*All the characters from The Mortal Instruments belong to Cassandra Clare and her incredible mind. Nothing will ever be owned by the author of this story. ;)*

Musical Preference:

Underdog- You Me At Six

Talk- Coldplay

:) Enjoy!

Chapter Thirteen

"How's it going, Wayland?"

Jace glanced up to find Sebastian navigating himself inside his office. Standing, he greeted Sebastian with a friendly smile and a warm handshake. Nothing could really ruin his fucktastic week with Clary.

"Woah, Wayland," remarked Sebastian as he took a seat. "You can't be that happy to see me! Who's getting laid here, eh?" And there went his smile.

Scowling, Jace sat back and turned halfway away from him. "Didn't we talk about keeping our damn business to ourselves?"

Sebastian smirked. "When was that? I don't seem to remember." Jace rolled his eyes.

"Anyway, how's the software?" he asked, trying to stray Sebastian away from the subject.

"It's getting there," Sebastian answered all business now. "The process is slightly slow but we're getting there. We should be done by the time we agreed on."

"You didn't need to come all the way over here just to keep me informed. A call would've done it." Jace sat forwards slightly. "What are you really doing here, Sebastian?"

He frowned mockingly. Yup, definitely here for something else, Jace thought, mentally preparing himself for some bullshit.

"I'm talking to an old friend," began Sebastian. "Can I not do that anymore?" Jace cocked an eyebrow and Sebastian finally broke into his trademark shit-eating grin. "I wanna know about this new girl you're bedding. You know, like old times. She must be really incredible to have you this whipp—"

"Enough! Jace slammed his hand on the desk, his temper getting the best of him. Sebastian's eyes grew noticeably. "I don't believe there is any work ethic involving talking about my personal life, Verlac. I think it'd be best if you leave now."

Sebastian's eyes narrowed as he got up. "Have it your way, Wayland." He hesitantly made for the door and swung it open with force to make the chair behind it stumble. "Move, Bane!" he exclaimed causing Jace to look up.

Magnus looked over Sebastian with dislike before moving out of his way. The other walked past, shaking his head to himself. Jace thought it looked so childish since Magnus was around three inches taller than Sebastian.

"Who fucked his girl?" Magnus asked jokingly before moving into the office, closing the door behind him.

"I doubt he can even get a girl with how disgusting he is," Jace commented slightly.

"Not to sound like an ass, boss," began Magnus, and Jace already knew this was gonna hurt, "but you weren't quite the catch before Clary either."

Jace glanced up at Magnus who was studying his nails with an air of boredom. "Yeah," he said, "I was even worse than Sebastian."

"He looked up to you, you know," called Magnus. "Back when he worked here." Jace gave him a horrified look. "Well, why wouldn't he? You had the dream job, hot wife, and twenty different girls hanging from your arms daily." He paused as he leant back in his chair. "Any hormone-driven man's dream."

"Oh, god," muttered Jace as he rubbed his face. "I didn't want to fire him." Magnus looked up from his nails in amazement. This was information he had not heard before. "He was a good friend to me. But he wasn't doing his job. This was at the time of Sir Wayland's reign," he said with disguised disgust. "He made me fire him. He would've gotten my last job position had he done what he was supposed to."

Magnus whistled softly. "That explains the rivalry. What it doesn't explain is how he got his job at Tyson's."

"He has connections," Jace responded in a long sigh as he sat back in his chair. "He's always had connections. It was first his dad that got him to Tyson's. Then there were rumors that he was dating someone whose uncle or something was very important." Jace shrugs. "Who knows."

Magnus nodded. "That makes sense. So, did he actually start working when he entered Tyson's?"

"Yeah. He slowly became me." Magnus laughed at Jace's theatrics.

"No, boss," he said shaking his head. "He slowly became who you used to be." Magnus winked and got up from his chair. "I'll come later to talk about some calls you need to make . . . Oh! And I also got you a number for a job agency because, really, I can only be your secretary for so long, boss."

w.^.w

"Start cleaning up, kiddos. The bell for lunch is going to ring soon." The kids started putting everything away and Clary felt like she could finally start to relax and maybe even think about her favorite boy at the moment.

Her phone started to vibrate on her desk and she started laughing as she saw it was none other than Jace. Checking real quick that the kids wouldn't mind her, she opened her phone.

"Jace," she said, but she noticed that it sounded out of breath and she wanted to slap herself to snap out of it.

"Hey, babe," he said and Clary could almost picture him smirking to himself. The thought made her blush uncomfortably. She was about respond when she saw someone holding scissors when they hadn't even used them.

"Carlos! Where did you get that? Put them back in their box!"

