A/N I wrote this one shot for the reflections of summer contest over at TWCS, sadly that contest has been cancelled because of too little entries. So now I'm posting this on my own accounts everywhere for your enjoyment.
Reflections of Summer Twilight Fanfic Contest
Pen Name: Pienuniek
Twitter handle: pienuniek
Beta: Chandrakanta
Title: Summer Breeze
Main Character Pairing: Edward, Bella
Rating: M
Word Count: 9953
Disclaimer: The author does not own any publicly recognizable entities herein. No copyright infringement is intended.
Summary:
Somehow summer became synonymous with big changes. The biggest change was to happen today. God, how circuitous a path we meandered to the best end.
Summer Breeze
I paced the music room I was confined to; nobody wanted to be near my nervous energy. I would marry the right woman today at last. My soul mate and lifelong companion would give herself to me on this glorious day of the Indian Summer. I looked out the window toward the arch that was being erected at the end of the make-shift aisle. The silver arch complemented the warm colored leaves that held on to the trees especially for us, it seemed. I had to try and fill the hours I still had to wait. I sat myself down at the piano and unstrapped my left leg. I would have to stand enough today and the pacing hadn't done the stump any good. I sat at my piano, scratching the small scars on my stump the removal of my toes had left.
I was born with a rather severe birth defect; my lower left leg had never fully developed. A couple of inches below my knee, some knobs with nails indicated where my body had tried to form a foot. My parents saw me and declared me a failure, dumping me with my grandparents. It still saddens me that I have only hazy memories of my grandfather because he died before I was one year old. My grandmother adored kids and once in a while fostered unwanted or bereft kids from the village. She and my grandfather scolded their son and daughter-in-law but took me in lovingly, not wanting me to suffer because of my parents. Yes, my parents were gigantic snobs and anything that didn't conform with their ideas had to be hidden or simply had to go. Lousy but wealthy parents is what Bella and I had in common.
I was five and sitting in a sandbox baking mud pies and sand cookies, both favorites of mine when Nanny made them. Nanny came out of the house and told me to stay put whatever happened. A car came careening down the driveway and came to a screeching halt just inches from Nanny. An angry looking, red faced man jumped from behind the wheel and threw the rear door of the car open. I heard a baby crying loudly; it sounded positively anguished. The man grabbed something from the backseat and literally dumped it in Nanny's arms. He then threw several boxes from the trunk, one of them spilling stuffed animals all over the driveway when his grip ripped the carton.
"I never want to see that bitch again! She killed my wife and has the nerve to go on screaming even when I told her to stop. She's yours!"
He said it all very loud, to be heard over the wailing baby. Nanny shushed the baby, softly asking a few questions. The man pointed to a bunch of papers sticking out of one of the boxes and then threw a clip with a wad of money at Nanny. Now that Nanny held her, the baby had become quiet, hiccupping every other breath. I sat frozen in my sandbox, my culinary efforts forgotten. It was the middle of summer; it was also the only time in my life that I ever saw Bella's father, the high and mighty Charles T. Swan, senator extraordinaire, and widower of Renee Emmanuelle Higginbotham-Swan, who died in childbirth, giving birth to their daughter Isabella Marie Swan; stillborn he reported to the press. Yes, Charlie Swan was a first class asshole. Bella's last name was Higginbotham-Swan on paper. Nanny, however, dropped the Higginbotham right away to spite Bella's father.
Until the little girl joined Nanny and me, I never walked, or hopped rather. Crawling was easier and faster any time. My fascination with the little baby, however, had me hopping behind her stroller in no time. Nanny got me a rollator to hop by myself because crutches were still too difficult to coordinate for me. It had a little seat on it for me to rest on when my single leg got crampy. Baby Bella loved to be carted around by me, and as soon as she could sit up alone I tied her to my little seat and pushed her around, hopping as fast as I could; Nanny was not impressed by my tying skills. She got a bicycle seat for small kids and put that on my seat, making Bella safe and both of us happy. Both our tantrums when she stopped me the first time told her we had enjoyed the activity a lot.
My mind switched to the big production that had taken place just this July: my divorce, after that farce of a marriage, and takeover of the big hotel chain the Crowns were destroying by just moving forward. Their second in command, after the demise of Daddy Crown, had become the gigantic douchebag James Cavanaugh, the celebrity chef booed off Iron Chef when it became known that he was an amateur cook of questionable repute. His knife handling alone was ranked amateur level. I smiled to myself; Bella's opinions were bountiful in my mind. I was a decent cook, in charge of breakfast every third day in our cottage when we grew up; my skills were absolutely nothing besides Bella's, though. As it should be, because the little lady had just returned home from her graduation ceremony in Paris, France. She was now the proud owner of a Grande Diplôme from Le Cordon Bleu, Paris, France.
James had recently bankrupted his third restaurant, this one on the border of my plantation. He'd built it very ostentatiously with a large vegetable garden filled with produce that wouldn't thrive in these heat locked states. They either grew wild or withered, nothing in between. When I took over the Crown business, as had been my goal long before I had to comply with the last wishes of my asinine father, the only fortuitous outcome was that I now owned the company outright, for the cost of a courthouse wedding, a stellar prenup, and a quickie divorce. Super bitch Heidi still didn't know what hit her. To my bewilderment, I found a business plan to put me out of my inheritance by overshadowing my hospitality geared hotel and spa, with an even bigger hospitality driven restaurant. How they thought that plan had any merit, I don't know, but the thing had been built and gone bankrupt in months. The property it stood on was huge, with a dilapidated plantation house slap bang in the middle of former cotton fields turned pasture. The restaurant was built on the only piece of land looking out over my property, no angles on the condemned plantation house behind the copse of grown trees planted for a shaded parking lot, but in truth planted to hamper the view of decay. Well, that whole property was part of the Crown assets. I immediately put it in Bella's name to pay back the loans she had given me from her trust fund when I couldn't touch my own yet.
