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The drive to the cemetery had been mind numbing, the silence oppressive. Two cars behind the hearse, Jarod sat next to Zoe, directly across from Parker and her husband.

Husband? Hell, he's only five years younger than Sydney-

Sydney. The reason Jarod had returned, the reason for the day of reckoning that would surely come.

Zoe reached for Jarod's hand, her insecurity warranted. Jarod found it odd that she'd cling to him, as if by simply holding on to him she could somehow keep him with her.

She'd often complained that Vince couldn't hold her without holding her down, and, yet, did the same.

Jarod pulled his hand away—was reminded of another limo, another time, another country when another woman pulled her hand from his—and tore his gaze from the window and stole a glance at Parker. Mrs. Buchanan. How nice. How safe.

Parker was sullen, silent. She absently stared out the window at the bleak, overcast sky, or rather at the glass itself, her face partially obscured.

When the car drew to a halt, Parker hastily climbed out. Zoe and Jarod both waited politely for Robert. The man retrieved a pill bottle from his pocket. "I must sit this one out, I'm afraid." He smiled wryly, tapped his leg with his cane, and only then did Jarod realize the appendage was a prosthetic. "Be a gent and stand with my wife. Here," Robert added, fetching a dark garment and thrusting it in Jarod's direction. "See to it that she wears this wrap. It's bloody dreadful out there and I intend to return to London with my wife in three days," he explained coolly, "whether she catches pneumonia or not."

Robert earned himself a glare from Jarod.

"But Jarod? What about me?" Zoe asked incredulously.

"Join me for a drink," Robert suggested. "Scotch?"

"Jarod?" Zoe whined.

"You can come with me or stay here with Mr. Buchanan. It's up to you, Zoe."

"If you do this- if you dare do this, i-it's," stammered Zoe. Jarod hoped she'd deliver the ultimatum, have some dignity. "Go," she pouted. "I'll stay here."

Jarod did precisely that, walking briskly to the closed casket. There, he spread the wrap around Parker's stiff shoulders.

Broots, standing to the right of Miss Parker, was comforting Debbie, who Jarod barely recognized as the darling little girl with the deadbeat mother. Miss Deadbeat Mother had overdosed on crystal meth after winning big at the roulette tables. Broots had won, too, in some ways. A life insurance policy had paid for Debbie's education. In addition, he'd been sent the gambling winnings, minus the fifty grand the woman had blown on meth.

Strange how the wheel of fortune sometimes turns.

Miss Parker had unselfishly dismissed her own personal tragedies, taken the girl under wing, and now that angel was standing beside him, staring vacantly into the horizon beneath billowing clouds.

When the service ended Jarod was persuaded by Robert and Nicholas to join Michelle's family for dinner where he learned about the life he'd walked away from. Nicholas taught at Yale, Michelle had returned to school, Broots worked for the Central Intelligence Agency, and Debbie was modeling in Amsterdam. Mostly, Jarod learned about the man Miss Parker married.

Robert Buchanan, who'd been married four times, was authoring his sixty-eighth book. He had attended Harvard, Yale, and had taught at Oxford, Cambridge, and Stanford. He'd studied psychology, languages, philosophy, engineering, and law. He'd practiced psychiatry and medicine and was still a partner with a small law firm that specialized in— what else?— divorce.

Mrs. Buchanan was silent during dinner and merely rearranged the plate's contents. It was evident that she'd married an aloof, self absorbed intellectual. She volunteered at children's hospitals, was as beautiful as she'd been that horrible night many years earlier when Jarod had walked out of her life.

Descending the winding staircase she cast a cursory glance in her husband's direction and disappeared into the kitchen.
Robert was still talking about himself.

"Ah, well, apropos of nothing, I-"

Jarod ignored the old man and craned his neck for a glimpse into the kitchen where Nicholas and Parker were conversing.

"How is she," Nicholas asked.

"Asleep. She'll be all right, Nick," consoled Parker. "She knows it's what Sydney wants."

"And you?" Nicholas' voice dropped to a confidential murmur.

"Tired. I'm going to have a nightcap," she said, liberating the cork from a bottle of Lagavulin and splashing two fingers into a glass.

"If you need to talk, if you need anything-"

"You too, Nicholas," said Parker gently.

"Oh, and ask Robert if he wants more wine. We have plenty."

"Nicholas will bring out more wine if you'd like, Robert," Parker announced.

"Very well," he replied. "It's so rare I drink wine these days but this particular year is very nice." Robert winked at his wife seated opposite him. "I know you're not a connoisseur, Angel, however, I insist you taste-"

Parker abstractedly studied the scotch swirling in her glass. Jarod observed the exchange- just as closely as Zoe observed him.

