A DARKNESS MORE THAN NIGHT
Author– Ivy
Books- Twilight
Genre – Romance/ Family / Drama
Pairing - Edward Cullen X Bella Swan
Rating - T
Disclaimer:
I do not under any circumstance own the cast of Twilight. Sole property rights go to Meyer. Go talk to my lawyers if there is a problem ;P
I own only the plot and the new characters introduced during the course of the story.
I'm just a poor person trying to create my story with the existing characters from Meyer's Twilight. (wipes tears) The standard disclaimers apply.
Summary:
Bella married Edward by her father's wishes to merge their companies together. Bella has to produce an heir to seal the deal. Meanwhile, her stepsister, Tanya wants her out of the picture to become the next Mrs. Cullen. How far will Tanya go?
A DARKNESS MORE THAN NIGHT
CHAPTER ONE
Bella eased her reliable mid-night blue Audi R8 to a halt in the long line of traffic jammed up behind the New Avenue Head Road inter section adjacent to Mainland's suburban Santa Maria Bay. A slight frown creased her forehead as she checked her watch in barely concealed irritation and her slender fingers tapped an impatient edgy rhythm against the steering wheel.
She had precisely quarter an hour in which to shower, rinse her hair, dry and style it appropriately, apply the much needed completely unnecessary make-up, dress elegantly, and greet invited dinner guests with a practiced counterfeit smile etched onto her face until the nightmare ended, exactly as the clock struck twelve. The loss of ten minutes caught up in heavy traffic on a road just adjacent to her street didn't form any part in her plans.
Her eyes slid to the manicured length of her painted nails, and she dwelt fleetingly on the fact that the time spent on their lacquered flawlessness had cost her, her lunch. Half an apple at her desk mid-afternoon could hardly be termed a sufficient alternative. Her stomach grumbled readily in agreement.
Smiling grimly, she looked at the signal almost willing the colors to change.
Finally the car in front began to move, and she followed its path hurriedly, picking up speed, only to slow down, slamming on the brake pedal once again as the lights changed yet again.
Darn it. At this rate it would take two, if not three attempts to clear the crossroad junction.
She ought to, she admitted silently, have left her of fice earlierss in order to miss the heavy early late afternoon traffic. Yet obstinate single-mindedness had not permitted her from doing so.
As Charlie Swan's daughter, she had no need to sit and work. Property, an extensive share portfolio and a handsome annuity placed her high on the list of independently wealthy young women of today.
As Edward Cullen' wife, her position on the board as assis tant management consultant with Cullen-Swan Enterprises was viewed as nepotism at its very worst. She knew that everybody thought she had gotten the job by favoritism and bias. Only the people she worked with knew of her efficiency and single minded determination and drive to succeed.
Bella thrust the gear-shift forward with unaccus tomed power, attaining satisfaction though temporary from the sound of the Audi's superior engine as she eased the car forward and followed the traffic's crawling pace, only to halt scant minutes later.
The blackberry rang, and she mechanically reached for it and answered it without looking at the caller id.
'Bella'
'Marie darling'
Only one person persistently refused to abbreviate her middle name, given by how sexless it sounded.
'Anna.'
'Are you driving?'
'Right now stationary,' she informed her with a touch of iciness, contemplating the pur pose of her stepmother's call. Anna never rang to simply say 'hello.' She didn't know whether to be cynical or pretend to be nice like always.
'Tanya just flew in this afternoon. She wanted to come to the States for a well earned break. Would it be an imposition if she came to dinner today?'
Years spent attending an elite boarding-school had instilled mandatory good manners no matter how much she wanted to yell a no and slam the phone shut.
'No' she paused in reply, 'Not at all. We'd be delighted.' She wondered if her step mother could pick up the sarcasm which laced her tone none too subtly.
'Thank you, darling.'
Anna's tone of voice sounded like fluid satin as she disconnected the call.
Wonderful, Bella accorded wordlessly as she punched in the appropriate code with a force and alerted Kristy, her house keeper to set an other place at the table.
'Sorry to land this on you Kris,' she added regretfully before replacing the handset down onto the con sole attached to the dash board. An extra guest posed no quandary, and Bella wasn't adequately superstitious to consider thirteen at the table a foundation for a disastrous evening. Not that it wasn't going to - not by a longshot'
The traffic slowly began to move, and the faint tension in her eyes threatened to develop into a monster of a headache.
