A/N: I know right? What's with the speedy update?
I think, I just wanted to get this boring transitional chapter over and done with so I could get on with the action.
I apologise in advance, this chapter is all over the place, and kind of clumsy, I tried to organise it a bit better, but this is the best I could do.
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The next couple of weeks went by smoothly.
At first she had been a more than just a little apprehensive about keeping in touch with Sawyer after what had happened.
After she had left that hotel room, she had been extremely mortified by the turn of events. She couldn't believe that she had went so far, only to pull back at the last moment. There was a word for women who did things like that, tease. A label, Juliet had never thought would be fit for her.
But when he had tried to unhook her bra, she had panicked, she couldn't go through with it anymore.
And then she had cried. Cried about her unfaithful husband in front of him, and that just made her feel pathetic. She had just wanted the ground to open up and swallow her.
She had been surprised when he had asked her if he could call her again. Why on earth would he even want to do that?
She hadn't been with many, if any, understanding men in her life. She had hesitated for a minute, while she stood at the door, but he was right, she did enjoy spending time with him, he had been the only person, apart from Rachel, who had given her his undivided attention, and appeared to be actually interested in what she was saying in quite some time.
And, oddly enough, they shared quite a couple of things in common, such as a fondness for good old fashioned rock'n roll from the 1960s, or disrespect for people who dog-eared the pages of their book to mark the place where they stopped reading.
If he could get passed what had taken place, or rather what hadn't taken place in that hotel room, well so could she.
And that was the best decision she had taken in a long time.
They had met up every couple of days for lunch, when their schedules allowed them to do so, sometimes she had to work through lunch, and sometimes he had to meet up with prospective clients or investment opportunities -he was a commodity derivatives investor.
At the beginning, they had stuck to the usual casual topics -books, movies, music and politics. But progressively their conversations became more and more personal.
Soon enough, he had become a true confident, a person of trust, someone, other than Rachel, she could pour her heart to.
One Saturday morning, over coffee, Rachel asked her how things were going with 'Evil Ed', and if she had made up her mind about getting a divorce yet. In lieu of an answer, Juliet had simply sighed. She knew her sister was right, but the constant pressure was unnerving.
"What about that guy you met a few weeks ago, did you ever call him?"
"No," Juliet had replied quickly, a little too quickly perhaps.
"You did, didn't you? Why didn't you tell me, Jules?"
"We're just friends, nothing has happened between us ..."
"Yet," Rachel finished for her sister.
Juliet raised an eyebrow.
"You wouldn't have lied about it, if it was only friendship," Rachel stated. "I'm happy for you little sis', you deserve something good from life, maybe this is your shot at that 'happily ever after' thing."
Maybe Rachel was right. Maybe this was her chance at happiness. She didn't know.
The only thing she was absolutely certain of was the fact that she was falling for Sawyer and falling fast.
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* * *
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"Come on," she said, pulling him towards her car. "I want to show you something."
They were supposed to be going for lunch at a little seafood restaurant, West of Miami Beach, but he obliged and got into the passenger seat, "Where are we going?"
"You'll see when we get there," she replied excited, and turned on the radio. They stayed silent during the trip, although he had heard her hum along to Petula Clark's Downtown when it was played by the radio station.
After twenty minutes of driving, she pulled over and stopped the car, "Let's go."
"Where are we?" he asked.
"Just c'mon!" she said eagerly.
He had never seen her this excited, she was usually a very calm person, soothingly calm.
He got out the car, and looked around, they were in the middle of nowhere. The place was dead, not another human being in sight. She disappeared down a track, he was curious as to why she would bring him here.
He called for her to wait up and followed her down the path.
The track lead to a little beach. It was deserted.
She just stood there, facing the sea, the wind was blowing her hair away from her face, and turning her cheeks a bright shade of pink. She had never looked this happy; she was even more beautiful.
"It's beautiful isn't it?" she broke the silence.
"Yes," he agreed, standing behind her with his hand on the small of her back.
"This is my favourite place in the world," she said, leaning against him. "When I need to think, when I'm angry, when I'm sad, I come here."
She turned around towards him, "I've never taken anyone here with me before."
He coked his head to the side, "Why me?"
And really, why him? He hadn't done anything extraordinary for her, he hadn't even put his massive seduction operation into gear yet. He had just become her friend.
She turned back towards the ocean, and said, "I don't know, I just trust you."
And just there, his heart had nearly split in two, and he had almost told her everything, that he was a conman, that he had been sent here to con her, that he was sorry, and he couldn't go through with it, because at some point this whole thing with her had become something more than just a job.
He couldn't hurt her, he could never hurt her.
But he hadn't said anything, for one thing it would just cause her pain, and then it would put an end to all of this and If he was being perfectly honest with himself, he enjoyed Juliet's company more than he had expected to.
The last couple of weeks had been his happiest in a long time.
It had been really been refreshing to spend time with a woman, without any sex or seducing being involved. The first part of his plan had been just to get to know her, become her friend.
Through time, and as she started feeling really comfortable with him, he found out that behind her timid and shy surface, she had concealed an quick, sharp and witty sense of humour, which she reserved for the lucky few who took the time to get to know her.
