Alexis looked inside the displays in the stores around her. Mannequins adorned in styles which were in some cases, elegant and in others, outrageously gaudy. She admired them and decided to go inside to take a much closer look. Julian had work that he had to do and he didn't like shopping for clothes all that much but she did on occasion. And the blue strapless dress just called to her, like a siren.

She went inside to try it on…she didn't know where she would wear it maybe some party when she and Julian returned back to their lives in PC and they went their separate ways. If she had gone through with her wedding…she kept thinking about that even when she didn't want…it hadn't been the first time she had hooked up with a killer unfortunately but it had been Julian of all people that had to set her straight. That bothered her because what kind of man was he, but one who had killed others to push for territory as PC's latest mobster.

It had looked like for a while that he might be keeping himself busy with the likes of Carly and Olivia and she'd been apprehensive about that in ways where she hadn't been aware of how deep her feelings had run and where they had really come from. She didn't know why it mattered to her and she kept it to herself. It only seemed natural that men gravitated to Carly she'd grown used to that. Dianne and she used to joke about it during their nights at Coleman's bar or the Floating Rib when they'd been friends.

She might have been relieved by the fact that neither of Sonny's main molls had kept him captivated for long but it hadn't been because she had wanted Julian for herself. No, she didn't want him at all. She didn't want to be associated with the likes of Julian Jerome. It wasn't him being a mobster like everyone around her probably believed, it was because she just had served as a means to an end to him giving him info on his enemy without realizing it. He'd played her for a fool right?

More than once…okay maybe she'd gotten to do it back in return when she kept her secret away from him for a little while. But nothing had changed between them and nothing would as long as they were hiding out from most of the world right now.

Of course not. They were sharing close quarters now but she'd keep her distance from him.

Okay maybe she'd kissed him a couple of times and maybe it'd been enjoyable but she wasn't into repeating her mistakes no matter how much he tempted her. What he'd done to her had hurt her to the core and she remembered that whenever she was around him.

Then again, he'd used her to get at Sonny and she'd found out just before it'd been too late and that not only had he been Julian Jerome, he'd been that Julian too. God, what a revelation that had been and Sam had struggled with it but took it much better than she did.

Her mind volleyed back and forth on the subject of Julian and it was not nearly as fun as the verbal volleys the two of them had exchanged since they met up again this time around.

She still struggled because there was so much she'd wanted to say to him but why would anything she had to say interest a hardened mobster more interested in being the Mafioso of PC than reconnecting with his baby mama and her family?

"Excuse me, may I help you with something miss…?"

She looked up to see a young woman with three different colors in her hair and a few spangled bracelets on her arms looking at her.

"Oh…I'm looking but that blue dress…it looks nice…"

The woman smiled.

"Would you like to try it on?"

"May I?"

The woman nodded and pointed the way to the dressing room.

"Just call me if you need any assistance."

Alexis took the lovely little dress and yeah, it would just about reach down to her knees meaning that it was designed to show off a little leg and the top part, to accentuate some cleavage. She could wear this to a informal party, between close friends, one preferably with great looking men present rather than a formal awards dinner or fundraiser. She stripped off her casual clothes and then slipped the dress on over her head and zipped it in the back. Oh wow, she thought when she posed in front of the mirror. She looked damn fine in it…it hugged her hips and tapered to accentuate her lean muscled legs.

Definitely add it to her list…even if she couldn't wear it for a while…she might throw in some more casual summer dresses to wear while they were hiding out …and maybe a couple of suits safe enough to wear in church for any press conferences where she didn't want to look too. Maybe she'd wear it out on a date if she ever felt like mingling as a single woman again. This time she'd definitely hit a dating service, have her daughter and Spinelli run background checks and then have him vetted by Mac before she agreed to go on a date with him.

It just didn't seem worth it to throw caution in the wind with the next bad boy already waiting out there to mess with her head and then her life. Especially since her most recent member of that club had made it clear that he still had some kind of interest in her. She couldn't think what because there wasn't really anything she could do to help him beat Sonny anymore that the feds had gone after his entire operation.

"Oh that looks lovely on you," the woman said approvingly when Alexis posed in front of the mirror outside the dressing room.