Due to the stellar prenup Carlisle had written, everything from both estates would go to the partner that wasn't physically cheating and was caught. My PI Jenks was still mortified that he wasn't the one who had caught Heidi with not one but two lovers in flagrante delicto. Bella had just taken illegal possession of the vegetable gardens of the empty restaurant next door. She wanted to try and keep it going through the summer heat as much as possible in the hope that the whole shebang would be mine reasonably soon. Nobody knew she had used about a mile of garden hose to get the garden irrigated from our little lake. Nobody knew she spent her afternoons tending the delicate herbs and veggies. Nobody expected her to be there and see inside the supposed to be empty windows with ease. Most of all, nobody expected her to be associated with me, knowing everything there was to know. She took excellent pictures, about a dozen. One of my physical therapists no longer had a job. Jacob Black hadn't read the clause about fraternization in his contract. For the other male, it was also going to be the end of his long endeavor to make it and Heidi fucked her life away that day.
I walked out of my lawyers' office and into the park, grinning widely. I was a free man again and I did it without lowering my standards. I pulled the delicious Italian bread sandwich from my briefcase. Bella had made me lunch; she still lived with Nanny when in the States. I lived in a staff chamber at the hotel, but most of my stuff still was at Nanny's too. I sighed, my shoulders light, the stone my father had hung around my neck crushed and blown away on the winds of freedom. I most certainly had to hand my man-card to Bella because I had become way too cheesy. I felt around in my messenger style briefcase for the manila envelope containing the deeds to all Crown property, as well as my signed and notarized divorce papers. After all ownership of any Crown asset had been signed over, I had fished out the deed of the first house Heidi's parents had lived. He had started with nothing and had been proud of that little house. I gave Heidi the deed, crossing it off the take-over papers. After my one good deed, I handed both her and James their pink slips and last checks and wished them good luck in the rest of their lives. Heidi shrieked, with her nails-on-blackboard voice, that it wasn't fair, that we didn't even consummate the marriage. I just looked her in the eye and told her that that wasn't my fault.
My hand stopped at a paper bag, a large paper bag full of whatever. I pulled it out of my briefcase, a paper bag with a sharpie drawing: a couple of twos on some undulating lines, a mittened hand, and pieces coming from a rectangle. On the other side stood: yes, I mean that you should feed this bread to the swans in the park. They're our talisman, remember summer-camp. The words were followed by a drawn heart and a U. I stood from the bench near the fountain and walked further into the park. At the back, where only the joggers came this time of day, was a big pond nestled inside a dense patch of trees. In the pond lived a pair of black necked swans we had rescued with milk soaked bread when they were only cygnets. I plopped myself on the tree log we had placed next to the pond that same summer.
Both of us had to audition in spring for summer-camp. I wanted to compose and Nanny had found a music camp for the musically gifted. In the same building, on another floor, another kid's camp would be held, a cookery camp, oops, a culinary camp. Officially that camp was for kids from eight years and up but they held a few places for prodigies of any age who could hold a knife safely. Bella already cooked us extensive dinners to a high standard, Nanny said, and she was slotted in to audition on the same day I had to play them an original piece I wrote; of course we had both gotten in. A week later I was operated on to make my short leg able to receive an artificial limb.
The operation went outstanding and I was finally free from those annoying useless toes sticking out every which way, always catching every corner of furniture they came close to. The stump they created was healing very well, and a month before summer-camp I received my first artificial leg. I was a pro at crutch walking and hated that the limb slowed me down. The doctors told me if I dedicated myself, almost nobody would know I had a bum-leg. That angered me and I put the thing in my closet for a week, refusing to try and normalize myself. Nanny and Bella told me to train for myself, not for an image the world would find pleasing. Bella, at five, she was my best friend and scarily smart, smarter than I was for sure. I was very good at cramming and retaining what I crammed, Bella just seemed to know it all already.
We went to our respective summer camps, Bella as the youngest entry in the culinary section. Because Bella was so young, and both camps used the same building, Nanny had insisted we have a dorm room together. That had the great perk of extra desserts for me every night. The focus of Bella's camp that year was patisserie, high level patisserie. The first night Bella brought half of her Chambord mousse cake. The other half had gone to the dinner table of all campers. When I saw the piece of art she materialized out of a real pastry box, I knew immediately that she had made the best one in class because the other half had adorned the camp counselors' table.
I played the exercises I had put together that day on my keyboard. Finally free from the blasted leg, it now sat in the closet and Bella was rubbing lotion into the stump. She had just retreated to sit on her bed, reading the required recipes for the next day, when the door was thrown open wide and my ogre of a father stood blocking out the light from the hall. He walked over to me and dragged me out of our room, barely giving me the opportunity to put on jeans and grab my crutches that Bella stuck out to me. She looked panicked and I told her to go to the dorm supervisor and have him call Nanny for her. My father grabbed my collar and forced me to come with him. He still hadn't spoken a word; that changed when we were free of an audience other than his driver behind the security screen.
"You need to be at a funeral tomorrow; your bitch of a surrogate sister's father has killed your mother. So you better be the grieving son, I need you there to keep up appearances."
