She'd done it.
Even as she kissed Edward, Bella couldn't help the smile that was overtaking her face, turning up the corner of her lips as she tasted his.
She'd thrown off her risk-adverse tendencies, asked the questions, had the conversation, and now she and Edward had agreed to try to make a go of it. It was the best case scenario, and she felt weightless, light enough to float away. She caught her breath as the kiss deepened, and, with a thrill, she heard Edward unzipping his pants.
She shivered with anticipation.
It was all perfect.
Except for that loud hammering sound. That was not perfect.
Bella frowned, breaking the kiss.
"What's wrong?" Edward asked. His eyes were dilated with passion, his breath coming in savage pants. "Bella?"
She held up a finger, and then he heard it as well. Someone was pounding on the penthouse door. "Edward!" The deep voice was unmistakable.
Edward lifted himself off of her. His bronze hair was gorgeously mussed, and the muscles in his face were taut with arousal. "What the fuck?" He muttered. "What now?"
Bella didn't think she'd ever seen him look so irritated. With a sigh he dropped one last kiss on her lips and then leapt off the bed, pausing to grab his gun from the armoire.
Bella frowned at the sight of the gun. "Edward, I'm pretty sure that's Emmett. You're not going to shoot your brother?"
"Maybe." Edward snapped over his shoulder as he padded into the parlor, muttering something under his breath about incompetence and inconvenient timing.
Bella pulled on her robe and followed Edward, arriving in the parlor just in time to see Emmett stepping over the penthouse threshold.
The bearlike man took in his brother's half-dressed state and winced. "Sorry man. Bad timing, I know."
"Very." It was startling, how quickly Edward's tone could go from hot and intimate to icy. "What's wrong now?"
"It's Jasper. It's not good."
"Alice found out he's dead?" Edward now looked even tenser than he had when he'd opened the door. Bella made a mental note to ask Edward for the details of the Alice & Jasper situation as soon as he had a spare moment. She was tired of being left in the dark about Alice.
Emmett shook his head. "Nah, that's the problem. He's not dead."
"What?"
"He was injured, but not seriously. The bastard limped straight out of the warehouse into a waiting car, and he hasn't been seen or heard from by any of our people since."
Edward cursed. "Did Alice tell you this?"
"No man, I saw it on the news.
Edward clenched his jaw. "I bet she knew though. I thought she was taking the reports of his death surprisingly well. She didn't even bring it up at lunch."
"Guess she knew he wasn't actually dead," Emmett scratched his head.
"Fuck. She's still in contact with him. I don't know what to do about this."
"Well, we have bigger problems than Romeo and Juliet right now. There was just a retaliatory attack down in Miami. Some of his guys hit one of our warehouses."
"What?"
"Yeah. We're thinking at least a few of our guys are dead. Maybe as many as seven… Anyway it's not good. We need to do major damage control asap and usually we'd rely on Alice for this kind of thing, but. . ."
"Yeah, yeah," Edward raked a hand through his hair. "I get it. Give me five minutes and I'll be ready to go." He hesitated then, glancing intently at Bella.
"No, go do what you have to do," Bella said. "I'll be fine."
Edward's eyes, darker than usual, scanned her face closely. Was he expecting her to freak out? "I'm going to have one of our guys stand outside the door. Just for tonight. It's unlikely, but just in case there's any more trouble, I don't want you here alone."
"I'll be fine." Bella repeated again. She wasn't sure exactly what was happening in Miami, but she knew that this sort of thing was going to be a part of her life now, like it or not, and whether or not she was able to handle the pressure and uncertainty would be a big part of whether her relationship with Edward failed or succeeded. She intended for it to succeed.
Emmett glanced curiously from Edward to Bella. "If you want, I could ask Rosalie to come over and stay with you," he offered.
"No." Edward and Bella answered simultaneously.
". . . But thank you." Bella added diplomatically.
She followed Edward into the bedroom as returned there to get dressed.
"Do whatever you want," he told her. "Sleep, order room service, whatever. . . Just don't leave the penthouse. Not yet. I'm not sure what exactly this latest play from Jasper means, and just in case he has more violence planned I don't want you to get caught in the crossfire. I'm sorry," he added, almost awkwardly, as though he wasn't used to apologizing. "But this is what my life is like," he added, his green eyes gauging her reaction carefully.
He was testing her already, watching for any cracks. Well, Bella wasn't going to show him any. Her life may not have been as action-packed as his, but it hadn't been easy, either. She could handle a few bumps in the road, and as far as she was concerned, one night holed up in a penthouse with free rein over both minibar and room service hardly even qualified as a bump.
"I'm fine." She told him, and she meant it. "Just take care of yourself."
"Oh, I'll be fine," Edward laughed shortly, but his eyes were blazing with fury. "But when I track Jasper down, his days are numbered."
Five minutes later, Bella was alone in the penthouse, anxiously pacing the length of the parlor, her bare feet sinking into the luxuriously thick rug as her mind whirled. On the enormous flat-screen behind her, the late night news cut to a live feed of a burning warehouse.
Bella briefly stopped pacing to grab the remote and turn up the volume a few notches so that she could hear the reporters.
"I'm Jim Horton with CBY. Carol Preston is on the scene. Carol, from what I understand, something similar happened last night?"
"Hi Jim. You're absolutely right, this is the second of such attacks to occur in downtown Miami in less than 24 hours. Late last night, a similar incident was reported at a warehouse just east of where I'm standing. Witnesses report that gunfire was heard just minutes before the entire building was engulfed in flames. The owner, shipping magnate Jasper Hale, was reportedly in the building when the fire broke out. He was initially believed to have been killed in the blaze. As it turns out, however, he was able to escape the flames with only minor injuries."