Charlie Swan's remarriage ten years ago to a twenty nine year-old divorcee with one young daughter and son had gifted him with a contentment Bella could never begrudge him.
Her birth mother Renee died in an automobile incident along with her husband's parents, Elizabeth and Edward Cullen Sr. . She was barely a teen when this happened and Edward was five years her senior.
So by then he had completed his studies and was just out of Harvard, with a double degree in business administration and law. Edward was old enough to take over his father's company. He did so with an iron hand and succeeded so brilliantly that he left the world stunned speechless. He made the people eat their stinging words and was rumored a devil in the board room.
Charlie met Anna at one of the million social gatherings the family attended and felt a strong sense of attraction for her and for the first time he had smiled since the death of his beloved wife. Anna was his social equal and an exemplary hostess with an attitude of a witch reserved personally just for her step daughter. It was very unfortunate that Anna's so called affection didn't extend to Charlie's daugh ter as well as Tanya eloquently put it a long time ago. As a vulnerable fifteen-year-old Bella had instinctively sensed her stepmother's superficiality and hatred towards her, and spent six months agonizing and painful over why, until a close friend had spelled out the basic psychology of a dysfunctional relationship.
She realized that she had been very naïve and stupid as she could ever possible be, during those few depressing months. All she could think of now, was just how could she not have recognized all the signs which had stared blatantly at her?
In a cutting retaliation to gain her own grounds, Bella had chosen to endeavor hard to excel at everything she did—she'd striven to gain straight As in each subject, had won sporting championships, gaining extra credits in every single assignment and graduated from university with an honors degree and a gold medal in business management.
Being university topper and leaving with top honours not being enough, she'd studied several different languages and spent a year in Paris, followed by another in Tokyo, before returning to New York temporarily to work for a rival firm and slowly climbed the ladders with a flair of brilliance. Then she'd applied for and won, on the strength of her experience and credentials, a position with Swan-Cullen Enterprises.
There was a certain danger in allowing one's thoughts to dwell on the past, Bella mused with a touch of irony as she swung the Audi into the exclusive Avenue street, where heavy, wide-branched trees added a certain exotic ambience to the luxurious mansions nes tled out of sight behind high concrete walls. The area was beautiful with lavish gardens and it seemed ethereal in the evening, the sun shining red between the trees.
A few hundred meters along she drew the car to a halt in front of the majestic gates and pressed a remote modem, and waited the required seconds as the double set of ornate black wrought-iron gates slid smoothly sideways.
A wide curved driveway led to an elegant two-storied Mediterranean-style mansion set well back from the road in gorgeous landscaped grounds. Encompass ing four allotments formerly acquired in the late 1980s by Edward Sr. Cullen, the existing four houses had been removed to make way for a multi-million-dollar residence whose outstanding harbor views placed it high in New York's real-estate stratosphere.
Ten years later all-embracing million-dollar refurbish ment and redecoration had added extensions providing additional bed room accommodation, garages for several cars, a beautifully remod eled kitchen, undercover terraces, and balconies with majestic views. The revamped precincts boasted fountains, courtyards, decorative ponds and English-inspired lawns surrounded by concise hedges.
It was incredibly heartbreaking, Bella reflected as she opened one set of mechanized garage doors and drove beneath them expertly, that Edward Sr. and Elizabeth Cullen had been victims of a freak highway accident mere weeks after the final landscaping touches had been com pleted, taken away unfairly along with her mother.
Yet Edward Sr. had achieved in death what he hadn't achieved in the last ten futile years of his life: His only son and heir had returned from America and taken over Edward Sr.'s partnership in Swan-Cullen Enterprises.
Bella slid the Audi to a halt between the sleek lines of Edward's XJ220 Jaguar and the more staid frame of a black Bentley and a silver BMW 750 Li. Missing was the top-of-the-range four-wheel drive Edward used to travel each day to the city.
The garage doors slid down with a sophisticated click and Bella caught up her attaché case from the passenger seat, slipped out from behind the wheel, then crossed to a side door to punch in a series of digits, deacti vating the security alarm system guarding entry to the magnificent house.