"Bad timing?" he asked lightly. Clary's eyes widened as she remembered she was on the phone.

"No, no," she replied, looking at the clock on the wall. "They're about to go to lunch." Just then, the bell rand and the kids piled over to the door, trying to get out. Suddenly, the room was quiet. "See?" she laughed. "They're gone."

"I heard," he said with a light chuckle. Clary smiled down at her hands. "Will I see you tonight?"

Her smile widened. "I guess if I have nothing else to do . . ." she trailed off.

"If everything goes as planned," he began, "you will definitely be doing something tonight."

"Sounds more like 'someone' to me, no?" she said as she laughed. She felt her face getting got at the thought of the last week they had spent together.

"You may be right . . ." They both laughed together. "How's your day going, Clary?"

God, he knows how much I love it when he says my name like that.

Just as she was about to respond, Clary heard a voice—an angry female voice—from Jace's side of the phone. She also heard Jace cursing. "Magnus, what's the commotion?" Clary could hear Magnus's suave voice, but not exactly what he was saying. She heard Jace sigh. "I'll call you back as soon as I can, okay?"

The call disconnected before she had any chance to respond.

w.^.w

"Who was that whore!?"she yelled as she tried to get away from Magnus. Jace kept a straight face, trying very hard not to show his disgust for the inappropriate intrusion.

"No one that you might be interested in, Aline," he said as he slowly got up from his chair. "You could've at least attempted to knock before barging in."

"Stop treating me like one of your shitty clients, Jace!" Her face was getting redder as her temper flared, Jace noticed.

He ignored her comment and motioned for Magnus to let Aline go. "It's okay, Magnus. I'm glad Aline came. I've got something to give her." Magnus frowned but nodded nonetheless before retreating from the room. Aline took a minute to compose herself before she crossed the room and began tapping her feet anxiously, all the while, glaring at Jace.

"What did you want to give me? Because jewelry won't save your ass this time." Pursing her lips into a grimace, she raised an eyebrow at him. He never thought she had ever looked as unattractive as she did in that moment.

"No," he said shaking his head as he rummaged through the papers in his desk. "I doubt I'll ever give you jewelry again, Aline." He found the manila folder he was looking for and extended it to her across the table. "Here."

Her eyes wavered from him to the folder before she took it, one of her hands touching the pearls on her neck before she opened it and looked inside. Her newly white face began getting pink as she took in what the papers said.

"Divorce papers," she said, voice controlled. "These are divorce papers."

She flipped her long red nails through the papers until she reached the last one, containing his signature and a blank space for hers. She looked up at him, and instead of seeing anger, he saw nothing.

"You're serious about this." Jace nodded as she closed it and put it under her arm. Aline nodded as well and looked down at her feet. "Okay. Well," she paused and leveled Jace with a small smile, although it was a smile that Jace really didn't want. "Let's see how much you're willing to fight for this 'Clary' of yours, 'cause I'm not signing these papers any time soon."

She turned to go but Jace called her before she could go too far. "Aline, I hope you know that by negating me this, you're just wasting my time. You're wasting your time."

Aline turned once more to look over Jace and cocked an eyebrow. "Jace, I'm twenty-four, hot, and smart. I've got plenty time to waste."

Right after she closed the door behind her, Jace went in search of Camille at her office. He found her on the phone, but Camille, after looking at his face, ended the call with her client quickly and was by Jace's side in a flash.

"What's going on, Jace? You look perplexed," she noticed with a frown. Jace snorted and looked at her.

"That's a great word to explain how I feel. I didn't know this feeling had a word," he commented lightly before sobering up again. "I gave Aline the papers right now. She came creating a riot. Magnus had to hold her back from scratching my face."

Camille held her hands up. "Wait, was the nail-scratching before or after you gave her the papers?"

"Before," he said. Camille opened her mouth to ask something but Jace knew what she was going to ask. "She heard me on the phone with Clary."

"Oh, okay then," she said nodding. "It makes sense now. But, why are you perplexed again?"

"She said she wasn't going to sign the papers. She also wanted to see how much I wanted Clary—but you see," he said quickly, "that doesn't even sound right anymore." Camille raised her eyebrow, waiting for an explanation. "Cam, I don't just want her. I need her." Looking over at his best friend, he saw her smiling, and that's when he knew what he had to do.

"I need to tell her that I'm married and that I'm getting a divorce. I can't live with this over my head anymore, Cam! It's eating me alive every time I'm with her," Jace exclaimed as his hands found his hair.

"Hey, hey, calm down. Let's think about this before you do something crazy, okay?" Camille let out a loud breath before continuing. "We've already discussed this and you said that there is a possibility that she will hate you for it. You have to know how to approach this. If not, you'll lose her forever."

