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Special Thanks to Twimarti for beta'ing and Kitty Vuitton for pre-reading!

Apparently I am susceptible to begging...

0. . . oO•.o.Hello Beautiful.o.•Oo . . .0

CHAPTER 20

•~Bella Swan~•

In an effort to clear the strange vibe in the room, I cleared my throat a little, looking away as I asked my question.

"Is everything... umm... is everything okay with you lately?" I asked him nervously, inwardly cursing the fact that my newfound attraction was creating all this awkward tension between us. Things had always been so easy before.

I didn't like this change. Not at all.

"Well, yeah, I suppose. Is everything all right with you, Bella?"

Nice, Edward... way to deflect...

I didn't hold back the eyeroll. "Look, I'm fine," Lie. "I just wanted to know if everything was okay with you and Renee. I umm... I heard you two fighting last week, and I know you've been spending a lot more time in your office lately. It's just... I'm kind of an adult now, so I think I can handle the truth if you two are having problems," I told him gently. It only took a second for me to realize how nosey I sounded.

Shit...

"Wait... you... you heard us?" he gasped, looking all at once appalled and humiliated.

I struggled to reassure him when I realized his eyes were darting around the room as if he were looking for the quickest exit. "I could hear that you both were fighting, but not what about," I explained in a calming tone, in an effort to reassure him.

He eyed me warily for a minute, like some kind of interrogator waiting for me to crack. Of course, I really had no clue what they'd been fighting about. All I knew was that Renee was acting like a total horse's ass lately.

"Bella, I'm sorry you had to hear that, but it's okay, really. You're mother and I just have some... issues we need to work through. Nothing to be concerned about. Okay, beautiful?"

My breathing hitched a little at the sound of Edward's nickname for me. He hadn't called me by that name in nearly a year.

Hello, Beautiful – when he used to say it all the time, and it never failed to give me that little fluttery feeling in my tummy that made me smile and blush, but now it made my fucking chest ache, and a jolt of desire shot straight down to my middle, making me throb in ways I never had before.

Knowing he was waiting on a reply, I ate a large forkful of omelet and wordlessly nodded my head in understanding.

After our conversation, I found I was even more curious about what Edward and Renee had been fighting about, but even more then that, I realized that I was totally fucked where my feelings for my stepfather were concerned.

Completely and utterly fucked.

A/N

What made Edward stop calling Bella beautiful a year ago, and what made him call her that again? Thoughts?

What's the worst lie you ever told?

Until later...