Harrison buttoned the front of his suit before offering his hand to Maria, helping her down from the car. Another car pulled up behind him; he noticed the driver and smiled when he spotted Cassandra in the back. Julia stepped out first, joining Shantel on the sidewalk before Cassandra stepped out as well. Turning to face Maria, he helped her up the remaining steps and asked her to go into the mall without him. He jogged back down to swivel across a few bars to join the ladies by Cassandra's car.

"Good morning, ladies." Leaning in, he kissed Shantel and Cassandra on their cheeks. "I didn't know you would be coming over as well, Miss King."

"You can call me Shantel, and yes, I am here to support my friend. I might have heard of a discount on orders from the store, so I might be here for that too."

"I didn't know Shantel being here would be a problem, Clark."

Harrison chuckled, holding himself back from rolling his eyes at her formality. Taking a step between the two women, he offered them both an arm and waited for Cassandra as she grudgingly wrapped her fingers around his arm. Smiling secretively at her, he walked both women up the stairs as he filled Cassandra in on what they were going to do for the day.

"Here we are." Pulling away from them, he stepped forward to shake hands with the designer and contractors, "I hope we are not late?"

The men and woman shook their heads as their answer before they stepped forward to shake hands with Cassandra and Shantel. Cassandra and Shantel stayed by his side while he made a few introductions. They looked through the arrangements and settings before he had to separate from them to find Maria.

For the next two hours, it was working and sorting out all the colours and materials. Harrison rarely saw Cassandra, but he caught small glimpses of her giving Shantel a tour while working beside Julia. She was an enigma, Harrison thought to himself with a chuckle. After the weekend they spent at the wrecks, he expected her to be at least more comfortable, but he realised he had thought too far ahead. She avoided him, not even an acknowledging glance in his direction.

An opportunity presented itself a few hours into their work. Julia took Shantel to another part of the store and Maria had gone out to check on the equipment they ordered weeks ago, which only left Cassandra and a few workers in the store. He bided his time behind the curtains of a dressing room, waiting for Cassandra to walk by before he snagged her by the waist and carried her in.

"Jeez." She shrieked, struggling against his grip as he pushed her against the wall and placed his palm over her lips. Her blue eyes were wide with fright as they moved over his face. Smiling, Harrison made sure that the curtain covering the door was securely set.

"Calm down."

"You conceited jerk." She growled, throwing his hand off her face then roughly pushing at his chest. Sneering at him through clenched teeth. "You just scared thirty years of my life out of me. Are you insane?"

Ignoring her question, he took the time to take in her look before dropping a quick kiss on her cheeks, pulling her into his arms even as she struggled. "Sorry I scared you. You might have noticed me lurking around if you weren't doing such an amazing job of pretending I didn't exist."

Leaning in, he kissed her gently on the lips. It took a while. but she finally raised her arms to drape them over his neck as she lifted herself up to the tips of her boots. Sighing over his lips, she moved a palm behind his neck so she could pull him closer to her before she suddenly pushed him aside.

"Stop it. Stop it." She broke away from him and marched over to the curtains, taking a peek to make sure there was no one around. "This is not the place; someone might see us. We can't make a scene, here of all places."

"We are working together, not slaving ourselves away. Look, we kissed the other day, we talked about a lot, but I don't want things to change between us. You can still argue with me or talk to me. No need to be shy around me."

Biting her lower lip decisively, rising on her tips toes again to kiss the side of his lips. "You are really getting cheeky, but I am sorry if I seem different. You are right; all this is making me a bit nervous."

Harrison turned to the wall, leaning back on it as he held Cassandra close to him. They had been straight with each other when they spoke in the street. He knew she wasn't ready to be in a fully realised relationship; he didn't doubt any relationship they had would be complicated.

"Well, since we have so much work, we can't hide out here forever. What if, tomorrow, we go out. Somewhere quiet, not too many people."

Smiling, she pushed on her toes and kissed him again, "Sure. I think I can handle that. Now, on getting back out there, stop staring at me. You are burning holes into the back of my head."

