A/N: I finished a story, I finished a story! Yup, put this one down in the books as complete. Thank you SO much for all the support and everything. I never feel comfortable writing smut, but you guys always seem to enjoy it, so thanks for encouraging me through writing that I'm not entirely comfortable with, so I hope you enjoy this final chapter. Thanks again! :)

Love.

It's such a simple looking word, just four letters, but inside those four letters lie everything, a future, fights, make-ups, moments where you feel so close and connected to someone that the entire world only exists in them, around them, and with them. It's looking at someone and knowing they will always brighten your day. It's having inside jokes and inside looks. It's powerful and all-consuming, and when you're in it, you never want to be out of it.

When she walked into the arenas on his arm, she couldn't help the smug looks she sent every female she came across. She may be in love, but that didn't mean she had a fucking personality change. She was still shrewd, smart, and wanted everything and anything to go her way. Just because the one thing she really wanted to go her way had, in fact, gone her way didn't change her ruthlessness. She thought it was the best thing about her. Chris did too.

"Get that fucking look off your face," Chris whispered in your ear, "before every woman here wants to claw your eyes out."

"Oh, and miss all the fun when they realize I get to fuck you every night, I think not," she said, turning to him ever so slightly so she could tug on his earlobe. "I would never give them the satisfaction."

"You take being my girlfriend way too seriously," he told her, but he pulled her body closer, and she knew he got off on showing her off too. It wasn't for her status either, well, maybe a little, and she didn't blame him. If he wanted to flaunt that he was with the boss's daughter, who was she to deny him that?

"And you don't do the same?"

"I get jealous, sue me," he joked because he didn't get jealous, neither did she, really. Sure, Chris would tell you that she'd been jealous of Barbie, but she was more irritated by the stupid blonde than anything else. At least that had been taken care of swiftly and immediately.

Stephanie licked her lips as she tasted her new boyfriend again. He was musky and delicious and Chris was nearly drooling at the sight. She kissed him deeply, swirling her tongue and his flavor around his mouth, sweeping in to give him a taste. Chris groaned against her mouth as the phone in his hand rang. Stephanie could hear the phone pick up and Barbie's eager voice on the other end.

"Chris, is that you?" Barbie said. "Oh my God, I didn't expect to hear from you this morning, it's like a really good cup of coffee!"

"Barbie, whatever the hell this thing is between us, it's over, it meant nothing to me, you mean nothing to me, sorry, sweets, but this little play-time is over," he told her, and Stephanie was turned on by his harshness. She liked it, maybe because it meant Barbie really was nothing to him, but maybe because she liked knowing that he was so into her he was willing to act like such a jerk.

"But—but Chris, I don't understand," Barbie whimpered, actually fucking whimpered like a child and Chris rolled his eyes. Stephanie ran her hands up his stomach and to his shoulders, tweaking his nipples along the way. She leaned down and started kissing his jaw, letting her tongue graze his stubble every now and then.

"I don't want you," Chris told her, "is that too difficult for you to understand? I'm sorry, Barbie, but I need a woman with some substance, do you know what that means?"

"Um, I don't know, like, more weight?"

Stephanie, who could hear the conversation, giggled against Chris's skin. How he put up with her for so long, even while stringing her along, she had no clue. Five minutes with Barbie, and Stephanie wanted to throw up. "No, Barbie, that's not what I mean," Chris told her, reaching out to caress the side of Stephanie's breast. "What I mean is I need someone who knows what I just meant, and it's not you, it'll never be you, go find yourself another guy, see ya!"

That was that.

Barbie was stunned when she found out about Stephanie and Chris, and Stephanie wished she could care, really she did, but she didn't, so she simply walked past Barbie that first time with a shrug and a hair toss, leaving the young, naïve, and frankly…stupid girl in her wake. Someone told her that Barbie cried, wondering why her best friend would do that to her. Stephanie merely laughed at the thought of Barbie being her best friend.

That didn't stop Barbie from eventually confronting her though.

"Stephanie, how could you do this to me? I thought you knew how much I liked Chris, how much he liked me!" Barbie's lip quivered, and Stephanie held her eyes from rolling right out of her head. She could not deal with this simpering idiot anymore. The game was over, the victors had emerged, and the collateral damage was coming to her, crying like a baby.

"Do what to you? Barbie, if I remember correctly, it was you who thought that we were best friends, not me," Stephanie told her. "I tried to be nice to you, but here's the thing, Chris needs a woman. He needs someone to keep up with him, and you can't do that."

"But…he was nice to me!"

"He's nice to me too," Stephanie told her, her smirk growing ever brighter as she gazed at the confused blonde. "We're not friends, Barbie, not when we liked the same guy. I merely showed Chris what he was missing, you can't hate me for that, now can you?"

"Um…I guess not," Barbie admitted, and Stephanie wanted to laugh. This girl, this girl who had been used in a pawn to two people's sick, twisted game of lust was actually coming around to see it from her perspective. Barbie had always been a dim bulb, but this might take the cake. Stephanie might get out of this conversation with Barbie thinking it was actually the right thing for Chris to be with Stephanie.

