Chapter 19

Chris woke up before Stephanie did that next morning. He looked down at her and couldn't stop the huge smile from automatically spreading across his face. Waking up with her asleep in his arms reminded him of the one morning when he'd woken up with her that same way, and that was the morning after they'd been together for the first time. The morning after that first time, he had been holding her instinctively, because he was the type who liked to cuddle after sex. This morning, however, he was holding her because he cared about her, and some part of him just didn't want to let her go. She felt so right in his arms that he felt like he could hold her tightly to him like this for days on end, maybe even weeks...

He looked over at the window. There didn't seem to be any sunlight shining in so he guessed that it was still one of the pre-dawn hours and the sun had yet to rise. He kissed her lightly, wanting to wake her up but in a gentle way. He felt her responding to him even in her sleep, and he was glad that he could get this type of response out of her.

"Chris," she whispered, pulling him over until he was on top of her.

"Good morning," he whispered, looking down at her. "But I'm not sure if it's morning yet..."

She ignored his statement and greeted him with a question. "Will you ever love me?" she asked, evidence of how sleepy she still was in her voice.

"Love you?" he asked, surprised, and she nodded. He surmised that she was out of her head and too sleepy to realize what she was saying, because wasn't she the one who had made him promise not to fall for her? Despite that, though, he felt the need to answer honestly, whether she knew what she was asking or not. "Well, sweetie, how do you know that I don't love you already?"

"It's too early, but could you love me someday?" she repeated, eyes still closed. "If you closed your eyes right now, could you see yourself loving me?"

"Yeah, I could. On some level, I already love you," he admitted softly, kissing her on the cheek. "I don't know how it happened but it did, and it happened really fast... Fast enough to make even my head spin... But you're just really lovable, Steph..."

"I think I could love you one day, too," she said softly. "You're so good to me, Chris..."

"What other way can I be? It's who I am," he said, peering down at her.

"Don't ever change," she said with a little yawn. "Just stay the same for me, and don't ever change..."

"I'm not going to change," he assured her. "I won't."

"Take me right now," she whispered to him, moving against him, pulling him closer.

"Can't... No protection right now," he informed her. "We used it all last night..." He wished that he'd thought to bring more protection with him, but... Well, you can't think of everything.

"Forget protection, Chris, I need you," she said softly, finally opening her eyes so that she could gaze into his and let him know just how much she wanted him... How much she was always wanting him... Her eyes seemed really dark, but maybe that was just because of the lack of good light in the room.

"Are you sure?" he asked, one hand trailing from her bare hip to her thigh and back up again.

She reached around him, running her hands over the muscles in his back before speaking again. "I'm sure..."

ACROSS TOWN IN ANOTHER HOTEL...

"You're being really stupid, you know that?" Trish asked, leaning against the wall in the bedroom in Hunter's suite. "How could you actually agree with her when she asked for separate rooms? She's your wife. You should've kept her with you and...and told her that you loved her too much to let her get her own room."

"That's beside the point," Hunter replied tersely. "How could you attempt to seduce Kane of all people?"

"It didn't even work, ok, but I needed some kind of way to make sure that he didn't tell," she said with a shrug. "I had to secure the plan somehow, or at least try to."

"Fuck the plan!" he exclaimed, standing up and running a hand through his hair. "I don't want you seducing other guys, Trish! Do you know how that makes me feel?"

"Look, I don't want to argue with you, ok? The plan is important to me, it's my own little brainchild," she said, looking away, still leaning against the wall. "Sometimes... Never mind. Just... I need to go through with this plan. I have to."

"Make me understand why this plan is so important that you would actually consider sleeping with Kane," he pleaded. He knew he sounded pathetic, but he had to know.

"Don't you get it, Hunter? Everyone thinks I'm a fucking whore, ok? They think that I'll sleep with any guy... Hell, according to everyone backstage, I'd sleep with the girls, too. I wasn't a whore before I came to this company, but Vince..." She frowned at the mention of her boss's name. It left a nasty taste in her mouth, and unfortunately, his name wasn't the only thing of his that had left a nasty taste in her mouth... "That bastard, he made me! He created me, he made this image of me..."

"It's just an image. I...don't understand."

"I don't expect you or anyone else to understand," she said, suddenly calm. "You'd never, ever understand my plan, Hunter, never."

"Then why am I even in this with you, Trish, if I can't understand the plan? What's in it for me?" he wanted to know. "Because we've been going at it pretty heavy for a year and a half, and I feel like our relationship is going absolutely nowhere!"

