EPV

I was sitting on an uncomfortable chair in a crowded fast food restaurant. I was blackmailed into coming here by my brother Emmett. "I don't understand why we had to come here," I told him.

"We came here to meet an old friend," he lied, "We can't take him to the places you like to eat at because not only will they not let him through the front door but he also likes to pay his own way and there's no way he can afford it."

"I understand why we came here I just don't understand why we came," I clarified.

"You know why we came," he insisted, "Don't mess this up for me Edward."

I decided to keep quiet. The guy we were meeting wasn't an old friend. Emmett believed him to be the brother of a college girl he'd spent a weekend with over a year ago and hadn't shut up about since. Why was my presence here necessary? Emmett thought it unwise to meet a former marine by himself. The hypothesis was valid but I was skinny and far from intimidating. I didn't know what his idea of a positive outcome was here.

"Can I take your order?" a voice said to my left. I took a gander at the menu and chose the only salvageable thing on it, breakfast.

"Pouch the eggs, don't fry them," I attempted to make the dish edible, "Don't touch the tomatoes either. Just slice them and put them on the plate," I didn't see why they had to fry them. The meal was a heart attack on a plate anyway, "I want the microwave bacon. The toast must be low GI brown bread and swap the coke for freshly squeezed orange juice with no more than two oranges. Add an apple, sliced four times. That means eight slices," I felt the need to say. You wouldn't believe how many times I asked for an apple sliced four times and got four slices.

"Would you like my first born child on the side?" she asked. Even the staff didn't know their place here. I turned to put her back in it but paused when I saw her. The first things that drew my eyes were her legs. The uniform was short, showing them in all their toned splendour. Her figure was gorgeous. She had a pretty face, juicy lips, but she looked tired. Her hair had split ends and her nails were bitten to the quick.

"Edward sit down," Emmett said in a calm voice. I hadn't even realise I'd gotten up.

"The help should be taught not to speak like this to customers," I waved my hand at her while looking at my brother.

"Why don't you go some place more your style?" she said in a voice that dripped of syrup and sarcasm. If she wasn't careful...

"You will get our food now," I informed her in a cold voice.

"After you kiss my ass right on the crack," she mocked my tone.

"Isabella," a woman appeared out of nowhere. I hadn't been watching my surroundings. The woman gestured with her hand to a door she'd just opened.

"You don't have to bother firing me behind a door," she threw her apron on the floor and made for the exit. She stopped suddenly and turned back. She put her hand on the back of my chair and bent till our faces were level. Her mouth was at my ear. Her warm breath tickled. "Bite me," she whispered. At that moment I knew I would break this filly. There just wasn't any way I could pass up the opportunity to dominate a spitfire like her.

I was absent for lunch. It's not like I'd wanted to attend anyway. I watched Isabella walk across the street and put on another uniform. What would she have done if she hadn't been fired? I watched her walk about taking orders and bringing food. She could serve if she put her mind to it. I spent the next hour, which would have been miserable otherwise, trying to come up with a way to make her mine.

"Edward," Emmett kicked me under the table. I was the only one who wasn't standing.

"Why don't you guys go on without me?" I watched Isabella sit down, throw her head back onto the chair and close her eyes. A short, skinny girl with black hair sat across from her in a similar pose.

"Thanks for nothing," Emmett mumbled as he passed my seat. I was a bad brother. This I had been told repeatedly, and not just by my brother.

I leaned against my car until the diner across the street was sufficiently empty. I went over and found myself a seat. Isabella and her friend were no longer at the table. I sat down, earning a few glares. I assumed it was closing time. "Oh for the love of God," a familiar voice was obviously displeased. "Annette, would you get that table please," there was a silence I was reasonably certain was populated by a head shake, "Alice and I will cash up," she bargained.

The waitress came over and asked for my order. I ordered two burgers and processed cool drinks. "Tell Isabella I would like to dine with her," were my final instructions. The waitress didn't argue, after I slipped her a hundred dollars. Isabella walked over and plopped into the chair opposite. "What do you want?" she didn't even bother with a greeting.

"Good evening my name is Edward Cullen," I started at the beginning, where people ought to start.

"You've already heard my name," she picked up the burger and started eating, "And I don't think I'll remember a name like Edmund in ten minutes."

"Ed-ward," I pronounced clearly. I disliked having my name mispronounced. She was probably trying to annoy me. My name was that simple.

"You're awfully cheap for someone in $900 jeans," she remarked between bites. What could be the purpose of that?

"I don't usually deal with people who talk in circles," I admitted. Nobody said what they meant but this went beyond that. "I'm not sure if you mean I'm cheap for eating here or for buying you a meal here when I can afford so much better."

"None of the above," she said before she took a long pull on her straw, "You're here because you wanna fuck me. At the very least you should have bought me steak," she gave the burger a look then carried on eating. Did she think I was courting her? No, she thought this to be the cheap ploy of a man who wanted to get her into bed. She wasn't very far off.

"You look like a man who isn't sure of what to say," she took another sip of her cooldrink, "I tried to spare you that by asking you what you wanted. Are you ready to tell me?" she asked me like she was talking to a child. I wanted this girl on her knees in front of me, no matter the cost.

"I want you," I decided to make this simple.

"You're hot," she munched the rest of the burger, "You're also rude and entitled," she sucked on the straw till it made that annoying sound, "So no," she got up, "And they say there's no such thing as a free lunch."

"Please sit down," I made a futile request, "I have a proposition for you."

