Suddenly, the cell phone that had been sitting on the coffee table began to ring. He could feel her gaze on his body as he looked down at it, and even allowed himself a bite of her desire.

“Moshi moshi,” Levi said as he picked up the phone. “Well for the moment, I have her staying here since I don’t have any further instructions. Uh huh. Is that so? It would have been nice to know that going into this one. I guess that all works out in the end since I agreed to take her in…”

There was some stern scolding on the other end of the call, along with something that sounded like a strong warning.

Levi just chuckled.

“You don’t like the idea of me having an assistant? Don’t get all worked up about it. I think she’ll probably give up early into the process. Or she’ll sleep with me and get her heart broken…”

Madeline’s eyes flared.

There was a very threatening sound on the other end of the line this time. One that cut Levi out of his joking spirit immediately. All pleasantries left his face, and his voice was now cold and sharp.

“And why not?”

He listened patiently to the poor lack-of-a-good-excuse, but was clearly not a fan of being told what he could and couldn’t do.

“If she’s that important to the client, then they need to take responsibility for her. As long as she’s with me, I’m doing things my way. I am not making any promises about anything. Do I make myself clear?”

Apparently intimidated, the voice on the other end was quieter.

“Yeah, you tell them that.”

With a tap to his screen, Levi ended the call and slid his phone back across the table, obviously irritated by the conversation.

Madeline sat in shocked silence. Did he just say he expected her to either sleep with him, or just give up? Unbelievable! Feeling the sting of anger, she clenched her fists and blurted out a much censored version of what she was really thinking.

“You ASSHOLE!!”

She picked up the nearest thing she could get her hands on, which thankfully was not the coffee mug, and hurled a throw pillow as hard as she could towards Levi’s head. He could have easily caught it, but instead chose to let it hit him square in the face so she could feel satisfied. She then stormed off into the room he gave her, not seeing the way he smiled at her from behind.

That fire, he thought, You need to hold onto that.

He got up slowly, realizing he was going to have to make an attempt at apologizing now. He ruffled the hair on the back of his head as he thought about what he was going to say. Walking towards the guest room, he was surprised that she hadn’t slammed the door shut, so he stood in the doorway, leaning against the frame.

“Sorry,” he smiled arrogantly, “I had to say those things. My broker was getting on my ass.”

Madeline sat on her bed, arms crossed, looking unimpressed at his excuse.

“It seems that whomever hired me decided I’m suppose to keep tabs on you now. They have indicated that they won’t be making any contact with you at this time. Which is bullshit in my opinion.”

“Why would they send someone to rescue me and then not even let me know why?!” Madeline rose from the bed, throwing her hands up in the air, frustrated. “That IS bullshit!”

Levi felt relieved that the other part of the conversation might have blown over quicker than he expected.

“But I am still mad about what you said,” she said as she walked up to him, glaring.

Okay, maybe not, he thought.

“I am NOT going to give up. I PROMISE you that.”

“So you’ll sleep with me then?” he asked with a playful grin.

It was too easy. He couldn’t help himself.

She stopped right in front of him so that she was inches from his body. Looking up into his green eyes, she spoke clearly and confidently.

“You’ll be begging me.”

For a moment Levi was speechless. He definitely wasn’t prepared for that kind of a response. And Madeline found that her actions had deflated her anger, and with it, her resolution.

Sometimes she hated her fiery, strong will.

This was one of those times.

For a few seconds, the two of them stood in uncomfortable silence.

Then the door buzzer rang.

Neither of them budged or broke eye contact.

It rang a second time.

“I need to get that,” Levi said matter-of-factly. “I made a dinner order earlier in the day.”

Madeline nodded in acceptance and they both stepped apart at the same time. As she watched him walk down the hall, she couldn’t bring herself to follow him right away. She felt embarrassed and awkward right now and really wanted to go hide somewhere. In the distance, she could hear the door being opened, and a muffled conversation. After the door closed, she heard the rustling of a paper bag and smelled the scent of Chinese food drifting toward her room.

“You want to eat now, or can I show you the rest of the place first?” Levi yelled from the kitchen.

Madeline stepped out from her room, thankful their conversation was traveling in an entirely different direction now.

“I guess I could put off eating for a bit,” she responded entering the kitchen just as Levi set the paper bag on the counter. “I didn’t realize there was more to see, but is that food going to be safe out on the counter with your cat around?”

“My cat?” Levi responded a bit puzzled.

Madeline nodded.

“Oh, you mean the cat that was in here earlier,” Levi continued. “It went out the door when the food came.”

Shouldn’t they go looking for it?

Seeing her reaction, Levi laughed.

“It’s fine. He lives on this floor and knows his way around.”

As he spoke, Levi headed towards a door that Madeline thought might be a pantry.

She was not prepared for what was on the other side.

