There was a cold bite to the wind as it tore across the runway, tossing Bella's already mussed hair back from her face and making her catch her breath in surprise. She had expected it to be hot - Las Vegas was in the desert after all - but the temperature was cool and the breeze was cutting.
She followed Edward down the steps to the tarmac, the knit blanket from the plane still wrapped around her. She felt uncomfortable and uncertain, in need of water, a bathroom, and some answers. She tried to channel Angela, who would have been much better prepared for a situation like this than Bella was. What would Angela be doing right now? Demanding answers from Edward and badgering him relentlessly until he provided them? Or would Angela be so caught up in the excitement of an unexpected elopement to a Cullen that she'd just ride the wave? Knowing Angela, it could have gone either way. Bella's best friend was as spontaneous as she was loyal.
"Is there something you forgot to tell me, Emmett?" Edward asked as he stepped onto the runway.
Emmett, who had also conked out during the flight and still seemed to be in the process of waking up, yawned loudly. "What do you mean?" he asked carelessly.
"You know… something that might explain what Rosalie is doing here?" Edward pointed to a gleaming white Bentley that was parked to the side of the airfield. As Bella watched, the door opened and the lights came on inside of the car, illuminating the figures of two people. "You didn't tell her, did you?" Edward asked his brother accusingly.
Emmett shrugged. "Look man, I don't keep secrets from Rosalie. It always ends badly, believe me."
"Oh, but you didn't think asking her to come out here would end badly?"
"I didn't ask her," Emmett said. "She and Alice were in Palm Springs, and that's just a short flight from here, so they decided to come out and see the show."
Edward stopped moving so suddenly that Bella walked into his back.
He turned around, placing his heavy hands on her shoulders to steady her, but he was looking over her head, at his brother. "Alice came out with her?"
Emmett snorted. "Yeah, probably just to laugh at your sorry ass, though. I wouldn't expect a touching reunion; she's still on strike."
Edward rolled his eyes, "she's not on strike."
"Oh, but she is." Emmett rejoined. "She's on strike from the family business, she's on strike from Miami, and she is most definitely on strike from being your sister."
"She's just throwing a fit," Edward argued. "She's used to getting her own way, and now that it isn't happening she's having a tantrum. It'll settle down in a few weeks."
Bella leaned towards Eric, who now looked twice as rumpled as he had at the beginning of the flight. "Edward has a sister?"
Eric blinked blearily at her. "Yeah." He murmured back. "Alice. She's the youngest. Less high-profile than her brothers. She used to run the family gig down in Florida."
"Florida?"
Eric nodded. "Mostly the family is based out of California, but they have major operations in a few different US cities. Rosalie and Emmett handle Vegas and LA. Esme and Carlisle have Washington DC. Edward has New York, and Alice has, well, had, Miami."
Bella frowned. "Isn't Miami where that Jasper guy is that Edward wants to kill?"
Eric leaned towards her, lowering his voice even further. "Therein lies the problem." He widened his eyes as if he had just imparted significant information, but Bella wasn't sure exactly what he was trying to get at.
Edward sighed as two women stepped out of the Bentley. "Here comes trouble."
The women made an odd duo. One of them was very tall and dressed to the nines, while the other was much shorter and was wearing designer jeans and a simple black sweater.
As the women walked closer, it didn't take Bella long to identify the taller one as Rosalie.
Bella had seen Rosalie before, though only at a distance when the movie star visited the Ashley Eden. She had sort of hoped that up close, the woman might be a little less stunningly perfect than she was in the magazines, but no such luck. The bright white lights that illuminated the airfield brought out every lovely detail of the star's face.
Rosalie Rochester, (she was still billed as Rosalie Rochester despite her marriage to Emmett) had the violet eyes of Elizabeth Taylor. Her hair was a shining golden blonde mass of waves that fell to her lower back. She was wearing an itty-bitty romper, the kind of thing that only a movie star could pull off. It was a delicate shade of coral and there was a diamond shaped cutout over her stomach, which revealed an expanse of flat, tan abs and accentuated an impossibly slender waist. Even in person, her long legs looked airbrushed, and in her three inch heels she had to be over six feet.
