Cullen's Patisserie - Chapter 2

Hi everyone!
First off I just wanted to thank all of the lovely people who favourited and followed the story, also to the people who favourited me as an author! You all made me smile and I'm happy that people want to keep reading my story.

Thank you also to those who reviewed! I know that Edward seems like a total wanker at the moment, but I swear he'll be nicer, he's just dealing with some pretty full on stuff.

I forget in chapter 1 to put up a disclaimer, so I thought I'd better do it now.
Disclaimer: I don't own Twilight or anything affiliated with it, Stephanie Meyer does. Cullen's Patisserie is mine. I only wish is was real so I could work there!

Anyways, enjoy the next chaper!

Sam :)

The first few months at Cullen's passed fairly uneventfully, I enjoyed the work I was doing, it challenged me and kept me endlessly entertained.
My co-workers, with the exception of Rosalie and Edward, were amazing, incorporating me almost immediately into their family.

Jasper and I entertained each other by having competitions on who could finish our tasks for the day the quickest. Who ever lost had to do the cleaning at the end of the day. At the start I mostly lost, but soon I became quicker and thoroughly enjoyed not having to clean at the end of the day. When Jasper won he would watch me mop the floors, while sipping a cup of coffee and telling me that I 'missed a spot'. I repaid him by splashing dirty water on him.

Alice tried to take me out shopping a lot, and I was able to resist most of the time. She forced me to go with her once, which was torture. We'd been going at it for four hours and I was getting over it.
"Alice, I'm tired, can we please leave?" I whined when I was tired and hungry.
"Absolutly not! We're not even half way done!" Alice started skipping. She was excited that we still had so much shopping to go.
I groaned, hoping I could slip away to at least get some food. I didn't like my chances. Damn pixie.

Rosalie warmed up a little bit, I wouldn't have called us friends exactly, but she'd ask me if I wanted coffee in the mornings. It was a start.
I just hoped we could get to know each other. I was completely intimidated by her, she was just so beautiful, and she knew it. Somehow though, she didn't seem like a snob, she just knew she was beautiful, it was a fact.
I admired her for that.

Emmett was my favourite person at Cullen's. He'd always bring me lunch, and tell me jokes if Edward had said something awful to me. He was always coming over to see what I was making, and always offered to do at taste test. I knew he just liked eating pastry, so I always let him test what I was making. He always complimented me extravagantly which made me laugh.

Edward, on the other hand, was constantly nasty, always criticising. I tried to take it in my stride and ignore most of what he said.

I couldn't do anything right according to him. The rest of the Cullens made up for his rudeness, but some days I just wanted to go home and cry.
The rest of the Cullens felt bad and told me most days they were sorry for Edward and that he just needed time to get to know me.

I asked myself everyday; "How much time did someone take to warm up?"
One day, I snapped. I'd had a pretty bad day, with one of my cakes burning.
Edward had yelled all kinds of awful things, most of which I vowed to remove from my memory.
I'd had to go into the cool room to cry after he'd finished crying, convinced that either he would fire me, or that I would quit.

Emmett came into the cool room and hugged me.
"Just ignore him Bells, he doesn't mean it."
"It sure feels like he means it Em. I can't do anything right, and if I do, it's like I don't exist. I don't know how much longer I can take it." I was slowly calming down.
"I'll talk to him Bells, make him see that he has to stop." Emmett smiled encouragingly at me. I felt a little bit better. He left me to calm down.

I left the cool room and got back to work. I knew everyone was watching me – including Edward. I just ignored them.
It was towards the end of the day and despite his rigorous attempts to stay away from me, we'd accidentally bumped into each other.
He made another snide comment. "Watch it, Bella!"

I lost it.

"You want me to watch it? YOU watch it! You've been avoiding me all day after screaming at me, so why couldn't you keep away for the rest of the day? I don't know what I did to you to make you hate me so much, but since we work together, it's completely inappropriate and unprofessional for you to speak to me the way that you do. I don't care what your problem is. Keep it to yourself. I'm going home. I'll see you tomorrow." I finished yelling and grabbed my stuff. I didn't look at anyone and practically ran out of the kitchen.

As soon as I got to my car, I burst into tears. I was shaking and about to become hysterical. I couldn't believe I'd yelled at him like that. I couldn't believe I'd been able to say all I'd wanted to say. I normally hated confrontation, and couldn't say what I wanted to say, but I'd hit my threshold. I was convinced I was going to be fired. No matter how much the rest of the Cullen's liked me, Edward was their family.

Halfway through my hyperventilation I heard a knock on the window. It was Alice, smiling at me.
"Bella? Are you OK?" I nodded at her, unable to stop hyperventilating.
Alice then walked around to the passenger side, got in and handed me a tissue.

After I calmed down, Alice said; "That was an impressive bit of yelling! Edward was speechless when you left. In fact we all were."
"I'm sorry, I shouldn't have yelled at him. I just kind of...lost my cool."
I couldn't look at Alice, convinced she was going to tell me not to come back.

"Are you kidding?! It was awesome! He's been horrible to you, and he deserved it. Esme's giving him a lecture, so he'll back off." She smiled at me, which made me feel better about my job still being there tomorrow.
"Really? I thought for sure you were going to fire me!"
Alice shook her head and I breathed a sigh of relief.

"Alice, can I ask you something? You don't have to answer if it's too personal, or none of my business. When she nodded, I took a deep breath and asked what I'd been dying to know since I'd started working at Cullen's.
"Why does Edward hate me so much?"

Alice looked at me sadly and sighed.
"He doesn't hate you, Bella. I wish I could tell you why he's been acting this way, but it's not my place. What I can tell you though, is that he was hurt. In the worst way someone can be hurt.
He's dealing with it in the best way he can. Unfortunately he's not dealing in the way we hoped. It's really not you, he's just using you to work though his anger. If you give him more time, I'm sure he'll come around to you."

She smiled, squeezed my hand, and got out of the car.
I had a lot to think about.

Yelling at Edward was the best thing I could have done.
When I came in the next day he looked up and smiled crookedly at me and said; "Morning."
I tried to keep the shock I was feeling off my face and smiled back, returning his greeting. I had to force myself to breath again

The rest of the day passed pleasantly.
As I was leaving, Esme caught up to me.
"Bella! Are you free tonight?"
"Yeah I am. Why?"
"Come over for dinner with the family, we'd love to have you!"
"Sure, I'd love to."

I arrived at the Cullen house a little nervously. I'd spent time with Alice outside of work, but not the others. Rosalie and I weren't all that friendly, and Edward just plain didn't like me.

I considered turning around and going back home but I knew they were expecting me.
"Come on Bella, stop being stupid. You can do this. Just suck it up and knock on the door. Just do it."
I sighed, shaking my head at myself for being so ridiculous.
Here goes nothing...