Author's Note:I just wanted to thank you guys for the AMAZING response to the last chapter. I was out of town but got read and respond to all the reviews on my iPhone. I was blown away. I love hearing what you guys think so please continue to review b/c reviews make me happy. Enjoy!

Ever since his weekend out in the Hamptons, so much had changed in Jesse's life that it had been jarring. He had known when Isla had made the promise to him about not working so much that it would only last so long. They were once again living life like ships passing in the night. If she wasn't traveling then she was gone in the morning when he woke up and he was sound asleep when she got home. Isla had explained, over the phone, that she and her team had a big deadline to meet and had lots of things that needed to be done for an upcoming issue.

As for Rachel, he had decided to give her the space that she obviously needed. Not that it was easy. Every night when he got to the theatre he had to force himself to not stop at her dressing room because they didn't have that kind of relationship anymore. So he spent a lot of his time at the theatre either in his own dressing room or in Thomas's.

The first week was the toughest for Jesse. He tried to keep the bone-deep sadness that he felt every time he thought of Rachel from showing, but he knew that she would see it. He knew that most people who saw his showface wouldn't notice, but Rachel knew him well enough to see right past it. He couldn't fool her anymore. But he was a professional actor, so he kissed her and touched her and sang with her every night. As scripted.

That first week was also the week that Jesse had decided that it was time to start the process of ending his marriage. Or at least find out how he should go about doing just that. He had decided that it was what he wanted to do the night that Rachel had ended things with him, but had had given himself a cooling off period for a couple of days to make sure that when he place that phone call that he was thinking clearly.

"Will Davis's office. May I help you?" came the secretary's voice, who had answered the phone.

"Hi, Shelly. It's Jesse St. James. Is Will available?" he asked, his voice neutral.

"Certainly, Mr. St. James. One moment," she replied.

Jesse was on hold for all of ten seconds when Will picked up the phone. "Jesse St. James. It's been so long since I've heard from you that I was beginning to think that I'd been taken off retainer," Will said, amusement lacing his words.

"Well, I thought about it but it's just so hard to find a decent lawyer these days," Jesse joked.

Will chuckled. "Yeah, well. To what do I owe the pleasure of this phone call?"

"I need your legal advice on a person matter."

"Sure. What can I help you with?" Will asked. Jesse could just picture the older man leaning back in his chair and looking out the windows of his midtown office towards uptown as he waited for Jesse to ask his question.

"I want to know what my options are for a divorce," Jesse simply stated.

"Well, here in New York, you can file for a no-fault divorce but the stipulation with that is that both parties need to be in agreement over the division of any marital assets and it has to be uncontested." He paused before sighing and continuing. "Otherwise, most likely you're looking at filing for separation and being legally separated for a year before any divorce proceedings can begin."

Now it was Jesse's turn to sigh. "I can't wait over a year," he told him as he thought of having to tell Rachel that it wouldn't be another year until any and all ties to Isla were severed.

"Well, if you think that your wife won't contest the divorce then your marriage could be dissolved within a matter of months. Do you want me to have the paperwork drawn up?" Will asked.

"Sure," Jesse replied, pinching the bridge of his nose.

"Just give me a call if you have any more questions or when you're ready to file."

The following week the show's director informed everyone that they would be receiving invitations in the mail to a Halloween party that he was throwing in a few short weeks for the cast, crew and their significant others. Jesse groaned inwardly when Edward had mentioned that significant others were invited. When Jesse wasn't onstage, his thoughts were plagued with either the party and if he would be there by himself or not or how he was going to broach the subject of a divorce with her.

All they seemed to be doing lately was communicating by phone and they really hadn't been doing much of that over the last couple of weeks. Jesse knew that he didn't want to bring up the fact that he wanted a divorce over the phone. He needed to have it face-to-face. Knowing Isla, though, Jesse highly doubted that she would agree to a divorce without a fight.

Then there was the issue of the party. If she got the invitation before he did then he would be obligated to bring her. Having Rachel and Isla in the same room together would be awkward at best. And if Donovan was there it would be ten times worse for all of them. His only hope was that she would still be too busy with work to want to go with him.

The invitation came on a Saturday afternoon when Jesse was at the theatre and not at home to check the mail. He got a text message from her while he was at the theatre stating that she had just RSVP'd for both of them for the Halloween party.

The very next week Jesse was exhausted as he walked into Thomas's dressing room and plopped himself down in a chair.

"You look like shit, Jesse," Thomas remarked, glancing over at his friend.