"And what about tonight's attack, Carol? What do we know? Do we know who the building belongs to?"
"Actually, Jim, we do. This is one of a number of local warehouses belonging to Edward Cullen, one of the members of the billionaire Cullen family. At just past 10 pm, workers in neighboring structures reported hearing a series of muffled gunshots, and then several explosions. Within moments the entire building was on fire. Right now, as you can see behind me, firefighters are still struggling to put out the blaze, which, while contained to this single warehouse, is proving difficult to extinguish. It's not yet known if there were people inside the warehouse at the time of the explosion, or whether there have been any casualties."
"Thank you Carol. Cullen, who has been a person of interest in numerous criminal investigations over the past decade - though he has never been officially charged with any crime- is a high profile resident of Manhattan. His family's combined net worth is estimated to be over 3.6 billion, and while many of his business dealings are reported to be of a dubious nature, there has never been any incontrovertible evidence of wrongdoing. Mr. Cullen is regularly in and out of the public eye for one reason or another, but you might recall having heard his name quite recently. That's right, just this morning Cullen made headlines nationwide when it was announced that he had eloped with a young woman who had been previously employed as a maid at the New York City hotel where he typically resides. The news was considered notable because of its unexpectedness and its Cinderella-story quality."
Just at that moment, the feed of the burning building was momentarily replaced by a photo of a very familiar face.
Bella's jaw dropped. It was her. There was a photo of her on the news. It was one of her old Facebook profile photos, a shot of her on the steps of the New York Public Library, pointing to one of the giant lion statues. Bella grimaced. So dorky. She could practically feel Rosalie's eyes rolling from across town.
"Carol, have we been able to get in touch with Edward Cullen yet?"
"No, Jim, as yet, the Cullen family hasn't issued an official statement on the fire, but the violent nature of both last night's fire, and this one, have led some to speculate that the Cullen family and Hale, Inc., may be in the midst of some sort of violent dispute. Back to you Jim…"
There was a faint buzzing sound coming from the couch. Her phone was vibrating.
Oh, God, her father was calling. Bella was tempted to let it go to voicemail, but that would set off Charlie's cop radar something fierce, and the last thing she wanted to do was make him more anxious than he already was. It was past midnight. If Charlie was calling her this late, it had to be because he had seen her photo on the news.
With slightly shaky hands, Bella reached for her phone.
"Hi Dad," Bella said softly. She hated the guilty tone of her voice but she couldn't help it. She couldn't imagine what her father thought of having his daughter's photo appear on the nightly news in connection with a possible mob war. She braced herself for a deluge of questions and criticisms.
None came.
"You know, Bella," her father said thoughtfully, "I've been thinking it over, and I'd like to have that family dinner that you were talking about."
"Um, okay?" Bella said, reaching hastily for the remote control so that she could mute the television. "Um, dinner sounds good," she said, when she had finally silenced the reporters, who were now speculating about some of Jasper Hale's less savory business endeavors. "Yeah, dinner would be good. How about on . . ."
"How about tomorrow?" Her father suggested, in a tone so mild it was almost breezy.
Bella's heart sank. Her father had definitely seen the news. She wasn't sure why he was playing it so cagey, rather than throwing the fit she would have expected, but she was sure he had something up his sleeve.
"Um, well, I'll have to check to see if Edward's available."
"Okay, well, you do that, and if he is, I expect the two of you over here at 6pm sharp. I'll make Spaghetti Bolognese. Bring wine."
"Okay, sounds good, I'll let you know if . . . Dad?" Bella paused. There was a click. Her dad had hung up.
Bella went in the bathroom to splash some cool water on her face. She was still overheated from her encounter with Edward, and now the added tension of both the Jasper situation and her father's call was making her jumpy. She dampened her face and then sat down cross-legged on the chilled bathroom tile.
Her thoughts returned to Edward, and, despite everything else that was going on, she couldn't help but smile.
Bella's phone, which was still clutched in her hand, buzzed. She glanced down at the screen, and her eyebrows raised.
While she and Edward had been . . . er, getting to know each other, her phone had been inundated with a slew of text messages from Mike.
Bella blinked.
Mike.
It was startling how little she'd thought about him in the past few days. They'd been together almost a decade, but Bella's hasty marriage to Edward seemed to have wiped almost every trace of Mike from her mind. Well, if she'd been looking for proof that she and Mike were not meant to be, this was it. If she'd really cared about him, it wouldn't have been so easy to forget about him the minute she and Edward became an item. The real question was: why had she stayed with Mike for so long after her feelings for him faded?
With a sigh, Bella scrolled through his most recent messages.
oh so your ignoring me now
is this some kind of twisted mind game to make me want you more?
dont even think about crawling back to me when hes tired of you
and he will get tired of you
i did
you think i was really practicing with the band all those late nights?
still not responding huh?
well i won't bore you with the details but there's a lot you dont know is all im saying
whatever ill just find someone new
i actually already have someone
didnt want to hurt your feelings but who cares
unlike you shes actually good in bed
maybe ill upgrade
maybe i can sell myself to the highest bidder like you
Bella made a face and stopped reading. She had let her relationship with Mike drag on way too long, out of some bizarre combination of apathy and a twisted sense of loyalty. It was kind of gross, looking back on it. And she was pretty sure that Mike wasn't lying about at least some of those late nights.
Bella's phone buzzed as she received a new text message.
Bella sighed. At some point she should probably text Mike back. Maybe something concise and to the point, like, "leave me alone." She glanced back down at her screen, expecting to see another message from Mike, but this latest text was from an unknown number. She hit the screen with her thumb to open the new message.
And then her eyes got very wide.
From: unknown
12:22 am
I know about Williamson. You're both going to pay.