Feeling the warm rays of an early sun caressing the skin of his one arm Jarod groaned softly and forced one eye to open slowly.

Having expected the usual gray dullness of one of his regular hideaways he was at first pleasantly surprised to rest his gaze on the tranquil surroundings of what was obviously a woman’s bedroom. Then, as the fogginess surrounding his mind started to clear away, he suddenly came to the shocking realization that not only was the room’s appearance very peaceful, but it also has a very familiar look to it.

Opening his other eye he laid quiet at first. He was confused as to how he came to be there and also trying to convinced his mind that maybe he was still dreaming, because surely what he was experiencing at that moment was something that normally only happened at the end of some of his most private of dreams.

After a very long minute of allowing his eyes to roam across the room he finally came to the frightful conclusion that he was not dreaming at all, that what he was seeing around him was indeed very real and not part of some overactive workings of a testosterone-driven mind.

Swallowing, taking a deep breath, he turned his head to the one side.

Nothing.

Where one would normally expect a warm body there was now only a slight indentation in the mattress and some disarrayed soft satin sheets, indicating that there had definitely been someone laying there until recently.

Frowning, he pushed himself into an upright position. No matter how hard he tried he just could not remember as to what had caused him to wake up in her bedroom of all places.

Surely…no…he could not even begin to consciously express the thought that maybe he and she had actually crossed the line from being ‘I run. You chase,’ to something more.

Swinging his legs over the side of the bed he remained sitting for a moment, deep in thought, before rubbing a hand slowly across his face.

He knew that he had to stand up and face the truth sooner or later, but it would have been better if he did not have such a big gap in his memory. Or maybe he should rather say a gigantic black hole where the memory of the previous night should have been.

All that he could remember was that he had broke into her house to leave her another of his famous – or should that be infamous? – packages and that to his uttermost horror she had surprised him by still being at home instead of the Centre. He could also faintly recall a drawn gun, a bottle full of dark liquid and some heated exchange of words and then…

Nothing…only blankness.

It was a frustrating sensation to him, especially since it had happened only once before where he consciously knew that he was experiencing a lapse in memory. For someone like him, a pretender, a genius with the ability to become anyone he wanted to be, it was like loosing a part of his sanity.

Realizing that there was no point in delaying the inevitable he moved to one side the multitude of sheets and blankets that was entwined with his body only to come to the abrupt realization that he was – naked. Besides being in his birthday suit, he could also see long red marks zigzagging across his chest and his…uh…the part of him that did not happen to get a lot of sunshine.

Cursing softly, he darted his eyes around the room, but was unable to find any evidence of what had happened to his clothes.

He was just about to embrace the thought of disappearing under the linen and blankets again when a soft noise coming from somewhere at the front of the house reached his ears.

Sighing, unable to quite believe his bad luck, he stood and wrapped a blanket securely around his middle.

He hesitated only for a few seconds before making his way out of the bedroom and towards the direction of the noise he had heard. He had no idea what he would say once he came face to face with her, or even what she might do to him at that stage, but he guessed anything would be better than having to remain stuck in the unknown. Maybe, just maybe, if she allowed him to live long enough, he might be able to find out what had happened the previous night from her.

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.

On the way from her house to the Centre Ms Parker had been forced to make a deal with her mind. She would allow her deceitful organ to replay the conversation she had with Jarod over and over again until she felt like puking, but in return it would bury deep down in its subconscious what had happened between her and the Pretender the previous night.

As her thoughts started to go over a specific part of what she had said to him that morning, she suddenly remembered something to her uttermost of shock and horror.

“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.”

“Oh my god…I’ve actually said to him, ‘I run and you chase.’ Why in heavens name did I go and say something moronic like that. It’s now only going to encourage him further to see something more in the one night stand we had,” she murmured angrily to herself. Slightly lifting the fingers of her hand that was clutching the top of the steering wheel, she continued on, “I wasn’t thinking straight, that’s all. It’s only because of the way too much alcohol that I consumed last night, including the slight hangover that I woke this morning up with, that I said that. There’s no way that I meant anything by it…or is there?”

As the memories of the previous night suddenly came crushing forcefully to the surface again, almost like destiny was trying to answer her question for her; she yelled out, “Damnit.” Then, in order to give an outing to the sudden burst of frustration she felt, she slammed her palm against the expensive Italian leather decorating her steering wheel.

There was absolutely no way that she wanted to remember how he and she had done it in her living room, in the kitchen, on the floor, against the wall of her bathroom and finally ending it in a amazing display of power and emotion on her bed.

Pressing her foot a bit deeper down on the gas pedal, almost like she hoped to outrun her underhanded thoughts that way, she drove at an incredible speed across a stop without bothering to look out for any traffic that might be coming from the opposite direction.

She only became aware of her misdemeanour when one after another car horn started sounding up angrily. Glancing at her rear-view mirror she noticed that there were a line of cars that she was supposed to have given a right of way to. One of those cars, a older model SUV, actually made a U-turn and was busy shadowing her at that moment, hooting and flashing its headlights at her.

For a moment she considered ignoring her pursuer altogether, to increase her speed and outrun the idiot. But then her common sense started to kick in and to her utter displeasure she realised that certain family members of hers at the Centre would definitely not be impressed if this matter were to reach their ears. Better to deal with it now and on her own while she still could.

Making sure that her gun was secure in its holster, but at the same time easily assessable, she turned her steering wheel swiftly to the right, drove into the parking lot of a garage and slammed on her brakes. Her pursuer followed her example and came to an abrupt stop right next to her after a few seconds.