I was placed in a hotel staff room and one of the receptionists took me to a high standard men's clothing store the next morning, getting me fitted post haste in a black on black suit. Five minutes before we needed to walk into the chapel, my father joined us in the parking lot.
"You need to stay next to me."
He spoke over my head. Suddenly I felt a surge of retaliation for all the crap he gave me. I was glad he didn't know I had my artificial limb, yet. Everybody would see his failure of a son. His view, not mine. I realized that he said that Bella's dad had killed my mother; I also knew that that story would have to come from Nanny. We stormed into the chapel, not a sign of slowing down or any consideration for the fact that I couldn't hold open the heavy doors when on crutches. Some of the mourners saw the impending collision and grabbed the doors while looking at me with a strange expression on their faces. I ignored it all and put on the turbo to keep up with the stoic man striding to the front pew with more than purpose. He handed the pastor a few papers, whispered something in a threatening tone, and sat down right in front of the casket that was buried in flower arrangements. At the end of the coffin, near the pews, was a large picture of a woman I should know. She had, after all, my exact eye and hair color, even some of the lines of her face seemed to appear in my features now. If only I had one recollection of her, but I couldn't dig anything from my memory. I was present at the funeral of a total stranger who gave birth to me.
The service droned on; the only bits I enjoyed were the music pieces performed live by a string quartet, which I played along on my leg. The pastor came to the part in the sermon for the reading of the eulogy by a member of the family. Instead he told us that he was asked to read Elizabeth's eulogy written by her husband. The droning started again, the words sliding over me without making any impact until the pastor cleared his throat.
"After giving birth to her son, Elizabeth was still the driving force behind a lot of charities. Motherhood never slowed her down, she was truly the shining sun over all of them. Alas, this sun has been eclipsed forever in the middle of summer."
A powerful rage surged through me. I sat stone faced, waiting for the farce to end. When it did I feigned to struggle standing up, making sure one of my crutches ended up on top of my father's toes, to go on, seemingly oblivious, putting my full weight on it. Outside, in the blaring summer sunlight, I was put in a car and the driver brought me back to my camp dorm.
Nanny sat waiting for me in our room, Bella on her lap in a ball, desperately clutching Seth, her toy husky. Both they and I breathed a sigh of relief to be together again. Nanny explained, as far as she had made sense of the little pieces of information, that a few of her cop friends had spilt in confidence, it looked like the chauffeur-driven town car had been impaled by the brand new Mini Coupe of my mother. She hit them a little to the back from the middle of the passenger side. The senator—shit, that was Bella's only relative—was dead on impact; my mother died in the ambulance and was DOA with a blood alcohol level of 2.0. My father's snide remark of how her dad had killed my mom should be interpreted the other way around. The senator wasn't a big loss, and neither was my mother. Bella gave me her only reasonably well achieved recipe of the day. Her mind wasn't really on exact measurements and she blew her chocolate lava cakes and Grand Marnier soufflé. Her semifredo tiramisu with mint, however, was extremely yummy. I told them about my day and Nanny bristled a lot over her son's behavior.
On a balmy summer evening, Bella and I escaped the dorm to take a walk in the park. Bella, for once, showed her little girl status and told me that she wanted to feed the ducks. What happened was incredible and made us both happy. We found a clutch of very young ducklings without a sign of the parents. Later, Nanny told us that two grown swans had been hit by a van and died. Nobody knew about their little ones. To make a long story short, we took the four little bundles to the dorm and fed them pieces of bread soaked in milk. At the end of the four week summer camp they could fend for themselves enough that we set them free on the pond in the park. They came back every year since, and even though their wild partners never came close, they always remembered us and ate out of our hands.
I was hauled out of my musings by a loud knock on the door and a grinning Carlisle slipping into the room, closing and locking the door. He walked over to me with a large tumbler of scotch on the rocks. He put a doily on the piano and set the glass down. Even though it was a crocheted doily, I was grateful he had respect for the instrument. He planted himself in an armchair and the fucker just sat there staring at me. The man would be a great cop if that were his calling, because he had me spooked and I knew he meant well.
"What?"
"I'm just sizing you up; you are, after all, hopping from one marriage to another. I want to be sure you're good enough for my friend."
He answered while his lips twitched; he was desperately trying not to laugh.
"I'll tell you what, Carlisle; your friend would filet you if she heard that comment, and you know it. You know damn well that that farce never really was a marriage; it was a business deal to me. I got what I wanted and shafted dear old daddy posthumously from enjoying my pain. I got the complete Crown estate, lock, stock, and barrel. Their modest townhouse I left for the destitute couple; I have some compassion, unlike any of them.
"I'll tell you about when I knew I was in love with Bella; until then I had a crush on her a mile wide, but on her eighteenth birthday I fell in love with the hardest clunk anybody ever heard. You have to understand that from the age of about three, Bella claimed me as her best friend. We both knew that we weren't related in any way. No official papers were ever drawn up; we just both lived with my grandmother, our Nanny. Even though I'm five years older, she really became my best friend too. She's so damn smart, as you probably have noticed yourself, those five years might have been one or two at the age of ten for me putting her on the more mature side too.