"I just have a lot on my mind. I've been getting three hours of sleep a night. Tops," Jesse explained.

"Rachel or Isla?"

"Both, actually. I called my lawyer not too long ago and asked for some legal advice," he told Thomas cryptically.

"About?" Thomas leaned forward resting his elbows on his knees.

"My options for a divorce. I asked him to draw up the paper work. My marriage is over and it has been for a long time. I should have done this months ago."

"Well, I can't argue with that. When are you going to talk to Isla?"

"That's the thing, ever since I got back from the Hamptons two weeks ago, I've barely seen her. We'll talk on the phone but it's usually just about our schedules. I mean, it's not like I can tell her over the phone that I want a divorce." Jesse sighed in frustration.

"Yeah, I don't suppose that's a conversation that you should have on the phone," Thomas conceded. "Have you talked to Rachel at all?"

"You mean other than the dialogue onstage? Not really. I can't just be friends with her and until my situation changes…" Jesse trailed off.

Thomas nodded in silent understanding. "So what did your lawyer say?" he asked, moving the conversation away from Rachel.

"That if I don't want my divorce to take over a year then Isla can't contest it." Jesse's head fell back against the chair he was sitting in.

"I hate to say this, but I don't see Isla not contesting it. This is Isla we're talking about." Thomas had known Isla almost as long as he'd known Jesse. She wasn't the type of person to end things quietly.

"That's what I'm afraid of."

It had been a little more than three weeks. Three weeks since she had ended things with Jesse. Three weeks since she had broken off her engagement to Donovan and decided that she would rather possibly be alone than marry a man she didn't love and would never love enough. Three weeks since she'd had a decent night's sleep.

Rachel lay in her – and Donovan's – bed in the darkness, willing sleep to overtake her. Every time she had imagined ending things with Donovan she had never been sure what she would be feeling once it was finally over.

She had known that she would feel relief, but she hadn't thought that it would be this immense. She had thought that she would be sadder than she was. Perhaps mourning all the little things that had made her fall in love with him and accept his proposal in the first place, but those feelings didn't come. Not for Donovan at least.

Her thoughts were instead consumed by Jesse and how much she missed him even though she saw him every day. She thought of all of the little things that she loved about Jesse. The way his eyes would crinkle when he laughed. How he listened to her tell him things about herself so intently that she was sure he would remember every word that she told him. The way he would rub his thumb back and forth across the back of her hand absentmindedly when he held her hands in his. The way he would gaze at her when he thought she wasn't paying attention like she was the most perfect human being he had ever laid eyes on and when she'd turn her head to catch him looking at her, he would just smile unabashedly back at her.

The way she could feel how much he loved her when he kissed her, even if it was the simplest of kisses. How he allowed himself to be vulnerable and honest with her even though she knew that it went against everything that he was to be that way, but he had wanted her to see him. All of him. The way he had looked as she had said good-bye. The agony of it.

Tears flooded her eyes as she thought of that final moment. She knew that what she had done was for the best, it really was, but that didn't mean that it wasn't hard.

When she had seen him at the theatre earlier that night, it had been just before their performance. She had avoided him as much as she possibly could backstage. Avoiding him backstage had become part of her pre- and post-show ritual. But she could always feel his eyes on her before the performance would begin and she would look up and their eyes would lock and she would feel such a sense of calm wash over her.

Only tonight, when she had looked up to his place on the other side of the stage he wasn't looking at her as he always did. She had stared at him openly for the longest time, hoping that he would just glance at her. Something. Anything. His expression had been blank, emotionless. Look at me, look at me, look at me, she had said to herself over and over, hoping that he would hear her silent pleas. Nothing.

As she had taken the stage, she had felt off. She knew that the audience wouldn't be able to tell because her performance was as flawless as always. If any of them would have been able to look into her eyes, then they would have seen the anguish that consumed her. She was sure that Jesse could see it, but he did nothing to let on that seeing her this way affected him. After all, she thought, she was the one that had ended things between them.

She felt that same familiar pull as they had kissed and pretended to make love onstage, but nothing else was out of the ordinary. No additional caresses or thrusting harder than was necessary when performing on a stage or lingering glances after their pivotal love scene.

It had taken every ounce of will power within Rachel to refrain from thrusting her tongue into Jesse's mouth or rubbing herself against him. She craved the taste of him, his touch but she couldn't be with him. Not while he was still married to someone else. She couldn't put herself through that anymore.

Rachel wanted to be with him more than anything but she wanted to know that she was the only woman in his life. The only one that he was sleeping next to. The only one that he was kissing and making love to. Until he ended things with Isla she would never know that.