It did not take long until she was finally able to lay her eyes on her shadow.

It was a huge, bulky Caucasian man dressed in an oversized denim, sleeveless white - or at least it used to be white - T-shirt, a pair of brown leather boots and a cliché type cowboy hat on his head. He had to bend his body slightly in order to get out of his vehicle and when he was finally out he stretched his arms above his head, before pulling up his pants. Then, staring in her direction with a look that said, ‘You are going to be SO sorry that you ever tried to mess with me,’ he started crossing the distance between them, his boots making a loud click-click sound as he walked at a hurried pace across the gravel.

Sighing deeply, feeling how her already bad temper was burning a pathway of destruction through her soul, she got out of her car and awaited the arrival of the man with her arms crossed in front of her chest and a frown playing between her eyebrows.

The overweight cowboy wannabe was barely a few feet away from her when he started talking with a smoke-damaged voice. “Lady…do you have any idea what you have done back there on the road? You could have caused a serious accident and-“

Clenching her jaws and biting back on the hot-tempered words that were hovering at the tip of her tongue, she took a deep breath before interrupting, “Listen I apologise, I know that-“

He was clearly enjoying the power he thought he had over one of the most beautiful woman he ever had the fortune to lay his eyes on. He was also feeling very confident that he would have her grovelling at his feet before long when he started barking at her in what he hoped was his most intimidating tone of voice. “Female drivers like you should be banned from driving altogether since you are an absolute menace to society.”

Feeling a vein jumping on her forehead she took a deep breath, pushed her sunglasses closer against her eyes with one finger, and decided to try one last time with this man she now considered to be the moron from hell. “I-whatever your own unique thoughts might be about us females,” she put special emphasis on the word, ‘females,’ and paused a few seconds before continuing, “I do acknowledge that what I have done back there could be considered as a dangerous and as such are willing to apologise and-“

“COULD BE CONSIDERED AS DANGEROUS!?” the man growled loudly at her, before pushing a puffy finger against her chest, “You must be the stupidest bitch I-“

He never got to finish the sentence.

Narrowing her eyes and feeling the last bit of her self-control vanishing from sight, she grabbed hold of the offending finger with one hand, hissed softly, “Not today buster,” and with one quick manoeuvre bent it backwards until a sickening cracking sound was heard. Crying out, the man sunk to his knees while clutching his broken finger in one hand, and yelled out a string of profanities, combined with threats, at her.

Crouching down, until she was able to be eye-level with him, she inquired sarcastically, “Ah shame…did I get to hurt your little finger.” Pretending to be shocked she put a hand against her chest and added in a mocking imitation of a Texas drawl, “How stupid of silly ol’ me.”

“Now listen here lady-,” the man cried between ash-white lips, pain clearly evident in his misty eyes.

“No…YOU listen!” she snapped at him. Turning her head from left to right to check as to whether anybody was looking at them, she pulled her gun from its holster and waived it threateningly in the direction of a certain strategic part of his anatomy before continuing in a low husky voice. “It’s because of men like you that I’ve made that…that I’d happened to skip that stop. It was because of men like you that I’ve had an absolutely miserable day so far and made that mistake. And that’s just what it was…an understandable, human, mistake. I tried to be patient with you, I tried to apologise, but you just HAD to go and test your luck with me.”

When the man did not say anything, except to stare at her with hatred, she pushed the gun closer until it barely touched his groin area and hissed. “Now…you listen and you listen good, because this may just be the last change you’ll ever get in your pathetic excuse for an life. The next time you decide to try your macho trick on another female like me you better remember this incident, because I promise you that not all women are as forgiving as me and you may just get to loose a bit more than your dignity the next time round.”

Pushing the gun a bit closer and playing with her finger across the trigger until the man could not help but to yell softly out of fear and shock, she added, “Now apologise.”

“Excuse me?” the man asked, his eyes darting between her face and the gun.

“Apologise for being such an asshole,” she replied and bent her head slightly to one side, “Apologise in a sincere voice or I just may decide to give you another hole to pee through.”

“I-I-I,” the man stumbled over his words, the hatred in his eyes had made way for an intense fear and loathing of what he now considered to be a crazy woman in front of him.

“Well? What is it going to be?” Moving her gun-hold hand slightly away from his groin and then back again, she continued in a dark voice, “An extra hole or your manly pride. Your manly pride or an extra hole…you decide.”

Holding up his hands, the broken finger clearly noticeable, he whimpered, “Okay! Okay! I’m sorry you hear! I’m sorry, just don’t shoot me.”

Smiling falsely and slapping her hand against his cheek condescendingly, she purred, “Good. Now be a good boy and waltz back over to your manly car and get the hell out of my sight before I decide to redecorate your Mr Pride and Joy.” As she said the last few words she pushed the gun even closer against him before pulling it back and putting it back into her holster.

When the man did not move at first, almost appeared frozen in spot, she yelled, “GO!”

“Ye-yes Ma’m!” he replied and scrambled over his own feet in his haste to get away from her.

She made sure that he was back at his car, before getting back into hers. Reversing and turning her steering wheel violently to one side she proceeded to drive passed him.

“Crazy bitch,” the man shouted after her.

Slamming on her brakes she turned down her window and replied, “That is Ms Crazy Bitch to you.”

Smiling, taking no small delight out of it, she watched the man’s eyes widening before he whirled around and hurriedly got back into his SUV. Barely a few seconds after that he went passed her with screeching tires and made it down the road without looking back once.