Present Day

John threw his coat to the side, catching it on the bench by his door, but leaving it there. He yanked at his tie and collar, tossing them to the side as he walked into his library. With a push the doors opened and he flicked the switch.

There, blinking a moment in the light, sat Anna. "I thought you'd be back much earlier than this. I think your driver scalped you."

"What are you doing here?"

"Having a conversation you can't escape." She stood, "Though I really have to thank Mr. Talbot for letting me in."

"He did what?"

"After you left in a mad hurry, he noted my distress and came to my aid. Dropped me here after what I'll only describe as a world-altering ride in a car I didn't think could go as fast as it did given these streets." Anna managed a half chuckle, "You should either fire your driver or give him a raise."

"I'm not going to have you accost me in my home."

"You're going to have to because I'm having this conversation with you right now and you're not going anywhere until I've said my piece."

"We're done talking."

"I don't think we are, John Bates." He froze, swallowing quickly as she pursed her lips to nod. "I thought so. From the first night I had this feeling but I wasn't sure until you commented on the rings."

John closed his eyes, "I knew I made a mistake there."

"You don't make many of them, that's for sure. You had me questioning my own sanity for a stretch." Anna motioned to the seat, "Do you mind if I sit for the next part? These shoes weren't made for comfort."

"Do what you like." John took the chair across from her, "I hope you don't consider me too forward by taking this seat."

"I don't since I rather hoped I could look you in the eye when I asked my questions." Anna waited until John positioned himself and cleared her throat. "Where've you been?"

"Why?"

"Because I want to know why, if you've been alive for the last fifteen years, you didn't come to me the first moment you could."

"Because you missed me?"

"Yes, I did. Every day you've been away from me." She paused, "Though I've never felt farther from you than I do right now."

John snorted, "You seem to've handled yourself just fine without me in the interim so I don't feel your emotions are warranted at the moment."

"Don't you dare assume my emotions or my affections." Anna leveled a finger at him, "And I asked you a question."

"I'm not obliged to answer."

"Fine," Anna stood, "Then this was a waste of time and you're really not the man I thought you were because that man must've died in prison."

She was almost to the door before John called to her, "How long, after you got news that I died, until you slept with Green?"

Anna turned slowly, "Why?"

"Because, when I served five years, I got out." John pushed himself to his feet, walking over the floor toward her. "I looked you up because I wanted to see you. Wanted to hold you again. Wanted to start our life together if I could. But when I saw you I changed my mind and didn't speak to you."

"Why didn't you?"

"Because I saw something." John towered over her, noting that Anna's body shook slightly but he could tell from her eyes it was not fear. "I saw you, in Trafalgar Square, running around with a little boy."

"Why didn't you come over and say something?"

"Because you had Green's son with you. You were Mrs. Anna Green then and what was I to you if, within a year of my being imprisoned, you already moved on?"

"I never moved on."

"From a distance the boy looked about four or five so I figure you didn't wait for our bed to get too cold before you decided Green was a decent replacement."

"I told you, at dinner, that they told me you were dead." Anna held her head high, "I won't be made to feel guilty for trying to move on with my life."

"Less than a month, Anna. That's all it took for you to immediately get with my best friend." John shook his head, stepping back, "Was it going on before I went to prison?"

"Excuse me?"

"Were you sleeping with him behind my back?"

"You bastard!" Anna kept her tone level, "How dare you accuse me of that. I never cheated on you, never."

"Then you found comfort in the arms of Alex Green and satisfied yourself with his money, is that it?"

"I never cared about his bloody money and if that's what you think of me then you can sod off like he can." Anna clenched her jaw, "And you can got to hell if that's why you never attempted to contact me."

"What else was I supposed to do Anna?"

"Tell me you were alive." She took his hand and John jerked a moment in her sudden grip. "Tell me that the nights and years I spent mourning you were over."

"To what end? You're still married."

"You think I wanted to marry Alex Green? You think I wanted to become Mrs. Anna Green?"

"You wear it well."

"Don't believe everything you see, Mr. Bates. I was always a better actor than you." Anna shook her head, "Besides, I didn't have a choice."

"Why not? Was he just too charming?"