"See, we both want what's best for Chris, don't we?" Stephanie asked her.

"I always wanted that."

"And I'm that person, Barbie, you tried, I'll give you that. You really tried very, very hard, you deserve a gold star for that, a gold star for trying your hardest, but you see why you couldn't win, right? You see why I am better for him, right?"

"Because…well, you said because you can keep up with him?" Barbie asked, gazing blankly at Stephanie as she tried to ascertain the meaning of it all.

"Yes, I can keep up with him, he needs to be mentally stimulated," Stephanie said, muttering under her breath that he needed to be physically stimulated too, but she had no problem fulfilling that need for him.

"I'm not dumb," Barbie pouted.

"Oh, Barbie," Stephanie said, but didn't actually respond. "There's a guy out there for you, he's probably looking for you right now, and hey, if you're in here with me, you're missing him!"

"I don't want to miss him!" Barbie said. "You're right, thanks, Stephanie!"

"You're welcome," Stephanie watched as Barbie left then mumbled to herself, "God, what an idiot."

Barbie actually told them on a regular basis how cute they were.

Stephanie may not have won the game with Chris, but she was certainly winning in every other game that counted. Everyone thought they made such a striking couple, and she knew Chris loved that as much as she did. The sex was great, the relationship was great, and it finally got Paul off her back. All of his intentions towards her seemed to fade the moment he saw her with Chris. Okay, that wasn't quite true, but at least it gave her the opportunity to get him off her back.

"Stephanie."

Stephanie rolled her eyes and didn't even bite back the groan. She turned on her heel and stared at her ex-husband. "Paul, our storyline is over now, there's no reason for you to even so much as look at me, let alone talk to me."

"I heard you're with Chris Irvine."

"You're correct," Stephanie told him, "what's it to you?"

"That guy is a jerk, Stephanie, did you even hear what he did to Barbie? He was practically two-timing her. I heard he was with some other chick when he broke up with her, is that really the kind of guy you want to be with?" Paul was actually trying to make Chris out to be a bad guy, and he thought that would work with her.

"Newsflash, Paul," Stephanie told him, taking a step closer to him, "the girl he was with, actually, no, the woman he was with, that woman was me. Yes, me, he dumped her for me, if you can call it a dumping because they were barely dating in the first place."

"You…"

"Yeah, he turned his entire world upside down for me. And it was something I wanted all along. I've told you time and time again it was over with us, but you refused to believe me. You refused to even so much as acknowledge what I was saying—"

"Because I still love you."

Stephanie grabbed the bridge of her nose and put some pressure on it to stop the burgeoning headache. "Paul, let me make this as clear as it's going to get. I do not want you. I do not want to be with you, I do not want to be married to you, I do not want a storyline with you. I divorced you for a reason, so please, do me a favor and get a life, and I'm not even saying that sarcastically. I'm saying that seriously and with every ounce of care I might have had for you. Please, just do us both a favor and move on."

"So you can move on with Chris?"

"I already have, Paul, I already have."

After that conversation, he at least had the decency to stop talking to her. It was for the best. In fact, everything in her life was going for the best, and she couldn't say she had any complaints. She was a winner, and she'd won, how could anything get better than that. They finally reached her office, wherein Chris was going to drop her off before he headed to the men's locker room. She always offered to share, but Chris, being Chris, said that while he liked some of the perks, he wasn't about to have the guys think he was the next Paul. She respected him for that.

"Until later?" Stephanie asked.

"I'm sure I'll find some reason to fuck you before the night is over," Chris leaned down and kissed her. He pulled back a smidgen, but still kept their lips connected by the barest of touches. "I usually do, don't I?"

"You do not win all the time, Chris," Stephanie told him playfully.

"Oh, I think I'll win tonight," he told her, pulling back fully now so she could look and get lost in his eyes. "I definitely think I'll win tonight."

"I'd like to see you try," she responded, looking both ways into the nearly empty hallway before she reached out and rubbed her hand over the front of his jeans. She could tell he was already semi-hard, and she kind of wanted to send him off with a little something to remember him by. If they weren't in the hallway, she wouldn't hesitate to reach her hands into his pants and give him a handjob right now. But being where they were, and with Stephanie not really being into voyeurism, she kept it to a swift brush against his crotch.

He didn't say anything, just smirked and kissed her again before turning on his heel and walking off towards the men's locker room. Stephanie laughed softly to herself before turning to open her office door. She opened it, reaching out to feel for a light switch. When she found it, she turned it on and gasped. The entire room was covered in flowers of every kind. She couldn't even ascertain what some of them were, looking exotic, and like nothing she'd ever seen before. She was about to wonder what was going on when she remembered.

"Me bringing you flowers unexpectedly?"

"Yes."

He wasn't just a good fuck.

She threw her stuff down and grabbed the doorknob, ripping the door open and just about to tear off towards the men's locker room when she saw her boyfriend leaning against the wall, looking like he owned the world. She grabbed him by the hem of his shirt and started dragging him towards her office.

"Get your ass in here," she told him, not even caring if anyone was around. Chris grinned widely at her.

"Told you I was going to win."

THE END