Mansion, she corrected herself with a twisted miserable smile as she lifted the in-house phone and rang through to the kitchen. 'Hi, Kristy. Everything under control? Do you need anything? Everything there?,' knowing very well that if there was anyone she could trust, it was the efficient housekeeper who was literally a savior.
Two decade years' service with the Cullen family en abled the housekeeper to respond with a warm chuckle. 'No problems dear. You go and get ready now.' She chastised Bella affectionately.
'Thanks,' Bella acknowledged her gratefully before hurrying through the wide hallway to a curved stair case leading to the upper floor. She ran across the winding staircase and rushed into the master bedroom.
Kristy would be putting the final touches to the five-course meal she would have prepared; her husband, Tom, would be checking the temperature of the wines Edward had specially chosen to be served, and Zara, the casual help, would be running a final check of the dining-room.
All she had to do was appear downstairs, flawlessly groomed, when Tom answered the ring of the doorbell and usher the first of their guests into the lounge in around forty minutes minimum.
Or less, Bella accorded as she ascended the stairs at a rapid pace.
Edward's mother had chosen lush-piled eau-de-nil fitted carpet and pale textured fortifications to offset the archetypal lines of the mahogany fittings, employing a skilful blend of toning color with matching draperies and bed covers, ensuring each room was subtly different with an ethnic sense of style and elegance.
The master suite was situated in the western wing with glass doors French styled, opening onto two balconies and unassailable impressive views of the harbor. Panoramic by day, those views became a supernatural seascape at night, with a fairy-like tracery of distant electric and flashing neon lights.
Bella kicked off her shoes hastily, removed the simple jewels, then quickly shed her clothes en route to a marble-tiled en suite which almost competed with the bedroom in size.
Elegantly profligate in pale silver-streaked ivory mar ble, there was a huge spa-bath with a Jacuzzi and a double shower to complement the usual facilities with a kind of sophisticated awe.
Five minutes later she entered the bedroom, a towel fastened sarong-style over her slender curves, with an other wound a turban on top of her head.
'Cutting it fine hmmm, Bella?' Edward's faintly accented drawl held a mocking edge as he shrugged off his suit jacket and loosened his tie.
In his late thirties, tall, with a broad, hard-muscled frame, his sculpted facial features gave a hint of his maternal grace. Dark, almost black amber eyes held a powerful and dominant intensity that never softened for his fellow men, and let alone for a woman. His wife included on the list. Lucky her.
'Whatever happened to the traditional, "Hey honey, I'm home"?' she retaliated as she crossed the room and selected fresh underwear from a lower-level drawer, hurriedly donned briefs and bra, then stepped into a silk slip.
'Followed by the traditional salutatory kiss?' he mocked with a tinge of musing sarcasm as he shed his shirt and attended to the zip of his trousers.
She felt the rhythm of her heartbeat increase rapidly, and she was conscious of an elevated pressure that began in the pit of her stomach and flared along to every single nerve-ending, firing her body with an finely tuned sense of high- minded awareness that was entirely physical and that which entirely belonged to the man whose name she bore.
Dynamic and forceful masculinity at its most potent, she ac knowledged silently in awe as she snatched up a silk robe, thrust her arms through its sleeves with vigor, and retraced her steps to the en suite.
Removing the toweled turban off of her head, she caught up the hair-drier and began blow-drying her mid-back length hair. Okay. It was going to take a while.
Her attention rapidly became unfocused as Edward entered the en suite and crossed to the shower stall. Mir rored walls reflected back his stark naked image, and she firmly ignored the toned skin with sheathing hard muscle and ligaments, the sculpted chest, the tightly shaped buttocks, and the powerful length of his back which oozed sexiness. Lucky her, she chuckled in her mind.
This man could probably make a nun to commit a horrendous sin if he unleashed his potential on her.
Her eyes followed the powerful strength of his shoulders as he reached forward to turn on the flow of water, then the glass doors closed behind him.
Bella tugged the brush through her hair with pointless force, and felt her eyes prick at the sudden pain of pulling her hair from her roots..
It was one year, one month, two weeks, five days and nine hours since their marriage, and she still couldn't handle the effect he had on her in bed. Or out of it. Dear Lord!
Her scalp tingled in protest, and she relaxed the brushstrokes then switched off the drier. Her hair was still slightly damp, its natural glossy brown color appearing faintly darker, highlighting the creamy milky smoothness of her skin and accentuating the deep rich brown shades of her eyes.
