The next morning I stayed out of Eddie's reach as I got ready. He never said sorry for what happened. In fact, he didn't even speak about it. If he had tried to kiss me, I would've hit him I was so mad! As far as I was concerned, he could deal with Vanessa pawing at him outside of the room. I would obey Eddie's request to the word: Vanessa would not set foot inside the room while I was there, unless by Eddie's allowance.

Henry was very courteous at breakfast, asking me questions about Tangram, and playing with him. Tangram was very entertaining, performing tricks for Henry in exchange for chunks of meat. As for Vanessa, she kept her eyes on Eddie through the whole meal, a slight smile on her face. To my pleasure, she spoke very little. Eddie kept his eyes trained on his plate, speaking only when spoken to.

Curious, I pretended to bend down to retrieve my napkin. Now I knew why the trollop looked so happy. With her shoe off, she was busy stroking Eddie's leg, wiggling her foot, or trying to wiggle her foot, between his knees. I sat back up and caught Tangram's attention, flashing a few simple hand signals at him. Obediently, he trotted over and under Eddie's chair. Eating a bit of egg, I watched Vanessa. She froze and turned as white as the tablecloth, her eyes closing as she trembled.

"Vanessa, dear, is something wrong?" Henry asked her.

"Th-that fleabag tried to bite me!" she said, shooting me one of her angry looks that made her look more constipated than anything.

"Tangram? Why would he bite you?" I asked innocently, looking under the table. Her legs were now curled close to her chair. "He's just laying down by Mr. Nigma's feet. Did you somehow kick him?"

"The beast tried to bite me! I did nothing!" she hissed defensively.

"But, Vanny, Edward is on the other side of the table," Henry said looking under the table. "And Tangram is right between his feet, quite out of your way." Henry was obviously playing dumb for Vanessa's benefit. It was unfortunate that Vanessa was too stupid to realize this.

"I was stretching my legs, Henry," she sniffed.

I couldn't help myself. "Why were your legs stretched out so far that they would end up between Mr. Nigma's legs?" I asked with a straight face.

The rest of the guests at the table were now interested in seeing Vanessa become a piece of gossip. She blushed furiously at my question. In all truth, the table was plenty wide enough for her, and the seats spaced out enough, that if she wanted to "stretch her legs" as she claimed, she could do so without bumping into anyone. Had the table been crowded, her story would have been more believable.

"Why don't you take a stroll outside, Vanessa? That way you may stretch your legs without any trouble," Henry suggested.

"I think I will do just that," she replied softly, her voice frosty around the edges. "If you'll excuse me." She shot me a dirty look as she left the table, a look that was noticed by many at the table.

We finished breakfast and Eddie excused himself to take a walk as well before the meeting. Henry agreed that some fresh air would do him good as well, and excused himself to find Vanessa. Eddie wandered out the back of the house, down the stairs and out onto the huge lawn. Once he got to the center, he turned to face me.

"What's going on?"

"I'm not certain what you mean," I replied.

"You're acting strangely. Sleeping on the couch, attacking Vanessa, in cat form, nonetheless, making snide remarks this morning, having Tangram bite her foot..."

"Hold it right there, Edward Nigma! One, I did not attack her last night. I merely frightened her. She didn't see me change. Forgive me, but I thought I was your bodyguard. I was doing my job. And finally, Tangram did not bite her! He sat at your feet by my signal. I must have misread your body language in thinking that you were not enjoying Vanessa's attentions. I'll stay out of it next time. Remember this though, you ordered me to keep her out of the room, and I will. On my terms."

He got a stubborn look on his face right then. Stubborn, because he wanted to be right about what I had done. Rather, what Vanessa said I had done.

"You shouldn't even be discussing this before your meeting."

"We will discuss this when I want, which is now," Eddie said, crossing his arms over his chest. He looked so good right then, all strict and evil. And he was! But I was determined not to let him win.

"You've got..." I paused to check my watch, "thirty minutes."

"What we don't finish talking about now will be discussed after lunch."

"Yes, sir," I said dryly and with a hint of disinterest.

"Stop calling me 'sir'!" he said tersely.

"Yes, Mr. Nigma."

"You can drop the act. No one is around to hear us."

"What act, Mr. Nigma. I'm just a hired bodyguard, nothing more," I said icily.

"I know what the problem is. You're jealous of Vanessa, aren't you?"