Jace looked at Camille with tired eyes. "I need to tell her tonight. I can't make her live a lie. I'll never stop fighting for her, though. Never."

"Okay, then," she said nodding. "Just . . . be careful, Jace."

Later that evening, Jace found himself walking up to Clary's apartment, covering up his nerves perfectly with a smile. He wasn't completely sure how he was going to do it, but he had to. Because Clary deserved the real him, even if he didn't deserve her.

Clary materialized herself behind her door after he knocked twice, and she flung her arms around his neck and connected their lips in a kiss. Jace held her tightly, not wanting it to end at all, but needing to after a few seconds to catch their breath.

"Oh, hi," she said with a small grin.

"Hey," he chuckled at her lovingly, smoothing down her curly hair with one hand.

She kissed him softly once more before taking his hand and pulling him into her kitchen, where Jace found that it smelled heavenly.

"What's that smell?" he asked as he wound his arms around her waist from behind her where she stood in front of the stove.

"It's just spaghetti, chicken, and my mom's recipe of tomato sauce," she said as she stirred the aforementioned sauce.

Nuzzling his head on her neck, he peaked at the food. "The sauce isn't red."

Clary laughed. "No, but orange is a close enough color, right?"

"Mhhm," he hummed next to her ear and began kissing her neck slowly. Suddenly, Clary pushed him off her as she giggled.

"Get off, Blondie," she smiled teasingly as she pushed him towards the dining table.

"That's what I was trying to do," he remarks as he sits down and watched her work. He frowns as he remembers something. "Sorry that I didn't call you back later. One of my clients came quite . . . angry . . . about something."

She smiled over at him. "No problem. I figured it was that. Magnus seemed aggravated by it." Laughing, she added, "You should really find a secretary soon. I can't imagine the hell Magnus goes through for you."

Jace forced a laugh for her, trying not to think about his talk with Camille after the client left. "Yeah, he kind of quit after that. He's gone back to his original job and I'm, once again, secretary-less."

"Good for him," she snorted as she brought two plates with dinner. She went back and grabbed two beers from her fridge. He raised an eyebrow at her and she just shrugged it off with a smile, opening hers and sitting down next to him.

He opened his and took a swig before setting it down. They both went to eating as they smiled softly to each other.

"Clary, this is so so good," he exclaimed with his mouth half full. "Best fucking tomato sauce in my life." She giggled helplessly as he kept eating.

They finished fast enough and moved to the couch where they sat and cuddled together as they got to know each other more. After Clary told Jace about how she fucked up a cake at one of her aunt's weddings, he remembered why he was there at all that evening, and his happy mood started disappearing. He took her hand and flipped it over and over in his hands. Clary giggled and kissed his cheek.

"What's bothering you, Jace?" He looked up at her with a frown, wondering how she would know something was wrong. She was smiling at him, pushing his hair back and scratching ever so slightly.

He sighed. It was better that he'd start now. "You know I love you, right?" he asked, trying to make her see that nothing had, or ever would, change. She cocked her head slightly before nodding. "Remember how I told you that I've been married before?" Clary frowned but nodded again, sitting up a bit straighter than before. "Well . . ."

He trailed off and looked at her. Looked at her full lips, her soft skin, the tiny freckles on her nose, her curly red hair fanned out around her, and her green eyes framed by full orange lashes. He felt his resolve falter at noticing how much he didn't want to lose this.

". . . I just want you to know that I don't see us ever ending like my last marriage did," he opted for saying, punching himself internally for being such a pussy and not just coming out with the truth.

"If everything goes as planned," she said, mocking his earlier words and taking his face in her hands, "that won't happen."

Jace sighed and closed his eyes. "Good. I don't want it to." He opened his eyes suddenly and looked at her with a smile. "How about you come with me to this fundraising event for my corporation? I don't want to go alone and what better company than having you there with me?"

"I'd love to," she said smiling before kissing him softly. Jace exhaled into her, sort of relieved.

I'm going to hell, he thought as he kissed her again and again. I'm definitely going to hell.

Apologizing because again, it's almost been three months and I didn't update. This was due to writer's block and me starting school at a completely new school. It's just been so crazy and I'm sorry.

I probably won't be updating soon, but I hope I can. I usually write on backs of notebooks and then transfer so it's whenever I get free time, you see.

Now, as you can see, it's kicking off and I'm thinking it's either going to be twenty chapters or a few more. So, yay? xD I don't know, I really love this story and you guys.

I wanna thank all of the usual people I thank and all of you guys who reviewed! I tried to reply but sometimes FFn wouldn't let me so yeah xD

Okay, well, thanks for reading and I hope you can leave a…

Review? :)