't understand why you would ask that. What does it have to do with anything?"

"We are products of our pasts, Mr. Rossi. It has everything to do with everything; your involvement with the underground, your providing jobs for women who desperately need them, your aiding Georgina in whatever way she asked of you..."

"So you are holding my good deeds against me."

"I'm not holding anything against you," Jack promised in a low voice. "Nor do I intend to. I just want to know. Call it curiosity."

Even with Jack's tacit promise to keep whatever was revealed to him secret, Rossi remained silent.

After a moment, Jack decided upon a different approach. Leaning his elbows on the table, he examined his hands. "Suppose," he said, in a conversational tone, "there was a young couple... madly in love...meant to be together. But the girl had a really abusive father - a father that the girl actually suspected had gotten away with the murder of her own mother. And suppose the father became increasingly abusive towards that girl. Suppose the boy, not liking what he saw happening, confronted the father. I don't now how it actually all came about, but perhaps when the boy spoke to the father, the father flew into a rage. In self-defence, the boy picked up the closest weapon he could find and swung it. The blow killed the father.

Because he was honest in his own way, the boy confessed to his girlfriend what had happened. He wasn't so honest as to tell the police, however. The police - perhaps thanks to the boy's connections - never found the murderer. The strain of the secret, however, put pressure on the young love and the girl began to distance herself. Finally, they broke it off."

Trading theoretical supposition for what he believed to be truth, Jack looked at Rossi. "You never forgot her, though. Years later, you met up with Georgina again. She was distant at first, but there was still something there. You felt it immediately. So did she. When she needed a favour, you were the one she went to, and you were happy to grant it because it meant seeing her. You began working together occasionally, meeting one another at social events, then you both began making excuses to see one another, and then, somehow, at some point, the affair began."

Rossi regarded Jack steadily. "You appear to have given this 'story' of yours a lot of thought," he said, "but I think if I were to write it myself, I would add that the girl broke it off because she didn't understand that it was an accident, didn't understand that he hadn't meant to do anything but stop the man from hurting her. She couldn't understand that he couldn't say he regretted what he'd done, because it meant that she was now safe. All she could see was that she had fallen in love with someone capable of doing things that frightened her, someone who was not what everyone thought. She got this crazy idea that, because of his family environment, he'd killed her father because it was easy to. People already didn't approve of him because of his 'family' ties; this just seemed to seal the fate of a doomed relationship."

"But you ended up together anyways," Jack pointed out.

Some of his defences back in place, Rossi leaned back in his chair again. Toying with the stem of his wine glass, he regarded Jack steadily. "Of course. And we would have made our relationship public and formal had not fate stepped in. She discovered, you see, that she loved me, no matter what."

Jack looked at him.

Rossi smiled. "Everyone knows 'business is business', Malone. What we forget is that love is love. Whatever her concerns about me and my rumoured career, it didn't alter the fact that we loved each other. It is a mistake to think that the former could have ever prevented the latter." He raised both of his hands expressively. "It may be difficult for you to understand, but emotion can overcome a large number of hurdles." Smiling, he added carefully, "Even something as large as my totally unfounded reputation. Perhaps she shouldn't have loved me, but she did. Always. And I, in spite of my better judgement, loved her. That love made other things seem very unimportant." He looked away, his features tight with emotion. "It still does."

The two men sat in silence a moment, lost in their own thoughts. Then Rossi looked up. Jack thought he was about to add to what he had just said, but the other man's expression changed and his focus turned to something to their left.

"There is someone coming our way," he said. "The young woman you were with in Victoria's office, I think." He looked at her closely. "She's very lovely," he observed.

Jack turned his head and watched Samantha walk towards them. A smile lit up her face when their eyes met.

"Yes," Jack said, focussed only on the glowing young woman approaching their table.

Something about Jack's tone when he said that one syllable made Rossi look at him closely. Glancing between the two, his eyes lit with a knowing flame.

"Perhaps you understand the nature of our problem better than I thought,' he said.

Jack didn't respond.

Stephano Rossi smiled. He didn't need a response, not really.

End
Chapter 28