SM owns.
Thanks Mommakat!
Hello All! I want to thank you for your reviews. It makes me really happy to see that you are enjoying this story I created. Some of you asked about long this story will be and I know for sure that it will be exactly 35 chapters and an epilogue. This is story was written a while back and completed over on Twilighted. I recieved a few requests to bring it over to this site so that's what I did!
BPOV
"Are you alright now?" Kate asked bursting out of the back door as soon as I emerged from the trees. I smiled at her and nodded my head.
"I'm fine. I just needed to be away for a little while. Nothing a good hunt couldn't fix," I replied. Even though it was a tiny inconsequential lie, I still felt guilty about it. My sisters had been nothing but honest with me and I wanted to be the same with them.
"Good, I was a little worried. You left so fast. I was thinking about sending someone after you but Tanya said it would be better to leave you alone," she told me.
"Yea, I needed to be by myself," I nodded. She sighed seeming relieved that I had not been in need of company and no one had come to my rescue. She was such a worrier. I looped my arm through hers and started back toward the house.
Once inside, I listened to the activity around the house. I could hear Irina and Rosalie gabbing about the new guy Irina was seeing. Carlisle and Esme were tucked away in one of the guest rooms. She was giggling as he whispered sweet nothings in her ear. I couldn't make out his actual words but I still felt like I was intruding on their moment. I could hear Alice humming and a gentle scraping like a pencil going across paper. She must have been drawing or something. Out in front of the house I could hear a scuffle that I quickly realized was Jasper and Emmett wrestling. Then I tuned in to the footsteps. One set of footsteps I knew from hearing everyday was from Tanya, the other I recognized by the fluttering in my stomach. They were headed this way.
"I'm going to go to the library, Okay?" I said to Kate before disentangling our arms and heading to the hall that led away from the footsteps. If I hurried I could get away before...
"Bella!"
Balls!
"Hey Tanya," I smiled as she entered the room, hands clasped with another being that I refused to acknowledge. I looked into Tanya's eyes and nowhere else.
"You just missed it! Edward and I just got done playing. I really wanted you to hear him!" she said before turning her head and smiling indulgently at the body beside her.
"I was bragging about you, I hope you don't mind. You just play so well that when she asked about you I couldn't not mention it," she said to the ordinary nothing special person she'd walked in with. "Would you mind going back and playing for her? Just one song?"
"It would be my pleasure."
Then I had to look. The sound of his voice was so velvety smooth that I had to see the source. Clearly I was not as prepared for the battle ahead as I had thought.
He was staring at me intently, just as he had earlier. I felt as though his eyes were piercing right through me to my very core. They blazed and burned like the sun and I could feel their heat on every inch of my body.
Was he always this intense!
"I guess, I'll listen," I shrugged before crossing my arms over my chest. "I don't have anything else better to do."
Tanya shot me a disapproving glare. I raised my brows and shrugged again unapologetically. She turned and started down the hall that led to the piano room towing Edward along with her. I turned to Kate who was still beside me and looped my arm with hers again. I couldn't be alone with just the two of them. I needed a buffer and she was going to be it.
"Behave." she hissed in my ear low enough for only me to hear as we followed behind.
"Don't I always?"
She rolled her eyes and pulled me over to the bay window so that we could sit on the window sill with Tanya.
"What would you like to hear?" Edward asked me as I internally groaned. I had never been so grateful for my shield in all my life. I never wanted him to know what the sound of his voice did to me. I didn't even want to accept what his voice did to me!
"What can you play?"
He chuckled under his breath and I worked to keep my face bored.
"Anything. Everything."
Arrogant. On anyway else it was annoying, but for him it was just sexy. Was it too much to ask for one thing that was unattractive about him?
"Ravel. Gaspard de la Nuit," I sneered.
One of mymany talents was the knowledge of random and mostly useless things. I happened to know that, that particular piece was considered one of the most difficult to play. Edward raised a shocked brow at me before nodding his head with a smirk. He sat down on the piano bench and poised his hands over the keys seconds before music began flowing through the room.
The melody was soft and just a tad wistful. It was a beautiful piece and while that was all well and good, I was more absorbed by the movement of his hands. Long elegant fingers. Swift and graceful. Confident and strong, yet reverent.
He played as if he was worshipping the instrument. The way he struck the keys with a certain lightness made it seem as if he was caressing the piano and the music it emitted in response were moans of pleasure. I wanted to be that piano. I wanted to see what kind of sounds he could coax out of me. I had to cross my legs as my imagination took off and...
And clearly I wasn't trying hard enough!
It was only day one and I was already failing at keeping myself distracted. I berated myself for being so weak and cursed him for having a power over me. When the song came to an end, my will was redoubled with rage. He looked at me with the most dazzling lopsided grin on the face of the earth and it only served to thrill and infuriate me further.
"Bravo. It would have been comedic if you couldn't play it. You've only had what? A century to learn it?"
I stood and walked out the door.
EPOV
I couldn't help but gape dumbly. I was really too shocked to do anything else. Clearly, she didn't like me. I would even go as far as to say that she hated me. I won't lie and say that all her reactions toward me thus far, hadn't hurt because they did. I was suddenly feeling more dejected that I had ever felt before. The first time I'd actually felt something real for a girl, she happened to despise me. She didn't even know me, but I had three weeks to change that. I had no idea what I had done to evoke her ire but seeing the fury mingled with her angelic features only gave her a different but no less stunning appeal.
"I'm so sorry Edward! I don't know why she's behaving like this! She's usually so sweet, maybe this thing with her shield is bothering her more than I thought," Tanya told me silently as Kate also sent mental apologies my way.
"It's fine," I assured them both with a plastered smile. "I'm sure that we've just caught her on a bad day."
I got up and left the piano to head up to the guest room I was staying in. I opened the door to find an amused Alice lounging across the bed.
"One Denali worships the ground you walk on, and another wouldn't piss on you if you were fire," she silently giggled.
"How would you know? You can't really see if she would or not," I shot back earning a grimace from my favorite sister.
"Low Blow."
I shrugged and laid on the bed beside her. I had hoped to impress Bella with the Ravel piece she challenged me to play. She had impressed me just by knowing it. I had glanced at her a few times while I played and I thought the expression on her face had been awe. When I looked at her toward the end though, she appeared to be furious and her response proved that she was, in fact, just that.
I didn't know what had caused the shift in her moods and there was no way to figure it out. Jasper couldn't feel her, Alice couldn't see her, and I couldn't hear her. She was a complete enigma. I sighed and tugged on my hair in frustration.
Alice's laughter broke me out of my reverie. "Calm down, Edward. She's just a moody newborn. For all we know she could be pissed about your shoe selection today, which just goes to show you should have let me dress you."
I rolled my eyes and left the room and then the house altogether. I was irrationally annoyed at what Alice had said:
She's just a moody newborn.
Bella wasn't just anything. She was everything and that's exactly why I was willing to fight tooth and nail to gain her favor.