"Angel, dear?"
Blue eyes, at last, widened. "Yes," rejoined Parker.
"The wine is delicious." He raised his glass to her. "You must have a taste."
"Another time," Parker said.
"Come, Love. Try it. Oh, not even-"

Jarod believed the moment was both disorienting and familiar, so similar, in fact, to what had transpired more than a decade earlier that the past overthrew the present, and his surroundings dropped away.

"A taste," said Jarod sweetly. "It's one drink and it is a special occasion."

He was correct.
Jarod vividly recalled the frightening afternoon approximately four months after Carthis when a dozen redirected calls had prompted him to board the first available flight to Blue Cove. A visit to Parker's empty house had led the fretful Pretender to Sydney's home where he'd been informed that Parker was warring with the Triumvirate.

Jarod had literally ran from Sydney's house, left the states for Kigali, Rwanda where trusted sources- - friends of Major Charles'- - claimed Parker was working closely with tactical forces.

In Kigali, Jarod gathered additional intel and tracked a special forces unit to Kabalega Falls.

Weeks passed before Jarod concluded that his source had misled him, that the unit he'd followed had instead been natives—dressed in full gear—enlisted by Parker to intentionally lead Jarod nearly nine hundred kilometres in the wrong direction. Six months of back tracking led him to Garoua and there, under a relatively young baobab tree, Jarod found himself looking down the business end of an HK416.

"Parker. " He said, relieved.

"Jarod," She'd exclaimed. "What the hell are you doing here?"

"I believe that's my line." He smirked. "Is this why we couldn't have that conversation about us the night I broke into your house? Is this why I couldn't get a straight answer out of you?"

"Go home, Jarod."

"I will go, Parker, but only if you go with me."

"You aren't authorized to be here, you can't stay-"

"I want to help."

Jarod's offer to help, however, was declined and Parker had the full support of her unit- until, that is, the team's radio equipment conveniently jammed. Jarod took control, swiftly solved the problem, proved himself useful, became a bit chummy with the guys by cooking gourmet meals and improving their living conditions in subtle ways and Parker found herself outnumbered.

Jarod was permitted to stay- at his own risk, despite her demands that he return to the states.

Standing guard that night with two weapons specialist, The Pretender had been briefed on the unit's intense gun fight with the Zulus, the body count, but specifically, Parker's involvement. He hadn't been surprised to learn that she'd taken out nearly three dozen Triumvirate forces or that chief among Parker's objectives were the children that had been shipped to Triumvirate station for "intense assassin training".

It occurred to him that Parker had survived the same intense training and the severe conditions.

The more he discovered about the unit's objectives, the more his insides twisted. "She's a careless maverick." One of the men had commented with a chuckle. "Against our orders, she ran into a Zulu encampment while under heavy enemy gunfire and rescued a captured native girl. I don't know if she's just that ballsy or crazy." 

Jarod refusd to allow that to happen again, allow Parker to get herself killed. He worked diligently to mesh well with the tactical unit and gain their trust. He worked closely with Parker coordinating the continuing rescue efforts, however, despite their progress with the mission, despite how well they worked together, each day Parker turned to him and said: "Please go back home, Jarod."

And his reply was always the same:

"Only if you come with me, Parker."

Jarod was determined to remain at her side. And was. He was with her when the secret facilities were demolished and every child was rescued. Side by side, they sought out Triumvirate leaders who'd embedded themselves in villages and cities across the continent. They'd shared a battered tent, the occasional shack, a thatch house in Puntjie, a hut in Izingolweni, and many lingering moments but he was determined not to kiss her until she was home.

When surviving enemy Zulus were arrested while attempting to recruit members to join their resistance, they shared in the victory. It was finally over.

Parker threw her arms around him and their eyes met and his steel determination disintegrated.

"I'm going to kiss you," He had whispered.

"I'm going to let you."

From all outward appearances, a happy ending was certain for the pair.

Appearances, howver, can be deceiving.

 

"Another," Jarod asked.

"We do have reason to celebrate," Parker purred. "One more." She  smiled when his goblet clinked into hers. New beginnings.

After five and a half years of run/chase- - which Jarod had joked was foreplay- -  and another eighteen months spent in the field to undo what her ancestors had done, the pair spent the night together and any remaining vestiges of the ice queen melted away.

They explored each other's body, each leaving the other on the verge of climax and then Parker—never one to be outdone or submissive in the bedroom—took control by rolling the condom onto penis.

Their bodies at long last joined, it occurred to Jarod that he'd never be able to get enough of her and that both terrified and disgusted him. Painful memories long buried clawed to the surface.

