A/N: Thank you all very much for the positive feedback for this story, it's so flattering, you guys are the best.

I wanted to get another chapter of my other story typed up before starting on a new chapter for this one, but, oh well … with a bit of luck that one will be up shortly.

Hope you enjoy it at least half as much as I enjoyed writing it, haha :)

Also, sky samuelle, I might have to depart a bit from the original plot I so graciously snagged off of you, I hope you don't mind.

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For a reception Juliet had dragged her heels to, it had turned out to be a more than enjoyable evening. It was the first time in ages that she hadn't spent the night alone, in a dark corner or sipping a glass of Merlot at the bar.

They had continued their conversation about books, it was nice to have someone who enjoyed a good book as much as she did, Rachel had never been one to curl up in a corner and just read, Juliet frequently teased that the only thing her sister had read from cover to cover was Cosmo, and even that had to be dealt with in several sittings. Rachel would snap back that at least she had had fun in her youth.

Of course, Sawyer had mocked the fact that her favourite book was Carrie, according to him she didn't look like the kind of girl who would enjoy Stephen King, she countered back that he didn't really come across as the kind of guy who would read Gone with the Wind.

"Touché," he had said, with a smile on the corner of his mouth.

At some point she had asked him which of the big pharmaceutical tycoon he was working for, he had given her a blank look, raised his hands in surrender and said, "Okay, you got me. I don't work for a pharmaceutical company, to be a hundred percent honest, I shouldn't really be here."

She had immediately wondered what on earth he was doing at the reception if it wasn't to kiss Edmund's ass and try and get him to sign some billion dollar contract. Thankfully, he caught on to her uncertainty and continued, "I was meeting a potential client in the bar downstairs. He didn't show. I was just about to leave when I saw a sign for this event, on the off chance it was an open bar thing ..."

Juliet looked at him with disbelief, but she had to admit that she appreciated the man's honesty, "You decided to crash the party?"

"You're not going to get me kicked out, are you?" he asked.

"And you didn't leave when you realised the drinks weren't free?" she ignored his question.

"I saw a pretty blonde, sitting alone at the bar, looking as if she needed some company ..."

"Flattery won't get you anywhere with me," she said, before adding. "But I appreciate the effort."

She didn't press the matter further, she didn't want to scare away the only person in the room who was paying attention to her, and she liked him. It was funny how comfortable she felt with someone she had never seen before this evening, there was just something about him that inspired her to let her guard down for a while -well that or the Merlot, she wasn't exactly sure how many glasses she had drank.

But by the time the young guy behind the bar was ready to close up and practically begging them to finish their drinks so he could get on with his life, she felt rather tipsy. Not so much that she couldn't put one foot in front of the other, but just enough to not jump away from Sawyer when he put her arm through his and walked her out.

As she slid into the taxi, she felt him slip something into her hand as he said, "If you ever want to talk about books or something ..."

It was his card, with his phone number.

"Juliet!" Rachel snapped her out of her reverie. "Were you even listening to what I was saying?"

"Umm?" Juliet replied, her sister had dropped by to see if she could borrow one of her dresses for a date that evening. "I'm so sorry, Rach, what were you saying?"

"I was asking you whether I should wear the black one or the blue one," she asked dangling two dresses in front of Juliet's eyes.

"The black," Juliet said without hesitation. "It'll bring out the femme fatale in you."

Rachel chuckled, Juliet continued pointing towards the back of the closet, "But if you look in the back of over there, that red number will make you look like a real cougar."

"Oh! My! God!" Rachel laughed as she took the Scarlett item out. "Where on earth did you get this? And why? It's so not you."

It was true, the flashy red dress looked absolutely out of place in her closet, it was very far from her usual neutral colour cardigans, it was also very clingy and very very low cut.

"Uh, I guess it must have seemed like a good idea at the time," Juliet replied, not really remembering how she had acquired the dress. Her cheeks turned slightly pink.

"Don't get me wrong Jules, I'm sure you'd look fantastic in it."

Juliet looked at her sister sceptically.

"You can deny it as much as you like, little sis', you have a fantastic body," Rachel assured her. "It's just not what you usually go for. You know what you should do? You should wear it to one of Ed's dull events in that dress, and ignore him all night, while you flirt with every single other man there. That'll show that cheating bastard!"

Juliet giggled, if only she had the guts to.

"Speaking of dull events, how was last night? Unbearable as usual?" Rachel asked.

"Actually, I enjoyed myself, it was fun."

"Seriously?"

"Seriously."

"Why? What happened? Did someone throw a glass of Chardonnay in Edmund's face again? Man, I'd have loved to be a fly on the wall that night!"

Juliet laughed at the memory. Karma was a bitch, really, a couple of months earlier, at a similar reception, Edmund had pinched a woman's backside, thinking she was someone else, turned out she was the uptight wife of an investor, and she had swerved around and dumped the contents of her glass on Edmund.

Juliet had almost went up to the woman and congratulated her.

"No," Juliet replied almost sheepishly.

"What?" Rachel pressed.

"It's nothing, really. I had a nice conversation with a guy. It was nice," Juliet said as placidly as she could.

"You met a guy! Juliet, that's awesome!" her sister said merrily. "Is he good looking?"

"It's not like that, Rach. It was just talking, and I'm married," she added, twisting the wedding ring around her finger.

"Yeah, right," Rachel snorted. "At best, you're in an open marriage, and it's about time you took advantage of it, if Ed can go out and screw anything in a skirt, you can go and have some good time too, god knows you need it."

"Rachel!"