"Why should I be jealous of an idiot like her?"

"Because she's blatantly hitting on me."

"Ha! That's really putting it mildly. The woman shows up in your bedroom wearing practically nothing, jumps into your lap for a cry, and when she gets you out into the hall, she takes her bra off and plays with herself to try to get you to go to her room with her for 'negotiations'. This morning she's busy entertaining herself with a game of one-sided footsie. Did I forget anything? Oh, yes. From the moment we landed, the tramp has been trying to get into your pants for a sample of your 'sausage'!"

He smirked. "See? To notice all of that, you have to be jealous."

"No, I'm a bodyguard. I'm paid to be observant. Certainly I've observed far more than that. Being paid to keep an eye on you, I have observed that you have done nothing to discourage her. In fact, I'd say your lack of action is encouraging her to try harder thinking you're playing hard to get. You seem to be enjoying some of what she's doing, at any rate."

"Hold it right there!" he began.

I cocked my head and looked at him, holding up my watch. "Sorry, boss! Meeting time. You don't want to be late."

Grumbling, he complied, muttering something about finishing this later. I tried not to laugh at the way Eddie stalked back, fists at his side, snarling under his breath. Outside the meeting room door, Eddie straightened himself, took a deep breath, and walked in.

Hefting the bag I carried to the table, I laid out the shells on a piece of velvet exactly as Eddie had told me. A man Henry introduced as an appraiser carefully picked up each shell, examining it. Another man flipped through historic pictures of the shells, examining each one as well.

While this all went on, I watched over the shells, leaving Henry and Eddie to discuss prices should Henry like what his appraiser and historian told him. Whether the prices talked about were in the thousands, tens of thousands, hundred of thousands, or into the millions, I had no idea. The way the two were tossing around numbers made my head swim. I never had been good with numbers, although I did fine with math.

Lunch was brought in for us. Eddie and Henry moved out to the little patio off the meeting room, still within my eyesight as I stayed with the stupid shells. I leaned against the wall, eating a sandwich, feeding bits of it to Tangram who sat in a chair. Now and then Eddie would glance at me, tapping his watch and shaking a finger at me. Whatever his problem was, I didn't care.

Finally, I was allowed to pack the shells back up. The two men were going to do a bit more research and report back in the morning with their findings. With an hour left before dinner, Eddie headed back up to the room. He said nothing to me, preferring to take some time to rest before dinner.

~ ~ ~

At dinner, Vanessa kept me entertained, nervously glancing under the table the whole time. Tangram had played a good deal during the meeting and in the room. Once he had his dinner, he fell asleep under Eddie's feet. I wasn't about to tell Vanessa that the only thing that would wake the little glutton up was more food. As long as her fear kept her and Eddie apart, it was fine with me.

When dinner ended, Vanessa carefully approached Eddie, and asked, "Would you like to come to my room so we may finish the - discussion we started last night?"

"I'm sorry, Vanessa," he replied, "but I've already planned a meeting with Query on today's proceedings. Haven't I, Query?"

"Hm? Oh, not that you've told me. Really, Vanessa, this is the first he's mentioned about it," I said looking at them, slightly confused. "Mr. Nigma, if you have to discuss business with Vanessa..."

Eddie, Vanessa standing right next to him, gave me an irritated look, interrupting me. "Really, Query, I discussed these plans with you right after breakfast. Don't you remember?" he said through clenched teeth. He stared at me meaningfully for a second before turning to smile at Vanessa.

Pursing my lips and scrunching my brow, I acted as if I were trying to remember. Finally, I shook my head. "Nope, sorry boss. I just don't recall any meeting planned for tonight."

"Well, we're having one. Apparently it's more important than I thought." Once more he turned to Vanessa. "I'm sorry, but on these trips, business must always be dealt with. Good night, Vanessa."

"Perhaps after? I'm sure the meeting won't take very long?" she cooed, petting his tie. I made a mental note to burn that tie when we got home.

"I'm not certain how long this will take. I would like to get to bed before too long. It's been a long day."

"Very well. My offer stands, Edward. Goodnight," she said, winking at him.

He jumped a bit, turning a bright red as she smiled and walked off. Without a word, he hurried up to our room. As he kicked his shoes off, angrily tossing his jacket onto a chair, I settled down on the floor to take Tangram's collar off for the night.

"What the hell was that?" he demanded, whirling on me.

"What was what?" I asked innocently.

