The Firm
SM owns, Dolly and I borrow and play. Thanks DollyBigMomma!
This is a little extra thank you for all those who read and review. It's a holiday weekend here in the UK so I had a little extra time. Hope you enjoy. Don't forget to let me know.
Chapter 6
BELLA
The conversation with Edward was nice; no, it was more than nice. It was comfortable and I didn't want it to end. I knew it was late over in France so I knew I had to end the call sooner rather than later. I wanted to rip Nathalie Oberlauge a new one after Edward confirmed her continued harassment of him. When I had offered my own services, I did not think for a minute he would really consider me as an alternative. I mean I was new to the firm, untested as far as Edward was concerned. I had been with the firm for all of a couple of weeks and yes, I had put the hours in, but I had not been tested yet. Not really.
Rosalie had not been best pleased with me and that was putting it mildly. We'd met at their place on Thursday evening. Alice cooked, if that was what you would have called her offering. I had other names for it, none of which were particularly polite. We ate in silence, Rose and I giving each other sly glances while we pushed what was supposed to be chicken a la king around our plates. When I had opened up a little earlier and told her all about Edward, she threw an absolute fit and I wanted to duck for cover. She wanted to confront him over his moods and ask him what the hell his problem was. Her protective best friend persona came out in full force, and you could believe it when I said she was a force to be reckoned with.
"Bella, I'm very disappointed that you felt unable to confide in us. We've been friends for years now and I thought we had the sort of relationship that meant we could talk to each other about anything, especially men."
"Rose, I'm sorry, okay? I just wanted to try to get it all sorted out myself, straighten it out in my own mind before I talked about it. Shit, even now I still don't know what the hell's going on. He's in France, I'm here, and we haven't spoken in a couple of days. It's all been very polite, professional, all work. Who knows, maybe this is all in my head. Right now, I have no fucking idea."
"It's not like you to react like this to a man, Bella, so he must be pretty special," she added questioningly.
"You have no idea, Rose, you have no idea," I told her shaking my head with a wry smile on my face, an image of the man himself flashing before my eyes deep from inside my mind.
"I Googled him, Bella, sorry," Alice added. "He's pretty hot; he has that air of arrogance about him. I thought I recognised him from somewhere, though. I've been racking my brains to think from where. Then it came to me, he was in the pub the other Friday, he was the hottie at the bar, the one you scared off. Now we know why, you wanted to keep him for yourself."
"Alice, I was going to tell you about the partners, I swear, I just wanted to get settled first. Then when he turned up at the bar and you two were steaming already, I politely asked him not to come over and say hello. I was going to tell you about Edward, Emmett, and Jasper, just not yet. Edward is pretty amazing to look at, I agree, but it's more than that. I can't quite put my finger on it, but I'd say it's the whole package, and I don't want any smutty comments from either of you on the pun. He's special, and whether we end up taking this, whatever this is, somewhere or not, I'd like to think we can be friends at the very least."
"According to the internet, he doesn't do relationships, has a different woman on his arm for every event he attends. The same one has never been seen twice. One night stands are his speciality, if you care to believe all you read. You don't do men or relationships, Bella, never mind one night stands." She stopped suddenly mid-flow. "Sorry, did you say partners, as in multiple? Does that mean there's more than just your Edward Cullen? Were you going to try and keep them all to yourself, Bella?"
"I don't care to read about his private life, Alice. He told me himself he didn't have a significant other. And yes, Jasper Hale and Emmett McCarty, they make up the other partners. I was going to tell you, honestly."
"How the hell did that conversation come up?" Rose shouted mentioning my conversation with Edward and laughing at my mortification.
"We were talking about the long hours he keeps. I think I made some sarcastic comment about his wife or girlfriend loving the hours he works. He said he didn't have either. It was no biggy at the time. Last time I spoke to him, he mentioned something similar about me. I told him I have no one, either."
"You're both free and single, so what's stopping you from getting together? Then you could introduce us to the other two partners and boom, all of a sudden we're all spoken for."
"Well, for one thing, I might be reading way too much into this. He might just be trying to make a new employee feel at home. Oh, and then he's my boss, and the biggest reason of all is a strict no-fraternization policy in the contract. So sorry, girls, no partners for you two, either."
"Who the fuck insisted on that policy?" Rose asked no longer laughing.
"Well, I guess it must've been the three partners, although from what I know of Jasper and Emmett so far, they're not like Edward in any way; they're much more relaxed. Sure, they work hard and know their stuff, but they don't put in the hours like Edward does and they don't do the court appearances like Edward does. I'm guessing it was Edward's way of keeping everything in the office professional, no distractions."
"He sounds boring," Alice added yawning loudly.
That was my cue to leave. We hugged goodnight and I made my way home. When I turned my phone back on, I was a little disappointed to see that I had no messages and no missed calls. I decided to stay up for a while and read through some of the paperwork for Edward that Jessica had sent me today. I curled up on my sofa with a large glass of red wine.
I woke up a couple of hours later. My MacBook had gone into sleep mode, saving power. I was relieved to see that my glass was empty; I could not even remember finishing it off. I made my way to the bedroom. It was a little after one o'clock and I had to be up in five hours. I was restless and I tossed and turned, unable to get to sleep. All I could see every time I closed my eyes was Edward's beautiful face, his soulful eyes penetrating deep into me. I felt more than a little frustrated and needed to release some tension. I had just the thing to help...
EDWARD
It had been a few days since I had spoken to Bella. My fingers had twitched over her number in my phone on more than one occasion, but I resisted. Instead, I made myself miserable, insisting that staying away from her was the only option. I was even grumpier now than before. I was sick of Paris and even sicker of Nathalie Oberlauge and her wandering hands. I just wanted to go home. I truly felt like a petulant child with my internal whining.
