As always, disclaimers on the first chapter.

Hey, y'all! Thanks for all the reviews so far! With this last chapter, you guys have officially become the most talkative about my story. I really appreciate it, and love knowing that not only are people reading it but enjoying it as well! Those of you thinking and asking for more, don't worry. This story is completely written and I have every intention to make sure I get every chapter up.

Business Trip

"Remind me again why I'm here?"

I moved stiffly around the room as I was putting my clothes away. I didn't own much beyond what I bought the first few weeks at Stonehaven. The warm, over sized sweatshirts and jeans were what I stuck to. As I stuffed these in my side of the hotel room drawers, I frowned with worry. Antonio booked a one-bedroom suite for this trip. I made sure that there were two beds, but goddamn! Why one room?

Nick chuckled. "Because this is an anal client and wants to see who all of the design team is? Did you really need to be reminded?"

"Yes," I grumbled.

He sighed. "C'mon, Nyx. It's just a sleeping place for the night."

I didn't think my back could get any stiffer. I winced. "I don't know what you're talking about. I'm fine."

"Please..." I looked over at Nick just as he finished rolling his eyes. "If you were any more tense, we could use you as a splint for a really large broken limb."

With a grunt, I ducked into the bathroom to take a shower. When our plane from Syracuse was delayed because of the snow, we arrived in New York with just barely enough time to check into the hotel and quickly throw on clothing to meet our client. I insisted on a shower, though, mostly out of habit. When you go your whole life without a sense of smell, you never know when you are suffering others to your body oder.

As I stepped out of the shower, still towel drying my dripping hair and dressed only in underwear and an over sized t-shirt to stay decent, I heard Nick call from the living room.

"Change of venue, by the way. The client wanted something more upscale."

"WHAT!?" I almost dropped the towel. "I didn't bring clothes for anything more upscale! I was already pushing it with what I did bring."

"Already taken care of. Look on the bed."

Letting the towel drape over my shoulders, I went over to the bed I chose nearest the sliding glass doors. Laying neatly on the comforter was a satin, strapless dress with a full length skirt and an integrated bodice. I reached out and slid my fingers over the fabric. I picked it up and checked the size. Fourteen. I wasn't a fourteen. Yeah, no where near a fourteen.

"Nick, we have a problem!"

"What?" He poked his head into the bedroom.

"Wrong size." I held the dress out to him.

"No, it's not."

"Yes, it is."

He rolled his eyes. "No, it's not. Just put it on, Nyx. We're already running late!" He disappeared into the other room before I had a chance to continue the argument.

With a growl, I stormed back into the bathroom, slamming the door behind me. That'll show him. I held the dress out in front of me, staring at it. I knew I dropped a few pounds over the three months that I spent at Stonehaven. My lifestyle definitely was far more active, and I was eating better foods since Clay insisted on cooking everything. I didn't even remember when the last time I had a ramen packet was. But, slimmed down enough to fit into a fourteen? Right...

I draped the dress over the back of the vanity chair and did my hair. I couldn't stand the feel of my frizzy curls on the back of my neck, so I always defaulted to a tight braid. Tonight would be no different. If I had to wear a dress, they can deal with a braid.

After my hair was done, I stared at the dress again. What was I going to do if I couldn't fit into it? Picking it up, I pulled the skirt up over my head, wriggling into the smooth fabric. At least it was comfortable, and not lacy. I hated lace... With an unbridled passion... Once the skirt slid easily over my too-Jewish hips, I looked at myself in the full-length mirror. The bodice, loosely laced and untied looked just a bit big and sloppy on me. Just as a bodice should look when it was in that state of undone.

"Holy crap..." I muttered to myself a I tightened the thick ribbon that matched the color of the dress perfectly and tied the excess around my waist and behind my back. "Holy crap..."

I looked at myself in the mirror, turning slowly to see how the dress looked.

"Wow..."

Startled, I nearly tripped over my feet as I spun to face the bathroom door. Nick was smiling at me from the door way, dressed in a three-piece tuxedo, his feet clad in shiny black shoes complete with white spats. Even his hair was gelled and neatly combed back. The only messy part was he had not tied his bow tie yet.

"Uhm..." Was all I was able to manage.

He laughed softly and held out a pair of low-heeled sandals that would strap up my shin. "Almost ready to go?"

"Uhm..." I vaguely remember taking the shoes from his hand, my eyes never leaving his.

I think he smiled at me before he left the bathroom, leaving me to put on the shoes that dangled loosely from my fingers.