"I like it…I might need to buy some shoes to do it justice…"

"You're a very attractive woman…and we do have some heels in the back of the store…"

Alexis smiled as she followed the woman to check them out.

Julian looked at the computer after getting off the phone with Coleman who had given them an update on what was going on with Shawn and the feds. They didn't seem to want to do anything with him and she wondered if that meant they were gathering more information or interested in pressuring him with what they had to get him to give states evidence in court. He'd just filet the guy…not just for killing people but for what he had done to Alexis If he hadn't stopped the wedding…but then again she had enough sense to have broken it off…but then again he remembered the hail of gunfire that had followed their getaway.

She had gone off to do some shopping for some clothes and so he had called Coleman after returning a terse call from Sam about why Shawn was on talk shows saying that Alexis had been brainwashed by Julian. The latest propaganda being circulated from the professional hit man no doubt.

Other than having to hide out, the time spent at the beach house with Alexis had been pretty great…they hadn't spent enough time together in quite a while and he had missed her…more than he would ever tell her…because of what had happened between them because he hadn't made the right decisions when it came to her. He'd wanted to ask her so many questions when she'd realized that he was the man who'd sired her eldest daughter in the back seat of a car years ago.

He'd wanted to ask her what it'd been like to be pregnant with their daughter but knew that'd tap into a lot of painful memories for her. He saw them etched on her face when she'd confronted him with the truth even while she tried to hide them.

What it'd been like to have to face her family and by then he'd known she was a Cassadine and that there'd be heavy penalties for an illegitimate daughter to herself produce another child like her.

She'd told him that her memories of what happened the night they were together had been compromised for years…though it'd taken her most of that time to remember why she'd blocked the out so that only hypnosis could find some of them. If she could only forget who the man was who fathered her baby, then her uncle and his brothers could never find him. They'd kill him for sure if they did and nothing he said to her about being a member of the formidable Jerome family of mobsters could convince her otherwise.

"You don't know my family," she had told him, "They wouldn't stop at nothing until they tracked you down and wiped the family lineage clean of you. You wouldn't stand a chance against them."

Not the likes of Mikkos and Tony and Victor who had been intent in trying to get every detail out of her about the unborn child that would bastardize their royal lineage even further. Mikkos ensured that she would remain alive and not wind up like other family traitors. Stefan offered her some protection.

Julian hadn't thought anyone could pose a threat to the Jeromes especially in their bad ass years but something in her eyes told him she wasn't kidding. The Cassadines were the ultimate bad boys putting everyone else to shame.

So she'd taken steps as a young girl to protect him that he never had a clue about…well he had his own memories of what had happened and what he did that he'd never spilled.

When he had broken into Shawn's estate and found her in his suite, he had been taken aback by her beauty and by the sense that she viewed him with some degree with wariness when the man who would be her groom was the one to worry about not him.

Had they drifted that far apart from one another…crossed each other that much but if they had, they had made up ground in the past week they had spent together.

Though he knew she'd be loath to admit it. He had to find some way to get her to change her mind on that.

Coleman had left him a message on his phone when he checked that the feds had assigned a deputy AG to monitor the happenings in PC and that they might be preparing to lower the boom. It was best he stay away. Dante had been taken in for another round of questions and Max…well it wasn't looking good for him because they'd put the screws into his brother Milo and the "magic man" had sung like a bird.

Anna had wrung her hands at the takeover of her police department and Felicia had stood by patting her on the shoulder as Duke was searching for an attorney who was not under or facing indictment and disbarment in PC. Dianne had taken off on vacation from the burgeoning train wreck to get away for a while.

Julian knew he had to make some decisions. He just didn't know what they were going to be yet.

Alexis hadn't known that she was being followed while in the store purchasing her clothes and so she continued down to the street to the DVD store to pick up some movies for the two of them to watch. Something besides action movies and westerns…maybe a romance or two….or a comedy…

No stay away from romance definitely.

She didn't know what kind of movies Julian liked. Was he into mobster type movies or something far different from his own life? She'd never known that much about him even though they had…no need to think about that.

But behind her the person tailing her got on the phone to make a call.