"It's not supposed to go anywhere. We have a business relationship and a sexual relationship, but we don't have anything beyond that," she said shortly.

"Trish, I've told you before that I love you... You wouldn't believe how much I fucking love you," he said, his voice full of emotion.

"Shut up!" she shrieked, her calm mood gone. She hurried over to him, pounding against his chest with her fists (like they could really hurt him), wanting to force him to be quiet, to force him not to say those three words again.

"I love you," he said quietly.

"Take it back, or I'll slap the living hell out of you," she threatened, folding her arms across her chest and glaring at him.

"I love you," he repeated simply, and she lifted her hand up to slap him as promised.

He grabbed her hand before it could reach his face, and all of a sudden, she just started sobbing. He let her hand go and pulled her to him, holding her close as she cried. He wondered what was making her cry. He'd never seen her cry before, not ever, but here she was now, openly sobbing against his chest.

"What's wrong?" he asked carefully.

"I'm pissed at you!" she exclaimed through her tears. "I'm so pissed at you for telling me that you love me."

"I'm only being honest with you. Why does that make you mad?" he asked gently.

"Because I asked you not to tell me, you fucking idiot!" she exclaimed.

"Oh." He decided to just hold her anyway, even though she seemed to be mad at him. He didn't want to let her go. He wanted to comfort her.

"And because..." Her voice trailed off, and she went on in a voice that barely qualified as a whisper. "And because... I love you, too."

He gasped, taking a step back and putting his hands on her shoulders. He looked down into her eyes. "You love me?"

"Yes, ok? Yes! How could I not?" she asked, looking into his eyes. "There are bound to be feelings when something like sex is involved. That 'no strings attached' scenario just never works." She stopped talking and lightly bit her lip, then closed the distance between them and kissed him softly, bringing her hands up to cup his face. He put his arms around her and held her close as they kissed. They broke apart soon after, and she looked up into his eyes.

"How'd you change your mind so fast?" he asked suspiciously, holding her out at arm's length again so he could stare at her. "Just the other day, you said that you didn't love me, and now you say that you do... Are you just trying to appease me and calm me down?"

"I wish I was, but I'm not," she said truthfully. "I do."

"You don't understand how happy hearing that makes me," he whispered, pulling her close to him. "I've waited so long to hear you say those words... But how do you know if you truly do?"

"I had a lot of time to think last night. Chris stayed out all night, and I was alone with my thoughts," she explained. She pulled away from him and sat down on the edge of the bed. She patted the spot next to her, and he sat down as well. "There's something else I have to tell you, though."

"What is it?"

She looked down, looking ashamed. "I've been using you for the past year and a half. I needed someone on the inside, and you were it. I didn't feel a thing for you at all in the beginning, or for a long time, except for lust."

"Oh." He looked down, too, disappointed, then looked back up. "Well, there must be some reason why you chose me. There are other guys who could've done the job just as well as I have..."

"True, but none were as gullible as you, Hunter. Believe me, I thought about it... I planned this whole thing out to the very last detail..."

"But you chose me because you wanted me, right? Somewhere deep inside?" he asked hopefully, grasping at straws.

"Honestly, I would've chosen Stephanie if I thought she could be easily seduced by me... But I didn't think she was bisexual, so..."

He looked down at his hand, at his simple wedding band. He'd known that Trish was using him, but he'd fallen for her anyway. He'd loved her, and that love had blinded him. Maybe he had wanted to be blind... "You say you love me," he said slowly, twirling his wedding band around. "And yet, you tell me this."

"I had to be honest with you, ok? I know I've been using you, and I'm pretty sure it probably hurts, but it happened, and when this whole thing started out that first night when I came onto you, you knew I'd be using you," she pointed out. "But now you know everything, and you know that I do love you..."

"Why love me if all you plan on doing is continue to use me? When your plan is over, you're not going to want to be with me," he said knowingly. "You're going to want to stay with Jericho, and I'll be miserable... Why love me at all?"

"Do you think I wanted to fucking fall for you?" she exploded, standing up. "No! This whole thing was never supposed to go this far! I was supposed to get enough information to bring Vince down and be done with it! But that hasn't happened yet, and somehow this lust I felt for you turned into love, and I hate it! I fucking hate it!"

"How can you hate love?" he asked, still sitting on the bed and looking at his ring.

