Hey guys! This is a new story that I am going to start. I hope you like it. I can expand on the engineering terms more if you would like me to, so just let me know in the reviews. This story is unbeta'd, so all mistakes are mine and I would like to apologize for them in advance.

I don't yet know who my lead character is and the correct pairing for her. So if you have any ideas, let me know! I do have an outline of a story for the next few chapters, so I will try to get them to you soon.

Before they met

She had been staring at the list of potential graduate students to work with and reading through the paragraphs of description of their work. She was a little disappointed that none of the projects matched her immediate area of interest. There were about 10 graduate students and she needed to apply to 4 as suggested by the application. She thought to herself, 'Why is this so hard? I want to be a part of the undergraduate research experience. In fact, I have no other choice but to prove my abilities in research. So, let me just pick 4 and write my statement of interests.'

Navigating through the project profiles, she shortlisted her top 4 choices: Emmett McCarthy, Jasper Hale, Edward Cullen and Carlisle Masen. Her top preference was Emmett McCarthy. He did research in control systems, and offering a project that would allow me to work on programming UAVs to do simultaneous localization and mapping (SLAM) of the area in order to obtain real-time maps for the purpose of providing surveillance on construction sites. The next in line was Edward Cullen. He worked on aerodynamics and his project's focus was to study the power requirements of a cross-flow fan on a wing for the purpose of flow control and propulsion. She did not understand a single work of what it entailed since she had never worked in the aerodynamics sector but it piqued her interest. Jasper Hale and Carlisle Masen's projects were just something she filled out to fulfill the requirements of the application. She glanced at their projects but did not find them interesting enough to actually consider working for them.

Now, while she was filling the application, being the modern-age girl that she considered herself to be, she immediately went to facebook to stalk the people she had just finished applying to. She looked at Emmett and found him to be a cute little teddy bear. She then moved onto Edward and she was immediately dazzled by him. His picture was a little grainy but she could still see the sharpness of his jaw and the man-bun he kept, which made him look like the most attractive man she had ever encountered. So, it was only reasonable that she could not help herself and read through his profile. And here came the immediate disappointment. He was married and she was the ideal woman. Bella Cullen looked like she belonged with him, which made her feel as worthless as she did whenever she fell in love with a taken man. This wasn't the first time but looking at him, she thought that it would be the last time. Since, she was as masochistic as it gets, she scrolled through their pictures of a happy life and saw the kind of man he was. She saw him bringing flowers for her, with his little brother, on her graduation and it warmed her heart. She saw their wedding pictures and the love they had for each other and it filled her with envy. They had married after their junior year of college and had been high school sweethearts. She found that he was a singer and was part of a local band in his free time. She heard his voice and she was instantly enchanted by it. Everything about him kept reeling her in. So she decided to stop. She knew and had sworn to herself that she would never look at a married man like that. And she prayed that she did not get paired with him as she knew her heart would not survive the ordeal.

When they met

After a month, she had almost forgotten about the application she had filled to be part of research. She had gotten distracted by the crazy amounts of homework from her engineering classes as well as other projects she had outside of classes. After all, it was her sophomore year and she wanted to be on top of things. Out of the blue, she got an email from the advisor of the program, which said 'Congratulations! You have been selected to be a part of the RES program and have been paired with Edward Cullen to study the power requirements of a cross-flow fan'.

Fate had such a cruel sense of humor. She had just managed to forget about her attraction to this guy and life was throwing her together with this man again. Obviously frustrated and unable to share it with anybody, she held it in.

The introduction with the mentors was the next day. She had already braced herself and had calmed her heart. When she went inside the room, the four chosen undergraduates sat on one side of the room whereas the graduate students sat on the other side. Everybody introduced himself or herself. She barely noticed anything as she tried to stop the pounding of her heart. Edward was just a few feet away from her. And they would be forced to talk privately in a few minutes. She held her breath and nervously waited for the moment they would have to talk. The introductions to the program and the other people soon ended and she was paired off with Edward to talk about their project.

Edward was sick that day. He apologized for being sick and they started a casual conversation about why she had chosen his project, even though her research interests did not match with what he studied. She proceeded to offer him drugs to cure his sickness. And then, she blushed uncontrollably as she had not realized the implications of what she had said. She diverted the conversation to scheduling a meeting time for their first in-depth discussion of the project and her role in it. And then she said goodbye.

That was the most intensive meeting of her life and she ran away from the room, with her chest heaving. A little bit from the running and a lot from whom she had just met. How, on Earth, was she going to continue this relationship until the end of the semester?

Mid semester

Over the semester, she had gotten to know Edward better. And she had fallen even deeper in love with him. More than that, she had gained extremely high regard for him. This was because, not only was he physically attractive, extremely charming and extraordinarily talented, he also was a very kind and gentle soul who believed in God, respected and cherished his wife and family and built new things out of scratch. He was everything she had ever wanted in a man and more. And he was taken.

She remembered the several mini conversations they had during the end of their work sessions every week. They mostly oriented over technology, classes and professional things but every once in a while, she would notice a CAD image of a present that he was making his wife for her birthday. He talked about how he gave up his dream of going into an Ivy League school so that him and his wife could stay together during the course of their graduate school.

This hit her especially hard as she recounted her biggest family issue in her head. Her mother had always blamed her father for not being supportive of her job and asking her to give it up for the sake of the baby (meaning her). She had always felt a little guilty that the problem between her parents was a result of her birth and no matter how often they tried to convince her how grateful they were she felt like she was the person to blame for their unhappy marriage. So, him compromising on his dreams to show support for his wife filled her up with deeper admiration for him.

She also heard of his crazy antics. He loved finding used umbrellas during the monsoon season, which were left behind by people. He would bring them to his house and stitch them together to make a kite. He told her of the time he found a quadcopter in the trashcan and how he repurposed it to fly again. She could keep listening to him talk for ages. He never cared much for her stories. So she stopped talking about herself and heard him talk. Somewhere, deep inside, she knew such admiration for another person was unhealthy and she needed to find a way to stop but her heart was set. She could not quit.