Chloe sat at the table in the Quartermaine living room with a sketch as she talked on the phone with her assistant Therese. Therese gave Chloe her messages, and several of them were urgent ones from Lucy Coe.

Just then, Reginald walked in, holding a large vase of flowers in front of his face. The whole room was filled with flowers.

"Therese, I have to go. A gentlemen is demanding my attention…yes, he's young and I think handsome." Chloe laughed as she tried to make out his face through all the flowers.

Chloe hung up and complained about talking on the phone all day.

"My uh, arms are getting tired," Reginald said, referring to the flowers.

"Oh," Chloe said and made room for them on the table. "We're running out of surface area, aren't we? Oh, there's card." Chloe pulled out the card from the flowers.

"Maybe we should open it," Reginald said.

"It's not addressed to us." Chloe shook her head.

"Well neither were any of the others."

"Reading it would be wrong." Chloe slowly handed the tiny envelope over to Reginald.

"Yeah." Reginald carefully opened it. "Oh, hmm, oh, oops, look what the butler did."

Chloe laughed read the card. "'You are an enchantress.' Poor Simon. I don't think he understands. Hyperbole may be very continental, very romantic, but…"

"But not very V." Reginald finished her sentence.

"I don't know why Simon picked me as a go-between. It's not working. I've called since the day the flowers arrived and she won't return my calls."

"I just hate when that happens," Lucy interrupted and walked into the living room.

Reginald pointed to Lucy. "I distinctly remember we divorced you."

Lucy ignored Reginald; something else caught her attention: Chloe's sketch.

"Let me guess. You're Lucy Coe."

Lucy smiled. "You and I, me and you, we're practically relatives."

"Nobody mentioned that. I can't imagine why not."

"Just because you may have been married to Alan for, a few minutes, you were never a Quartermaine," Reginald chimed in.

"You know what? I was going to let you have the privilege of making us a little tea but-"

"Oh golly, well, you know, you let yourself in, you could probably make your own tea," Reginald mocked.

"Well we're going to go get lunch! A really good, good, good, fun, yummy lunch! And I think we're really going to enjoy it but first, we have some serious business!"

Lucy grabbed Chloe's sketchpad.

"Lucy, uh, that's my sketchpad."

Lucy ignored her as she went on to talk about the changes she wanted to make to the dress. She then picked up a pencil and started making frantic lines on it.

"Lucy! You must give me that sketchpad right now or risk making me cross!"

"Cross? Oh, well, here then, fine, here you go." Lucy handed it back.

"This gown is not for you; it's for Madame Laflurry."

Chloe then apologized for not returning her phone calls.

"Good, you should. Okay, apology accepted. Now, back to the dress-"

"I'm not finished. Now, I know you want my help with this ball, and I'm not saying you won't get it, but I have not been here for just that reason. I have had an engagement, and a wedding, and a vote on docks and cranes to keep me here, and whew, I'd love to stay a little bit longer, but if you want my assistance, you are going to have to slow down and make sense. Now, if we are going to go to lunch, let's make it the Port Charles Hotel. The Quartermaines can't stop singing its praises and they're so sick of it they won't take me."

Chloe and Lucy stood in the doorway. Chloe was immersed in the menu.

Lucy continued to chatter. "You know, I always feel that silver lemay really picks up the stage lights nicely, you know, kind of all over your body. Do you like that?"

"I'm partial to salmon," Chloe said, still involved in her menu.

"Orange? Chloe, our friendship is very, very new, so I don't want to risk it, but I *hate* orange! I just hate it. It doesn't look very good on me. I like pink. Do you know pink is the newest, latest color? Did you watch the Oscars or do they have that in your little tiny country?"

"In Milan?"

"Yeah, I-" Lucy glanced over at the table and saw Katherine Belle talking with Jerry Jacks.

Lucy knew Katherine was trying to one-up her at the Nurses Ball this year. "I knew it, I knew it, I knew it! I..ju…ju…stay!" She said to Chloe and then marched over to their table with a bad temper.

Chloe sat at the table, once again trying to decide what she wanted from the menu. She felt the waiter suddenly standing beside her.

"I'll be ready in just a moment. Reading a menu is like reading a great novel and sometimes takes just as long. What do you think of the salmon tourine?"

Chloe looked up, and was surprised to find not the waiter, but Jax.

Jax laughed. "Well I think you should get it. Along with appoached asparagus, and uh, a couple of slices of that great sourdough bread. And then uh, you should tuck it under your arm and run for your life."

Chloe laughed.

Chloe looked across the room and saw Lucy and Katherine quarreling.

"Why are they fighting?"

"Because they're in the same room."

"Well I have to admire Katherine. I thought about fighting with Lucy myself and then thought better of it. Are they madly in love with your brother? No, don't tell me! Are they both trying to borrow huge sums of money somehow? Or are they trying to borrow his car?"

"Well that's pretty close. You're good at this, reading people."

Jax looked across the room and saw Lucy pointing in their direction.

