It did not take him long to find her, after all her house was not that big.

She was standing in her living room, her back facing him, busy putting on a jacket.

He had no idea what would be the best way to approach her. After all he could not just come out and say, “Oh Ms Parker…by the way – did we happen to have sex last night?” Therefore all he managed to do was to stare at her with widened eyes and a slightly opened mouth.

When she bent over to wipe at some unseen smudge on one of her designer shoes her already way too short skirt moved up a few inches and he got a better view of her long, gorgeous legs. Swallowing, he could not help but ponder the idea that most probably he had gotten to see much more than that the previous night. But then why in heavens name could he not remember a single thing?

Making sure that the blanket was still tugged securely around his waist he took a hesitant step forward.

She must have sensed his presence, or maybe she had better hearing than what he thought, because she suddenly stopped with what she was busy doing and stood upright.

“Are you planning to say anything or are you just going to gawk at me the whole day?” she inquired in a dangerously low voice.

“I…uh…” for the first time in his life he was completely speechless.

Turning around, crossing her arms in front of her and raising an eyebrow she asked, “What? Is Mr Genius all of a sudden at a lost of words? Your tongue was sure as hell not missing last night.” Then as a sort of an afterthought she added, “And with that I mean both literally and figuratively – no pun intended.”

“Uh…Ms Parker…w-what happened here…I mean between us last night,” he felt like kicking himself for sounding like a stuttering, immature schoolboy in front of her, but on the other hand how many men have ever been in his kind of position? Just the mere fact that she was scrutinizing him with a dark, burning look in her eyes made him want to cringe and go hide under the nearest of rocks.

‘Well, at least now I know what Mr Broots normally feels like,’ he could not help but think.

Raising her eyebrow a bit higher, she first stared at him with clear confusion on her face, before replying to his question, “Nice try lab rat, but it isn’t going to work with me again.”

Hesitantly he asked, his forehead all scrunched up, “I don’t…understand? What is not going to work with you again?”

Shaking her head, uttering a disgusted snort under her breath, she turned around to pick up her handbag and car keys from the coffee table in front of her. Only after what felt to him like an eternity did she bother to focus her attention on him once more.

“Let get one thing straight…Jarod,” she said loudly, in what he had came to define as her, ‘I’m the Ice-Bitch so don’t mess with me’, tone of voice, before crossing the distance between them until there was barely a few inches between them.

She stared at him in silence for a few seconds, before continuing with barely concealed venom in her voice, “Whatever you think might have happened last night…whatever you think it might have mean to me…for us…just get it out of your mind. It was sex and only sex, nothing more and nothing less. Call it a one night stand or a temporarily lack of common sense on my side – I don’t care.”

He was unable to respond to that. Her confirmation of what he had feared was more than enough to leave him dazed. He and she…she and he…they had actually – he could not even begin to allocate words to the rampant emotions tearing through his mind and soul.

When he did not say anything, except to stare at her with a mixture of bewildering shock and confusion on his face, she immediately interpreted it the wrong way and lashed out at him, ever harsher than before. “I’ve told you before Jarod and hopefully this will get to be the last time. I’m not my mother. I’m not going to go and reconsider my wonderful life because of some so-called turning point that only you can see. I’m also not your answer to a happily ever after story. I run and you chase, that’s just the way the damn story goes.”

“B-but-“ he finally tried to talk, to some something, anything to stop her roller coaster of words, but she interrupted him with the raise of an hand, the keys that she was still clutching in it made a annoying tinkling sound against the backdrop of an tensed atmosphere. “No! I don’t want to hear any BUT. Why can’t you face the fact that I had a moment of weakness with you? After all it is not unexpected given the tension that have been between us ever since we left that stupid island, but I can promise you it won’t happen again. It was only sex that we had last night Jarod, an animalistic release of built-up emotions. So don’t go reading something more into it, because it sure as hell did not mean anything to me.”

With a deep frown appearing between his eyebrows, Jarod slowly expressed a thought that had been hovering at the back of his mind since the start of her last explosion of words. “Then…if that is the case…if you really don’t care about what had happened last night…why are you putting so much emphasis on that fact? Surely then it doesn’t warrant wasting your breath to try and convinced me…or maybe you are trying to convince yourself…” He allowed the rest of his sentence to trail off into nothingness.

For a moment it was her turn to stare at him in shock. She opened her mouth in an attempt to say something, but immediately close it. After a few seconds of appearing to be struggling with indecision, she uttered loudly, “Ugh!” before spinning around and walking briskly to her front door.

Still suffering from a severe case of amnesia regarding the previous night, but nonetheless taking a small devilish delight out of seeing the normally unruffled Ms Parker in such a state, he could not help but asking in a teasing voice, “Ugh…Ms Parker?”

Ignoring him she only stopped when she reached her front door and almost immediately she begun struggling to get the door open.

Chucking softly Jarod was unable to stop himself from taunting her, “Aren’t you supposed to pull instead of push at the door? But…who am I to tell you what to do, after all this is your house.”

Slamming her palm against the dark wood in front of her, she turned around to stare at him with blazing eyes, “Just shut up Jarod, okay? I neither have the time nor the patience for one of your wisecracks.”

Raising an eyebrow at her, he smiled and merely stated, “Whatever you say Angel.”

Narrowing her eyes she pursed her lips before saying, “I’m going to work now, am already late for one of my psycho brother and pretend-to-be father’s meetings. By the time I am back tonight I expect you to be gone from here.”

When he did not reply, except to keep on grinning at her, she sighed deeply and in a more subdued voice said, “I am serious Jarod. It is only because of-“ she paused slightly before continuing with the sentence, “last night that I am not marching you over right now to the Centre, but if you are not gone by the time I’m back…well let’s just say you will regret it.”

Without waiting for a reply she pulled furiously at the door and was just about to step through the doorway when he called out to her, “Wait!”

“What?” reluctantly she turned her gaze to him. When he did not say anything at first she snapped at him, “Well what?! Speak up, I don’t have all day.”

Pointing a finger at his blanket he simple asked, “Any idea where my clothes are?” For just a moment before and after he had spoken she had the strange sensation that there was something more that he wanted to say to her, but when no more words were forthcoming she merely said, “I don’t know. Most probably laying all across the house. You’re the supposedly genius, so it should not be too difficult for you to find it.”

Straightening her back she turned around and hastily, almost like she was afraid that he would try to stop her, exited the house.

After a couple of minutes the sound of screeching tires was heard as she pulled out of her garage and drove away with such a noise, that one could only assume that she was pressing heavily on the gas in an attempt to get away as quickly as possible from the house.

The smile on Jarod’s face increased.

A strange, near predatory, look appeared in his eyes.

“Why do I have the sudden feeling that things have changed from, ‘I run. You chase,’ to ‘You run and I chase,’ Ms Parker?” he asked to no one in particular.