"When puberty hit me in the balls, Nanny told us that boys that age don't sleep with little girls in their bed and if she caught us in the other's bed at night we better have had a damn good reason for it. The next day Bella gave me a notebook full of rather ingenious ideas to thwart Nanny. The strange thing is we never used them. For her to write them out and for me to read them sated our appetite for the real thing. Anyway, I was writing my dissertation and had told Bella I couldn't come home. She'd sounded so desolate; she didn't wanted me to miss her first tea party with every horny fucker in the neighborhood. She felt safe with me as her back-up, but I really wanted to surprise her. My rock, the only person beside Nanny who really got me. I would have to forgo the graduating ceremony for hotel school; the director wasn't happy to lose me as his valedictorian, but he handed me my degree then and there along with the gold medal for excellence they would give to students they thought extremely ready to run the highest level of service in a hotel. I was the first to achieve it in ten years.
"I digress; when I arrived home, I texted Nanny I would hide in my room. She told me to go to her study next to the living room instead. She had taken Bella to do some last minute shopping as she didn't seem too happy to celebrate her birthday. I was safely ensconced in Nanny's study when I heard them enter the living room and sit down. Nanny began to explain to Bella that now that she reached adulthood she would get responsibility to manage her own finances completely, but that until she was twenty-five she'd be accountable to an accountant and an executor. Bella was confused and said so; she told Nanny that her entire monetary worth was about five hundred dollars that she'd saved. Nanny started to laugh; she then dropped the biggest bombshell ever. 'My dear girl,' she said, 'your net worth is about a billion.' Pausing dramatically, she waited until the penny dropped and I was glad I was sitting on the floor next to the door. Nanny went on, explaining that most of it was in trust and would stay there, but Bella would get use of a monthly stipend of ten-thousand dollars. Furthermore, she would get managing power over the interest of the fortune in trust.
"The moment Nanny gave Bella her paraphernalia to have access to the interest account, she whipped her phone out and looked for the balance of it. I heard some spluttering and girly teenage Oh-Em-Gees, then it was silent for a long ten minutes but for some soft paper shuffling and finally she apparently handed Nanny something; again the blasted silence. The next thing I heard was Nanny sniffling. I tell you, I had to hold on to my legs to prevent myself from running to her. What happened, you want to ask, well Nanny enlightened me just after. Bella had written ten checks to her dearest charities all worth a million. I have to say that I was floored two ways, firstly how damn much must sit in that interest account for Bella to give away ten millions. The second way was exactly that, the fact that the first thing that Bella did was think of others. Right then something changed inside me. She did exactly what I would have done. I realized that the only crush I ever had could well be my perfect girl."
"Oh, Edward, of course she's your perfect girl, but this statement doesn't equate surrender to the love bug. This is realization and teetering on the edge, but not falling headlong in love. What happened to push you over the edge?"
He waggled his eyebrows suggestively and took a gulp of his whiskey at my glare. His eyes were still gleaming with mischief. This oddball mix of talented chef slash lawyer had become my best friend in the few years we'd known each other. Not that that was a coveted spot among others in my circle; because of my father's influence around here, none of his friends' kids would play with me. At school they were apprehensive about my crutches, and when that dulled into awkwardness it became apparent that I was smarter than anyone there. I always had singular focus on what I was doing, everybody or anything else disappeared from my mind and I made sure I succeeded. My family doctor suspected that I had a light form of some kind of autism but I never saw it as a disadvantage.
"Well?"
"Well, what?"
"Well, what did push you over the edge?"
"Oh, sorry, I got lost in my thoughts there for a moment. Later that same afternoon, Nanny brought me something to snack on and a drink. She told me to wait a while still, but then relocate to the garden room so I could witness the tea party. She told me to break in whenever I thought the moment called for a surprise. So, there I was, hunched behind the patio doors of the garden room, with an excellent view of the entire deck area. Bella stood with three girls near a table of refreshments. They were talking in hushed tones while the girls pointed surreptitiously to the five boys that were shooting the shit about thirty foot away, sodas in hand. Bella shook her head violently, inching away from those boys. One of the girls got a nasty gleam in her eye and called loudly that Bella should live a little finally; she then shoved her forcefully toward the boys, who reacted instantly on the prey pushed into their territory. Like a flock of birds they started prancing, flaunting their best assets. Bella stood there like a deer in the headlights and flushed bright red. I couldn't hear their pick-up lines, but I could see my girl's face and she was very uncomfortable, shaking her head several times, causing two of the four boys to droop their heads; the fifth never engaged. A third stepped forward and grabbed her hand, shaking it as if to try to shake some sense into her.
"I don't know what happened inside me but my whole being jerked in pain as Bella took a step toward the boy. I didn't even know if she wanted to take that step, but the pain inside made me angry. Those pubescent boy toys didn't know my girl; they shouldn't be allowed to touch her, or even be near her while her friends stood by laughing while she was molested into compliance. I stood up and opened the patio doors, stepped onto the deck, and started to close the ninety foot distance to the love of my life. Suddenly I was completely overwhelmed by the feeling of love I held for her. Not love between friends, no, that was the moment I realized I was in love with her."
While I was talking, more and more power and emotion seeped into my voice and I ended in a sigh. Meanwhile, Carlisle was nearly choking in his silent laughter but he waved for me to carry on.
"Okay, I slowly made my way toward the pack of predators. The third one was apparently the alpha male in this group and the rest gave him room to strut his stuff. Now that I could hear him, I was very glad I didn't hear the beginning of his rant. Without giving her room to answer, his rhetorical posed questions rained down on Bella. Her face was now set in a disgusted mask of horror. To halt his disgusting display of bad parenting—I mean everybody should pummel into their kids that no means no—I cleared my throat, loudly. Bella's head shot my way and her whole face lit up when she realized who had interrupted. The third male looked horrified at the change in Bella's demeanor, he at least knew when he lost; he dropped his head in a submissive retreat. Bella, on the other hand, turned and ran toward me as fast as the deer she impersonated not long ago. I had to brace myself and put my good leg behind to absorb the impact. A moment later I had a new accessory, a frontpack in girl form. I hugged her to me and whispered in her ear that I loved her. At the same time she was almost squealing that I made it and that she loved me too. Nanny stood beaming near the refreshment table, but without acknowledging any of the guests or Nanny, I carried Bella back into the garden room and we sat there the rest of the day, talking and kissing, and boy can that girl kiss; I was hooked."
