When she finally got home that evening after having met with Cassidy, she was relieved to find the house empty, if Edmund wasn't home at this time, he probably wouldn't bother coming home at all, she crossed her fingers.

She looked through the contents of her fridge, her cupboards, nothing seemed appealing. She just wasn't hungry. She had no appetite for anything.

She felt miserable.

She just wanted to go to sleep and hopefully never ever wake up.

So she went up to bed. As she slid between the sheets, she hoped she would fall asleep soon, so she could put this dreadful day behind her.

No such luck.

She tossed and turned. She just couldn't get her brain to switch off. And the more she tried to sleep, the more frustrated she felt about not sleeping, and the less close she got to actually falling asleep. It was the ultimate vicious circle.

She didn't know what to do, she felt helpless.

She looked at her alarm clock on the bed stand, 11pm, well at least Edmund hadn't come home.

At midnight, she turned her pillow around to the other side, maybe she would go to sleep if her head was resting on the cooler side.

At 1am, she tossed her covers back, she was too hot, perhaps that's why she wasn't sleeping.

At quarter past one, she was shivering, and she pulled the sheets back up.

At half past one, she tried lying out flat on her back, at twenty to two, she tried lying on her stomach, at two, she tried lying on her left side, at five past two, on her right side, with one hand under her pillow, with no hands under the pillow, with one leg hanging from the bed.

It was useless. Nothing was working.

At ten pas two, she got up, there was no use just lying around. She went downstairs and put on some tea.

Tea always soothed her when she felt upset. A nice hot cup of tea was just what she needed.

She filled up her cup, and went to living room to sit in the armchair.

She couldn't get over the fact that she had been so stupid and gullible, she was clearly the worst judge when it came to men, every single time she thought she might have found "the one", he ended up screwing her over. She was beginning to think there was no such thing as "the one".

But she wasn't devastated anymore. She didn't feel like crying anymore.

She was beyond sadness.

She was angry. Angry and frustrated, she had had more than enough of people underestimating her, and her abilities. Of people like Edmund who treated her like dirt, of people like James Ford using her. She was a grown woman, she was more than successful at her job.

People didn't respect her, well maybe that was acceptable for the old Juliet Burke, the one who married assholes, and fell for lowlife conmen, but not anymore, she was done. It was time she took matters into her own hands, and showed everyone that they couldn't just walk all over her.

First of all, she had to get rid of Edmund, and she knew just how to do that.

Once Juliet Burke had something in mind, she didn't give up until she had achieved her goal.

Sometime after, she drifted off into a welcome but uncomfortable slumber, when she opened her eyes again, she just had enough time to get ready for work.

The day was uneventful.

Nobody bothered her, she didn't even cross paths with Edmund, as if everyone had gotten the memo that she wasn't to be messed with anymore. She did what she had to do, as soon as she had wrapped up everything she had planned to do, she walked into her husband's office, and told him she had to leave early, and walked out, just like that. She ignored the surprised expression on his face and left, she had someone to see.

It was barely after 5pm when she knocked on James' hotel room door. It seemed ages, years rather than barely six weeks, since she had last been here, that fateful night. He must have thought Christmas had come early that night, the easiest con of his life. The joke was on him now.

He opened the door, he looked dishevelled, as if he had been sleeping .

"Juliet?" he gasped, clearly surprise to find her behind the door. "What are you ..."

"Not interrupting anything, I hope," she said flatly, clearly meaning that even if she was, she didn't care. "Mind if I come in?"

"Sure, sure," he said, as she pushed past him, he closed the door again behind her.

He looked at her, concerned. He was a damn good actor, he thought. Absolutely perfect for his line of work, if she hadn't had her little 'tête à tête' with Cassidy yesterday, she would have fallen for it.

"Is everything okay?" he asked. "What did Edmund do this time?"

He assumed Edmund had done something, of course he would, "It's not Edmund."

"What is it? Is it Rachel or Julian? Did something happen to them?"

He really looked worried now. He should be in movies, he can could teach Adam Sandler a trick or two, "No, they're fine."

She stayed quiet for a couple of minute, just staring at him, giving him her best death glare. Apparently he didn't take the hint because soon he was coming up to her, more than ready to pull her into a hug. That was the straw that broke the monkey's back, there was only so much fake compassion she could put up with in such a short span of time. Clearly her ice queen façade still needed some training.

"Don't touch me," she said. "Don't you dare touch me!"

It was then that she saw it in his eyes, the penny had dropped, he had just realised something was seriously wrong, and that something had to do with him.

"How could you?" she asked barely keeping the lid on her anger.

He was lost for words, she could see it, he wasn't sure exactly what she was referring to, and didn't want to incriminate himself just in case she was talking about something else, so she spoke again, "I trusted you. You lied to me. I can't believe I was so stupid."

"Juliet, calm down. Whatever I did, I'm sorry, I'm sure we can fix this," he said, his attempt at reassuring her was sending her over the edge. How dare he? Doesn't he know when it's time to cut the bullshit?

"Fix this? Fix this?" she repeated bewildered. "Cut the crap, James."