Instead of a simple two bedroom apartment, Levi’s place was actually a loft. Behind the door from the kitchen was a large open space with hardwood floors and minimal natural window lighting. There was a multi-station gym, some balance beams, a punching bag, rock climbing wall, and a Wing Chun wooden practice dummy. At the end of the room was a freight elevator, and parked next to that was the motorcycle they had rode in on the other night.

“This is where we’ll be training,” Levi stated. “You’ll need to raise your stamina, dexterity, and bring your self-defense skills up a lot. I’m not going to be training you in a traditional program, because there are specific ways you need to fight specific attackers. The whole situation boils down to this… the more of my teaching you can absorb, the more your chances of survival increase.”

Madeline nodded, still trying to take it all in.

“And there will be other types of training as well,” he continued. “I’ll have to teach you to ride, for one. But don’t concern yourself with that right now. First things first, and you’ve already been hit with enough today. How about we eat?”

“Sounds good,” she replied as she followed him out and back into the kitchen.

He didn’t have a kitchen table, so they took the bags out to the coffee table and Madeline took a seat on the floor. Levi indicated he was going to make them some tea, and disappeared back into the kitchen for a while. Trying to quell her internal thoughts, she began to remove the take-out cartons from the paper bags as normally as if she had been visiting a friend on a Saturday night. Sitting cross-legged, she rested her elbows on the table and cracked a pair of chopsticks apart. She wasn’t sure what he had ordered, but could identify one of the cartons as broccoli and beef. The second one was some kind of chicken, and it had a bit of a citrus smell to it.

“Help yourself to whichever,” Levi shouted from the kitchen. “Or if you want, we can eat half and then switch. I don’t really care.”

She decided to play it safe and go with what she was familiar with, the broccoli and beef. After taking a couple of bites in the silence of the living room, she heard Levi coming out of the kitchen with a couple of cups of tea. It was green tea served in two beautiful white and blue traditional tea cups, each one covered in kanji. He took a seat across from her, also sitting down cross-legged. It became pretty obvious that he took all his meals here at the coffee table. Clasping his hands together, he bowed his head slightly and gave a low whisper.

“Itadakimasu.”

From the manner of his gestures, it was clear to Madeline this was something private, and not meant for her to respond to or try to involve herself with. She’d seen Japanese people say the same thing before eating, happily, but had no idea what it meant. However, his expression of it seemed very sad.

“So about tomorrow…,” Levi said raising the chopsticks to his lips and taking a bite of the lemon chicken, “I want you to think of this as your first job. You will be playing a role. How much is left on your lease?”

“About two months,” Madeline replied.

“Here is the plan - We’ll head over in the morning and tidy the place up so it doesn’t look like someone broke in, and get your ID, assuming it’s still there.

Madeline nodded.

“Keep in mind we’ll need to contact anyone you have an account with. Utility companies, cell phone provider, whatever… so if you need to get account numbers and customer service numbers on that stuff, get it before the movers get there. Then we’ll head to the office to pay off the rest of your lease, and arrange for them to do a final walk-through after the movers are done. The story goes, you and I were dating and have gotten serious, so you’re going to move in with me. Your forwarding address will be one of my P.O. boxes. I’ll have the movers scheduled for 10 a.m. We’ll supervise them as they pack and load your stuff onto their truck. After the walk-through is done and signed off on, we’ll follow the movers back here and have them load your stuff onto the service elevator. Then we’ll take it from there.”

He calmly went back to eating, as if he does stuff like this every day, leaving Madeline to go over the plan in her head. Was he able to get movers scheduled on such short notice? That certainly wasn’t normal. After a moment of silence, he looked up at her.

“Don’t worry, I’ll be there with you. You don’t have to remember any of that on your own. I am, however, expecting you to remember the details of our relationship. We’ve been dating for five months and two weeks, your age, only backwards. We met in a coffee shop. Barista got our orders mixed up. You’re moving ‘downtown’. And the bonus answer is ‘the rooftop patio at the Hard Rock last night’.”

She was about to ask him how he knew her age, but the bonus thing threw her off.

“The bonus what?” Madeline asked. That made no sense.

“Just remember all that, and play your part,” he said and then paused to take a few more bites. “I assume you’ve dated before?”

Madeline glared in response to his snarky question.

“I guess so,” he grinned. “I just want to make it perfectly clear that you are going to have to act like we’re a couple for this. If you can’t pull that off, you might as well give up now. It doesn’t get any easier than this.”

He was right. They were going to her place, a location she was extremely familiar with, to basically move her out. And moving in with a new boyfriend was completely believable. And he was definitely easy on the eyes, so it wasn’t like she had to try hard to pretend they were dating. Not to mention she had something to prove to him. That she was serious about the decision she made. That she wasn’t going to give up, or back down, or give in. She was going to handle this, and handle it well.

Suddenly, the doorbell rang.