"Make me an offer I can't refuse," she crossed her legs. I saw a sliver of ass. That skin was driving me mad.

"Fifteen thousand for a trial scene," I blurted.

"What hell would I have to do for that kind of money?" she gaped.

"Have dinner with me tomorrow," I said in my smoothest voice, "And I'll tell you all about it."

"Make it lunch," she negotiated, "I have a fifty minute lunch break."

"Where should I pick you up?" I asked.

"You'll find me here and we'll have hot dogs in the dodgy little park down the road. There's not much that can be done in fifty minutes," she shrugged.

"You don't want me to know where I live," I figured.

"I don't even have to get into your car," she smiled.

"Bella," someone called.

"Coming," she said with an expression that was almost angry, "I need a doggy bag. I hate to waste food," someone popped up behind a counter with something that looked like greasing paper, "Now get out, it's closing time."

"Goodnight," I said, staying calm in the face of my dismissal. Isabella was going to be a lot of hard work I loved a challenge. Hot dogs in the park didn't exactly make my mouth water but I was looking forward to seeing her again.

BPV

"Dish," Alice smiled.

"Have you ever seen Indecent Proposal?" I asked as I pulled her dainty hand towards the kitchen. She nodded her head, ruffling her spikes.

"No way," she laughed. I tilted my head to the side as I started the water. She'd already packed the dishwasher full.

"Unless he offered you a million dollars for a night of passion I feel I am not getting the real story," she started clearing the incoming dishes.

"I brought you a burger and some coleslaw," I pointed to where the items were sitting on the counter, "Sorry, no drink," I started packing the trays in.

"What the hell did you do?" she turned to me with her hands on her tiny waist.

"I haven't done it yet but for fifteen thousand dollars, what's one night?" I tried to make light.

"Do you know what it's called when people trade sex for money?" she raised her voice initially but ended up hissing because she didn't want to be heard.

"A victimless crime," I started mopping the floor.

"Bella," she sounded like she was going to cry.

"How far would you go Alice?" I skipped to the deciding factor.

"He wouldn't want you to do this," she wouldn't let up.

"He doesn't have to know," I stopped and looked at her.

"How will he think you came up with the fee?" she snatched a cloth angrily and went to wipe the table tops. I followed her with my mop.

"I'll lie and you'll back me up so he doesn't have to work two jobs and go to night school and wash in the bathroom sink at work and all the other things that we do that we'd rather not," I stopped and stepped on my mop, "You're not going to make him feel guilty about being spared that."

"And how will you feel?" she stopped, bent over.

"Noble," I went to work.

"I don't like that you have to do this," I was looking down at the mop but I could hear the tears in her eyes.

"Come on," I tried to cheer her up, "I'd do him any day. Now I get fifteen thousand dollars as a bonus."

"That's what scares me. Anyone would do him. That fact that he's willing to pay fifteen thousand dollars means he wants to do something no ordinary person wants to do," she said exactly what had been on my mind since he spoke to me.

"I am aware, thank you Alice," I snapped, "Can you wait till the bills are paid and Benjamin is in MIT to make me feel like shit?"

"I'm sorry," she sniffed. I didn't need this. Alice was already regretting this enough for the both of us and I hadn't even done it yet.

"We can go out and drink cheap wine till we feel better," I rubbed her back, "And when my little brother is rich he'll send us to Paris for the shopping spree." She laughed a little when I said that. We completed our work in silence. It's a hard knock life.

Alice and I went home tired to our dingy apartment. Our water and electricity had been cut off. We were saving to get Ben into MIT so we had to forgo non-essentials like heat and running water. We'd outgrown foster homes so when we were legal we got jobs and finished high school. College was proving a bit of a challenge but we were so close. Ben was in his last year of high school and foster parents were wonderful people but they'd stretched themselves thin. They ran a camp for rejects, five or six at a time, so they couldn't afford to pay for any colleges. The boy was a whiz with computers but he was mediocre at everything else so financing wasn't exactly falling at his feet.

MIT was swinging for the fence but it was a career maker. We were all praying for a scholarship but if Ben didn't get it we would hustle. Alice and I shared a two room excuse for an apartment. We shared a bed in the single bedroom. The other room was a kitchen, dining room and whatever else you can think of, all purpose.

"Fresh meat," Alice shouted when she'd gotten her flash light on.

"Not on your life," I mumbled when I'd gotten mine on. I was too tired to chase rats. "They can eat the fucking sheets off my back," I threw myself onto the bed. That was a mistake. The bed was old and the mattress was too thin. "We've just spent eighteen hours on our feet," I complained. We worked more on Fridays so we could go easy on Saturdays and have some semblance of a weekend, "I am too exhausted to even watch you chasing rats," I wiggled out of my uniform and hung it up on a chair next to the bed.

Alice gave me my pyjamas. I put them on under the threadbare blankets. "Well now that you mention it," she put on her pyjamas in silence. Alice could see in the dark. That had to be it. Why else would I be the only one to stumble and bump into things when I changed in the dark.

"Tell my my future, Alice," I said with what little consciousness I had left, turning off my flash light. Alice turned her flash light off.

"I see you on a hill, riding off into the sunset on a white horse with prince charming," she said in that voice great story tellers use, "To a castle where you'll hang up your apron and the wine will be sweet. There will be a chocolate fountain and your sheets will be made of silk..." I drifted off to sweet fantasies we both knew were not possible for girls like us.