Julian walked out of the ocean and back onto shore looking around him before going to retrieve his towel to dry off. He couldn't see Alexis anywhere and figured she must have gone for a walk or a run. The swim had completely invigorated him and he felt more energized after hard exercise than fatigued, ready to tackle something more serious. Like going after Shawn and his murderous lifestyle, had to be a main priority.

But at least Alexis had not been tangled up anymore with that lowlife. If they had gone through with the wedding…Julian didn't even want to think about it. He didn't want that for the woman that had at first fascinated and then captivated him…because he had to admit that part of the driving force behind his decision to go and bust up her nuptials had been because even if Shawn had been the patron saint of goodness, Julian didn't want Alexis to marry him.

Oh he know some might say certainly Alexis that he had no right to tell her who she could and couldn't marry but these feelings…when had life gotten so complicated? He just didn't think that way when it came to what he wanted. He made the decision to go out and get it no matter what usually after planning a strategy. His previous plan to dominate the Mafioso scene at PC had stood in his way.

He looked at his watch, nothing was on the schedule but maybe they could go out to dinner or order inside tonight. But the sunlight beckoned so Julian decided to relax some more on the beach knowing Alexis would be returning soon.

Alexis ran down the beach, noticing the calmness of the ocean next to her and the quietness around her. She hadn't really appreciated the peacefulness of her enforced sabbatical until several days had passed. It proved a great environment for thinking and reevaluating her life…which was necessary given that she had nearly married a hit man believing he had changed. Even if she had any suspicions about Shawn, would it have been enough to stop her if Julian hadn't shown up? And her feelings about him, they were all tangled up, because she knew that part of the reason she had gravitated to Shawn in the first place had to do with her feelings about the man who had just shown up.

Then like that everything had changed on her wedding day.

Seriously, she hadn't even told Shawn she would be leaving; she had just run off in a hail of gunfire, how normal was that?

She didn't need a man, she needed a good therapist.

Running helped smooth out her rough edges in her thinking of why she had been drawn to loser men with homicidal tendencies so much later because who could forget Jerry Jax? Seriously the last good guy she had been with had been Ned and when it'd been time to hitch herself to him legally, she'd fled for the hills. She'd hurt him deeply when she did that without meaning too and it'd taken a long time for Ned to heal.

She stopped for a moment to grab her breath, wiping her forehead. What good could come out of overanalyzing her relationships with men, when she had to focus on how to extricate herself from one professional killer and his borderline messed up crew who had always worried Alexis more than a little bit.

Deciding to head back, she turned around and then she saw her…was that Ivory the neighbor and what was she doing all the way down here? Ivory looked up and smiled at her and Alexis started jogging, reaching her.

"It's a beautiful day," Ivory said, "Great for some exercise but you're all alone."

Alexis wiped her hair out of her face.

"I thought I'd get away from him for a while and let him do some guy things while I enjoyed some time alone."

Ivory nodded knowingly.

"That's good for any relationship," she said, "You've been together long?"

Alexis thought quickly, make it simple, she decided.

"Well it certainly seems that way sometimes but no, this is a new development for both of us."

Ivory smiled.

"He's certainly a looker…not that I'm looking…"

"He wants to marry but we really hadn't known each other long enough," Alexis said, "Besides I don't believe that something like that should be rushed into…"

Since when, Alexis thought feeling like kicking herself but she smiled instead.

"Not that he's not great but we've got to work a few of our idiosyncrasies out first."

Ivory nodded again.

"I can see why that might be important," she said, "so where do you hail from anyway?"

Alexis tried to act all casual.

"Oh NYC…then elsewhere…originally but we might be thinking about relocating…I'd love to live near the beach fulltime."

"It's a great place...Though in the winter the weather can be quite harsh, the ocean washes parts of the coastline away and we get landslides sometimes."

When compared to the less than natural disasters of her own life, Alexis thought she could handle the more natural kind.

"So what about you Ivory…what drew you here," she asked.

Ivory beamed.

"Oh my family grew up on a beach near Santa Barbara and I always remember fondly the times we spent paddling in the ocean and collecting sea shells…I wanted to do that as a grownup too."

"I can understand that."

"There's plenty of real estate left," Ivory said, "and it doesn't cost as much money as you might think."

