Edward POV

"And he will leave you again Bella. He will, regardless of any promises he made. What will it be next time, Bella?..,. Another cliff, a bottle of pills, Charlie's gun?" …Because I may not be around next time to pick up the pieces for you."

I was a second away when I saw his hands wrapped around her arms, squeezing her, shaking her. I saw red. The venom pooled in my mouth and my only thought was to kill him.

"Let go of me!" Bella screamed at him.

"Get your hands off of her!" I snarled at him, shaking in my fury. My eyes were focused on his hands that held her arms in a vice like grip and all I wanted to do was lunge at him and rip him limb from limb. There was a small rational part of my brain that held me back. Jacob was dangerously close to phasing and if I made one move towards him, he would. Bella could die if I gave in to my bloodlust.

Much to my relief, he let her go. Stealthily, I placed myself in front of Bella. I could hear her accelerated heartbeat and felt the tremors of fear vibrating through her. "Are you okay love? Did he hurt you?" I spoke to Bella but never took my menacing glare off of the mongrel.

"I'm fine. Edward, please let's just go." She pleaded with me.

Jacob gave me a taunting look practically begging me to attack. Bring it on Bloodsucker I heard him in my mind.

There was nothing at this moment that I wanted more but I couldn't risk it. Not here where Bella could so easily be hurt or worse. "You may be willing to risk her safety, mutt but I'm not." I told him.

Did he just read my mind? "Ugh, I would never hurt her." He said rolling his eyes.

"Then what the hell do you call manhandling her? A gesture of affection?" I scoffed. Unbelievable.

Jacob relaxed some of his fighting stance understanding that there would be no fight today, not while Bella would get hurt. "I'm sorry Bella." He said looking past me to where Bella stood behind me. "I didn't mean it. I only wanted…"

Bella cut him off. "I know what you wanted Jake but I told you it could never be."

We'll see about that. I heard him. My eyes narrowed at him. She told him no, why couldn't he accept that? She was mine, has always been and would always be mine.

"If that's how you want to play it…fine." I told him throwing down the gauntlet.

He is reading my mind. Damn him. "Stay out of my head." He growled.

I could feel Bella tugging on my sleeve signaling for us to leave but I couldn't, not yet, not before I said what I needed to say. He had to understand in no uncertain terms that hurting Bella was an immediate death sentence. Treaty or no treaty.

"Fair warning Jacob. If you ever touch her again, if you even so much as breathe in her direction, I will kill you."

I'd like to see you try He was imagining different scenarios of a fight between us, all of which he was the victor."This isn't over." He said before giving one last hopeful look at Bella and ran off into the distance.

I let go of the breath I didn't realize I was holding and turned to Bella to embrace her in my arms.

"I hurt him so much." She cried gripping her small fingers into my shirt. I sighed. He had practically attacked her and she felt bad that he had his feelings hurt. I wasn't surprised though. It was so typically Bella.

I pulled back from her and wiped a tear away from her cheek. "He'll be fine love." I picked her up in my arms to carry her back to her house so I could check Bella for any injuries Jacob may have caused.

"You don't have to carry me. I can walk." She said sounding so adorably indignant; I just wanted to pull her closer.

"Trust me, I have to carry you." I told her. She looked at me curiously. How could I explain the almost primitive need to hold her, to verify she was safe in my arms? That carrying her, feeling her glorious heartbeat against my chest as if it were my own, was the only thing keeping me from giving in to my primal urges to run after that dog and kill him? "You may not need me to carry you, but believe me, I need carry you." Was all I said and left her to come up with her own conclusions.

Thankfully, Charlie wasn't at the house when we got there although a selfish part of me wished he would see what Jacob had done to Bella. Maybe he would finally stop rooting for him to win her heart and see him for the danger that he was. The irony wasn't lost on me that only mere days ago, I considered myself to be the most dangerous being in Bella's life.

