Chapter Three

Feedback: A must.

When she met him at her door at 8 sharp, her skin glowed with a healthy looking tan, her hair fell down in waves with perfect highlights, her nails were French manicured, and her toes were bite me red. She had bought a simple black sheath that fell to her mid thigh, had a scooped neckline and spaghetti straps. She wore one inch black heeled sandals, a diamond bracelet her Mom had given her for graduation, a simple cross, and silver studs in her ears.

"You look…gorgeous," he said, once he found his voice. He hadn't realized such a pretty woman was under the rumpled sweats she had been wearing.

"Thanks, I hope I'm not overdressed," she said, looking at his kaki slacks and black blazer. "I just figured I'd make the best of this. It's not every day, after all, that I get to dine with one of People's Sexiest Men and Seventeen's Most Eligible Bachelor."

"So you did your homework," he said with a grin.

"I always do my homework," she said, eyebrows raised.

"Well, not everything they say about me in magazines and tabloids are true," he laughed.

"Like what?"

"You'll have to find that out on your own."

"I love a challenge," she smiled, a bit shocked that she was flirting with him. He offered her his arm, and she took it gracefully.

She stopped short when they came around the edge of the building , "A limo?" she choked.

"Did I mention how much my life means to me?" he asked in a playful manner, opening the door for her.

"I'm starting to wonder," she said softly, getting in. He was about to follow her when she poked her head out, eyes wide, "There's a TV in here!" he laughed, getting in.

Once they were on their way, she turned to him, asking, "So, where are we going?"

"It's a surprise."

"I hate surprises."

"Well, maybe you should learn to like them. Hate is such a strong work."

She didn't answer him, looking around inside the limo, "Is that a refrigerator?" she asked.

"Would you like some wine?" he asked, "I didn't know what you'd like, so I had it stocked with a variety," he explained, reaching to open the mini ridge, revealing the twelve different brands.

"Oh, you really didn't have to do that. Uh, I'll have a small glass," she said, feeling bad about refusing after he went to so much trouble, "I don't care which, I don't tend to drink alcoholic beverages. There was this incident in college…" she shook her head.

He laughed, "Say no more," he pulled out a bottle from the fridge and poured two glasses, handing her one, "My favorite. Not overly rare, the brand at least. 1725, an excellent year."

She almost choked on her first sip, recognizing the year from some of the research she and Willow had done back in high school. It had to be a coincidence…

"It's always been my favorite year," he said, "Though most 1700's are good. Not 1753, though. Some of my friends adore that year. But I've just got this aversion to it. Even beer companies that were established in that year I can't stand. "

"Odd," she choked out.

"So, you know a bit about me, but what about you? What do you do for a living?"

She looked at him, a surprised look on her face, "You didn't do your homework?" she asked, knowing full well he wouldn't have found anything if he had tried.

He laughed, "It'll have to be late, my contacts haven't gotten back to me yet."

"How about I save them the trouble," she said, unsure if he was joking or not. "I actually grew up in LA, but we moved to a small Californian town after my parents divorced. As for work, I dabble. I'm pretty much financially secure, but I do some teaching, investigating, protection, whatever floats my boat at the time."

"What type of teaching?" he asked conversationally.

"Self defense for teen girls."

"Strictly?"

"Sometimes they're younger than that, but not generally older," she glanced at him, "So I'm sexist. I just think girls need it more."

"Hey, I was just wondering. I think it's great. But I sense you're the type that would take 'I won't hit a girl' as an insult."

"I take it both ways. If it stops a man from beating his wife and or daughter, then I'm all for it," she took a sip of wine, "But if it stops a guy from starting something just because of gender, that irritates me," she stopped, then rushed, "I'm not saying fighting's good, but if a boy would get into a fight with another boy over the problem, but won't just because it's a girl, that's discrimination."

He nodded, "I agree."

"So, what do you do for work?" she asked, wanting to get the topic off of her.''

He laughed, "I don't think of it as work, but I do some private investigations."

"Ah."

"What?" he asked, turning to look at her.

"Nothing," she said, looking at him quickly, before finishing her wine. He poured some more wine into her glass, and she started to protest, but stopped herself. "This has to be the last glass," she said, "I don't tend to hold my alcohol very well," she murmured, taking a sip.

The limo stopped; he finished the last bit of wine in his glass, and flustered, she downed hers. He laughed as he took the glass from her. She smiled, nervously, then followed him out of the limo. They were led right to their table, and there was no fuss at the door. Having not lived in LA for years, she was surprised. She had forgotten how common limos tended to be.

He ordered wine for them, and she felt a bit annoyed. But once it came, she knew it was expensive, and so she drank it peevishly.

They examined the menus silently, and she suddenly didn't know what she was doing there. More than anything, she wanted to be back in England at that moment, not in some fancy restaurant with some rich bachelor. She searched the menu quickly for something that would take the least amount of time to prepare. She settled on a salad, how long could it take to make a salad?

He watched her pour over the menu, watching the way her green eyes moved back and forth, the way she wrinkled her forehead slightly. He found her fascinating. She wasn't like the girls he had dated in the past. For the most part, they had been models, actresses, or daughter of his father's friends, shallow creatures, where half of them was fake.

But from her attire alone, he could tell she was different. She was short, but her shoes weren't overly high to compensate. They were practical. She was thin, but not extremely skinny, and the dress wasn't flashy. She looked like money, with her perfect tan, flawless skin, highlighted hair, and manicured nails, but her earrings were simple teardrops, which he'd guess weren't even real diamonds. And she was wearing a simple silver cross and a simple, unflashy ring. He unobtrusively looked at the ring, already knowing what he'd order. It was silver, with two hands holding a heart, and a crown on top of the heart. Something stirred in the back of his mind, but as he tried to remember, it was gone.

