So here it is, chapter four! I really hope you enjoy and pleaseeeee rate and review.Reviews really help me get motivated to write more (even when they're reviews saying that my story is crap).Oh! And thank you so much Wiccanprincess for adding my story to your favorites. It made my day : )

I woke to the morning's rays burning through my window and onto my face, making the back of my eyelids appear orange. I pulled the heavy burgundy comforter over my head. The sun was too strong. I turned onto my side, away from the window overlooking Manhattan Bay.

"Good, you're awake." That voice. The unmistakable French accent.

"Jacque," I pulled the comforter away from my face, trying to fathom a smile despite my extreme grogginess. "Good morning."

"Good morning, sweet cheeks." He got up from the chair he had been sitting in and came to my bedside to plant a kiss on my forehead. "Suppose dinner was a no-go last night, hmm?"

Underneath the comforter I pinched the skin of my arm in between my fingernails. "Oh, sweetheart, I'm so sorry. After I came here I just laid down and watched a movie and I guess I fell asleep. I really meant to meet you for dinner, honest."

"It's fine. I sent a message to the concierge to forward to you that I couldn't make it anyway." He went back to his chair and grabbed a newspaper then came back to the bed and sat down on the edge beside me. "Something came up."

"Oh, really?"

"Yes, really." He closed the newspaper then folded it over. "I had to oversee the new laboratory here before they could begin mass production."

"What?" I asked, sitting up on my elbows.

"Didn't I tell you? We've built a laboratory right here in New York."

"No, no I knew that." I could feel my eyebrows knitting together. "What's this about mass production?"

"We've begun mass production of the regeneration serum." He handed me the newspaper. "And we would have had it ready for market had someone not broken in."

I opened the newspaper then shook out the crease. Front page of the Daily Bugle in big, bold letters: "Sirene: The Sinful Siren Of New York, as reported by: Jeanne Janson and edited by J. Jonah Jameson". Below the headline was a blurry picture of a woman's silhouette, Triton in hand. I bit down on my lip, choking back a laugh.

"She looks like a bad knockoff of that mermaid on the tuna fish can." I giggled but Jacque didn't find it the least bit amusing.

"She's following us, Ada." He stood from the bed, his face pinched in with fear. He walked over to the window overlooking the bay, drawing the heavy velvet curtains down. He turned back and began to pace at the foot of my bed. "She robbed the laboratory in Milan and now here, thousands of miles away in New York!"

I skimmed the article. So, this Sirene character seemed quite the evil seductress. As the article went, she put a man under her spell by merely singing to him. Once under her spell she forced him to attack Ms. Janson. When the siren and her slave had pinned Ms. Janson on the roof of the Daily Bugle, Spiderman (who was obviously angry to have another fiend crowding in on his domain) had come to the rescue, just to show the new-girl-in-town that New York was still his town.

"Are you sure this is the same woman from Milan? I mean, says here she's some sort of killer." I handed Jacque the paper. "The woman from Milan may have been a thief but she was no killer."

"What makes you so sure of that?" Jacque crumpled the newspaper in his hands. "Thieves can easily become murderers. It's just like cokeheads and heroin-addicts; as soon as the adrenaline rush is gone they move onto more serious stuff to get their fix."

"Well, what are you going to do about it?" I sank back underneath the comforter. "It's not like you can just get rid of her."

He had stopped pacing.

"Right, Jacque?" I had stuck my foot in my mouth. "Right?" I pulled the comforter down from my face. "Jacque?"

He pulled out his cell phone from his back pocket. "Charles, yes, it's Dr. Rausenbluem." He spoke into his cell phone, his face void of any sort of emotion. "Just a moment." He put his hand over the receiving end of his phone then looked at me, "Sweetheart, do you mind?"

"Jacque, you aren't thinking what I think you're thinking." He looked at me with those eyes of his like smooth brown pebbles. "Right?"

"No, sweetheart, I just remembered that I forgot to do something in the lab. Now, if you would?" He nodded towards my bedroom door. I sighed. Wrapping the comforter around me, I pulled it from the bed and walked into the kitchen. Jacque immediately shut my bedroom door.

On the large white marble table sat a huge vase of, my favorite, Calla Lilies. I wrapped the comforter tighter around my body, rubbed the sleep from my eyes, and leaned in to rub my cheek against the soft white flesh of the lilies. I opened my eyes and saw a card. I didn't bother opening it. As bitter as this may sound, there was no one I wanted to be receiving flowers from. No, not even from my future husband. I walked over to the couch, shuffling my feet against the marble floors as I went. A breath of air rushed from my lungs as I flopped down on the couch and buried my face into the feather-down pillow.

My bedroom door opened. "Ada, I have to run." I could hear him as he stepped out of my room. "Ada? Ada, where are you?"

"Here." I spoke into the pillow, too tired to move. He kissed the top of my head before rushing to the front door.

"Sorry to keep on running off like this." He opened the door. "I promise I'll make it up to you. I love you, beautiful."

He lingered at the door. He knew he wouldn't get those same three words coming from my lips. I was deathly afraid of those words and had never said them to him, or anyone else for that matter, before. Yet he continued trying, everyday. I suppose you had to give the guy props for persistence.

"You too." I replied. Perhaps too rushed to care about my blasé reply, he left and closed the door behind him.

Once he was gone I turned over onto my side and watched the empty fireplace across the living room. Empty, when hours before it had been so alive. Without the fire, it served as a beautiful showpiece for people to look at and awe over its lovely construction. With fire dancing in its mouth, people awed at its ability to warm up a large room like the living room, with it being such a small fireplace. With fire it had purpose. Without fire it served only as a showpiece.

I sat up and decided to rummage through the stack of magazines the concierge had sent up for me last night. Newsweek? No. Nowadays all news was bad news. Time Magazine? Already read it last week. Vogue?

I held the Vogue in my hands. There, on the cover, a high-cheekboned, emerald-eyed woman stared up at me. Her heart-shaped voluptuous crimson lips were open, mid-laugh. Long, delicate fingers were gloved in black, satin gloves, and rested under her chin. Her red hair came down in perfectly shaped ringlets around her oval face. There was a light that glowed from within that illuminated her rouged cheeks and lily skin. Beside her picture read: "The New Face of Beauty" and suddenly I wanted to throw up. I wanted to scratch my skin raw. I wanted to be anyone else but me.

I ripped the cover from the thick magazine and stood from the couch, making my way over to the kitchen sink. I watched the water as it was spewed from the faucet. I crumpled the cover into a ball, and, using a fork, stuffed it into the drain. With a flick of my wrist I flipped the switch for the garbage disposal and listened as the paper was ripped into a million different little pieces.

As I walked back to the couch I saw in the corner of my eye that same woman from the cover of the magazine. I nearly screamed when I turned and saw her standing there in my front entrance. I stepped forward, grabbed the mirror from the wall and threw it onto the marble floor. It shattered into a million shards of glass. I stepped forward, ignoring the slight pin pricks as the smaller pieces dug themselves into my toes. Leaning over to get an overhead view of the glasses, I smiled. "How's that for the new face of beauty?"

So what do you think? What do you think about Ada? What about Jacque? Do they seem too fake? Please review! It would help me a lot.