"Uh oh, this is not good," he said.

"No?"

"No, because once they finish fighting over Jerry, then they'll come fight over you."

The waiter then came, and Chloe sighed. "Well I hate to not eat and run."

Chloe reached for her purse.

"Oh, the check is taken care of," the waiter said.

Chloe looked suspiciously at Jax.

"Well I imagined you were lured here with the promise of lunch, it seems it should be the least you get out of it."

"All you lack is a white horse."

"How about a blue convertible parked out front?"

Jax asked Chloe if she were planning to stay for the Nurses Ball.

"Lucy gave me the understanding that if I didn't it would be a complete fiasco, the local economy would be ruined, and she would never be able to show her face in public again."

Jax laughed. "Well I think you should stay either way. Come on." Jax led her out of the restaurant, leaving Lucy and Katherine still fighting.

Jax and Chloe walked into the Q Mansion living room. Jax was taken aback by all of the flowers.

"Whoa, did Edward turn ELQ over to AJ?"

"Not that I know of. Why?"

"Well I just thought he might be holding a funeral for it with all of these flowers."

"Oh! These are for V.! Simon didn't know how to find her, and everyone seems to know how to find me, so. *You* are responsible for a great deal of, well, I won't say trouble, but consternation at least."

"Yeah, I know, you're right. I should have run Simon out of town before I left for those meetings in New York."

"No, no, no! That's not what I mean at all! You filled V.'s head with so many awful things about Simon that when they met face to face, she refused to hear a word he had to say."

"Well why should she listen to him? He's a scoundrel, a playboy, and most of all, he's a cheater."

Chloe refused to believe that Simon was as bad as Jax was making him out to be. She had known Simon for a long time and had never seen Simon this persistent about anything.

"Are you so sure it can't be love?" Chloe asked.

"No," Jax admitted. "I mean, even a scoundrel, and a playboy, and a cheater is not immune to that."

Chloe asked Jax if he really wanted V. to turn this down without her even knowing if it was love.

"Okay," Jax said, and suggested that with supervision, perhaps Simon could plead his case to V. "The four of us could have dinner together."

"That's out of the question," Edward said, sauntering into the living room. "Chloe won't even consider it." Edward was under the impression that Jax was trying to sway Chloe to vote his way for the board meeting. "Now see here you, Australian playboy. You unrepentant, uh--"

"Scoundrel?" Chloe suggested.

"Yes, thank you. Scoundrel! I won't have you harassing this child any further."

"Edward, children do not wear brassieres, much less of their own design. Furthermore, if I was being harassed--"

"You are," Edward interrupted. "You just don't know it. To think that any relative of Lila's would be foolish enough to have her head turned by a bunch of silly flowers."

"Now you really must stop, because the more you say, the more you get wrong," Chloe told him.

Jax interjected. "Chloe, would you like me to show you the one and only way to win an argument with a Quartermaine, especially this one?"

"Very much."

Jax simply walked towards the patio door. He looked back, winked, and then walked out the door.

"Be very careful of that one, my dear," Edward warned, and went about saying that Jax was only after her vote for the next ELQ meeting.

"You remember what I said, young lady," he said and left the room, leaving Chloe alone with her thoughts.

Jax opened his door and smiled at Chloe. "Hey, come in."

"Hi," Chloe said.

Chloe marveled at how wonderful his penthouse was. She then gazed out the window.

"Is that Canada?" she asked.

Jax joined her at the window. "Actually, I think Canada is way up that way, way up."

"Where's Manhattan?"

"Oh, Manhattan is right over there. Sometimes at night, the horizon is really bright."

"From the city lights."

"Yeah."

"It's like you're here and everywhere all at once."

"Right," Jax said, "but mostly still here."

Chloe caught Jax's gaze, and then they both shyly looked away.

"This place is perfect for Simon and V. to get to know each other."

Jax informed Chloe that if Simon upsets V., this would be his last evening with her, and that getting her at the penthouse would not be a problem, but keeping her there would be.

"Once she realizes we set her up," Chloe said.

"Right. You know, she may never forgive me for this."

"We don't have to go through with it."

Jax and Chloe weighed the pros and cons. Jax had his doubts about Simon, but if they didn't go through with the dinner, then V. could be missing out on something wonderful.

"But you know what," Jax said, "you're going to have to tell Simon to back off, okay? He can't say 'enchantress' and he can't declare his undying love right up front."

"Well how about if you show him how it's done, and I'll play along?" Chloe suggested.

"And how would that work?"

"Well, for instance, you could mention dancing, and I would say I love to!"

"Do you?"

"What?

"Love to dance."

Chloe smiled. "Especially when it rains."

They both smiled at each other.

"So," Chloe continued, "you could mention casually dancing, that we could go dancing."

"You and I?"

"Yes."

"Just to set a good example?"

"That's right."

"I understand."

"I imagined you would. And hopefully by the end of the evening, Simon and V. will realize that they are perfect for each other."

To be continued...