Vaughn took me to Scalini Fedeli, one of Manhattan's most expensive Italian restaurants and only about a mile away from Wall Street. I'd never been there. For obvious reasons, I rarely ate at Italian restaurants.

We settled into a private booth and were looking over the menus when Vaughn spoke.

"I picked someplace close because I know how nervous you get when you're away from your office."

I looked up to see that he was studying me, his face cautious.

"I see you had a meeting with the guy from the party last Friday," he went on. "I believe his name was Edward."

Coward that I was, I lifted my glass to my mouth and took a long drink. When it was obvious that I wasn't going to spill my guts, he continued.

"I've actually been thinking a lot about that party and how different you were when you saw him." He swallowed hard, as if he was contemplating whether or not he should go on. "I realize," he began hesitantly, "That I don't know you very well yet, but your reaction was the last thing I expected."

Well, seeing Edward was the last thing I expected, so we're even, I thought. If there was one thing I didn't want to talk about ever again in my entire life, it was that night. Why did everyone have to keep dredging it up?

"You were," he seemed to be searching for the right words. "You were off center, unsure of yourself, perhaps afraid."

I bit down hard on a piece of ice.

"I have a theory," he said hesitantly.

"Theory?" I shot back flatly.

He nodded. "I believe you have a history with Edward, and that you had some pretty serious feelings for him."

I felt the color drain from my face.

"Your silence tells me I'm right," he said confidently. "And believe it or not, I'm encouraged by that."

My eyes widened in surprise.

"You see," he continued, "Now I know you're capable of loving someone and I'm hoping, that given time, you could love a real man."

I smiled teasingly. "You know a real man? When do I get to meet him?"

Vaughn didn't take the bait at my humor. Instead, he became even more serious. He leaned in and said, "I have a proposition."

I swallowed nervously.

"Give me five dates and then decide if you want to see more of me."

I searched his face, seeing nothing but complete sincerity, and I took a deep breath and tried. I mean, I really tried to feel the beginnings of that serious love for him, but all I felt was an overwhelming sadness. Vaughn was perfectly, well…perfect. As far as humans standards went, anyway. He was kind and fairly intelligent for a guy who played sports for a living. He was that rugged kind of handsome that made women's mouths fall open and he had always treated me with kindness and respect. So why did I want to run away?

Was it because I didn't like him? Was it because I wasn't attracted to him?

Edward's lovely face invaded my thoughts and my arms closed around my middle. The hole, as always, was ready and waiting. Edward's beauty was always going to win. His intelligence would always prevail. And as short-lived as it was, the way he had protected and loved me would never be matched.

My jaw clenched tightly. I didn't know how this was supposed to work. With Edward I was in love with him before he'd ever even touched me. In the real world, was falling in love supposed to be this difficult? Was it supposed to take time and not come instantly?

Being human was so hard.

I took a deep breath. And knew I couldn't do this. Fort Bella was once again armed and operational. However, I wanted to let Vaughn down easily. He deserved a better rejection than the icy ones I usually gave to men.

And then, a cold, hard thought stabbed me.

Edward is going to leave, the thought whispered. And you'll be even worse than before he came. You will still be alone...bitter...cynical...

I looked at Vaughn and felt like I was diving into the deep end for the first time. "Look," I gasped. "You're better than I deserve and I'm puzzled as to why you would even want to spend time with me." I gulped and hurriedly finished what I had to say. "If at any time you decide to bail on me, I will completely understand."

His eyes flashed brightly as a huge smile spread across his face. "Are you saying yes?"

I nodded. "Yeah, I think so." I wondered if he'd been hit one too many times in the head with a football. He was crazy to pursue me.

He reached across the table and took my hand. "I'm very happy about this," he confessed. He wasn't lying. His face was bright with happiness.

"I don't want to wait for the weekend, could our first date be tomorrow night?" he asked.

Whatever happened to playing hard to get? I tried to return his smile. "Sure," I replied.

"I was thinking about a Broadway show. The Giants' General Manager has connections."

I'd lived in New York for three years, but had never been to a Broadway show. It seemed that one way or another, they all turned out to be love stories.

"I have no idea what's playing. I trust you to choose well."

He smiled confidently. "The shows usually start around 8:00. Can I pick you up at 5:30 and take you to dinner first?"

He wanted to pick me up at 5:30? On a week night? I still had a good six to eight hours of work left at that time. Well, that's just fine, I decided. I'll just dump some of my work on Simmons. He's the one that got me into this mess anyway. Then I wondered, if Vaughn had to say good-bye to his social life for a few weeks, what were all the dim-witted supermodels in the city going to do?

"Can I ask you one more question?"

I looked up to see Vaughn eyeing me carefully.

"Okay."

"This Edward…is it hard to go up against someone you have a history with?"

I bit my lip. If he only knew. But I straightened my shoulders and showed him "Tough Bella".

"There is no history with Edward Cullen," I replied coldly. "It was just a silly thing in High School. He's in my past, and that's where I want him to stay. It makes no difference to me who my opponent is. There's nothing special about this fight. He's just like any other adversary I've gone up against."