She still hadn't told Jesse about her split from Donovan because she didn't want him to feel pressure to end things with Isla simply because she had ended her relationship. Rachel knew it was a little idealistic and naïve but she wanted Jesse to end his marriage to Isla of his own volition. When he finally left Isla, she wanted to know that he did it because he wanted to be with Rachel and couldn't live without her any longer.

Rolling over onto her side, Rachel closed her eyes and tried to steady her breathing as she thought about what life would be like for her and Jesse when they were both completely free to be with each other. A sense of calm washed over as she saw Jesse's smiling face behind her eyes and eventually sleep overtook her as she pictured her life with Jesse.

Rachel was lying on a lounge chair high up on a bluff on the patio of a hotel overlooking the royal blue water of the caldera of Santorini, Greece. She wasn't sure how she had gotten there, but she relaxed, closed her eyes and basked in the glow of the overhead sun in her tiny black bikini.

She opened her eyes as a shadow fell over her, only to look up into Jesse's beautiful face. "Hey," she said, elated to see him.

"Hey yourself," he replied before leaning down and capturing her lips in a quick kiss, making Rachel's heart speed up. "I woke up and you were gone."

"Well, you could sleep the day away," she teased, as she gazed at him through the shades of her sunglasses and watched him lounge on the chair next to hers.

"After the night we had last night I could," he told her, lifting his sunglasses and raising his eyebrows suggestively.

"Are you complaining?"

"Not at all. In fact, I'd gladly forego a good night's sleep for a night like that quite often," Jesse replied. "You know, just for future reference."

Rachel giggled as she turned her head to look out at the beautiful view of the caldera in front of her. "I'll keep that in mind."

They lay next to each other in silence, listening to the wind and watching the boats and ships moving around the water below them. Then Rachel felt Jesse's hand take hers as he laced their fingers together. "I love you," he told her, before raising her hand to his lips and placing a soft kiss on the back of her hand. She turned her head to look at him, smiling warmly at him. Her heart swelled as he ran his thumb back and forth across the back of her hand where he had just placed a kiss.

"I love you too," she responded with a contented sigh.

"So what do you want to do today?" he asked, still clasping her hand in his.

"You mean besides lie here with you and get a tan?"

"Yes."

She let out a breath as she thought about the day ahead. "Well, we're going on a donkey ride down to the port and we're taking a boat out to the volcano before we go swimming in the hot springs."

"That's my girl," he smiled at her. "Always the planner."

"Hey, you love that about me."

"I do." He kissed her hand once again.

Two hours later, they had a bag with towels and had thrown on some clothes for the ride down to the port and the hike up the volcano. Rachel heard Jesse call out her name from behind her as they rode down on separate donkeys. As she turned around, giggling uncontrollably as her donkey made its way downwards she saw Jesse with the camera in his hand and smiled broadly as he snapped a picture of her.

Just then his donkey lurched forward, causing him to almost topple off of it and drop the camera. She snickered as she watched him steady himself on top of his donkey. "It's not funny," Jesse cried as he tried to hold back a laugh of his own.

"It kind of is," she yelled back even as her own donkey lurched slightly which caused Jesse to laugh loudly as he watched her try to hang on to her own donkey. "It's not funny!"

"You were right the first time, Rach. It kind of is funny," he teased.

When they finally reached the Old Port, they had the man who helped them with their donkeys take a picture of them with their trusty mode of transportation that had just brought them safely down from the village high above them. Jesse patted his donkey on the head affectionately before he grabbed Rachel's hand and they headed for the boat that was waiting to take them to the volcano.

Sitting outside at the front of the boat, Rachel and Jesse alternately posed for pictures as they took turns with the camera and the boat headed towards the volcano. They even had another one of the passengers take a picture of them with Santorini as their back drop.

As their group unloaded from the boat, they lingered so they could bring up the rear. "I think I'm gonna like this view," Jesse said suggestively, wrapping his arms around Rachel from behind as they walked up the path a little ways from where their boat had docked.

"Why do you think I wore these shorts?" Her response earned her a kiss on the neck from Jesse before he released her from his grip and they followed the group ahead of them. She glanced back at him a few times as they made the climb up the winding path and noticed him watching her rear end intently. They reached some jagged rocks and just as she was about to step onto a higher rock easily, she felt Jesse's hands on her ass causing her to stop her forward progress with one leg up on the rock in front of her and turn around to look at him.

He looked up at her, grinning widely. "I thought I might give you a little boost."