"You're staring," her soft voice cut through his thoughts.

"I was admiring your ring."

She glanced at it, as if she had forgotten she was wearing it, "It's a-a friendship ring. Well," she stared at it sadly, the emotion clear in her eyes, and it transformed her whole body as she stared at the ring, and he knew she must have lost someone very dear to her, "the hands represent friendship, and the crown loyalty," she swallowed quickly, blinking, then grabbed her glass of wine and finished it off. She knew it was her third glass of wine, and she was in danger of becoming drunk if she didn't slow down, but all of a sudden, she didn't care. Getting drunk didn't seem like such a bad idea anymore. She had tried everything else to forget him.

"And the heart?" he asked, pouring her more wine.

"You can't guess?" she asked, sipping her fourth glass.

"What happened to not being a big drinker?" he asked, changing the subject.

"We're celebrating, right?" she asked, knowing the alcohol was already starting to affect her, and she no longer cared. She could make a complete ass out of herself here and now, then catch the next flight out of this hell. "Here's to your life. May it always be filled with…pleasurable company and fine wine," she said, holding her glass aloft, before downing it.

"That's not all I care about," he said quietly.

"Hmm?" she asked, pouring herself another glass. Getting shit faced was looking more and more appealing.

"That's not all I care about," he said more clearly, "Pleasurable company and fine wine," he clarified, "I do long for something more," he said, then sighed.

"Like what?" she asked.

He was about to answer when the waiter came. She ordered her grilled chicken breast salad, and he ordered a steak, well done.

"A man can't go through life, forever being Most Eligible Bachelor, and Hottest Man of 2005. Eventually, I'm going to slide down the list, and then disappear. I'll become one of those guys who looks like he's rich, a guy who looks like someone that used to be famous.

"Eventually, I would like to get married, have a family, do something more with my life."

"Like what?" she asked, sipping her wine.

He sighed, "That I don't know." He leaned forward, "I've always had this…need to help people. Nothing is more satisfying than helping people with their problems. It's like this obsessive-compulsive thing I have to help people, I do it fervently when I can, like I feel the need to atone for something," he said in hushed tones, confiding in her.

"Maybe you have a guilty conscience?" she asked. If she had been sober, she would have heard the warning bells going off in her head. Things were a little too déjà vu for her liking. But the five or six glasses of expensive wine she had consumed had made her tipsy-she never had had any luck at holding her liquor.

"No, no I don't think it's that. All children are malicious, and I went through a reckless phase to get back at my father, but I've never broken any big laws, I've never even received a speeding ticket. I've never been arrested. There's nothing I remember that would cause me to be this fervent in my need to help. I-I think it's from a past life or something," he said in hushed tones, astonished that he was confiding all this to a perfect stranger.

"Past life, smast….smife," she said at last, giggling.

"You don't believe in past lives?" he asked.

"Not if you can't die," she told him. "This…red wine is a dream. I haven't had this much alcohol in…at least five years. Maybe that's my problem. I'm too much of a goody-goody. I did the boo-hooing, and the losing myself in my work, but I never tried drowning myself in alcohol."

"Jessi," Liam bit his lip, noticing for the first time she was going through wine like crazy, drinking down a glass at an alarming rate, and filling it back up with the bottle she had confiscated.

"Who? Ah, yeah, the alias. When I'm undercover, you know? When no one needs to know my real name. Like Rumplestitskins. You know, a name equals power. So I have the power. I have power issues, I have to be in control of the situation, or I wig." She stopped her ramblings when the waiter brought their food. She dug into her salad as soon as it was polite to.

He looked at her, watching her eat, listening to her babble on in her drunken state, picking at his food. Obviously she had been through something traumatic recently, with all the talk of trying to forget. But what was she trying to forget?

"So, why do you feel the need for an alias?" he asked conversationally.

"Because by knowing my real name, people have power over me. They can learn who I am, what I do, where I go, all of that. And that puts my loved ones in danger, though it doesn't really matter anymore, because the one person I truly cared about is gone. I couldn't protect him."

"So, should I call you Jessi, or…?"

"Buffy, call me Buffy. Just Buffy. I lost my last name a long time ago. Kinda like Cher, ya know? No last name, no true identity."

He hated doing so, but he poured himself some more wine, and then poured her some more as well. He really didn't enjoy getting drunk as he had in his youth. Finally he was getting some answers from her, her ramblings and body language were starting to make sense, even though he hated the way he had to do it. She sipped it this time, picking at her salad, while he ate his steak.

"What about your family? Parents, siblings?"

"My Mom's dead, my father should be. He's been dead to me since he left us when I was fifteen. Only my sister is still with me."

"Ah," he said, filing the information away. "Where are you from?"

"LA, then good ole Sunnydale, and now I travel a lot. I share an apartment with my friend in England, but sometimes I'm in Rome with my sister, sometimes I'm in France, or Switzerland. I go where I'm needed."

They continued talking, but it was becoming very clear that she had managed to get herself piss drunk. And she seemed to get violent when she was drunk. At one point, when they were talking about politics, she slammed her fist on the table and broke it.

"Oh, my god! I am so sorry!" she said, her eyes no longer as blurry as they had been.

"It's okay, ma'am," the waiter assured her.

"Let's get out of here," he said, signaling for the check, "And I'll pay for the table."

"Sorry," she murmured once they were back in the limo.

"It's okay. I had fun," he looked over to see her staring at him, "Do you want to do something else? Go to my place, or a club, have a drink or something before I take you home?"

"That would be lovely. You've already seen my place, and I've never been inside a millionaire's house before."