She was so perfect it was almost eerie, like a photoshoot suddenly brought to life.
Rosalie came to a halt next to Emmett and, as the actress's perfect lips parted, Bella held her breath, hoping that the many rumors she'd heard about Rosalie being a difficult and unpleasant diva were just gossip mag fodder.
The star eyed Bella disdainfully. "Please tell me she's a high-end escort you've hired to role-play maid and master with, the costume is a prop, and she'll be out of your life as soon as the time you've paid for is over."
Ouch. Not just rumors then.
Edward eyed his sister-in-law coolly. "I already know that Emmett caved and told you everything, Rosalie, so don't bother pretending. You know who Bella is, and you know what we're here to do."
"Oh yes," Rosalie said breezily. "Cruise the strip, check out Hoover Dam, play some high-stakes poker… tie the knot with a pleb after a six hour engagement…"
"Rosalie…" Edward growled in warning, but Emmett had already raised his hands in an attempt to defuse the tension.
"It's handled, Rose," Emmett told his wife. "We've talked about it, and Edward thinks it's for the best."
"Well Edward is going to single-handedly ruin this family in one night." Rosalie responded tightly. "If this is the only solution he could come up with for this little… problem, then he needs to think harder."
Next to Rosalie, the other woman, who was presumably Edward's sister Alice, was watching the confrontation closely. Alice and Rosalie looked as different from each other as night from day. Alice wore her dark hair cut short and spiky around a pale face of almost ethereal prettiness. At a distance there seemed to be a kind of dreaminess to her, a fairytale-loveliness, and Bella had a hard time believing that Alice was really the sister of Edward and Emmett Cullen. But when Alice turned her head, and Bella caught a glimpse of the hard, appraising gleam in her eyes, she saw the family resemblance after all. Alice Cullen burned with the same inner intensity as both of her brothers.
Right now, most of Alice's intensity seemed to be directed at Edward. She was staring at him with an expression that was acidic at best and murderous at worst.
"This is not the time," Edward said firmly. He reached for Bella, his hands once again settling on her shoulders, almost possessively. "We have it settled."
Suddenly, Alice's gaze snapped to Bella, and a small frown line appeared on her perfect brow.
"Bella, walk with me," Alice commanded abruptly, and before Bella knew what was happening, the small, but surprisingly strong young woman had gripped her hand and was pulling her across the pavement of the runway.
"Hey!" Edward called after them, but Alice just raised her arm and flipped him the bird without even turning around. Bella's eyes widened, but when Alice turned back to her, the woman's smile was surprisingly kind.
"So, talk me through this Bella," Alice said as they walked. "You're a maid at the… Ashley Eden, is it?"
"Right." Bella spoke mildly, and kept her tone light. She wasn't sure what to make of this Cullen yet, but she knew that if Alice was anything like her brothers, she wasn't someone that Bella would want to run afoul of.
"And you were in the hotel suite cleaning when Edward came in with, who was it?"
"Um, Williamson," Bella answered. The name was burned into her brain.
"And then Edward shot him."
"Well, they argued first," Bella said. "Williamson was threatening him, and I think he pulled a gun on Edward first. But then, yes, Edward shot him."
"And then, what? The caveman dragged you onto an airplane and flew you halfway across the country so that he could make sure that you'd never testify against him?"
Bella opened her mouth to defend Edward, but the truth was that Alice's summary was more or less on point. "Kind of," she admitted.
"And how do you feel about all of this?"
"I mean…" Bella had been trying to answer exactly that question in her mind a few minutes earlier, but without much success.
"Let me put it this way, Bella, what's your plan?"
Bella flushed, staring down at her feet so that she didn't have to admit to the sleek and sophisticated Alice that she didn't have one, that she was completely out of her depth.