It hadn't been all that long ago that he'd demanded to know why she wouldn't just leave him alone, and afterwards, she'd come between him and his mother in Carthis and for some reason, he'd almost kissed her, and then, she'd rejected him. And now, I'm inside her? He'd spent his life running from this woman, despising and desiring her in equal measures.

Suddenly, Jarod couldn't remember what he'd ever seen in her. He didn't want to want or care about her. In fact, he didn't ever want to see her again.

And he didn't want to ever stop fucking her.

The arms gently embracing her tightened and in one fluid movement she was on her back with a yelp of surprise. "If you wanted me on my back-" purred Parker gutturally- and the remainder was interrupted by a brutal thrust.

"Not so-" she commanded. Deep? Rough? The thought was forgotten when she looked up at him. She was startled to find that he was glaring at her, unblinking. 

Parker averted her face, attempted to push him away. "Jar-"

He seized her hair, wrenched her head roughly. When she attempted again to turn away a hand closed around her neck.

"Jarod," Parker gasped. "Jarod," she repeated.

Fury replaced shock when he lifted her into his next thrust, and with force enough that their bodies migrated and her head hung over the bed's edge.

"Stop, Jarod," she demanded, "you're hur-" The words were muted by his grunts and inarticulate snarling. He shuddered frenziedly above her, uttering a string of obscenties.

Jarod panted heavily through parted lips, closed his eyes, buried his face in her chest.

Parker stared vacantly at the ceiling, saw nothing. The silence that followed was oppressive, a piercing cacophonous quite that was painfully deafening.

Her palms were still pressed flush against his chest; clear coated finger nails continued to carve crescent shaped indentations into Jarod's flesh. When she shuddered beneath him again, he loosened his grip and extracted himself from her quite abruptly which resulted in Parker gasping in surprised pain. He stilled himself, after the fact, and with an positively morose gaze, croaked hoarsey, "I'm sorry."

Mustering a bit of consideration for the woman beneath him, Jarod gently rose and nonchalantly dressed.

Parker remained exactly in the position he'd left her. She swallowed back a sob, gulped back the tears.

She opened her eyes, blinked. The smell of semen was oddly repulsive, his scent on her unedurable. She audibly swallowed saliva, nearly choked on her sudden, unexpected contempt for the man she'd secretly adored for so many years. She coughed- a horrid, strangled retching sound.

"I'm sorry," Jarod whispered. "Are you all right? Are you? The condom-" He shook his head. "Ruptured," he needlessly explained.  "I'm sorry. I can get you a cloth before I leave. I can call someone for you."

Parker shuddered when his gaze swept over her trembling body.

She pulled the sheet around her, clutched it tightly to her body. With a bit of effort and a grimace, she sat, and then leaned forward to rest an elbow on her knee and her head in her hand.

"What do you need me to do?" He asked, tightening his belt. "Are you all right? I don't know why I was being so-" He shook his head, pushed a hand through his hair, "aggressive and I- are you all right?"

Parker closed her eyes, massaged her temples with a trembling hand.

"Look," he said, "I can hold you before I go if that's what you want."

"You're leaving?" She asked.

"I can't be with you," he said woodenly. "I never meant to hurt you."

"Y-you-" She caught his scent again, swallowed back bile.

"I'm sorry."

"You're sorry," she repeated hollowly with an expression of incomprehension.

Jarod thought she might cry. 

She didn't.

Parker's features hardened as realization sank in. The tears filling her eyes froze.

"Were you planning this all along," she asked in a strangely placid voice.

"No. No, I don't think so. I don't know."

"You don't know?"

"No. I wasn't. Not consciously anyway. Maybe I was." His gaze met hers. "Yes," Jarod hissed. "I wanted to hurt you."

"You-" came her strangled whimper, and she hated herself in that moment more than she would ever hate him.

"Yes, I wanted to hurt you," he confessed with a savage glare. "Just like you hurt me when you left me in the Centre to rot, when you didn't return my letters, when you stopped visiting at Christmas, when you chased me, shot at me," he growled in barely bridled rage. Parker couldn't meet his gaze and instead observed the muscles in his jaw. "I wanted to hurt you the way you hurt me when you smiled at Thomas, when you made love with him, when you grieved for him in the cemetery."

Parker inhaled sharply, shuddered. The hand on her head dropped involuntarily to her chest.

"I wanted to hurt you like you hurt me when you pushed me away with your bitterness, when you were reluctant to take that cup in Scotland, when you pulled away from my kiss, when you snatched your hand from mine. I wanted to hurt you," he said cruelly, and, with a sinister smile, asked, "How am I doing, sweetheart?"

"God," she exhaled tremulously, a head-to-toe convulsion.

Jarod snatched up the blanket from where it had fallen on the floor. 