Alexis didn't want to tell Ivory that money was really no object for her or Julian so she just nodded, thinking the less she said about the history of her…relationship to him the better.

"I…we might look into it."

Ivory looked at her watch.

"Well I'd better get going," she said, "I have some ceramics to prepare for the kiln…I do that on the side…through an online store."

"That sounds great…"

Ivory nodded.

"I've got some orders even though I've only been at it a few months."

She waved goodbye and headed down the beach while Alexis started jogging again back to the beachfront in front of the house. As she approached, she saw Julian lying on the towel, but couldn't tell whether he was asleep or just relaxing after his arduous swim. He sure looked fine, his physique definitely accentuated by his swimsuit. She had never told him this because it'd just get to his head and anyway, he'd had slipped between the sheets of a couple of PC's women who had attracted more than their share of emotionally complicated if dynamic men. Alexis had thought Julian dynamic from the start even when he'd been Derek the publishing magnate and had only learned to notice and appreciate some of the layers that made him up later on. Not that it had yielded good results for her since it'd turned out that he'd been someone entirely different than she imagined not to mention someone who turned out not to be a stranger.

He'd of course figured that out quite a while before she did and hadn't shared that information with her. Just remembering that, made her feel so damn foolish and colored every interaction she'd had with him. Maybe he'd enjoyed playing her that way, maybe it gave him power and the thrill of welding it. It certainly gave him an edge in any game he played.

She approached the towel next to him and sat down, reaching for her water bottle to take a nice long sip. The sun had been quite warm and a hint of humidity from the ocean dampened the air. Julian hoisted himself up on his elbows to look at her.

"Good run?"

She nodded.

"How was your swim?"

He smiled.

"Very energizing…how would you like to go out to dinner tonight or would you like to order in?"

She considered her options.

"Dinner?"

"Yeah it's what people normally do in the evenings sometimes as a prelude to other thing."

Damn the look in his eyes, she'd grown to recognize it. He was trying to get under her skin again. She didn't mind as much as she should.

"I'd like to order in…actually…I think we've been out enough lately."

He agreed.

"Less privacy in a restaurant."

She countered.

"More risk of being seen not a desirable outcome since we're supposedly lying low."

He just chuckled.

She reached for some sunscreen and put it on her skin. Julian watched, because she might be irritated with him right now but she sure could fill out a suit very nicely. She shot him a look catching him at it.

"What are you looking at?"

"You…"

"I can see that…but it's not as if we haven't seen each other like this already. I mean especially with you being so bashful and all about your state of undress."

"My what?"

"You know what I mean…"

He did but he did enjoy teasing her mostly to see some pink on her face and because he knew that it made her lower her guard around him.

"I know but this is different…"

Yeah it was, she realized because they really had been conducting themselves a bit differently since ditching the wedding in a hail of gunfire. She still remembered when they had kissed but she really shouldn't be thinking about that because everything was just so difficult now, too complicated for those types of feelings to spill over when everything was such a mess. She hadn't forgiven him after all.

"I know…and it's just not a good time for that kind of different right now. It might never be a good time."

Julian sat up and stroked the hair off of her shoulders and she enjoyed it too much to say anything.

"It's all going to work out," he said, "The interview went great this morning and Roy's working hard on his end to help resolve all this. The rest of it will fall into line."

She sighed.

"It shouldn't be something that had to be resolved," she said, "I really thought I knew what I was doing…but I think I was just trying to avoid reality and that's you…and the fact that it's hard to have feelings for you when you couldn't even be honest about who you were. I mean you withheld some very important information."

He moved on to caressing her back, and that felt even better. She really should say something but she just had been through this really stressful week and what he did relaxed her so she didn't feel so badly about it. She almost could believe what he had said, that it would all work out in the end.

"I know that I did but as far as excuses go, you'd better come up with a better one."

What he said made sense but she didn't know if she could do that with him…she felt so nervous about what it would mean…especially if it didn't work out. Could she walk away from him if that's what she had to do?

"It doesn't let you off the hook. I don't know if I can ever do that."

"That's fine…I'm in no rush."

She chuckled at that.

"You might be in for a very long wait and you don't seem to have much patience from what I've seen so far."

His hands stopped stroking her skin but remained on her.

"Then you don't know me very well but that's about to change."