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was her.

Mark didn't know how to approach her, what to say, and realized it was sensitive because they worked together. Even though in-house relationships were going on all the time, they were frowned on by management. His own father had always warned him not to dirty his own doorstep. In previous jobs he'd taken this to heart, but he forgot it when he saw Julia.

Even when Julia never seemed to see him.

Mark is one of those men who is good-looking without being arrogant, and it had never served him particularly well. His friends, less good-looking but far more laddish, had always had far greater success with women. The more hearts they broke, the more emotions they trampled on, the more women fell for them. Mark was termed a nice guy, and what can possibly be worse than that? At school he was the girls' best friend because he was good-looking and therefore good to be seen with, but too nice to want to go out with. So nice he was even considered dull.

It was only when he was at university that he came into his own, and even then it took a couple of years. He had been going out with Amanda for over a year, and he ended it because he knew she wasn't right for him, and because he only had a year left to enjoy himself.

Did he enjoy himself. Making his Mark, was how his friends described it with glee, and more than a touch of jealousy. To this day he is famous for his pulling power, with the number of women he is said to have pulled growing, rather like the proverbial fish, bigger and bigger over time. Although the irony was that he never had to try. He had always been Amanda's good-looking boyfriend, and as soon as he was single he became the most sought-after man on campus.

No more Mr. Nice Guy.

Except intrinsically, apart from unwittingly breaking a few hearts, he was still a nice guy, and still rather shy with women, particularly those he truly fancied. Like Julia. No one could imagine the effort it took to approach her that day in the canteen. By that time he had built her into the perfect woman, placed her on a pedestal so high she was in danger of getting lost in the clouds of his imagination.

Mark loved her vivacity, her easy, expansive, extrovert nature. She was everything he was not, everything he secretly wanted to be. When he was with her, he felt that he really was the best possible person he could be. Mark didn't want to be quiet, studious, introverted, when Julia was around. Being with Julia was like an exhilarating fairground ride, and he knew he wanted this feeling to go on forever.

Forever feels like a long time ago now. Most of the time he is exhausted by Julia. Exhausted and uncomprehending, because their worlds are so very different, and Mark sees that not only can he not escape from who he really is, but that he does not want to. He tried at first. The first year or so. An endless round of parties, of people dropping in, of being surrounded by friends, and friends of friends, and strangers. He enjoyed it for a while, mostly because he assumed it would be dropping off. Nobody can live that kind of life permanently, can they?

Julia could.

Mark realized sometime during their second year together that the constant stream of people through the house did not seem to be abating. That Julia coming home with handfuls of waifs and strays from work and expecting there to be enough food was not going to change.

And Mark knew it wouldn't be fair to expect her to change. He did, after all, know what he was letting himself in for when he first got together with her, but somehow he thought they'd be able to find middle ground, find a way of making it work.

At the beginning, still flush with passion and excitement, still full of the possibilities of finding that middle road, he had even thought he would propose. He planned a trip to Barbados in January, booked a restaurant overlooking the beach that had been voted one of the top ten romantic restaurants in the world, had even dreamed up his speech.

The unease started a couple of weeks before they left, prompted mostly by an argument about New Year's Eve. They had not been invited to any parties, much to Julia's disgust, and Mark