After pulling away from her, he looked over at her, managing a small smile as he took in her appearance. Hair packed neatly into a hairnet without one strand out of place. Her nails, resting on her lap, remained neatly manicured, but some of the nail polish on it had chipped off after three days. A gas mask meant to be over her mouth and nose hang loosely beneath her chin, and the bags beneath her eyes faded.

"You have every right to be mad at me."

Her eyes lifted as she shrugged her shoulders, keeping an arm securely around her stitched side. "I promise that when all this morphine is out of my system, I would scream at you for as long as my lungs can manage."

"What did the doctor say?"

"Not much I wanted to hear, and mother said too much, I didn't need to hear those. Concerning my ribs, well it turns out that I fell hard enough to break a rib and I needed surgery. Nothing much to be panicked about, but I won't be throwing my arms in anger anytime soon."

"Someone needs to teach you some good old humour. You are lacking in a lot."

"Humour would be me wanting to get off this bed just to strangle the nurse that was assigned to me. She is such a drag, I am not sure where I would bury the body though, but I doubt I would care."

"Murder is a crime."

She shrugged again and dragged the hairnet off her head so she could set her wild locks free of their constraints. She sent her nails through the tick strands and tried, but failed, to smoothen them. Her lips pouted as she watched the lines on the monitor dance around on its screen.

"Well, maybe this particular crime needs committing.."

"Back to the topic of me begging for forgiveness, I do really mean that I am sorry. If I had known all this would have happened..."

"You would still have done the same thing. By the way, I might be a short fuse, but I can be sensible when the situation calls for it. What happened was the fault of no one," she sighed as if the words were hard to repeat. "Everyone is making a big deal about it, and it pisses me off more than anything else. Couples kiss all the time, not that we are a couple or anything, but you know what I am saying."

"You babble when you don't arrange your words before you speak."

"Tell me something about me that I don't already know," she puffed at a strand of hair that snuck out of her messy arrangements. and it floated to the side of her face. "All I am trying to say is that what you did was uncalled for but, the drama afterwards was the fault of other people."

He nodded and pushed towards the door, "I am going to leave you to rest because, by the look of that hand on your rib, you must be very uncomfortable. I know asking you this would be like asking Jupiter to come closer but still, try and get some rest."

"Before you go," she reached out to hold his hand just as he was about to leave. Consciously, she dropped her fingers and laced them together over her blanketed lap. "I do mean it when I say that all this drama wasn't your fault. The thing is, we are going to be working closely now because of this project, and it would be wise, for everyone sake, if you turn down the flirting whenever we are together. I don't want more misunderstandings. Neither with your girlfriend nor with the kind of relationship we share."

Harrison chuckled slyly, drawing closer to her to sit on the space by her hip. He stretched his hand to rest it on the other side of the bed, effectively bringing his face closer to her own. "To start, Josephine is no longer my girlfriend. To end, I have told you many times that I am not flirting with you. Charming is me being my normal self, but you don't seem to be getting the message."

"So charming was you kissing me last night."

"No, but I wasn't flirting either." He moved even closer, and she tried to lean away, but the bed prevented her from going any farther. "Would you like me to show you the difference between flirting and charming, so you have something to fall back on for reference?"

She shook her head, a hand defensively pushing against his shoulder as he continued to grin. "No thank you, I'll keep it in mind."

"Great." He glowed, jumping off the bed and walking over to the door. She didn't think to stop him again. He grabbed the knob and twisted it, blowing her a kiss, accompanied by a luxurious wink.

Rolling her eyes, she pushed her body down on the bed, pulling the blanket up to her chest and turning her head away. Her eyes fluttered before she slipped the mask back over her face, her breath fogging up its surface as she breathed. Smiling one last time at her, he turned and moved down to the waiting area.

"How is she?"

He turned to Maria and placed his hands against her shoulder, steering her towards the elevator, "she is doing well. A little pale looking but doing well all the same. How are we doing with Mr Cooper?"

"Fine," she replied, stepping off the elevator when they reached the ground floor, she pulled her tablet out of her handbag, "he has agreed to schedule a meeting with both you and Miss Hernández when she is feeling a lot better. As for your possible samples to show him we have a few sets and ready, but you have to sign off on them."

"I am guessing you have pictures on your tablet that I can look at."

"Of course."

Pulling open the car door for her, he waved the driver off and stopped him from holding the door. He slid into the car, "I need to bump your salary up."