Setting her down gently on the sofa, I pulled up the sleeves of her shirt to examine the areas where I suspected that mutt might have harmed her. My gut clenched in fury and I hissed when I saw the nearly black bruising in the shape of fingers on Bella's upper arms. I should have killed him on the spot, I seethed inwardly.

Bella must have noticed my murderous expression because she looked at me concerned. "I bruise easily." She said shrugging.

"Don't" I bit out trying to control my vehemence at what he did to her. "Don't defend him to me. Not when I can so clearly see how much he hurt you."

Her brows furrowed. "I can't help but think that maybe what he said was right." She whispered her voice breaking.

I tried to recall exactly what he was saying to Bella as I was trying to reach them. He had been taunting her, saying I would leave her again and damn his soul, putting ideas in her head of how she would kill herself the next time around. I sucked in a breath as realization struck. Did she really think I would, that I could leave her again? "No." I said forcefully. "If I have to tell you every day that I am not leaving to make you believe it then I will. I could quite literally kill him for playing on your insecurities."

She turned from me then, hugging her arms around her. "Isn't that what you did when you left?" She said. "Use my insecurities against me? You're not good enough for me Bella, you told me."

I sighed raking my fingers through my hair. "I didn't say that." My memories of that tragic day were so clear, so vivid in my mind. I remembered every word, every thought I had, every expression on her face. I would never say that to her when the opposite was true. "I said you weren't good for me, not good enough."

"Semantics." She said turning to face me again. "It amounts to the same thing."

I couldn't stand the physical separation from her any longer. It had only been moments since I had her in my arms but I craved her touch even if only for consolation that she was still mine. Embracing her, I kissed her forehead. "Bella, they were lies. I didn't mean any of it. I told you that. I'm sorry. It was unforgivable of me to say those things but don't let…him...win. Don't let him plant those seeds of doubt in your mind when the exact opposite is true. Please." I looked into her teary eyes pleading with her to understand. "I promise you Bella. I am not going anywhere. I love you too much to ever let you go."

Bella POV

Oh, how I wanted to believe him. He looked so sincere, so wounded that I doubted him. But he had made promises before and broken them. All in the name of some foolish notion to protect me, but even knowing that, it provided no solace from the memories of the utter desolation I felt when he abandoned me. Didn't he realize that the one thing, the only thing that truly had the power to hurt me was him walking away out of my life? Anything else, even Victoria was nothing compared to that.

If I let myself trust him fully, there would be literally nothing left were he to leave me again.

"You're too quiet." Edward said tracing his finger down my cheek. "What are you thinking?"

"It's nothing." I didn't want to hurt him anymore than I already had.

"Bella." He warned. "Just tell me."

I shook my head refusing to meet his eyes. He tilted my head up to meet his tender gaze.

He sighed deeply in resignation and even without me telling him, he understood. "You don't believe me do you? You actually think I could leave you again."

"It's not that I don't believe you…exactly. It's just that you have made promises before." He winced, remembering. I continued before he could interrupt. "I am sure you mean what you say… now… but what happens if Jasper tries to take another bite out of me or if something else occurs that makes you feel the need for you to leave me again for my own protection?"

He sat down next to me and pulled me onto his lap. "Oh, Bella. I already tried that once with nearly disastrous results. What will it take to convince you to believe me?" he paused momentarily. "Time, I suppose."

I readily agreed, nodding my head. "Time. I can do time."

"I will not attempt to leave you again." He reiterated with so much conviction that I let myself believe him. "Not ever, especially knowing what the outcome would be." It was my turn to wince. I knew exactly what he was referring to. He sighed again, pressing his face into my hair. "You broke your promise too. Nothing reckless, remember? When I heard…what I had seen from Alice…" He shuddered "To think that you would take your own life, Bella. It…destroyed me."