"Yeah, that I knew already; it was as if you brought superglue and soldered your faces together when you visited in France."
"Oh shut up, as if you and Esme were and are any different."
"No, we weren't any different, the only thing different between us is that we never did the long distance thing. How did you make that work?"
"Well, let's see, I was home from Cornell with a PhD at twenty-three, my father was asking for a general manager in the papers, so I wrote him a letter with my credentials. The only thing untrue in the letter was my name. The second letter was completely mine, name and all. I just wanted to test my father's prejudice. While I got a 'we're sorry but' letter back, my alter ego was invited for an interview. He was hired by the board but my dad wasn't present, but I told them my true name and my intentions for the hotel. They were anxious but told me they would work with me, even under a false name. My father then ruined that possibility by walking in late reeking of Scotch; he immediately went off on all of us and said that if I was to be hired it would be as a desk clerk. He was completely convinced my degree was earned on pity; I couldn't be fit for the job, some grunt work would teach me humility. The managers at the table looked mortified, and as soon as Daddy staggered out again, I went and made good deals there and then. I moved back into my old staff quarters and half lived with Nanny.
"Bella was still living with Nanny and went to college in the nearby town. She had drastically changed her plans for her higher education. She knew she needed to learn to manage her fortune; she started college on a light load of business and management courses filled up with some very specific culinary classes. She was upping her culinary game because, now that she could do it without enormous student loans, she had set her sights on Le Cordon Bleu in Paris. The works, le Grande Diplôme embellished with both the restaurant management and sommeliers courses. She did it, in the minimum of time possible. She only came home over Christmas, our favorite holiday with Nanny. Over the summers she took her sommeliers courses with me and worked some of her internship hours. But that's how we met; the long hours she worked even during summer threw me into your and Esme's lap. I enjoyed the easy summer nights on the balcony with a little baguette, cheese, and wine. Oh, and let's not forget your homemade excellent pâtés."
Carlisle smiled magnanimously, immediately putting the compliment in our girls' baskets.
"Oh, Esme's kitchen was fabulous for experimenting. All her tenants could work in there at once. In the end, Bella and I worked a side each, using the third side for our patisserie. It really was a gourmet's heaven in there. I mean, Bella, being the imaginative chef she is, tried out mouthwatering piece after mouthwatering piece. Her flat out failures were few and far between. Her ordinary dishes, like a home-cooked meal, were plentiful. She started with a very classic rustic meal and then started analyzing it until she had a completely new dish that still gave you the idea of the rustic dish. Oh well, I'm flattering your girl; I'm sure you knew her cooking even before she went to Paris. But I more than once took good advice from her; she might have been even more responsible for my climb to le Grand Diplôme than any of the chefs at Le Cordon Bleu. We made our peaceful little family over there in Paris, I found the love of my life. Damn, Bella, Esme, and I were sitting on that little balcony celebrating the fact we were declared graduated chefs of the highest level when that phone call came. I never heard what happened before you called. That must have been some shit storm of a will reading."
I looked at him with slightly unbelieving eyes.
"If that isn't the understatement of the millennium. I nearly had a heart attack when the lawyer started on the stipulations, but let me start at the beginning. My father lived in the hotel's penthouse alone, his meals were left in the lobby of the top floor, nobody but the three managers and his PA ever saw him. He lived like a hermit. That's what made the inconspicuous refit of the common areas so easy. They were almost done, I'd been a stupid desk clerk at the hotel for four and a half years already. The drawings and permits for the new spa building were in the process of being acquired, the placing of the building on the most inconspicuous site from the penthouse windows. I was at Nanny's before my shift started when my father's PA called me in a panic; she couldn't get hold of my father. She didn't have a key to the penthouse and only met my father face to face once a week; he let her into the penthouse. Only housekeeping went in every day after calling up to tell him they were coming. He would shut himself in one of the bedrooms until they were done. He really was mad. Thank goodness for housekeeping, though; that told me the hotel's master key would work on his door. I called the managers and asked them all to come with me. We found him slumped over the coffee table stone cold and obviously quite dead. It was a mess; I had to call the police because the whole situation could be suspicious. They did a search for evidence, but stopped when the coroner reported a death caused by cirrhosis of the liver.
"Three days after the funeral I made my way to the office of the family lawyer for the reading of the will. A room full of people I didn't expect, one of them the heir of the Crown estate, Miss Heidi Crown herself. My heart sunk, did my father hate me that much that he would give the family hotel to the competition? Of course, it took that bastard lawyer a good half hour restating my grandfather's will and going over all kinds of calculations to add in the legally required interest. Then a third of my grandfather's estate was put into my lap, to be in trust until I was twenty-five or married before that age. Both those stipulations were moot as I was twenty-eight already. Then the long-winded old coot told us slowly what my father had in personal worth. That was the hotel and not much more. He had taken out several loans with the hotel as collateral. I saw the faces of the three men across the table sour when it became apparent that Edward Anthony Masen junior had squandered my mother's family fortune and probably lied about my grandfather's money.