Sitting in the limousine that Nick had rented, I stared down at my nails. Against the newness and sophistication of the satin dress, they looked jagged and ugly and I thought about teaching myself to get out of the nasty habit of biting on them, especially when I was reading. The meeting with the client went well enough. I think we even surprised him at the fact that one of his designers was, in fact, a woman. A fact that was quickly forgotten as he leered at my chest all night. Hips and chest... The curse of all Jewish and Italian women everywhere, and I was both. Nick sat across from me, head leaning back against the high back of his seat, a satisfied smile on his lips.

"That was the best dinner meeting I had even been to. Not a question went unanswered." He grinned at me.

"Huh?" It took me a moment to register what he had said and I smirked at him. "Yeah, we did good, didn't we?"

"Better than good." His grin was still there.

I glanced out the window and noticed that we weren't driving back the way we had come. "Uh, Nick? Where are we going?"

When he didn't answer me right away, I looked at him. He was grinning at me still, looking like a kid who has a secret that he was just bursting at the seams to tell.

"Nick?"

He reached inside of his jacket, to an inside pocket, and pulled out two slips of paper. He held them out to me and waited for me to take them. When I didn't, he moved his hand as if I didn't understand that he was offering the papers to me. "Go on. Look!"

I took them from him, giving him a wary glare. When I looked down at the identical white and cream slips, the first thing that jumped out at me in big black letters was the word "Wicked." I felt my eyes widen and I turned the tickets over, expecting to see something printed on the back that indicated that they were fakes.

"No way!" I looked from the tickets to the grinning man across from me.

"You better believe it!" His grin got wider. "Elena told me that you were talking about it weeks ago, so I got them for our trip."

"But.. But you didn't know know that I'd be coming." I smirked, realizing after I had spoken that it didn't matter if I had got Jeremy's approval for this trip or not. He would have just found another date.

He shrugged and his grin became a smirk. "You're here now, aren't you?"

My smile to him was an awkward one, a little disheartened at my earlier realization. I looked down at the tickets again and furrowed my brow when I noticed the time printed on them: 8PM. I leaned forward and grabbed Nick's left arm, twisting it so I could see his wristwatch. It was a quarter to eight. "Are we going to make it?"

As I turned to look out the window at the congested, slush-covered street, he responded. "Don't worry about it, Nyx. We'll get there with enough time. These things always start late."

We made it to the theater with just barely a minute to spare. The limo driver dropped us off right in front of the doors and Nick helped me out, draping his heavy coat over my shoulders.

"Sorry I forgot to get you something warm to wear over the dress."

I shrugged to hide a shiver. "I'll survive as long as we don't linger out here."

He smirked and put his arm around me to guide me into the theater house.

"Ohmigod! That was so great! I never thought I'd see Kristin Chenoweth or Idina Menzel live, let alone together in Wicked! Soooooo much better than the Panteges. And such great seats!"

Nick kept a polite smile as I babbled on excitedly about the play the entire limo ride back to our hotel. Through out the entire three hour production, I was both glued to and on the edge of my seat, not even aware of Nick's reactions to the mock prequel to the Wizard of Oz. Having already read the novel the play was based on, and seen the production team at home, I was already able to quote the lines and sing along under my breath with the songs. I didn't notice Nick's polite quiet until the bellman was holding the door open to the limousine.

"You didn't like it, did you?" I asked as I climbed out.

He shrugged. "It was good, but theater isn't really my thing."

"Oh... Right... I forgot..."

I saw his eyebrow raise slowly. "Forgot? You couldn't possibly know. I never told you."

My heart stopped. Shit. "Uh, I mean, it should have been obvious to me, y'know? You never expressed an interest in stuff like this."

As I picked at my chewed up fingernail nervously, waiting for more questions that I was sure I wasn't ready to answer, I thought of possible half-truths that I could tell him. During the months that I had lived at Stonehaven, gotten close to Nick and the rest of the Pack, I realized that I didn't want to hold it back any longer. They needed to know, if for no other reason than to help me find out what happened and I could get home. My eyes wandered up to Nick's face, trying to gage his reaction. He was frowning, almost scowling with a small crease between his eyes. I swallowed, thinking that he was upset with my transparent answer, when I saw his nostrils flare.

I turned my head to look behind me and sniffed. In the cold air, among the scent of snow, ice, and city was another scent that I learned to recognize while at Stonehaven. Werewolf scent. None of the Pack was supposed to be in New York besides myself and Nick, and it wasn't a scent I recognized. My brain started screaming at me that I was about to have my first encounter with an actual mutt.