"I'll be away for a while. Please, don't telephone me. Don't try to find me. I may be back." He bent at the waist, said, "I'm sorry" and spread the blanket over her shoulders.

Parker jerked away, slapped Jarod hard across the face with the back of her hand, rose, and briskly walked past him.

Jarod pressed his fingertips to his lips, stared in disbelief at the blood.

"Telephone you," she repeated, faltering briefly when the room began to tilt, undulate.

She sucked in a breath. "No. I won't phone you," she hissed. A sudden spasm ripped through her and she pressed an unsteady hand to her abdomen. "I will never do that. I don't want you to contact me either, not in any way, not ever again." The slamming bathroom door puncuated her words.

Jarod stood dumbly in her bedroom, listened to the water running in the shower, and Parker retching.

The closet door banged opened and an assortment of hygeine products were shuffled, upended. Jarod smelled isopropyl alcohol, and heard what sounded like someone frantically trying to scrub some horrid nastiness from their skin.

Steam wafted under the door, and Parker retched once more. She was desperately attempting to remove every trace of what had happened, washing off his scent and various blodily fluids, vomiting the wine he'd purchased.

The medicine cabinet opened, and Jarod instinctively knew that Parker was going to take those pills she'd purchased overseas- the ones that were illegal in the states, the ones she'd sought after discovering Gemini because she'd feared that the Centre would impregnate her.

Just as she now fears that I've impregnated her.

If he had, she was going to undo that as well.

She wanted to undo it all.

And she couldn't.

Jarod couldn't imagine how horrible it must feel to have done something so utterly irreversible, regrettable, reprehensible- something that could never be undone.

She couldn't un-fuck him no matter how hard she tried. And still, she tried. And tried.

But then, quite suddenly, he knew exactly how she felt. He couldn't unsay those words to her, could never undo what he'd done.

It occurred to him—in a huge way and with a pang in his chest—that he was the horrid nastiness that just wouldn't come off.

Parker was devastated that he had intentionally hurt her. She had consented to a night of love making. She was disgusted by him, sickened- as if he were a toxin. In the end, he hadn't quite measured up, hadn't met her expectations. And now, he'd ruined his only chance with her and she would never give him another.

"I'm sorry," Jarod whispered tearfully. "Sorry."



"Sorry?" Robert asked. "Why, young man, what are you sorry about?"

Jarod's tear-filled eyes widened suddenly when it occurred to him where he was- and when. He cleared his throat, blinked away the tears from his anxious eyes.
 
"Oh-" Zoe chimed in with a giggle and waved dismissively, "Jarod is sorry he can't join you for a drink, Robert. He has to drive. But I," She held out her glass, "would love some more. Where did you buy this? It's delicious."

"I didn't, Dear. My wife positively hates the stuff," Robert explained to Zoe. His eyes, however, never strayed from Jarod's.  "Be it white, red or rosé and she's rather adamant." Robert lips curved again into that cruel, cold smile. "She won't even allow it in our home. She won't even drink champagne."

Jarod was staring, he knew it, but he couldn't take his eyes off Parker. She stared silently at some area of the table, her fingers tightening around the glass in her hand.

"Well, that's weird," Zoe chuckled.

"Not really," Jarod asserted in Parker's defense.

"Indeed, 'tis odd, Miss," Robert agreed, ignoring Jarod. "I've no idea what could have turned my lovely wife off to such romantic
ideals such as wine, candle light, and cozy fires, but I enjoy a nice scotch myself, and I'm hardly the romantic type as you can probably imagine so we're quite content together, the two of us."

"Well, I love wine." Zoe smiled. "It's so nice."

"Nicholas man, did you buy the wine," bellowed Robert. "Zoe here is inquiring about it."

"No, I didn't," Nicholas called from the kitchen. "One of Dad's colleagues dropped off a case."

"I see. Well, it's splendid, the perfect sweetness. You must try it this minute, darling," Mr. Buchanan addressed his wife. "Darling? Parker, love?"

"What," said Parker irritably.

"The wine. You must have a sip."

"Another time," Parker said.

"Oh, but Angel," he continued, observing as she drained her scotch, "you must."

"It is good," Zoe echoed the older man and moaned into her glass. "You should try some."

"Zoe, no," Jarod intervened. His pleas were lost in Robert's taunting:

"I say, Love, one taste-"

"God damn it, Robert," roared Parker, slamming both fists into the table which in turn, caused the fine china, crystal, and sliver to dance atop the table's cherry finish. She rose abruptly, overturning the chair in the process and then glared at her husband as if he were satan incarnate.

"Yes, dear?" Robert inquired calmly.

Her eyes scanned the room, the faces, and met Jarod's.

"Excuse me," she said, promptly retreating.

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