"It took a while but he finally came to the way my father wanted to distribute his debts. The three men were Aro, Caius, and Marcus Volturi, nephews who were in business together. My father owed each one of them about half a million. The fact that there was no money made them react like true Italians; they swore and told toward the creepy urn in the office that he was a son of a bitch. To which I had to put them right, I simply had to make sure they only insulted my father but left my Nanny alone. They looked surprised at my harsh admonishment until I told them she raised me and raised me well. Pulling my checkbook from my pocket I wrote each of them a check for the exact amount owed and wished them a fine day. They were all over me, kissing my cheeks like the French, from what I heard in little bits it seemed I rescued their company.
"The three left, being satisfied and reimbursed, the pencil pusher started his drone up again where he left off. The next few minutes, a hand clamped around my heart and my head shot into panic mode. I really thought that it was a nightmare. After he read out the legal hocus-pocus, he really brought the axe down on my life. He was nice enough to translate it into simple words. If I wanted to inherit the hotel I was to be married to Miss Heidi Crown within a fortnight of the will reading. If I didn't comply, the entire estate would go to her, with the exception of a sum she had to pay me when that happened. And that was that; I had granddad's money, but he had just robbed me of my only dream I had as a child: becoming the managing director of the Masen Spa and Hotel.
"I kept it together until the end, gave Heidi my business card, and left as soon as I politely could. I went to my room in the hotel and called you lot in Paris. I felt completely and utterly defeated, my father screwing me over one last time."
I sighed, looking up into the amused eyes of Carlisle, who started chuckling.
"Man, were you a mess when you called. You had Bella just as panicked before we could get out of you what exactly happened."
"Shit, I was in a complete panic; you didn't have to sit across from plastic barracuda Heidi, pushing up her tits, licking her lips and fluttering her eyelashes. From the moment the lawyer announced my requirement to wed her, she started the seduction at full force. She didn't know about my artificial leg; ever since I bought the articulated foot I walked without limping."
Carlisle cut across me.
"Yeah, yeah, as soon as we got your email with the will attached, I began to understand why your father never gave you a break. He started it himself and he's fully responsible for the consequences your grandfather put on him in his will. He wasn't allowed to sell the hotel to anyone. He could use it to grow his own income and he could leave it to anyone in his will. But he couldn't touch the trust or the legal interest. He might have made sure to use the surplus interest. But basically he couldn't take the guilt on himself and blamed you for the whole thing. His lawyer had been very crafty in writing the will. He could have made sure you became thoroughly miserable by putting a length of time on the marriage, or even stipulate a kid. That lawyer needs a bonus; he wrote it up so that your father was happy with it, but in the same moment, by carefully wording it, he gave you the biggest loopholes I've ever seen. I made very good use of them when I wrote that prenup.
"When we calmed both Bella and you enough to start working the problem, we had about three hundred assorted cookies; Bella started baking the tension away. While mixing and kneading the dough, she told us about Heidi in excruciating detail: her lack of intellect, her vicious bullying, and slut tendencies. We zeroed in on the slut tendencies when Bella managed to shock both Esme and me by blurting out that even at school she had multiple partners a day, including teachers. I knew then that you could do it, and do it reasonably fast; somehow we needed a plan for Heidi to forgo consummating the marriage with you." He chuckled depreciatingly. "You'd have to be a damn good actor to get her to leave without her being clued into your disgust of her. But of course I forgot the endless array of practical jokes you and Bella played with that damn leg of yours. I must say I never saw someone hop as fast as you seem to be able to. Damn, man, Bella at full tilt with your leg in her arms and you still got her within sixty feet. But tell me the details, how did you get Heidi out of the marital bed?"
I sighed; I really didn't want to tell this to anyone but Bella. But the fact that I aimed to get her to leave me alone despite her hungry stares at the possible content of my pants made me start.
"I really am rather ambiguous about this part of the downfall of the Skank Ho; it was a double edged sword driven into my own heart. But, as it was crucial to her demise, because she didn't want to get it at home and was never much of a self-pleaser, it needed to happen. After the courthouse nuptials we went to dinner with a sour looking Nanny and skankho's best friend, Jane, I think. Sadly, Bella and I decided her being there would be too dangerous, as we might have chosen to remain virtuous until our wedding night, we did everything else together remotely possible. I especially had, and still have, great difficulty keeping my hands off her glorious ass.
"Sorry, that's not what you'd like to hear; Heidi signaled that she wanted to go, her signal being walking out of the joint before even one of the table understood her meaning. I threw enough on the table to make sure her rude behavior was cushioned and hightailed it after her, leaving a tsking Nanny and a grinning Jane behind. When we arrived at the hotel, in separate cars, the staff told me that the penthouse was being remodeled and they prepared one of the suites for our enjoyment. Thank God they prepared one of the bigger suites, one of the ones with two bedrooms. It would have been too humiliating to have to ask for a separate room for your wife on your wedding night, even if most of the staff knew why I had to marry.
"I really only went through my normal bedtime routine when I wore my leg the whole day; it's simple, I work the stump hard within the artificial leg. Ever since I had the articulated foot I refused to favor the limb anymore. The result is just as simple; I need to take good care of the stump to be able to use the leg again the next day. I took off my pants, then unhitched the leg and cleaned the inside. Next I put it beside the nightstand and grabbed the lotion on top. That's when I looked up for the first time; Heidi stood next to the closet, staring with an expression on her face as if somebody had taken a dump in said closet. Acting as if I didn't notice, I held out the bottle of lotion saying that she needed to act as a good little wife and massage the stump that looked rather red, to make me happy."