"Seriously, sis, you're married, and I'm a single mother in remission from cancer, and even I've had more sex than you in the past three years. I'm sure mom's had sex more than you in the past three years," Rachel pointed out, ignoring the looks of horror Juliet was giving her. "So is he good looking?"

"Yes."

"Do you have his number or something?"

Juliet remembered the little piece of cardboard she had left in her jacket pocket, "Yes."

"Well, then it's settled then, you call him up, and ask him out for drinks. And you wear the red dress," Rachel said, determined.

"But … Rach, I can't, you know me, it's not the sort of thing I do."

"Wrong. It might not the sort of thing genius but geeky Juliet Burke does, but it's totally the kind of thing smart, sexy, sassy and confident Juliet Carlson Burke would do," Rachel said, raising the dress in front of her and waggling her eyebrows suggestively.

"Don't you have a date to get to?" Juliet asked, feigning annoyance, even though deep down she knew her big sister was right.

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* * *

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As soon as Rachel had left, Juliet had realised she had better get started on dinner, Edmund would be home soon, and he'd be expecting to just have to sit down and be served.

Of course at some point during the meal, he would mock her cooking skills, or lack thereof and make a crack about how it was strange that she was so talented with mixing chemicals and coming up with life changing drugs, yet she couldn't even get scrambled eggs right. And as usual, Juliet would just ignore it, let it fly five miles above her head, or at least pretend she didn't feel hurt by his constant snide comments.

She was starting to get worried that some day she would reach breaking point, snap and mix a lethal cocktail in with his vegetable soup. She could just picture Horacio Cane and his gang striving in in their Hummers to investigate the crime scene. They would have a pool of suspects, tons of people hated Edmund Burke -jealous competitors, scorned mistresses, the scorned husbands of those mistresses, but they would quickly come to the conclusion that the real culprit was the quiet geeky wife.

Then she'd be carted off to jail for the rest of her life.

She wished she could come up with an excuse to be out when he got back. She wished her mother hadn't been in town, then she'd be the one babysitting Julian while Rachel was out on her date. She wished she had the guts to kick him out.

A little less than an hour later, dinner was ready, his daily glass of whiskey was waiting for him on the table, and Juliet was reading her favourite passage of Carrie, all that was missing was him. The phone rang, she just let the answering machine pick it up.

"Jules, it's me," Edmund's voice croaked. "I'm sorry I couldn't call you earlier, but I was called out this morning for a meeting in New York, I thought I'd be able to make it home on time, but the meeting is just running along, we might even have to work tomorrow. See you at work, first thing on Monday."

Juliet looked up at the answering machine with fury, as if it was the machine that had just given her that pathetic excuse.

Hadn't he supposed to be spending the day at the Country Club, playing golf and getting steam baths?

A last minute meeting in New York on a Saturday that might run on until Sunday? Of course that made perfect sense. And was that a female she had heard laughing in the background?

She couldn't believe it, he couldn't even get his new girlfriend to shut up long enough to leave a pathetic lie on the answering machine.

The son of a bitch.

That was it, she had had it.

She stormed off to the closet in the entrance hall and grabbed the jacket she had been wearing the night before, she pulled out the little piece of cardboard, and dialled the number from it.

Someone picked up on the third ring, "Yes."

"Hi, it's Juliet, from last night," she said, as determined as ever.

"Oh, hey," Sawyer replied.

"I was wondering if you would happen to be free for drinks tonight?"

"Yeah, sure," he said eagerly.

They arranged to meet an hour later in a classy bar just next to the marina.

Juliet was now frantically trying to find something to wear, while at the same time losing her nerve. What had she been thinking? She couldn't honestly go through with this, she collapsed on to her bed, unsure of what she was going to do next. But then two things caught her eye: her and Edmund's wedding photograph, and that damn red dress.

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* * *

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One thing was for sure, he had not expected her to hear from her that soon.

In fact, after he had seen her off the night before, he had doubted that he would ever hear from her again. He wasn't used to working with women like her.

When she had flatly told him that flattery wouldn't get him anywhere with her, he had instantly known that she wasn't about to fall for his usual lines. She also didn't seem to be like the kind of person who would step out on her husband, not matter how many whores the douche bag was doing behind her back.

Regardless, he had had a nice time with her, it was refreshing to talk with someone who knew something beyond the contents of Jennifer Aniston's latest diet and the first and last names of all of Elizabeth Taylor's Husbands. He had been even more delighted to find out she liked her books almost as much as he did.

Of course, her obsession with Stephen King's Carrie was a bit terrifying, but totally amusing. He wondered if she could see herself in Carrie, she was a little withdrawn and he had read just how intelligent she was. He knew how kids like that were treated in High School, if you're not a jock or a cheerleader, they make sure your life is hell.

So when she had called, asking him out for drinks, he had been surprised, but he had immediately accepted, and here he was, sitting in a bar, waiting for her to arrive. Turning his head around every time he heard the door open to see if it was her. A few girls in skimpy outfits came in, followed by a group of guys in business suits, then a couple, then finally ...

His eyes literally popped out of their sockets, there she was, scanning the room looking for him, dressed in what Sawyer concluded to be the sexiest red dress he had ever seen on anyone. It was clingy in all the right places, and low cut, revealing just enough to be enticing, but not so much that it was indecent.

If Sawyer hadn't known better he would never have guessed this was the same shy woman from the night before. All the guys in the bar were starring at her, transfixed, she remained un-phased by this, almost as if she wasn't aware of her effect on the opposite gender.

Meow! Sawyer thought as he waived to attract her attention.

Let the show begin.

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TBC...