"Uh huh." She laughed as she shook her head and allowed him to squeeze her butt a little as he gave her a little push to the rock in front of her.

Once they had made it to the top of the volcano, Rachel looked out towards the ocean and then twirled around to look at Santorini perched high atop the outer rim of the caldera that they were currently at the center of. "Wow," Rachel breathed out. It was one of the most beautiful sights she had ever seen.

She caught sight of Jesse a short distance away snapping pictures of their breathtaking surroundings. Her eyes traveled down his body as she watched the breeze blow his loose curls around, the white t-shirt that fit in all the right places, the navy blue swim trunks that also fit in all the right places, his toned and tanned – thanks to the Mediterranean sun – calves. He was nearly as breathtaking as the island that surrounded them.

She tore her gaze away from Jesse and looked at the smaller island to the north of where she stood, Thirasia. Rachel wondered what life on a tiny island like that would be like. She wondered if the people there were content with their life or if some of them longed to one day live in a big metropolis like Athens like she had dreamed of New York when she was growing up in Lima, Ohio.

Jesse turned and saw Rachel deep in thought as she looked towards the smaller island. Raising the camera in front of him once again, he began to take pictures of a completely oblivious Rachel. Her hair blowing behind her in the steady breeze of the caldera. She looked perfect.

After a moment, she turned to look at him, noticing the camera pointed straight at her. Ever the star, she struck a pose for him and smiled. "Glad to see you actually getting some use out of my gift," Rachel teased, pointing at the camera in his hand as he walked towards her.

"Most of the pictures are of you," he said softly as he leaned towards her and kissed her lips softly.

They were lost in their own little world when Jesse saw movement out of the corner of his eye. Turning his head, he saw that the rest of their group was headed back down towards the boat. So, taking Rachel's hand in his and linking their fingers together, they followed everyone back down the path that they had come up just a short while before.

Less than thirty minutes later, they were stripping down to their swim suits and holding hands as they jumped off the side of the boat together. Even though they had both been prepared for it, the waters of the Mediterranean were still ice cold to their sun-warmed bodies. They quickly swam towards the hot springs to warm up but realized once they reached the small area that it was more of a lukewarm springs.

"You can stand up, Rach," Jesse told her as he stopped swimming in front of her. She felt the warm mud squish between her toes as she placed her feet on the bottom and squealed at the strange sensation. "Do you need me to carry you?" Jesse asked as he picked her up and she wrapped her legs around his waist.

"If you insist," she replied, as Jesse walked a little further into the cove but kept a far enough distance from the rest of the tour group. Rachel leaned her head back to smooth her hair back and felt Jesse fingers move under her bikini bottoms to squeeze her bottom gently. "Jesse," Rachel scolded as she immediately leaned back up to glare at him.

"What?" he asked, trying to feign innocence.

"You know what," she replied, shoving his shoulders playfully.

He pulled her close to him again before replying with a mischievous twinkle in his eye. "You know you like it."

"I would if there weren't twenty other people around us."

"Do you know who you're talking to?" he asked with a quirk of his eyebrow. "The idea of getting caught turns you on even more." He emphasized his point by grinding her hips onto his hardening erection which caused her mouth to drop open slightly as a quiet moan escaped her lips at the sensation.

"Not now," she protested half-heartedly even as she herself locked her legs tightly around Jesse's waist and ground herself against him again.

"No one can see us in this murky water," he reassured her. "They don't know where my hand is right now." His voice was husky as his fingertips grazed the skin just above her bikini bottoms. She gave him another warning look without saying a word. Jesse knew that look all too well so he raised his hands above the water with a slight smirk. "I'll be on my best behavior."

Wrapping her arms around his neck, she moved so their faces were only inches apart. "There'll be plenty of time for that later," she told him before kissing him lightly on the lips and then letting go of him to stand on the muddy bottom of the hot springs.

"You know, the mud is supposed to be really good for your skin," Jesse said as Rachel waded away from him a bit.

"Oh, really?" she asked not paying much attention to what Jesse was doing when she felt him smear mud on the side of her face.

She turned and looked at him with a mixture of shock and amusement. "That color looks nice on you. You might want to rub some on the other side so it's even," he managed, unable to keep a straight face.

Dunking her head under the water, Rachel washed it off of her face before grabbing a handful of the mud in her own hands. She finally resurfaced near Jesse who was still chuckling.

"You didn't like my mud mask?"

"I just thought," she said, before reaching up and rubbing mud all over his face. "That you might want one as well."