"That day, I would buy some good old-fashioned champagne and drink half my day away. Besides that, the models have been set, and all the colours picked out. Top designers have been working nonstop to make sure everything is wonderful."

The tablet looked out of place in his hand because no matter how many times he had seen it with her; he had never held it in his hands before. He received the machine with awkward movements, making her roll her eyes and laugh at his behaviour. No doubt, he looked like a grandfather whose teenage grandchild was teaching to use a machine.

"Over here," she announced, leaning forward and putting her finger against the screen and swiping across its glassy surface. "The first style is all short, and lace kind of nightgowns, but the other designers vary."

"The models are top-notch... good work. I like everything I see here but have you spoken with Julia, Casandra's personal assistant? I want to make sure we are on the same page. With what she is going through, I would hate for it to look like I took advantage and got a step ahead."

"We have been in touch, and she assures me that everything is alright with their arrangements. They have various ideas and designs ready for Miss Hernandez's approval. Unfortunately, on the wrong side of good news, Josephine appeared for the eighth time in three days, and she has been trying to force her way in."

"Seeing her is not the best idea."

"It's also not the best idea for you to avoid her. From personal stalking experience, when you turn a deaf ear, hoping to be rid of the parasite, they latch onto your loved ones."

"Personal experience? What happened?"

She shrugged and received her tablet, she placed it in her lap and pulled her gloves off her fingers, "Ex-boyfriend couldn't take a break up lightly, stalked me all the way from my home town to three states until he was arrested and sent to jail eight months ago."

"Three states? In addition, they put him in prison. How long was he on your tail?"

"Three years, give or take. I lost count after the second year, and I am not sure if it was four or three. When I turned a deaf ear and tried to move on, even with the knowledge that he was watching, my boyfriend at the time paid with his life."

"Sorry."

"Didn't tell you so you could pity me," she laughed. "I told you so that in case of Miss Josephine had a few screws loose in her mind, you best deal with the problem or Miss Hernández would be dealing with more than office drama."

"You think Josephine might get murderous?"

Maria shrugged and turned to face him, pushing her right leg deftly over her left, "Who knows. Deal with the problem before everything goes to hell, and you'd be wishing you had listened."

"On that note, I would thank you for the advice, and the threatening stench hanging around said advice."

"It's good advice because it would help you kill two birds with one big fat stone. Bird one being, Josephine, still in La-La land, thinking you would still be together after this and fighting your battles for you. Bird two; let us call bird two a peacock. Majestic but yet, vulnerable to the swopping eagle plucking off its colourful feathers."

He turned on his seat, so he could face her fully, "Sometimes I am confused if you are my assistant or my mother."

"Possibly a mix of both. I know disaster looming when I see it, watch and act right before everything goes to hell."

The car braked in front of his office and Harrison stepped out of the car. As he walked up the stairs with Maria, he allowed his mind to wander. Maria Delos Angeles Jonathan was a woman of wonder. From how she carried herself, he would never imagine she had such a tragic past. Then again, not everything someone has been through is plastered permanently on their face. If it were so, he would have noticed that Josephine was lying about her 'hard' life the moment they met. Now, he feared Maria had a point, and Josephine was more unstable than he would admit.

Although she had only visited his office eight times, there were sixty-seven messages on his phone, nine loud voicemails, five visits to his home, and more messages on his email. She was getting desperate, and he wondered if what Maria said could be true.

"Thinking so hard, I can see smoke coming from your ears."

"Nothing much going on in there. I just feel like you have opened Pandora's Box, and I am scared of what demons lurk behind it."

"No demons, that's just in your head."

Before she could walk to her station, he turned her towards him, "Which prison is your boyfriend in?"

"My boyfriend is dead, but my ex is in the Santa Montes State Penal Colony. Has been there for eight months and hopefully, he would be there for the rest of his life, as his sentence states."

He let her walk away but spent the next hour with his head dancing in turmoil. The mud she had just buried Josephine in, was sticky and sucking him along with her. Cassandra's life could be in danger if Josephine went off the edge, but for some reason, he could not see it happening.

She was desperately clinging and kind of a leech, but she could not see her hurting anybody. Maybe setting her straight about the status of their relationship straight before the pressure on his chest grew. Frustrated, he ran a palm over his face and pulled his phone out of his workbag, dialled her number then placed the phone against his ear.

"Josephine, you got free time?"