He didn't have to pretend that he liked spending time with her, like he had with most of the women on his previous jobs, he could almost be himself. He had discovered that she enjoyed his slightly sarcastic edge, and that she gave back as good as she got in the wit department. More than once at night, he had laughed thinking back to something she had said.
He was even starting to feel at his ease around her too, so at ease that he had almost forgotten that he was a grifter on a job one day, and nearly ruined the entire con.
She had been telling him about her childhood, growing up between Miami and Washington D.C. after her parents' divorce, she had then asked him, "What about you? What was it like where you grew up?"
"My parents died when I was a kid, grew up with my Grandparents in a trailer park," he had said without thinking. When he realised what he had said, he panicked for a minute, he quickly regained his cool and added, "In a car crash."
He hadn't ever told any of the woman he had worked on that his parents were dead, he usually invented some story about growing up on a cattle ranch and having the time of his life -cowboys turned bored rich woman on, for some odd reason.
But strangely enough, it was so difficult to lie to Juliet, it had been almost torturous for him to tell her that he was some sort of investor. He felt like she had the ability to pierce right through his bullshit, which is why he remained purposely vague about himself around her.
"If you want to have lunch before it's time for me to get back to work, we should get moving," she interrupted his thinking.
She wasn't watching the ocean anymore, she was facing him, a strand of hair flew into her face, he leaned forward to brush it away, but he didn't pull back and neither did she. They hadn't been this physically close since that second night.
His hand was still on her cheek, it was almost as if he no longer had control over his actions, he leaned in further and their lips touched.
It was sweet, slow, tender, unlike any other kiss he had ever shared with any other woman before. It almost felt like a first kiss, the first real one that mattered.
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* * *
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Juliet sat in her favourite chair reading John Grisham's 'An Innocent Man', recommended by Sawyer. The story was terribly sad, but Juliet hadn't been this happy in a long time. Ever since she had left Sawyer earlier that day she had had butterflies in her stomach.
She couldn't wait to see him again.
Even Edmund had noticed something had changed when he had came home that evening.
"Did you have your hair done or something?" he had asked. "You look different."
Now he was in his office, supposedly doing paperwork, more likely sending dirty emails to some woman. Her thoughts were interrupted by the phone ringing. It had been ringing off the hook all evening. She had let Edmund pick it up from his office, he was closer to it and it was probably one of his mistresses anyway.
Not even thirty seconds later, she heard him shuffle into the living room.
"It's odd," he stated.
"What's odd?" she asked, not even lifting her eyes from the pages of her book.
"The phone keeps ringing, but every time I pick it up, the person on the other end hangs up," he squinted at her, making him even less attractive than he usually was. "Do you have a lover, Juliet? Is that him calling you and hanging up when I answer?"
He followed his question with a high pitched laughed, as if what he had said was the biggest joke of the century, insinuating that she would never dare or be able to find another man.
She shot him an angry look, and he just laughed harder.
Bastard, Juliet thought.
The phone rang again.
"Maybe you should get it this time, Jules, your lovah' clearly has something important to tell you," he sniggered.
She stood up stiffly , went over to the phone and picked up.
"Hello," she said tentatively.
"Are you Juliet Burke?" a female voice asked on the other end.
"Yes," Juliet replied.
"Are you seeing a guy called Sawyer?"
"I'm sorry you must have the wrong number," Juliet said, feeling Edmund's overbearing lingering presence hovering behind her.
"I get it, I get it. You don't want your husband to know," the woman paused. "But if you are, in fact seeing Sawyer, you really want to talk with me. I'm in Miami. I'll be at Maggie's Diner, just outside North Miami tomorrow at 6pm. You really should meet me there."
And then she heard a click, the woman had hung up.
"So who was it, Jules?" Edmund enquired.
"A wrong number."
Edmund looked at her unconvinced, "You were on pretty long for a wrong number."
Juliet just shrugged, "The woman argued that this had to be the right number, and then just hung up."
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* * *
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Maggie's Diner.
Not the chicest place on Earth, Juliet noted. It was a run down little place, just outside Miami itself, it was blatantly obvious that the place wasn't getting too many customers. She guessed the 'mystery woman' had picked out this place exactly because of that.
Juliet sat in the booth just next to the door, clearly visible to every person who entered the diner. She was confused. Who was this woman? What did she want? What could be so important that it would warrant a clandestine meeting?
She had tossed and turned in her sleep the night before trying to figure out the answer. The only reason she had been able to come up with was that whatever this was all about, it couldn't be good.
She waited patiently. It had started to rain heavily outside, she had always found the sound of rain soothing, for some reason it wasn't the case today.
Six o'clock came, then ten past six, then half past. Juliet was at wits end, how long was she going to wait? Just when she had given up and was ready to leave, the door creaked open.
A brunette walked in and looked around the place before turning towards her and asking, "Juliet Burke?"
Juliet nodded and the woman sat down opposite her, "I'm sorry for being late, I had to find a babysitter."
Juliet just wanted her to get on with what she had to say to her, the brunette extended her hand across the table, "I'm being rude, pleased to meet you, it's a shame it's under these circumstances but what can you do? I'm Cassidy Phillips."
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TBC
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A/N: How evil am I?
Honestly, did you think it would be that easy?
I'm a sucker for "and they lived happily ever after endings", but I like a couple of dragon slayings before I send our favourite couple out into the sunset.