CHAPTER 3

Please turn to Chapter One for all Disclaimer information.

This story has not been BETA. Any grammatical mistakes are mine, so I apologize. I am trying my hardest to proof read multiple times to avoid any embarrassing mistakes. I am also writing this on my own as a personal learning exercise and challenge.

Author notes: To those reading, THANK YOU. I am sorry it's taken so long to update, for real life has dawn on me quite heavily lately! I hope you enjoy the story still, and I promise to update as often as I can.

Thanks again.

"Please find my senior editor. Now." Edward firmly told Mary, the receptionist, just as I walked into the suddenly silent and tense office.

She looked my way, signaling him she had just found me.

He turned from the front desk, all his tall, lean, awfully perfect frame, sending all the wrong, sexual signals straight at me.

My body – and face – reacted, quickly shaking and blushing, embarrassingly evident.

He looked at me, his golden eyes fierce and turning darker with every second he spent glaring at me, from top to bottom.

When his eyes met mine, after the inspection that didn't seem to fulfill his expectations, he seemed to stop breathing all together. "Miss Swan?" He spoke, his voice stiff and forced.

"Yes," I nodded, extending my hand to him. "Mr. Cullen, I am very sorry I'm late, I usually never am, but – "

"Ms. Swan, please come see me in my office." He interrupted without accepting my greeting, and stormed away from the preying eyes surrounding us.

I stood motionless, my knees beginning to buckle. Mary gave me an apologetic smile and returned to her tasks, as did the rest of the people in the office.

Of all the days my old car had to crush and die, it had to be the day I was meeting my new boss. Of all the times Jacob had begged me – implored me – to sell the old thing to his garage to strip down for parts (I refused to watch my beloved Chevy being murdered), it was bound to happen that I would be left in the middle of a traffic jam, struggling without success to get my truck to live again. After thirty minutes of endless struggle and heavy outbursts of anger, I had give up and called Jake to my rescue. A toll truck came and took my car away – the gift Charlie had given me when I had moved with him back to Forks. That truck had accompanied me to all the challenges and struggles of my live in the last four years. It had never failed. Until that very memorable day.

I pulled myself together and walked decisively to his office. He had to be fuming by now.

I didn't have to knock, the door was cracked open and through it, our eyes met. The amount of hate that he spewed my way was incredible. I couldn't believe me being late one miserable hour – for circumstances completely out of my control - could damage the untainted reputation I held at the firm. I was an outstanding worker, and writer. His mood was unjust and ridiculous.

I stepped into his office ready to defend myself, and again, I watched as he held his breath. Did I smell? I probably sweat a little more that morning in my struggle to salvage my truck, but I hardly thought it could be so unbearable.

His eyes looked from my face to the chair farthest from him as possible.

'Was this guy for real?' I thought angrily. And I thought there could never be an asshole bigger than Ron. Obviously, I had been mistaken.

"Mr. Cullen, I-"

"Do you have the second draft for the Allen account?" He immediately interrupted me, depriving me of giving him the logical explanation for my delay.

"Yes, sir, I do. But –"

"Please bring it to me." He sharply ordered.

I was speechless, and my ego was rapidly braking. So, I retreated to my desk, and begged to ignore the tears beginning to well in my eyes. Kara, my co-worker and closest acquaintance in the firm, came around and sat at the edge of my desk.

"He's a hottie, isn't he?" She said, dreamily looking towards Cullen's office.

I glared at her, thinking her cynical remark was very inappropriate. Nope. Her eyes were sweetly glued to the small glance we caught of his form, from where we both sat.

She sighed, and returned to her desk unaffected. Had she missed the way the absolute jerk had treated me? Was she drunk? I watched as she sat, still in a strange trance, and then began to type, her eyes fluttering.

Kara had eyes that fluttered. That was a phrase I never would have used to describe my co-worker's behavior. She was a tough cookie - which was why we got along so well. But apparently, her evil twin had come to work that day, and was making my already nightmarish morning, even more tragic.

I gathered the manuscript, and prepared to face the devil-in-disguise-of-my-very-attractive-boss again.

He stood by the window, the blinds closed and the room dark and menacing. I shivered unintentionally. He extended his hand, asking for the papers my shaking hands held. I saw my arm reach to his, and like my clumsy self was to be expected to react, I dropped the entire one hundred or so pages onto the wooden floor below us. His eyes burnt with anger. And hate. And extreme annoyance.

