I somehow ended up without homework tonight, so I wrote another chapter. Thanks to everyone who reviewed last time. It made me feel all good about myself. c:

I do not own the Mortal Instruments. All characters belong to Cassandra Clare.

A muffled "come in" sounded through the door an Clary cautiously entered the room. The first thing she noticed was Jace's disheveled appearance. His suit jacket was slung carelessly over the back of his chair, the sleeves of his shirt were rolled up to his elbows, and he was sifting through a mess of folders and files on his desk with frantic eyes.

"Everything alright, Mr. Wayland?" she asked.

His head snapped up and relief flooded his expression. "Thank God you're here. I have an appointment with a client in a few hours and can't find the case file."

She rose her eyebrows at him. What kind of lawyer loses case files? "This involves me how?"

He cocked his head to the side. "I need you to help me find it. That's kind of your job after all."

"Whose to say I took the job?" she questioned, crossing her arms.

"Would you be here if you hadn't?" he countered. "Besides, nobody in their right mind would resist the opportunity to work for me."

Clary scoffed. "I could easily resist."

"But you didn't."

"Only because I can't say no to Luke."

Jace tsk'd. "Excuses, excuses."

Her eyes narrowed and she decided to change the subject. "What's the client's name?"

"Santiago, Raphael. There's a lawsuit against him claiming discrimination against one of his hotel's employees."

She walked over to the beige filing cabinet and opened one of the drawers to find papers and folders haphazardly thrown in it. "Geez, who the hell was your assistant before me?" Reluctantly, she began to search through the unorganized files.

Jace, who had gone back to searching through his pile of papers, sighed. "Aline."

Clary froze at the name. "Penhallow?"

He nodded. "Yeah. Didn't know how to do her job worth shit." He looked up at her with a smirk. "At least not the one she was paid to do."

She gaped at him from across the room. "That's disgusting."

He shrugged. "She is a pretty nasty girl, if you know what I mean."

Clamping her hands over her ears, Clary groaned disgust. "Stop it or I'll never survive another family dinner with her."

"You're related to her?" Surprise colored his voice.

"Oh, God, no. Unfortunately, she's my fiancée's cousin."

Jace stopped what he was doing. "You're engaged to Sebastian Verlac? Of Verlac Industries? That man has more lawsuits against him than I've had girlfriends."

"That's what happens when you own of the biggest corporations in the country." His lawsuits didn't worry her. Most of them were lies designed to ruin his image and he would end up winning them anyway.

They worked in silence for a few minutes until Jace spoke up again. "You going to take his last name?"

"Um, yeah." She said it like it was the most obvious thing in the world. Jace scrunched up his nose. "What was that expression for?"

"Clary Verlac just doesn't sound right to me," he said nonchalantly. "I think you should keep Fray."

Clary mentally laughed at the thought of what Sebastian's reaction to that would be. She was about to give up on searching for the file when an idea came to mind. She scooped up the drawers contents and dumped it on the floor and did the same for the rest of the filing cabinet.

"What the hell are you doing, Fray?" Jace exclaimed.

Rolling her eyes, she pointed to the papers on the floor. "If we're going to find that file, we need to organize all this."

Two and half hours later, the duo had successfully organized most of the client records and case files by alphabetical order into the filing cabinets and Jace had found the Santiago file. Clary was currently scouring the supply closet for some extra folders to put the left over papers in. She finally located them and grabbed and handful before heading back to Jace's office. At the end of the hall, she spotted a familiar, shaggy-haired boy.

"Simon?" she called. He turned around and she noticed his face didn't light up like it used to when he saw her. She stopped a few inches in front of him. "What are you doing here?"

"Visiting my girlfriend," he replied curtly.

Her brow furrowed in confusion. "Girlfriend?"

"Yeah. Me and Izzy started dating about three weeks ago. You would know that if you bothered talking to us anymore."

She felt a pang in her chest. Sebastian had forbid her from seeing Simon for awhile. He thought it was inappropriate to spend so much time with a guy that wasn't him. "I-I'm sorry. These past few months have been very," she paused to think of the right word, "hectic."

"It's fine. You're going to be married soon. Obviously you don't need your best friends anymore."

Her heart clenched. "Si, I need you more than you think."

"Really? What exactly do you need me for?" he demanded.

She chewed on her bottom lip. There was no way she could explain about Sebastian. Not yet. "I- I can't tell you."

He shook his head slightly. "You've changed, Clare, and I don't like it. Call me when you go back to the old you; the one who could tell me anything and actually talked to me." With that, he turned on his heel and disappeared down the hall.

Her eyes burned and a lump formed in her throat, but she pushed the tears away and returned to Jace's office. He looked up from the computer as she placed the folders on his desk.

"Are you okay?" he asked with concern.

She nodded meekly. "Just tired."

He glanced down at his watch. "I have another hour until Santiago comes. Wanna go get coffee?"

Clary graciously accepted and they walked down to the closest Starbucks. They sat a table, both drinking black coffee, and talked about random things. Jace would say something funny and she would laugh, but her heart wasn't really in it. Her encounter with Simon kept replaying in her head. She missed her best friends. She hadn't even seen Izzy in over a month and they worked in the same building. The guilt of being such a terrible friend knotted her stomach.

The rest of her day was spent doing little jobs for Jace; organizing files, confirming appointments, cleaning here and there, and going on coffee runs. It was well past midnight when she finally arrived home.

Entering the penthouse, she was relieved to see that Sebastian had already gone to bed. Seeing him would mean confessing about her new boss and she wasn't read for that just yet. Silently, she made her way to the bedroom and her heart dropped.

Sebastian was waiting in the room for her, eyes swimming with rage. "You were supposed to be home over two hours ago, Clarissa." His voice was deadly calm.

"I lost track of time," she stated.

He ignored her comment. "So, I heard you're working for Wayland now."

Her eyes grew wide. "H-How did you learn that?"

Waving a dismissive hand in the air, he replied. "I have my resources." He stared her down for a moment. "I don't want you working there anymore."

"Are you asking me to quit?" she asked incredulously.

"Oh, I'm not asking."

She knew what that meant. He wasn't going to take no for an answer and there would be consequences for resisting. The same thing had happened when he didn't want her to hang out with Simon. Despite this, she found herself getting angry. "Well, that's not going to happen."

He closed the space between them and struck her. "I think you're going to do what I say, Clarissa."

Cradling her cheek, she held her ground. "You already made me lose my friends, you don't get to take away my job, too. You don't own me, Sebastian."

He roughly clutched her right wrist and held her hand up. "I think the diamond ring on your finger says otherwise."

"We're not married yet. Until we are, that ring means absolute shit."

He grabbed her face, his fingers digging into her cheeks. "You are mine, Clarissa. Clearly you need a lesson on just how much you control I have over you."

Suddenly, she was flung onto the bed with Sebastian on top of her.

Review. :D Or don't. I'm not here to tell you what to do.