"Jasper, I need to come back, but things are still pretty tense here. Will you please reconsider allowing Bella to take my place here? She's already said she'd be happy to do it and it seems like the perfect solution to me. Even for a little while?"
"No, Edward, absolutely not, she has more than enough of her own cases here that need her attention without giving her even more to do in France. Look, come back if you need to and we'll see about someone else going back instead of you if it's really necessary."
"Of course it's necessary, Jasper. Jesus, Nathalie pays a hefty amount each year to keep us on retainer; we really don't want to lose that level of guaranteed income by pissing her off. I think she's already a little miffed at my continued rejection of her advances."
"She's still after your body then? Are you sure little Edward's not interested?"
"You could say that. I'm scared to get in the lift on my own in case she pounces. She's persistent, I'll give her that, and no, neither big nor little Edward is interested. For fucks' sake, Jasper, what do you take me for?"
"And there's no chance you could bang her just to keep her sweet?" Jasper half laughed.
"No fucking way, and I hope you're joking. Look, Jasper, seeing how she works makes her even more unattractive than I thought. She and I doing anything physical is a definite no. I doubt my dick would even rise to the occasion, so enough said about that." He laughed some more, but then changed the subject.
"So, Bella's been doing some paperwork for you? How is that working out?"
"Fine, I guess. She updates me by email daily. She's doing a good job."
"So you've gotten over your little tantrum with her?"
"What tantrum? What the fuck are you talking about?"
"You know, her first day, being rude to her and all that in the meeting."
"Oh, yeah...I apologised, she accepted, and we moved on. So what am I missing over there? Is Newton pulling his weight? I asked Bella to make sure he was. Lazy fucker."
"It's not Bella's responsibility to make sure that Mike is up to date, Edward. It's our job as partners to make sure everyone pulls their weight. He's not lazy by the way; he's just not as good as Bella. She's pretty much showing us all up since she started. Well, everyone but you that is."
"Yeah, I know we fell on a gem there. Well done in spotting her potential at the interview. She told me it wasn't in her contract to keep a watch on Newton. She's sassy, not afraid to say what she really thinks."
"Edward Cullen? Is that really you? I mean you never ever give praise, even when it's due, so where's my grumpy bastard of a business partner and long-time friend? Just because you're over in gay Paris doesn't mean we want you to have a personality transplant. We happen to love you as the grumpy bastard we all know." We both laughed at that.
"Yeah, Bella called me out on that, too. Look, I'd better go, I won't be back for the Monday meeting this week, so I'll video conference again, I guess."
"Okay, I'll let Emmett know. Look, try to relax a bit while you're over there, see some of the sights."
"Yeah, yeah."
I spent a long and lonely weekend doing the whole tourist thing. It beat sitting in my hotel suite lonely and bored. I realised that I had not heard from Bella since Friday. Well, it was the weekend and she was entitled to the weekend off, but I would have expected something.
I checked my emails over and over, but there was nothing. Huh. Once again, my fingers found their way to her number. I hesitated this time only to glance at my watch. Shit, it was too late to call. I kept forgetting about the eight hour time difference. It was just after ten o'clock in the morning here so that made it about two o'clock in the morning there. It might have been Sunday morning here, but even if Bella had been out for the night, she surely would not have been still be up, and definitely not up for taking a business call at this time on a Sunday morning. I threw my phone down in disgust.
A stroll along the Seine later in the day did nothing for my black mood. I knew what I needed to alleviate my grouchiness and it was just not an option. I could not deviate from my own no-fraternization policy. I needed to get over this crush, or whatever the fuck it was, before I headed back to the states. If Emmett or Jasper got wind of this, I was fucked, well and truly fucked, with a capital "F."
I was more than ready when it was time for the video conference to begin the next morning. I longed to see her, her eyes, her hair, and just hear her voice. I felt a little safer here giving in to my seemingly-uncontrollable crush on Isabella Swan. As the screen flickered and the static cleared, I was disappointed to see that she was not there yet. What the fuck? She was always early, even after these few short weeks of knowing her, observing her, I knew she was well-organised and liked to be early. Where the hell was she?
Jasper started the meeting and she was still not there. I could hardly concentrate. I interrupted, not caring what they all thought at this point.
"Jazz, where's Ms. Swan?"
All heads turned to look at me on the screen. Jessica had an almost quizzical expression on her face, Emmett was looking at me like I had two heads, and Mike, well, his mouth was wide open and he looked like he was catching flies.
"Well?" I demanded a little more sternly than I meant to.
"She has a meeting, Edward, it was urgent, it couldn't be avoided. Now, can we move on, please? We have a lot to cover this morning," Jasper added.
She was not there; I wouldn't get to see her. Fuck, had she planned this on purpose just to piss me off? No, she couldn't have, surely she had no idea about my little crush. Did she? Oh, crap, had I been obvious? Was she avoiding me? Was she embarrassed? Fuck, fuck, and double fuck, how the hell did I deal with this?
The rest of the meeting went on without any involvement from me. I could not wait to sign off and get stuff sorted here so I could head home. Fuck what Nathalie said; I was going home; I would deal with the fallout when I got there.
Maybe once I had seen Bella, I would be in a better frame of mind to think things through rationally. I convinced myself that once I saw her again, things would settle down and my mind would stop playing tricks on me. I would be in a better place mentally to talk Jazz into letting her come to Paris as my replacement.
Yeah, I needed to go home...now.
Will he give in to his urges when he returns home?