There, he got it now. She had called him James, he would have to be a dimwit not to know what she was going on about now

"How did you ..." he started.

"How I found out is not relevant," she snapped, it wasn't time for games anymore. "The fact is I know everything. That you're a conman, that you've done time in prison, that the only reason you pretended to be so interested in me, was so you could get your hands on my money. I know everything."

"Juliet, listen," he tried to put his hand on her forearm, she just pushed him away. Didn't he get how outraged she was? Maybe he thought that he could still reason with her, coax her into thinking that all of this was some sort of sick joke someone was pulling on her. Maybe he thought that he could sweet talk his way out of this one, that she was weak enough, naïve enough, to believe him. Well he was out of luck, because she was done. Nobody was going to take advantage of her anymore.

"No, I'm not listening to anyone anymore," she cut him off. "I'm done. I'm sick of people treating me like I'm a fool."

"I know you're not going to believe a single word I say, but for what it's worth, I'm sorry, I really am. I'll leave. I'll never set foot in Miami again, you'll never have to hear about me again."

He was apologising, well that's just the cherry on top of the icing on top of the cake. When all else fails, just say you're sorry and everything will be dandy again. He couldn't be serious.

And leave? Because he honestly thought she was just going to let him hop off to his next victim, just like that?

"I don't want you to leave," she said calmly.

He looked at her confused, he was lost again, he had no idea what her next move was going to be. She was in complete control of the situation, and she liked it.

"I want you to help me take care of Edmund," she said firmly, and his totally flabbergasted facial expression told her she had reached her mark.

.

* * *

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"You want me to kill Edmund?" he asked astonished.

She looked at him blankly, there was no emotion in her eyes, he wondered where that happy carefree woman he had spent lunch with yesterday had gone.

"Kill Edmund? I was aware that you were a lowlife con artist, I didn't know you were also a qualified hit-man," she stated.

Sawyer thought back to Franck Dukett, the man he had killed in Australia, because he had thought he was someone else, "I ain't a hit-man."

"Good, because I don't want Edmund dead," she said.

Huh? What was the matter with her? Was she schizophrenic or something? Her eerie calmness about this whole thing was seriously starting to creep him out. Any second now, he was sure of it, she was going to pull a twelve inch butcher's knife out of her bag and stab him à la Psycho. He could hear the music in his head.

"I want him to suffer," she said, as if it was the most natural thing in the world.

"I don't understand, what is it exactly that you want me to do?"

"Con him out of his money and into granting me a divorce," she said. "I've had enough of being his meal ticket. Ever since I created that drug three years ago, he's been living off profit made from it. It's high time someone pulled the carpet from under his feet, and I think you're the perfect person for the job."

"Really? And how exactly should I proceed?" he asked daringly, he wasn't going to let himself be intimidated by her,, or at least let her know that he was feeling intimidated, not even six weeks ago he had felt pity for her, then that pity had transformed itself into fondness, then friendship, then something more. "It's not exactly as if I'm going to be able to seduce him, and convince him to give me cash."

"I don't know, I'm not the hustler, that's your field of expertise. Be creative," she said authoritatively. "I do have one question for you though."

At this point, he had nothing else to lose, or did he?

"Shoot."

"How much were you trying to get out of me?"

Out of all the things she could have asked? Out of all the question she could of asked and he would have loved to answer (Was it really just all a game? Did you really feel nothing towards me at all?), this was what she wanted to know?

This woman was unbelievable. Just when he thought he had her pegged, shy geek, sexy seductress, good person, ice queen, she went and pulled out something like this, totally at the opposite of what he had anticipated.

"A hundred grand," he replied.

"Very well then," she said smoothing her skirt as she walked to the door. "That's what I'll pay you if you do the job properly. I'll call you in a couple of days to see how things are getting on."

And without even the faintest nod of the head, she opened the door and let herself out.

Sawyer just stood there for a moment, his mouth hanging open slightly. He couldn't believe that what had just happened, had really happened. Just when he was about to confess to her the whole truth and nothing but the truth, she beats him to the punch.

How the hell did she find out?

And now she wanted to employ him to rid her of her husband? Well at least that gave him the opportunity of spending some more time with her, maybe he could win her over again. Probably not, but there's no harm in trying, is there?

Now he just had to come up with some ingenious way of relieving Edmund Burke of the contents of his bank account and talk him into divorcing Juliet.

Like stealing candy off of a baby?

Maybe not.

.

TBC ...

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A/N: How's that for a chapter that practically didn't go anywhere.
Who honestly thought that I was going to have Juliet plot Evil Ed's murder, and that I was going to make Sawyer execute it??

I almost didn't post today.

I've spent most of the day trying to figure out how this on line administrative inscription for my University thing works, finally figured it out, only to find out that they screwed my file up, and won't let me register for the last year of my degree.

So I have to go in and actually deal with another human being tomorrow to get it all sorted out, so much for the promise that online registration would only take 15 minutes.

It's a good thing for you guys, because going to Uni, means public transport, and public transport seems to inspire me for some reason.

I hope my frustration doesn't transpire through this chapter, except in the places where it was intended.

As usual, thanks to everyone for all the encouragement, I love it.