12 REACHING NO AGREEMENT

In the morning Daniel woke up together with Mary and was watching her while she was cooking breakfast. It seemed a little unusual for him but Mary decided to disregard it. While her back was turned to him, he noiselessly took her phone which was lying beside him on the table and unlocked it; he had a good memory and remembered her password.

He typed in Jim's number and pressed the "call" button, the phone automatically showed the name under which this number was saved in it – and it was not Jim but Jessica! His head was ready to explode! How did this motherf***er give his number to her again?! He quickly cancelled the call and tried to calm down.

While he had time he needed to act quickly. Deleting the number would be too obvious, Mary might notice, instead he replace Jim's number with his own, now if she wrote to him or called him Daniel would be the first to know…

Having deleted this call from the call history, he locked the phone again and returned it to its old place on the table. Just when he did it, Mary turned around brining one bowl of porridge.

"You're not eating with me?" he asked.

"I'll start my running marathon today, I don't think that a full stomach would be a good thing," she said and sat down on the opposite side of the table suggesting that she could sit with him while he ate.

"If you're not eating, no need to babysit me, just call Marcus and tell him to prepare for running," he said.

Mary sensed some tension in the air. Was it because of this sports idea of hers?

"Is Marcus going to run with me?!" Mary asked.

"Is there any problem?" he said a bit louder than it was needed.

"No. I just did not expect it…" She waved it away and called Marcus to come as soon as possible.

When Daniel left the house he seemed to be not in a very good mood, but Mary could not put her finger on the reason of this sudden mood change.

Marcus came in a jogging outfit in which he still looked bulky but in a very good shape. He took her to a nearby park and was ready to follow behind her. After several minutes she was already sweating and panting stopping from time to time to catch her breath, her lungs started hurting again and there was pain in her right side.

Marcus could not watch her suffering anymore and caught up with her.

"You're doing it wrong," he said.

"Ha?"

She did not expect him to speak; he was silent most of the time and never initiated the talk.

"Your breathing's wrong. You need to keep the rhythm," he explained.

Then he showed her how to run and keep the breathing under control. After his small lesson the progress was a bit better but she still had to stop and catch her breath sometimes. He approached her once again.

"Don't hurry. It's because you run too fast. Slow down and don't forget about the rhythm," he instructed.

She followed his advice and though it was still hard she managed to almost avoid stopping. After about twenty five minutes of running, Marcus said that it was best to finish the exercise now. He probably understood that her knowledge about sport in general and about running in particular was very shallow.

"At home take a hot shower and massage the muscles. Or tomorrow you won't be able to walk. And don't eat for half an hour."

"Ok. How do you know so much about it?" she asked.

Mary looked at his muscular figure and understood that the question was stupid.

"I train a lot," he answered.

Their way back home was in silence again. It seemed that Marcus could be interested in conversation only when it came to training, otherwise he did not bother to speak.

While Mary began her 'marathon', Daniel paid a visit to their mutual friend (missing a couple of meetings in the morning among which was the one rescheduled from yesterday – with Mr. Edwards).

"Daniel! Long time no see," Jim greeted him. "What brings you here?"

"Don't play around! There's only one reason that can bring me here. Let's cut straight to the point."

Daniel looked very serious and businesslike.

"What point?" Jim asked.

"Mary point!" Daniel almost shouted.

"And what about Mary? Did anything change?"

"How did you manage to give her your number again?" Daniel asked.

"My friend, you know better than anyone, when you have money there's nothing impossible. Even your hulky bodyguard can do nothing about it," Jim said.

So he had people watching Mary, which was exactly what Daniel suspected. He was glad he hired Marcus as early as possible.

"I came to offer you a deal. You leave Mary alone and I give you whatever you want. Money you probably don't need. But maybe clients, or property, or some of my business branches… Just name it," Daniel said.

"You see, that's the difference between us two. For you she's just a business deal, a property, you think you can buy her out. You ask what I want… But it's her I want, and I have no wish to possess her, I just want her to be by my side and happy. I want a family, Daniel, and plan to create it together with her. Now can you really give me what I want?" Jim said. He sounded amused, as if this whole visit was ridiculous in his opinion and should not have taken place at all.

"Nonsense! You were in love with Gabriella for years. And now in one day you just decide that you want a family with Mary?!"

"Yes, it's exactly how you said it," Jim answered.

"So we don't reach any agreement then… I'll do whatever it takes to keep you away from her," Daniel said and headed to the door.

When he left, Jim grinned and whispered, "And it's exactly how I planned it, dear friend."

"The more you restrict her, the more she craves for freedom," he thought.

Then Jim took his phone and wrote a message to Mary, saying that Daniel probably deleted his number again.

"Thought I should give you heads up," he said in his last message.

When she received this message she realized that it probably was the reason of Daniel's bad mood in the morning. She checked the contact under which Jim's number was saved and found that the contact was there but the number was different, it belonged to Daniel. Mary sighed.

She did not save Jim's number again; it brought only trouble with it. She deleted the message and was done with it once and for all. She made her choice, didn't she? So now she just needed to stick to it.

When they were having supper another message from Jim appeared on her phone screen, Daniel saw the number and his expression became very sullen.

Mary looked up at him apologetically.