"No."

"Because he offered you too much money?"

"No!"

"Because you never really loved me?"

"Because I was pregnant with your son!" Anna exploded at him and John felt his jaw drop to his chest.

"Son?"

"Jack is your son, John." Anna put the palm of her hand to her forehead. "His name, if Alex ever took the time to check, is Jonathan Bates Junior. Not Jack Green."

"If you… Why marry Green if you were having our baby?"

"I couldn't raise Jack on my own because I was still in school, I had our flat to manage, and I wasn't making enough with a part time job to do any of that without you. Alex was there for me and, no matter how much I didn't love him, I needed him."

"But a month-"

"I was going to wait for you John but they said you were dead. I didn't have a choice." Anna wiped at her eyes. "If you'd been alive, even if you'd been in prison for life, I would've waited. I would've endured anything for you because I promised you once I'd wait forever for you. Do you remember?"

Sixteen Years Ago

Anna giggled and kissed John again, wrapping her arms around his neck to keep him there in front of the door to her flat.

"Anna-" He struggled to escape her kiss, "I have to-"

"Don't go." She breathed, breaking their kiss to rest her head on his chest. "You always say no. Please don't say it this time."

"I'm still a married man, Anna." He took her hands, kissing over them. "I'm not good at many things, getting my wife to sign the papers being one of those things, but I'm not going to make you my mistress. I won't ruin you like that."

"John," Anna put a hand to his face, "The only ruin I recognize is to be without you and I'd live in sin with you if it meant I could have you to myself for even one moment longer."

"It's not right."

"I don't care about that. You've filed the papers, you've been living apart for over a year, and now…" Anna pulled the handle on her door open, "You're here and I want you to finally be here with me."

"We couldn't move forward. If she found out then the whole thing'd be buggered and I'd-"

Anna pulled his head to hers, kissing him. "You've a bad habit of talking yourself out of a good thing."

"Do I?"

"Yes," Anna grinned at him, "Because I'd wait forever for you it that's what it took for you to make me yours officially."

"Officially?"

"In the eyes of the law, I mean." She tugged him over the threshold of her door, "Tonight, you're going to make me yours personally."

He lost all ability to fight after that.

In other circumstances she might have reveled in her victory but not this time. Not with John. There was no reason to glory in victory unless he shared it with her.

And that was exactly what she intended to happen that night.

She pulled him to her room, easing the slight tremor to his hands with soft kisses that lulled him into a sense of security. He focuses entirely on moving his lips over hers that he does not notice when she pushed his jacket off his shoulders. Or when she pulled at the few buttons on his polo shirt. Or even when she unbuckles his belt.

But he regained his senses when her fingers slipped on his trouser fastening. He paused and, for a moment that felt like eternity, she worried he might retreat. Might allow his sense of nobility and love take over and end her carefully laid plans.

She should have trusted him more. Should have realized he is always seeking ways to surprise her in the little moments. The moments where he toed off his shoes and socks to pad over her worn and threadbare carpet. The one where he pulled his shirt over his head to drop it like breadcrumbs leading from her door to her bed. Or the one where his fingers teased at the line of visible skin when his hands snuck under her shirt to make them even again.

Anna sighed then. Her hands sculpted up his chest to kiss over his chest while his fingers worked the material of her shirt farther up her back. Even with the sensibility of lifting her arms up so he could lift the shirt over her head, Anna wished she could take a night just to mark his whole body as hers.

She had never met his ex-wife… his wife, if she was being fair. The only things he mentioned about her were neutral statements at best or quiet side comments at worst. John had no idea she looked his wife up, studied her, and realized that perhaps John would never be hers the way he was trapped in his wife's clutches.

That was why she pushed for this night. Why she determined that she would no longer let that woman get in the way. Why she would have her way with John tonight… propriety and rightness be damned.

John brought her back to present when the metal hooks on her bra no longer held it stable on her back. Her arms, dropped from their position to relieve her of her shirt, slipped from his shoulders to let her bra hit the floor with a surprising thump. For half a second Anna wondered if a person was only aware of the density of a material when it hit the floor and threatened the safety of their silence.