"You know damn well! I'm trying to stay out of her reach, yet you're trying to push me onto her!"

I burst out laughing then. Eddie had been doing no such thing! If anything, he was still encouraging her.

He growled, angry now as he grabbed my wrist, forcing me to look at him. As I glared at him, he shoved me onto my back, straddling me as he worked to pin me to the floor with his body. I tried to snatch my left hand away from him, but he was quick and once more removed my ring.

"First, get Tangram off of me right now," he said, his voice a throaty and dangerous growl.

Staring daggers at Eddie, I called Tangram off. When Tangram was away, Eddie leaned down until our noses touched.

"Now then, down to business. Ever since we arrived, you've been acting strange."

"Been there, done that. Next," I said.

"Don't interrupt me. We discussed this momentarily this morning. Now in more detail. Yes, Vanessa has been hitting on me. I probably should have warned you about that. Every time we come here, she hits on me. Never to the degree she has this time. My guess is that she sees you as competition, hence why she's going further with things this time around. She isn't a cat lover, so Tangram here gives her more reason to hate you.

"Last night you sleeping in here threw her. It's also the first time she's actually come into the room, I might add. Benny and Trigger usually bunk across the hall, one standing guard at my door. She probably expected you to either be in the other room, or outside the door. Most of her shock last night was probably due to your presence, as well as the panther trick."

By this point, his voice had returned to normal and he sat back some, but didn't let his grip on me up. He kept my hands pinned to either side of my head. Tired of his "I'm right, you're wrong" pattern of speech, I feigned sleep, tilting my head to the side. Really, it was that I had no desire to be reminded of last night. I still seethed at the image of her sitting on his lap, him with his hands on her.

My head snapped back to Eddie when he kissed my neck. He grinned sheepishly at me, tightening his grip enough to keep me immobile when I tried to free myself.

"You haven't earned the right to do that, Mr. Nigma!" I snarled.

"Go back to calling me Eddie and I'll let you go."

"No."

"Fine. Then you'll just have to stay there and listen to what else I've got to say."

"Oh, joy," I grumbled. I didn't want to hurt him, but I was going to if he didn't get off me soon.

He went on telling me how rude I'd been to Vanessa, and trying to pin the blame for all her actions on me. The way he said it, her attitude toward me was entirely my fault.

"I'd just like to add that a little co-operation from you after dinner would have been appreciated. Would it have killed you to agree with me so that I wouldn't have to endure her advances? For god's sake, Dee! She grabbed my ass tonight!"

"Not my fault," I sniffed.

"But it is. Had you backed my story, we would've been able to get out of there before she did anything like that!"

Now I was nearly shaking with rage. He was blaming it all on me! "Are you quite done?" I growled.

"Now, yes."

I spat back everything he had just blamed on me, but telling him the truth of the matter as I had done after breakfast. Everything, from the ride from the airport to her insistence that I was trying to harm her, I threw back in his face. Additionally, I pointed out to him that he never introduced me to her as anything past his bodyguard. I included the fact that I had to learn her name from Henry due to a "slip" of Eddie's mind. What I had observed in the bedroom, as well as out in the hall, I threw at him as he held me pinned to the floor.

"Now get off of me, and give me my ring back before I knee you where you've been keeping your brains ever since we got here!" I demanded, having wiggled my leg free and now pressing it to his groin.

Hurriedly he scrambled off of me, tossing my ring at me. Grabbing my pajamas, I stomped to the bathroom for a shower. I ended up sitting on the floor, crying my eyes out into Tangram's fur. By the time I was done, my eyes were sore. Showering helped, but I still felt miserable and angry. I started to feel sorry for myself, crying over him when he was so determined to be a jerk.

"That's right, Dee. Tied without any real strings to one of the most brilliant minds on the planet, and he's a blind fool. Problem is, I'm tied to him with the only strings that really matter, Tan," I said, looking at the cub who sat on the counter. I patted his head as he looked at me quizzically. "My heart strings, darling. No matter how much I try to hate him, I still love him. I just wish he'd see when he was acting like a complete moron!"

Eddie was sitting in bed with a puzzle book when I emerged. My emotional outburst had left me drained and I wanted nothing more than to sleep. Before I settled down, I tossed pillows and set knick-knacks around the floor by the door in case Princess Plastic decided to try again. Snuggling down with Tangram, I quickly fell asleep.
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