Patting his cheek with a grin, she stepped out of the room, leaving Harrison standing by himself. He grinned, throwing his head back to laugh by himself, shoving his hand into his suit pockets. Neither he nor Cassandra was new to dating, but he wanted their relationship when he was allowed to call it that, to be different. It sort of meant he had to figure out a way to keep Josephine in his far past.

He walked out of the dressing room only to bump into Maria, walking back from the entrance. "Maria, what did I miss?"

"Nothing much." Maria smiled as she stretched her arms over her head, straining her body to the side to move her sore muscles. "They have finalised the colours and whatever, so what is left is the arrangement of the clothing racks."

"Wow."

"What?"

"This has to be the first time I have seen you without your tablet on you." He tracked his surrounding until his eyes landed on the machine as it sat on the chair in front of him, "Did you two have an argument?"

"You are so funny." She said, snatching the tablet from the chair and returning it to its rightful place in the crook of her arm, "Well, there it is, where it belongs. Anyway, I have given Mr Marquez your message, and he will be waiting for you in your office in forty minutes."

"We are almost done here. right?"

"Yes. You can leave, and I would take care of the finishing touches." With a slight bob of his head, he turned to leave when she suddenly called out for him again. "Sorry, but I thought you should know that Miss Claymont has called the office twice today and sent a message to your mail."

Pinching the bridge of his nose with his thumb and index finger, he shook his head to clear it of all the garbage that flooded his mind. There was no measure to Josephine's devotion to her cause of saving a relationship that he had preached constantly was no longer present. Her calls weren't as frequent, but she had days in which she called and days in which she bombarded him with text.

"Please open it and tell me what she says."

"Okay," with a few clicks and quick swipes across the screen before her lips thinned, "Well, the message reads... 'Fine. I kept quiet, and now it has been forever since you decided we needed a break. You claimed to have forgiven me, but we seem to drift farther and farther apart with each passing second.' Are you sure you want me to read all this? It is depressing even for me."

"Don't even bother torturing yourself. Delete it all."

"Hmm, starting to believe me when I say she has a short fuse and it is going to blow sometime soon?"

Harrison meant it when he told Cassandra that he had dated his fair share of women growing up. Some relationships ended amicably, and other's did not. However, none of them clung tirelessly to him after the relationship was clearly over. Josephine was another beast entirely, refusing to get the message that he no longer wanted anything with her. At least she wasn't staking out his house or hanging around his office.

Maria read the rest of the message, to his surprise. She stood there, her eyes going over the tablet with a faint look of amusement. "Full summary is that Josephine does not understand the meaning of the sentence 'we are over'. She has sent you a meeting place and time to meet, and she is apparently going to wait for your acceptance."

"Reply to her message right now with a direct and precise NO. I have done enough talking, and none of it seems to be working; there is no point to continue down that path. I don't want to be rude, but taking the gentle approach is deluding her into thinking there is still something between us."

"For one thing, you can't say that you weren't warned. Once bitten twice shy and whatnot. After what I went through, I developed a sixth sense for this, so trust me when I say, at some point, you will need more patience than you can muster."

With Josephine still trying to link him and Cassandra in a relationship, there was no telling what she would do anytime soon. He turned to speak to Maria but the frown on her face made him catch his words before they fell from his mouth.

"You and Miss Hernández seem to be getting along much better after these past few weeks. I might have caught a few glances back and forth before you rushed me upstairs earlier."

"So?"

Maria was no slacker when it came down to piecing things together, and Harrison knew that she won't take long to figure it out. She was an intuitive person, deeply in tune with her surroundings and the people in them. She smiled at him, squeezing her tablet between her hands as she squealed quietly.

"Are you and Miss Hernández going out now?"

"No. we are not. At least not right now and hopefully not with Josephine on our backs like rashes we can't itch. She wants to keep things quiet, by the way, so no squealing around her."

"Ah, don't worry about it. From me, you wouldn't hear a single peep."

She grinned at him, and he smiled back.