Instead of washing it off immediately, he flashed a disarming smile at her and asked, "The mud only makes me look ruggedly handsome. I'm even sexier now, right?" He pulled Rachel to him, and holding her tightly, rubbed his face along the side of hers getting mud all over her again. Rachel merely laughed as she reached up and pushed his head underneath the water.

So that was how they spent the rest of their time at the hot springs, goofing off like a couple of teenagers. As Rachel laughed when Jesse dunked her under the water, she thought about how this was one of the things she loved most about them. They didn't take themselves too seriously all the time and they made each other laugh. Laughter was important.

Before they knew it, they were back in the Old Port and were boarding the gondola to take them up to Fira so they could head back to their hotel and get ready for dinner. Once again, Jesse's camera was out and he was taking photos of the view of the caldera from the gondola as it moved upwards. Holding out the camera at arms length, he got Rachel's attention and snapped the picture as he kissed her soundly on the lips. He flipped the camera around so they could look at the screen and they both smiled at the picture he had just taken.

"I think that's my favorite," Rachel said softly as she linked her arm through his and leaned her head on his shoulder.

Once they arrived back at their hotel, they both showered and got ready for dinner. Jesse stood out on the veranda of their suite watching the brilliant orange, pink and red hues of the sunset on the horizon while he waited for Rachel to finish getting ready. "Rach, we're going to be late for dinner," he called out, glancing back towards the open door of their suite.

"I'm almost ready," she replied loudly as she slipped her shoes on. She picked up the necklace from the table beside the chair she had been sitting in and walked out onto the veranda. Coming up behind Jesse quietly, she slipped her arms around his waist as she came to a stop next to him and cuddled into his side.

"Hi," he said, kissing the top of her head. "You ready?"

"Almost. Will you put my necklace on for me?" She smiled up at him as she handed him her necklace.

"Of course. You look gorgeous, by the way," he told her as she moved to stand in front of him. He placed a tender kiss at the nape of her neck as she swept her hair to the side.

"Thank you," she said, glancing back at him. "You look quite dashing yourself."

"I do what I can," he whispered in her ear. "This is your new necklace," he observed, finally noticed what necklace he held in his hand.

"Well, it was a wedding present from my wonderful husband," she remarked as he draped it over her neck and clasped it.

"I must say, he has good taste." He placed another kiss on the nape of her neck before she turned around to face him fully.

"Oh, he does," she told him, reaching up and clasping her hands behind his neck. "And he's handsome and charming and talented and sweet. But don't tell him I said he's sweet because he hates when I tell him that."

He brought his face closer to hers. "That's because most men don't like to be called sweet."

"But you are sweet," she replied, brushing a stray curl off of his forehead.

"Only to you." Rachel knew that was a lie but she said nothing. "And that's only because you're my wife." She felt her heart speed up in anticipation when he winked at her, and then his lips were on hers in a heated kiss.

Rachel's eyes snapped open, images of her dream flooding her vision. Jesse's words still echoing through her. She felt wetness on her cheeks and reaching up she realized that she had been crying. It had felt so real. It was like she had actually been in Santorini with Jesse on what she could only imagine had been their honeymoon.

This was the way her night's had been for the last few weeks. Every night it was a different glimpse at her possible future with Jesse. Waking up to find that it hadn't been reality and that she was all alone in her bed in New York still was like being doused with ice cold water. Her heart ached as she remembered the happiness that she had felt only moments earlier in her dream world. She ached to go back to that moment and that place. Her little slice of heaven.

She knew there was no going back though. It wasn't real. It might never become a reality. She and Jesse were no longer together and he was still with Isla.

But what if he wasn't? She argued with herself.Or what if he knew that I was no longer with Donovan? It might change things.

Rachel had wanted to not tell Jesse about Donovan or pressure him in any way because she wanted him to make the decision on his own, but she wasn't so sure that was the right thing to do anymore. She was in love with him. She wanted to be with him. No, she needed to be with him.

The cast Halloween party was tomorrow night. She would tell him then. She knew that significant others were invited but Rachel hoped that Jesse would come alone. Rachel didn't want to avoid him anymore. She wanted him to know that she was free and she hoped that he would tell her that he soon would be as well.

Author's Note: I thought I'd give you guys a little bit of fluff thrown in with all the angst and the only way to do that was with a dream. I did as much research as possible on the New York divorce laws, but since I'm not a lawyer I'm sure I screwed something up but hopefully no one notices. :) I've had the party planned for awhile and have had a portion of it written for quite awhile so hopefully that means it won't take me too long to post the next chapter.