With skillful movements she caught the length of her hair and deftly swept it into a chignon at her nape with a few tendrils out and secured it with pins precisely and then began applying the make-up.
Minutes later she heard the water of the shower stop, and with cognizant effort she paid attention on blending her eye shadow, diligently ignoring him as he crossed to the long marbled pedestal and began dealing with a day's growth of beard.
'Bad day?' his base, husky voice was enough to drive her insane and she had a very bad feeling that he knew exactly how much control he had over her, without even trying to. Damn him.
Her fingers momentarily stilled, then she replaced the eye-shadow palette and selected mascara and started applying it.
'Why do you ask?' she replied after a moment.
'You have expressive eyes,' Edward observed as he smoothed his fingers over his jaw.
Bella met his gaze in the mirror and held it with a slice of bravery.
'Tanya is to be added as a last-minute guest at dinner tonight.'
He switched off the electric shaver and reached for the cut-glass bottle containing an exclusive brand of cologne. 'And that bothers you?'
She tried for flippancy. 'I'm perfectly capable of slaying my own dragons, thank you very much.'
One eyebrow lifted with cutting humor. 'Verbal swords over dessert, Bella?'
Tanya was well known not to miss an opportunity when it presented itself before her in a platinum platter and Bella couldn't imagine tonight would prove an extra ordinary exception.
'I'll do my best to parry any barbs with practiced civility. Isn't it what I do best?' Bella retorted with a touch of dryness.
His eyes swept over her slim curves thoughtfully and then returned to study the faint, brooding quality evident on her finely etched features, and a slight smile tugged the edges of his mouth.
'And the objective being to win an other battle in an ongoing war or to pacify things as the calm before a storm?'
'Has anyone ever beaten you in battle, Edward?' she queried lightly as she capped the mascara stick, re turned it to the drawer housing her cosmetics and con centrated strenuously on applying a soft pink color to her full lips.
He didn't answer. He had no need to assert and assure anyone that he was a man equally feared and respected by his con temporaries and rarely, if ever, fooled by anyone, least of all convince his wife.
Just watch my back and be there for me.
The words remained unsaid as she turned towards the door, and minutes later she selected a long black pencil-slim silk skirt with a slit to going as high as her knee and teamed it with a simple high-necked and collared sleeveless black silk top. Silver stiletto-heeled evening shoes completed the simple yet elegant outfit, and she added a pear-shaped diamond pendant attached to a silver chain and matching hook- drops, then slipped on a thin, diamond-encrusted bracelet highlighted with platinum before turning towards the mirror to cast her reflection a cursory glance. A few dabs of her favorite perfume added the final touch. She cast a critical look over herself and appraised it with a frown.
'Ready?'
Bella turned at the sound of his voice, and felt her breath catch at the image he presented. She instinctively took a step back as she took in the picture he painted.
There was something about his posture, a sense of animalistic potency, that fine tailoring did little to tame. The dramatic mesh of rudimentary ruthlessness and primitive power added a charisma few women of any age could successfully ignore. And Bella was no exception.
For a few timeless seconds her eyes locked with his in an endeavor to resolve what lay behind the intentional inscrutability he always managed to portray effortlessly.
She envied him his superb self control...and wondered what it would take to break it. It was definitely not going to be her. Of that, she was certain.
'Yes.' Her voice was steady, and she summoned a bright smile as she turned to precede him from the room with a confidence she did not possess.
The main staircase curved down to the ground floor in an elegant sweep of wide, partially carpeted marble stairs in the centre, with highly polished mahogany banisters sup ported by ornately scrolled black wrought-iron bal usters. The sweeping flooring was designed to perfection and it was the ultimate arena for the rich and sophisticated.
Set against floor-to-ceiling lead-paneled glass, the staircase created an elegant focus highlighted by a splendid crystal chandelier which dominated the high ceiling.
Marble flooring lent capaciousness and light to the large entry foyer, sustained by textured ivory-colored walls whose equivalence was broken by a series of wide, heavily paneled doors, priceless works of art, and a assortment of elegant Asian-style cabinets.
Bella had just placed a foot on the last stair step with Edward gripping her elbow when the doorbell pealed for the first time that evening.
'It's show-time people,' she murmured and stared straight ahead and took in a deep breath and plastered a smile on her face.
To be continued...