"I'm sorry." There wasn't much else I could say. I wouldn't promise never to do it again knowing if he ever left I wouldn't be able to keep that promise. He must have known or at least guessed because he didn't ask me for it. "So, can I have my stuff back?" I asked with a smile trying to lighten the mood recalling the items he had taken with him.

He looked bewildered at first then a broad smile came over his face. "You've always had them. They've been under your floorboards in your room the whole time."

"They have?"

He nodded. "Selfishly, I wanted to keep a piece of me…of us with you."

Giddy with excitement, I jumped off his lap and ran up to my room with Edward following me laughing.

"Which floorboard?" I asked checking the floor trying to figure out where the loose board was, wondering if I had ever tripped over it since I tended to trip over everything else. Edward moved past me prying open the floor just below my window and pulled out the cd's and the pictures we had taken at my birthday party. When he gave them to me, I looked at them greedily and felt tears come to my eyes.

"Love, what is it?" Edward asked immediately concerned at my reaction.

"It's just that so much has changed since then and yet…"

"Yet our love is stronger, as if that could be possible" He walked over to me and kissed me briefly. "You feel it too, don't you? This overwhelming need to be together, to be physically connected."

I nodded. That was exactly how I felt. Knowing that he felt the same made some of my earlier fears drift away. "So does that mean you'll change me?" I asked him hopefully looking up at him.

I braced myself for his typical retort so it surprised me when he laughed. "It always comes back to that doesn't it?"

"Well, yeah." I wanted to be with him forever and I assumed he wanted the same, didn't he. Forever couldn't happen if I got old and died.

He pulled back from me turning to look out the window and I immediately felt the loss of his embrace. He was going to turn me down again. I knew it.

"It would be the epitome of selfishness on my part…to take away your soul…just so I can have you with me forever."

"Don't you want me?" I asked him meekly unwillingly stirring the painful memory that lay just beneath the surface for both of us. He sucked in a breath and turned to me instantly and I could see the tortured look in his eyes.

"Of course I want you...it goes so much beyond want…I need you."

A thought occurred to me. "Are you afraid that you won't want me anymore, that I won't be me anymore, that I won't smell the same?"

"Don't be absurd Bella. I'll always want you. Of course I would miss your scent and your heart beat, the most significant sound in my world now but you will always be my Bella."

"I don't understand then. You want to be with me but you won't change me? What happens when people think, I am your mother or worse, your grandmother." I said with horror evident in my voice. Was I to look like a dirty old woman with her teenage boy toy? The thought sickened me.

His face took on so many expressions as if he were resolving something within himself.

"Give me five years." He said with a resigned sigh.

I did the calculations in my head. I would be 23 and him 17. "No way. Isn't that like statutory rape?" Of course we were nowhere near that in our relationship not for any lack of wanting on my part. "or..er…something." I amended.

"3 years." He said. Well at least we were negotiating. This would almost be fun if there wasn't so much on the line.

"If you are staying in your teens than so am I. You are aware that you're not the only vampire I know." I said in a mock threat. I wanted him to be the one to do it but I would ask Carlisle or even Alice if it came down to it.

"I'm hurt. Don't you want me to be the one to do it.?" He smiled.

"Of course I do but your options leave a lot to be desired."

"You are still so stubborn." He chuckled shaking his head. "Okay, but this is my final offer."

"What is this? A game show? Edward, show her what she's won." I said in imitation of a game show host.

He laughed then and I couldn't help but laugh with him. Then he turned serious on me and took my hand in his. "Seriously. If you want me to turn you, give me one year."

I agreed readily. I would be nineteen. I could do that. "Done." I said. "Was that so bad?"

"I wasn't finished yet."

"Oh" What other thing could he want other than time?

"One year and you have to marry me first."

I gulped. Marriage? "Marry you?" I was literally dumbstruck.

He nodded slowly cupping my face in his hands. His eyes a molten gold filled with love. "Marry me Bella."

XXXX

Next up: Bella's answer

Back to school

Edward finds out about some of Bella's other reckless behavior while he was away