Alice licked her lips and rephrased the question. "I mean, you get married in Vegas in the middle of the night to a billionaire criminal. Next step?"
"I think… I think I was just going to take a breath, and talk to my best friend, and figure it out."
Alice stopped and turned to face Bella. "Your best friend?"
"Angela." Bella exhaled, and was surprised by how shaky her breath was. The strain of the past few hours was really getting to her. "She always knows what to do."
Alice smiled. "That's great. I used to have a friend like that." Her smile dimmed a little.
"Oh no," Bella said suddenly. "I just remembered… I was supposed to go to her apartment for movie night. Oh my god, how could I forget? She's probably freaking out right now. I need to call her." Bella frantically ran her hands over the pockets in her maid's uniform, but they were too small for anything bigger than her wallet. Her cell phone was still sitting in her locker back in the basement of the Ashley Eden.
Alice reached for Bella's hands, clasping them between her own. "You'll get in touch with her," she said reassuringly. "I'll make sure of that. But first you need a plan. What are you going to tell people? How do you think the people in your life will react when they hear that you've randomly eloped with Edward Cullen?"
"I have no idea," Bella admitted. "I honestly don't even know how I would go about telling them."
Alice watched her intently. "Are you sure you want to go through with this?" she asked abruptly.
Bella hesitated. "I… what?"
"You don't seem prepared for this, and frankly, I don't know why you would want to be. I did a little research about you on the way over. You lead a quiet life, but you've always stood on your own two feet, and you seem to have your head on straight. Edward lives in a very different, dark world, and you barely know him. Now you've gotten roped into this plan of his, and I don't think you should go along with it until you've clarified to yourself exactly what you're getting out of this situation."
Bella took a deep breath, holding Alice's gaze as they studied each other. She got the impression that Alice was trying to be on Bella's side and look out for her best interests, which was a little strange, given that Alice was Edward's sister and had only known Bella for five minutes.
Alice seemed to sense Bella's hesitation, and she chuckled. "You can speak frankly Bella. What little love I had for my brother when we were kids has since vaporized." There was a hard edge to Alice's voice that made Bella believe her. "If you tell me that you want all of this to go away, I can give you money and send you wherever you want to go. Trust me, I'd love the chance to stick it to Edward."
"That's… really nice of you?" Bella said uncertainly. She wondered if it was a bad sign that Edward's own sister seemed to be plotting his downfall. "But the truth is that New York City is my home. Even if I wanted to leave the city, I couldn't go without my father, and he'll never leave."
"He's retired from NYPD, right?" Alice said. "We looked you up, remember?" She smiled when Bella looked startled. "Just to see who we were dealing with."
"Yeah, he's, kind of retired. Anyway, he's lived in the city his whole life… and my mother is buried there. He's not going anywhere. So I can't just up and leave."
Alice nodded as she put the pieces together. "So you want to stay in the city and protect your father. And this marriage seemed like the best option."
"Better than getting killed, or dragged into a trial, or fleeing to Belarus," Bella answered honestly. From some distance behind them, where the others were waiting, she could hear the sounds of Edward and Rosalie, still deep in their argument.
"Okay, so, what are you going to tell people?"
"I haven't the faintest idea," Bella said simply.
"This is going to be a big deal, Bella. We're talking about a very high profile, very wealthy man up and marrying a maid. To say nothing of the fact that your new sister-in-law will be Rosalie Rochester. You're going to be in a whole new world, and frankly, a lot of it is going to be unpleasant and kind of scary. You need to decide exactly what you want, or else Edward will do everything his way, and once Edward takes the reins, its hard to get them back again. Trust me - I know." Alice patted Bella's shoulder. "You need a game plan."
There was a pause as Bella tried to imagine what a game plan for a sham marriage to a billionaire criminal might look like. "I haven't got one," she concluded, finally.
This seemed to have been the answer Alice was waiting for, because she sighed in satisfaction. "I suspected as much," she said, and she smiled. Her eyes sparkled but she had the grin of a shark smelling blood. "Good thing I have one…"