I apologized four times in a row. He remained silent and standing, frozen in his place, while I leaned down and picked up the scattered pages. I wrinkled a few and felt my hands humid with cold sweat, and I could imagine him rolling his eyes at my amateur and nervous behavior.

I handed him the manuscript – after clumsily organizing it as I stood – and for a second, I could feel his intense gaze flash a hint of humor at my precarious situation.

"Miss Swan, please relax." He then said, his face changing, his eyes relaxing.

Huh? One moment he was about to swallow me whole, and the next, he was trying to be… nice?

I went pale. And watched as he actually sat and chuckled.

So I had gone from annoying to funny, in less than a minute.

Funny.

"I feel that I should apologize for my mood. I am sorry," He said, his voice almost musical.

I straightened my head and diverted my eyes to the shut blinds to my right. I managed a forced smile and looked up at him after a minute, gathering my patience and some respect for whom was now my boss.

Woo-fucking-hoo.

He had a lopsided smile, as he watched my inner struggle. And his eyes dazzled me.

"Is there anything else you need, Mr. Cullen?" I asked, swallowing what I really wanted to say: You are an asswhole, and I would much rather work with Ron for the rest of my days, than to have to endure you using your beautiful, perfect self to get what you want.

I smiled a little, as the words spoke inside my head, and somehow wished the idiot looking at me could read my mind.

His eyes changed, and the small smile disappeared.

"No. Thank you." He said, his face becoming hard as stone once again. That time though, he didn't reflect anger, but intrigue.

I stood, and walked out, furry building up again. His eyes followed me, I could feel them digging onto my back. When I reached my desk, our eyes met unwillingly on my part, and I discovered there was a slight possibility, the asshole had actually read my mind after all.

I smiled irreverently at him, wishing that last thought was in fact true. And so, his eyes left mine, and he stood to close the blinds that separated his window from my cubicle entirely.

The day I met Edward Cullen, I called I taxi from my office at exactly five o' clock and went directly home, instead of going to the library like I usually did, to study for the GRE I was preparing to take the following month. I was furious, indignated, and agitated. Since my car was already dead – getting ready to be stripped to pieces at my boyfriend's garage – I had no patience to read, or frame of mind to concentrate and study. I wanted to take a long, hot shower, wear my favorite sweats, and eat as many slices of pizza I could stomach.

By the time Jacob got home, I was full of carbohydrates and a few glasses of wine. The second thing working on his favor, because my hormones usually had a mind of their own every time alcohol met the blood in my veins. We had sex the moment he walked in the door, and then again, before we went to sleep. My feminine instincts were mixing every ounce of confusion, insult and mortifying attraction Cullen had shamelessly implanted on me earlier that day. I only knew two ways to release tension: reading and sex.

As I lay naked, my chest rising with exhaustion and sated pleasure, Jake stared at me all too knowingly.

"Bella," He finally spoke, his words coming guarded and preoccupied.

I turned my head toward him, my tired eyes meeting his suddenly anxious ones.

"What's up?" he asked, as his hand traced my arm tenderly, landing finally around my stomach. His finger played with the hollow of my navel.

I raised my eyebrows, not understanding his questioning.

"Obviously, I'm not complaining about the sex. Really. Anytime you feel like jumping me, please do so. But," He paused only to drag my body flushed against his warmth. "Something happened. Other that the truck dying."

The dark brown on his irises darkened even more, as my lighter brown ones reflected on his. His eternal kindness and open soul humbled me. It surpassed any bugging thought Edward could have rooted on me. But it still bothered me and I felt ashamed, not even understanding why. It wasn't only that him and I had not started on the right track, but that I felt an oddity to his whole demeanor.

"I met my boss today," I finally told Jake, my hands trembling a little as I held his muscular biceps.

"Oh?"

"He's an idiot." I completed quickly, a little to heatedly to be talking about someone I had just met.

I ended the conversation by kissing his lips and closing my eyes.

Jake didn't move, or relaxed once I snuggled against him. He clearly wanted me to elaborate. And I had nothing else to add to the simple conclusion I had reached regarding Cullen. He was an idiot, and he was my boss. So basically, I had two options: I either came to terms with our inevitability to get along, or I ultimately quit. The second option wasn't completely ludicrous; I was going to Graduate School anyway. What were a couple of months of minimum torture beside the enigmatic man?

Unfortunately for me, I was unaware of the power our brief meeting had in my unscrupulous mind, because his face and his intriguing energy were the only things hunting my dreams later that night – even after I had made love to the man sleeping beside me only a few hours before.

TBC….