It seemed to throw John for a moment, his hands slipping on her as if unsure now where they had been so confident. Anna smiled up at him, the half-darkness of her flat lit only by the street lamps and road signs outside, allowing her to see his face in harsh yellow-blue reality. If this was a push and pull of command then Anna recognized this as her turn. She needed to bring his mind back to her.

Tugging playfully at the elastic of his pants she walked backward to her bed. It squeaked when she knelt on it and groaned when John risked a knee next to hers. She laughed, easing the worry on his face, and smoothed a hand to the back of his neck to lean him over enough to kiss her again.

The meeting of their lips finally set him off. His hands slipped under the waistband of her jeans to grab her ass, pulling her toward him as his open trousers left him almost exposed. If there was a moment of fear at what Anna's reaction to his arousal would be then her unabashed rubbing against his growing erection was the right message to send so the fear would abate.

Anna pulled him down, slipping over her in a move that left them both in nervous but comforting laughter. Her jeans opened and slid, with difficulty that had her kicking like mad until she finally tugged them off her ankles, down her legs to join the pile of clothes on the floor. His trousers joined them but before Anna could drive them forward John maneuvered over her, setting himself back enough that her leg trying to wend its way over her hip was all but useless.

"John," She whined, trying to use her hands at his shoulders to pull him toward her but his superior strength kept him out of her reach.

"Not tonight Anna." He leaned over just enough to kiss her, pulling at her lips but avoiding the orchestrated plunge of her tongue to leave her keening for him. "If I'm going to make you mine then I need to make sure you're thoroughly satisfied."

Anna wondered what dying happy would feel like when she was younger. But the moment John Bates applied his soft lips and skilled hands to the tactile memorization of her body Anna knew. If it were not for the fact that there was more she wanted to experience in that moment she might have given up the ghost there.

But his attention to her breasts left her feeling more alive than she ever felt before. Her back arched off the bed and her fingers tangled in his hair to keep him lavishing her with attention. And their fingers exchanges pain and pleasure in equal measure when he pinched and soothed her sensitive nipples while she left nail marks on his skin.

When she practically hummed with energy, the building toward a summit she only ever felt before in personal privacy… or the one time it happened on accident her first time, John moved lower. Anna dragged her nails over his shoulders, seeking purchase in the face of blinding ecstasy, and gasped when John shifted his body between her legs. His fingers teased her with promises of more pleasure then she ever experienced.

His mouth delivered them.

Anna was certain there was nothing left to her than a gelatinous mass as John kissed his way back up her shaking and glistening body. But as their lips met again, feeding the dying fires of her released back to a roaring mass, Anna discovered what athletes called their second wind. And she intended to use it.

Flipping John back onto her bed, Anna ignored the strain on the bedframe that sent a shiver through John's body. With her overly sensitized nerves it was all she could do not to immediately grind herself down where he waited for her and use the shiver to encourage them both to further pleasure. But he needed a minute to focus back on their universe instead of her shit bed and the shittier frame.

Her lips helped return his attentions to her. Her hands massaging and kneading at the skin of his chest, while her fingers took their turn raking through the hair there before returning occasionally attention to the hair on his head, had his hands regaining their hold on her waist. Her determined grind over his erection brought his hips into play so his whole world was her. Just as her whole world was him.

His hands on her ass tried to force them together but Anna played aloof. She giggled in her throat while her lips attacked his neck, leaving him moaning and pleading for her to ease his need. And, when she was sure the whole world quieted to see what would happen next, she sank down on him.

Their mutual pleasure echoed and reflected in their harmonizing sounds. Anna rocked back and forth, easing the rising ache in her own body, and enjoying the muscles changing the expressions on John's face. His eyes, shut tightly, betrayed nothing while his hands surrendered the high ground to overwhelming pleasure in the way one hand gripped her hip to hold her in place while the other dug into the flesh of her ass.

Though neither could claim it was the first time for them, at least not technically speaking, it had been some time since either had sex. Anna convinced herself, the other memories shrouded in time and ignorance, that she had never felt anything better. She wondered if John felt the same. But when his hips picked up speed she did not have to ask with words. And when he accepted the guidance of her hand to bring her to her peak again she knew he did not have to ask either.