"When you fall for another woman's husband, there's not much you can do but hate the fact that you allowed it to happen," she said, looking away. "I never wanted to take you from Stephanie, and I should've ended the plan when I first saw signs of your feelings for me...the flowers and the gifts... I didn't end it, though, because I was selfish. Look at me, Hunter. I've changed into the woman Vince wanted me to be when I first came into this company..." She sat back down and put her head in her hands, crying again. "I never wanted to become her..."

He looked intently at her, and he wanted to hug her. He wanted to hold her and kiss her and wipe away her tears... He wanted to comfort the woman he loved...

But there was another woman he had vowed to love and comfort and stick with, and that woman was Stephanie. He had cheated on her for half of their marriage, and still, she'd stuck with him, always faithfully by his side...

And how did he know that Trish wasn't lying about loving him so she could manipulate him?

He didn't.

He stood up then, and looked down at her. "Trish."

She looked up at him with tears shining in her eyes, and he almost gave in...

Almost...

"Yes?" she asked shakily.

"I can't be your inside man anymore. You used me and I hurt Stephanie, my wife...and I can't be a part of this anymore," he said in a rushed voice. "It's over."

"O-over?" she repeated in disbelief.

"It's time for me to make amends. My marriage has gone down the drain, and you know whose fault that is? Yours, Trish," he said. She opened her mouth to speak, but he kept talking. "It's my fault, too, and I know that. It's my fault for being unable to control myself around you... I was blinded by lust first, then blinded by love..."

"So you're ending us?" she asked softly.

"Yeah," he answered, just as softly, even though saying that made him hurt inside. "We're done."

She wiped her tears away and nodded. "I don't really love you anyway," she lied, and then she headed for the door, trying to hold her tears back.

"You mean that?" he asked curiously, following her to the door.

"Yes," she lied, unable to look at him. "I truly mean it."

"Oh." He opened the door for her, and they shared a look before she completely left the room. He closed the door and locked it, then leaned against it and closed his eyes. "You don't love me, Trish, but I love you," he whispered miserably. "Too much for my own good, maybe..."

Outside the room, Trish leaned against the door and tried to hold the tears back, but she couldn't, and once they started flowing they wouldn't stop. They just kept coming, and there seemed to be no end in sight. She did love him, she really did, and she was sorry it took her so long to realize it. She'd thought that it was just lust before, but now she knew that she did love him... Only it was a bit too late for that now, because he had ended them. They were...over.

She pulled out her cell phone and dialed Chris's number, hoping against hope that he would answer. Maybe he got tired of me and stayed out last night with another woman, she thought when his voicemail came on. She tried not to think about that possibility, though, as she left him a message. She was positive that she was just using Chris and didn't love him, but she needed someone, and she knew that he could make her feel better...

"Chris, I... I don't know where you are or where you were last night, but you didn't come back to the room last night and I'm worried about you.. Could you maybe call me back or come to the room soon so we can talk?"

She didn't know what else to say, so she sent the message. She flipped her phone closed and put it in her pocket, then started walking slowly and aimlessly down the hallway, lamenting her loss. She was upset that her whole plan was now hanging in the balance until she found another inside person, but she was more upset that she'd just lost Hunter.

"Who am I kidding? He was never mine in the first place," she whispered to herself.

She stopped walking and found herself in front of a room. She didn't know whose room she had ended up at, but she knew it wasn't her room or Hunter's room, so she didn't care. She just stood there, unsure of why she was standing there but standing there nonetheless.

"I thought I told you that I didn't want you," a deep voice said from behind her, causing her to jump.

"Holy shit, Kane, what are you doing here?" she gasped, one hand over her rapidly beating heart. "Don't scare me like that, you monster!"

He was about to make a mean comment about how she was standing in front of his hotel room when he noticed the tears on her cheeks. He didn't approve of what she and Hunter were doing behind Chris and Stephanie's back, but she was still a human being, and a woman at that, and he was concerned.

"Why are you crying?" he asked suspiciously.

"It's none of your business," she snapped, getting angry already.

"I'll tell you like I told Hunter when we had that match the other day," he began. "You-"

"Fuck you and fuck Hunter, too," she interrupted, turning on her heel and walking away without a backwards glance.

"Well, someone's PMSing," he chuckled. He shook his head, then went inside his room and shut the door.

A/N: Just the usual end of the chapter rant... I know Chris and Steph aren't in this chapter a whole lot... But did you guys catch the whole "let's have unprotected sex" type thing with them? Keep that in mind, because it could come into play someday in a later chapter... And for ONCE, I find myself feeling sorry for Trish, and a little sorry for Hunter, too. Just this once, LOL...