I'm having a lot of fun writing this one. It's a bit of challenge (this chapter in particular) but I like how it turned out and I'm eager to update it the next chapter, but it still needs work but I think you'll it as much as I do. Anyhoo...read on and continue reviewing. I have taken your words to heart (sounds like heart when Kilgharrah says it).


I have a fantastic life. It's not ordinary or overly complicated. I'm not a librarian nor am I daredevil. It's practical yet spirited and at times can be downright hilarious. I visit with my girlfriends at our book a month reading club; this month we're reading 'The Crystal Cave'. In my spare time I volunteer at the crisis shelter and I find homes for abandon or stray kittens and puppies. Am I due for canonization? Not exactly. I'm no saint either.

I love my job. I work insane hours and travel all the time, but I still stop to smell the roses. I vacation twice a year. Okay, so I cannot stay in anything less than four star accommodations, but while I'm there, I do try my best to experience the place as a local and learn something about its culture beyond what you would read in the guide books. There's no Noble prize for that is there?

I over indulge in shopping. Shoes, mostly shoes but my overcrowded closets are more honest about that than I am willing be right now. This is why I love Leon, he understands my need – the shared addiction is the only thing that's stereotypically gay about that gay man. We do it at lunch. The office is in a great location for it. Whether we are here or there, he makes me laugh. We're always together, although I do like most everyone at work.

I'm a pragmatist at heart and it is not in my nature to dislike a person who isn't inherently evil. I sincerely subscribe to the live and let live way of life and besides, I'm far too busy with my life to pay too much attention to the minor trappings of other people's dalliances.

Don't get me wrong. I do really care about people. I sign the office birthday cards and even sing when there's cake. I have a great family that I adore and they keep me grounded. Wonderful friends? I have loads of them. In fact, it was through some of them that I first heard stories about him.

They told me he was witty, a tad sardonic but with genuine comedic timing so it wasn't ever offensive. They told me he was smart – graduated at the top of his class and from true effort not as of his legendary pedigree. They told me he was handsome, striking one of them said. They told me he could stand before you and negotiate himself into and out of your life in a way that would make you glad in one moment or leaving you sobbing uncontrollably the next, either way you'd walk away from it just happy for having been a part of the exchange.

Quick observation proved that they were right in the first three instances. And in short order, I came to see that the last one was also a fait accompli. He was everything they had promised and more. That worried me. See, Arthur was just the right combination of arresting and brilliant that made him a danger to my person.

An intelligent, funny man with chiseled features, a winning smile and perfect biceps would be any woman's Achilles' heel, but mine in particular. Men like that, like him should be outlawed, brandished with a scarlet letter and banished to the far, far, farthest corner of my periphery.

It was not loathing at first sight. We had a rather cordial meeting when Uther Pendragon introduced me to his son. He was cocky, very full of himself, but that is to be expected for one of his breeding and overall prettiness.

I shook his hand and more than likely he mistook my guarded professionalism as a blatant disregard for his charms – the cold reaction of a heartless shrew. But I'll remind you this man is my boss and I know I didn't mention it to you before but this job is my dream job and I cannot allow anything to interfere with that dream.

Whenever I found myself in his company, I found a way to leave it as soon as possible. I kept my distance, but he is my boss so I can't avoid him nor can I completely extricate him from my life like I have with some (Gwaine, the office stalker). At company parties, I never socialized with him more than I had to and if we were ever alone I made sure there was an endless stream of work related drivel to bore him with and a stony face to match. I made him crazy. Did I say, 'I made him crazy'? I meant to say 'it made him crazy'; 'it made him crazy'.

But throughout the course of my life, I had developed an excellent talent for compartmentalizing, so mentally, I wrote 'Do Not Touch' in big, red Sharpie letters on Post it Notes and stuck them all over his fighting fit body. From that moment on, he was little more than a curiosity but nothing more than that.

I never laughed at any of his funny jokes. I refused to fawn over him like all the other women in the office or any who came within a reasonable radius of him it seemed. That wasn't so much because he was off limits; I'm just not much of a fawner, really.

If I had to use one word to describe my behavior in the year since I had met the man, that word would be indifference. I was very indifferent towards him. For the third time now, I'll say to you, he is my boss. Although that bit of reality doesn't seem to bother him.

Still, the hatred didn't come until much later. Arthur, for the most part appeared to have just the opposite reaction from what I had anticipated. The allure of something shiny and new that did not acknowledge his presence or beg to be near him was too great. It must be a new sensation for him, I'm sure. I think I became something of a challenge to him and the more I resisted, the harder he would try.

He wooed, he pressed and then he wooed some more.I mostly ignored it, but then it got too hard and began consuming too many of the hours in our day. So I did what any sound minded person in my position would do. I'm employed a deflection strategy in the form of Merlin. A great guy, but we knew we could only be friends, even though there was an initial spark. This might have been the moment were things fell apart.

Arthur did not take our wouldbe union very well and my little scheme backfired. He began thinking the worst of my intentions and my relationship with Merlin. He fantasized certain realities that weren't even there. I wanted him to stay away, but I didn't want him to hate me. Nevertheless, the confrontational encounters that ensued, pretty much cemented our mutual disdain.

This was when the hatred started. It was slow burn, but the fire's been raging ever since.

So obviously, you're sitting there wondering. You've heard my side of things and I'm certain you are waiting for me to answer your most important question. Why Guinevere, given the preponderance of the facts as previously outlined in your circumstances; why, oh why, did you invite him home with you that night?

A very small part of me did it to be cruel, but in all honesty the tension we had built up was just plain fun. Watching his reactions to my taunting was a true delight at times, especially when it made him fumble and fluster in front of others like his father. It was good pay back for him being born so beautiful for no good reason.

Most of the time, my teasing resulted in him turning red-faced in anger and clamming up or left him so exasperated that he would spend the rest of the day in his office in hopes of never seeing me and being able to sneak away when the office wasn't looking.

But recently there's been a wicked turn of events. The anger or frustration that I had come to expect and enjoy, evolved into the must unbearably cute pouting you could imagine. It's not just one of those: look at me I'm so sad pouty faces. They were: look at me it's all your fault why I'm so sad and only you can make it better, pouts. One of those babies wrapped in a damn Anne Geddes sunflower would find it hard pressed to compete with.

So on the night of my one year anniversary, I gave in to the temptation that haunted me, because another thing you should know about me is that I don't believe in burdening oneself with unnecessary obstacles and trials. Canonization is definitely not in the cards for me. Exercise the demons and then move on.

And as for your follow up question as to why the hell I send him a similar message the following day? Well that was just plain suicide.


A/N: I'll probably post chapter four this weekend.