Carlisle had been biting the inside of his cheeks to keep silent but lost his cool completely and almost landed on the floor howling with laughter.
"Yeah, yeah, laugh away, but it did the trick. Heidi started screeching that I was a freak and that she wouldn't be caught dead in a bed beside an incomplete man. All while throwing her things back in her bag. I really thought she would be leaving altogether, but she left the room before I could or wanted to stand up; not ten seconds later I heard the second bedroom door being thrown shut with a bang. There I sat, deliriously happy I had escaped the ravenous bitch, and at the same time deeply hurt by her words. She made it goddamn sound as if I was a eunuch; my leg's missing not my cock, fuck."
Carlisle's laughter faltered at the confession I made. He conceded that rejection and ridicule always hurt, even from your enemies. Our little get together was rudely interrupted by a frantic knocking. Esme, the maid of honor, called out for my partner in crime to hurry up and help usher in the guests, our college friends and business partners. With sadness on his face, he clapped his hand on my shoulder while jokingly telling me that he was sure my removable appendage wouldn't scare my real bride away. He left the room when Esme hollered his name once more.
Talking about the night I both lost and won the battle made me think about everything that followed, including the stipulated Friday night dinners from the prenup. I hated having to give up my Friday dinners with Bella and Nanny, as it was almost the only time in the week we could all get together. Both ladies told me to suck it up and rearranged their schedules so that Saturday was now our dinner night. Carlisle had put severe punishments on not attending Friday night dinner. He told me to go and cash in before the big pay out; every no-show cost the absentee 50,000 dollars; cancellation was only allowed due to life-threatening ailments from the partners or their loved ones. It wasn't until he made the preparations to serve Heidi the divorce papers that his devilish scheme became clear.
"Edward, listen, Bella is going to be the guest executive chef Friday night; because such a reputable chef will be in charge of the menu, you'll tell Heidi to bring a friend and you'll invite Nanny, Esme, and me. Just do it and enjoy, Bella has it covered."
Everybody accepted, we sat stiffly around the table, Heidi and her friend, the ice-queen Jane, sat whispering and giggling, only stopping at Nanny's harsh admonishment that grown women should act with decorum and not like twelve year old sluts. An uncomfortable silence descended around the table until Bella appeared from the kitchen.
"Ladies and gentlemen, I'd like to introduce to you the first course of this dinner, a consommé of summer leek topped with a foam of red snapper vichyssoise and freshly cut clover. All the vegetables for this starter came from the abandoned vegetable garden behind the hotel. Enjoy."
With a slight bow, she backed away and the servers brought out the plates with the creatively built up piece of art, also known as soup. Nobody but Carlisle and I noticed the blatant hint toward Heidi's demise. The soup tasted heavenly, the foamed fish soup on top was full of flavor without it overpowering the creamy taste of the clear liquid underneath. It was masterful. The maître d' acted as sommelier, but I knew for a fact that Bella made the wine pairings with Esme; she obviously wanted to surprise me. For this course they had chosen a surprisingly bold Australian white; it made all the flavors pop. Heidi ate with a cross of boredom and disgruntlement on her face, clearly still pissed off from Nanny's tell off. The spoiled little rich girl no longer had a father to catch her as she fell. She had to catch herself, and that became increasingly more difficult as more and more business partners got enough of her attitude and ignorance. I had to school my face into a neutral but anticipating smile when Bella flitted out of the kitchen again.
"I hope that you've enjoyed the first course; now, to cleanse your palate, a spoom of fresh lime sorbet and champagne. The limes were grown in the hotel orchard."
Again, only Carlisle and I caught her double entendre pointing to the garden and the abandoned restaurant. The maître d' served us another glass of bubbly to entertain us while the kitchen crew plated our entrees. Bella appeared again next to our table.
"This entree is composed from a filet of beef crusted in a panko and herb mix, seared and rested; just like tuna steak. The filet is then sliced against the grain to enhance the tenderness and flavor experience. The slices are accompanied with steamed asparagus and spaghetti pumpkin. Once again, all vegetables are sourced extremely locally. Enjoy this last savory course."
The beef melted on your tongue and the bold herb mixture gave the meat a new character. It was a completely new experience for me. While eating it, though, my anticipation for the dessert was growing. I could feel Carlisle's knee bouncing, and Esme's cheeks had points of red of either a fever or feverish anticipation; my bet was on the latter. I indicated to the maître d' that I'd like another glass of the excellent Bordeaux that was chosen to pair with the filet. The plates were removed, we made some rather superficial conversation, and then a line of servers arrived at the table, Bella the last one with a suit dressed stranger as her shadow.
The silver domed plates were set in front of us, the server staying to our right ready to reveal; this level of service was overkill but effective. Heidi looked impressed by the level of devotion shown to the owners; well, she said as much, making us all look at her with disturbed glances. A smug smile was on her face when she saw that Bella, the executive chef, acted as her server.
"Ladies and gentleman, this dessert found its origins in the same place I talked about all night. The stack of problems it created is clear in the stacked formation of delicate cakes. We have three different baked goods wrapped in three different mediums: a rum soaked gateau wrapped in stark white fondant, followed by a raspberry coulis filled cake covered in marzipan, finally on top a dark chocolate box filled with a white chocolate disc covered in edible silver leaf..."
She turned to fully face Heidi and the suited man took his hint seamlessly and stepped next to her.
"Your dessert, Mrs. Cullen, is extra special. It might be a bit difficult to stomach, but you did it to yourself. I have to formally advise you that you've been served."