There was no more perfect sound in all the world than the one he made as he finished inside her. No better feeling than his body jerking his completion. And No better sensation than having him pull her to the bed beside him so he could wrap his arms around her.

They lay together, in the never-quite-dark room and breathed as one. After a moment John laughed a bit and Anna tried to hide her own grin as she moved to see his face. "What?"

"It's just…" He chuckled, trying to regain his composure. "I believe you've gone and had your way with me Ms. Smith."

They laughed together, Anna swatting at his shoulder. "I think you had your way with me first."

"My mother always said that a gentleman sees to the needs of a lady before himself."

"I do hope your mother wasn't the one who taught you how to do that when she explained the details of the birds and the bees to you."

John coughed, "No, I didn't learn that from her."

"If you did, and I'm not judging you," Anna mocked a serious face, "I'd say she taught you very well."

John pulled her down, tickling her mercilessly until she finally surrendered. "But you enjoyed it?"

"I thought you could tell by the way I screamed out your name at the end there."

"I didn't want to assume." John winked at her and Anna kissed the smile from his lips. "And I do hope you liked it because I'd like to do it again sometime soon."

"We should sleep a bit first but," Anna whispered in his ear, "I'd like it again too if you're up for it later."

"I'll be up for it."

"Then I'll also see to someone else… who'll be up for it then too." Anna tried to fight off another round of tickling at her suggestion before settling at his side.

Anna shifted, to better nestle her head under his chin, and tucked her ear next to his heart. The steady thumping sound there set the beat of her own and both lulled her to sleep with a smile so wide she thought it might break her face in two. There was no happier person on the face of the planet than she at that moment.

Present Day

John swallowed, "I remember."

"But you still found it in yourself to doubt me?" Anna scoffed, "I knew you to be a lot of things but untrusting wasn't one of them."

"You married the man who betrayed me."

"What?" Anna frowned, "What are you talking about? You were the victim of wrong-place-wrong-time. They railroaded you, treated you unfairly, but that's all."

"I was set up, Anna."

"By whom?"

"Alex."

"Why would Alex set you up? You're his best friend."

John shrugged, "Because his company was going under, because he needed a gun and knew I owned one, because he knew I'd be out that night buying you roses and chocolates and a card so I could celebrate our one year anniversary with you before I proposed to you the next day." He heard her gasp and saw Anna covering her mouth with both hands. "What?"

"You were going to propose?"

"I had it all planned out. Alex was holding onto the rings for me and he was going to drop them off the next morning so I could surprise you when you woke up."

Anna touched the bands on her hand a second before holding it to the light, "These rings?"

John nodded, "You don't like gold and you wanted them plain."

Anna blinked, trying to keep her tears to herself, and turned away from the door to settle in a chair with her back to John. "Why didn't you tell me?"

"Because you're not mine anymore Anna." John hung his head, his own eyes filling with tears. "You're his."

"But I'm not," She sniffed, "I've always been yours."

Her tears flowed now, her shoulders heaving with her sobs. John tried to keep his own to himself, the sound of his heart breaking filling his ears, but he could not. Grabbing a handkerchief he knelt in front of Anna. He offered her the cloth, hoping it might somehow stem the rushing tide.

Her hand reached for it a moment, fingers brushing over his. They looked at one another and John risked a hand to cover hers. "We can't go back Anna."

"Why not?"

"Because that night, where I was going to make you dinner, and feed you chocolate, and love you to the early hours of the morning never happened. I never got down on one knee to give you the ring because I wasn't there. We stopped then and that's where we ended."

"No," Anna shook her head, holding his face in her hands to force him to hold her gaze. "I don't know what plans you've devised that fill your heart with revenge right now. I don't know why anyone would do what they did to you. And I don't know what plan kept us apart for fifteen years but we've got a chance now to be happy again and I won't let us refuse that."

"What chance Anna?" John gripped her hand, his fingers feeling the double-edged sword of comfort and burn by the rings on her finger. "What chance do we have?"

"Whatever one we have now." Anna stroked over his face, lost in her study of it before she registered him there. "The chance I intend to take."

John surged up and kissed her.