The court clerk noted the time; at Bella's nod, all servers removed the domes, revealing a stack of rectangles on the plate. Exactly the same as the stack of papers on Heidi's plate. She looked bewildered and around me the snickering started. Carlisle pointed at the disc in the box. Bella had enhanced the discs with a title: Heidi's Demise.
Heidi looked disturbed at Bella, and told her that of course she had been served; Bella just served her. Then she had the audacity to wave Bella off, adding that the little girl should go now. The 'little girl' gritted her teeth with a wicked smile on her face. The court clerk pushed his clipboard under Heidi's nose with the softly spoken request to sign here please. That she did without looking; I saw her scrawl 'love Heidi C' on the paper. The clerk winked at the table and hightailed it out of there, setting the second part of the process in motion. A judge would be present at our lawyers' to sign off on the divorce. Carlisle really had done wonders with the prenup; it made sure if proof was given everything could be dealt with in a week from serving the papers.
Meanwhile, Jane looked at Heidi as if she saw her for the first time. She had, by now, grasped the serious nature of the serving.
"Damn it, Heidi, pull your head out of your ass and don't live on auto pilot. You just signed court papers acknowledging that you received the papers in front of you."
A bewildered Heidi only then saw that her "dessert" was different from the rest. Putting the DVD aside, looking at the date that was written on her disc, she grabbed the manila envelope, opened it, and read the header; then it finally dawned on her that she was legally served.
"WHAT! Where do you get the idea that you can divorce me? I'll take half of everything you have, more if I can!"
I laughed derisively and Carlisle started reciting the prenup.
"When infidelity by one of the partners can be proven, any and all possessions gained from inheritance from either Mr. Patrick Crown or Mr. Edward Anthony Masen Junior will be forfeit and become part of the estate of the faithful partner."
When her indignant expression didn't abate, I started to put it in very simple English.
"It means, wife, that if you're caught cheating, everything you inherited from your father will be mine. It seems that you aren't very smart in doing business if you don't read the contracts you sign. The clause Carlisle recited was directly from the prenup we signed."
"Wait a minute, you said that I had to get caught. So show me the proof!"
Jane face palmed and shook her head, clearly disappointed in her friend's mental prowess. I grabbed the white envelope from Heidi's plate and, one by one, threw the pictures on her plate for all to see. We only put the most provocative pictures in the envelope. They were prints taken from the video Bella took when she discovered Heidi doing the nasty with Jacob and James.
"It's simple, Heidi, the DVD holds a fifteen minute video you can sell to any porn producer and make good money; it'll be your only asset from Tuesday on. Make sure you bring every piece of paper pertaining... oh sorry, let me dumb it down. Bring all business papers including the ones in the office safe and your father's will to the lawyers' Tuesday at nine am sharp. You. Fucked. Your. Life. Away. And now I'm taking over."
Heidi looked like steam could erupt from her ears any second. The porn comments Jane was releasing over the pictures she nicked from Heidi's plate weren't any help. When Heidi snapped at her, for being on my side, Jane laughed and told her that she reaped what she'd sowed. She didn't believe she could stay friends with a penniless whore with a personality disorder the size of Texas. The fact that she couldn't appreciate her own husband because of a slight disability was her own problem, not hers, Jane told her, winking flirtatiously at me. One glance to the side and I knew my knightess in chef's whites was freezing skank number two out, while I was still busy on the first, albeit very shortly because she grabbed her suitcase of a purse, crammed all papers and the DVD in there and, leaving the pictures, stormed out of the restaurant. I had a brief glimpse of Jenks flitting out of the door behind her.
The whole table and the surrounding serving staff dissolved into peals of laughter as soon as Heidi was out of sight, the dust settling once again in the driveway after she spun her wheels, trying to leave as fast as possible, raining a shower of gravel pebbles against the front door. Ironically, she drove straight into the setting summer sun; if I'd transferred the image, though, she'd be wearing the black Stetson not the white.
Bella urged us to enjoy our desserts and left with a little bow. That left me to tell Jane to enjoy her dessert and leave before I'd include her in the restraining order Heidi would receive together with her finalized divorce papers. She tried to get information from me, asking if I had somebody else I was interested in. I didn't really need Carlisle's hollow sounding kick to the artificial shin to keep my mouth shut. She still arrived with skank Ho number one; she could play this to see me slip up...
I was brought out of the vivid memories by a soft knock on the music room door. Esme stuck her head in, smiling big.
"Edward, it's time to go and join the minister in waiting for your girl."
I strapped my leg on and stood up immediately, wanting to bolt to my designated spot when I felt a soft hand on my shoulder, cleaning invisible lint away, then my bow tie was straightened one last time. Lastly I found a box in my hands, a jewelry box. It held a set of platinum cuff links with the Masen coat of arms. They had to come from both Bella and Nanny; they were my grandfather's. Hastily I switched the generic links I had in for these heirloom ones and felt my family pride course through me. It might have skipped a generation but it bloomed again. Esme cupped my cheek and told me that I would bring back my heritage with the best woman at my side. With a pat to my heated cheek, she turned around and went to join Bella again.
As I made my way to the altar, to wait for the one who always understood me, with the setting summer sun around everyone gathered, I know I'm where I always should have been. With my Bella.
A/N I hope you enjoyed this story.
my original plan with this plot-line was a short multi-chapter fic, when this contest just seemed to fit perfectly. My question to you all is if you'd like to see the multi-chapter fic too. Just tell me through a review or by PM.
Pien