His eyebrows rose. "Corporate world, dog-eat-dog, that sort of thing?"

"Absolutely." I stated confidently.

The waitress came with our food and the subject ended. I felt lighter, somehow. Saying the words out loud had felt really good. Perhaps life, after seven years, was waiting for me.

(Edward's POV)

I watched Bella as the elevator door shut behind her and felt desolated. I was the one who used to catch her when she inevitably fell. And now….

I went to the stairs and began slowly making my way down the forty-two flights.

I didn't know if could stay and watch her fall for this guy. But I knew if wasn't Thomas, it would eventually be someone else. I heard the thoughts of every guy who passed her. If there was a chance they took it. She constantly shot them down, but at some point, she was going to meet someone she didn't want to refuse.

My insides twisted painfully. I was such an idiot to leave her. What would these last seven years have been like if I'd stayed?

Through all of this, a troubling thought had started to crawl under my skin. She'd grown into such a lovely woman, if I had never given in to her demands about changing her, who's to say she wouldn't have felt she'd outgrown me and eventually left anyway? What could she possibly see in me? I was just a monster, who was forever seventeen. And she had definitely changed.

Changed…I didn't know the person she was now, didn't understand her. The Bella I knew was so warm and trusting. Where was her endearing shyness? I was remembering her as a child, of course, but it was more than that. She was so sure of herself now, but she was also overbearing, cynical, obstinate, and mean. Long ago, before I'd ever even touched her, I'd discovered she had a bit of a temper, but I'd always been confident in her inherent goodness. What had changed her?

I never once saw her smile. There used to be a light that shone from those beautiful dark eyes, now they were dim and troubled. I could tell she wasn't eating well. She also wasn't sleeping well. The circles under her eyes were witness enough, but I would also watch her leave her office after midnight and then wake at 5:00 a.m., sometimes even earlier. And what was the running all about? That was definitely not something the Bella I knew would do. To me, she looked lost.

I heard Jasper enter the stairwell. He reached me in less than a second.

"Hey," he greeted, acting like it was completely natural for me to be walking slowly down forty-two flights of stairs.

"Jasper," I whispered, swallowing hard. "I swore to myself I'd never do this, but I need to know what emotions Bella is feeling for me."

He looked at me doubtfully. "Are you sure?"

I laughed darkly. "No. Not really." But I had to. He'd been trying hard to keep his thoughts away from all things Bella when I was near, and I appreciated him for that, but she had become so protective around me that I knew there was no other way I would be able to understand her now.

Jasper sighed heavily. "She has created a . . . wall, is the only word I can think of to describe it. I've never seen anyone so conflicted. Sometimes, I know you can hear her heart beat in that way it always used to when she was near you, but then I feel intense fear. She is filled with a lot of anger, but apparently, she's grown accustomed to this emotion and she's learned to channel it into a drive to win. She is, as we have seen, extremely competitive. But, what I find strange is that she isn't trying to win for fame or money. She wants to win because that will ensure that she will be able to keep working hard and not have to stop. She seems terrified of ever having to stop."

He pursed his lips and risked a glanced at me before he went on. "There is one overriding emotion," he said softly. "It took me a while to figure out what it was. I finally realized that the reason it was so hard for me to pin it down, was because she has covered it with so many other emotions in an effort to hide, or mask it. My guess is that this was done in order to protect herself. She is trying to hide it so she can survive."

I steeled myself for his answer. "What is that overriding emotion, Jasper?"

He looked deep in my eyes and said simply, "Pain."

I crumbled down onto the stairs, as if I was burning from the inside out. Alice had kept insisting that Bella loved me more than I ever really knew. Could she have been right? Seven years ago, I'd left to punish me, not her. Was it even possible that she was still feeling pain over me? Bella had justifiably thrown my own words back in my face today, the ones where I had solemnly promised that it would be as if I'd never existed. But perhaps I had lived on, only to make her suffer.

I stood up and mechanically began descending the stairs again. Jasper's thoughts were filled with apologies and sorrow and I nodded wordlessly before he was out of sight. Each step brought another revelation. I was facing some hard truths for the first time since I'd laid beside her the night of her 18th birthday. I thought back to that time, how I'd stared at her all night, with her arm covered in bandages, and had convinced myself that I knew what was best for her. When I was so smugly sure that I was doing the right thing.

By the time I headed out into the gray November afternoon, I saw that I had two choices before me. I could leave this very moment and never torment Bella again, or I could end this now. A third option of watching her like a ghost for the rest of her life loomed out there. I hoped I would be strong enough not to take that option. But if Bella was really in pain because of me, then I had the power to change everything for both of us. If Bella's pain was a hundredth of what I had wallowed in for the last seven years, then I now understood her perfectly.

My feet were moving before the conscious decision had been made.

I took off down the sidewalk as fast as I dared. I didn't want to waste another precious second. I certainly wasn't going to give Thomas Vaughn the opportunity to take her pain away.

No one else in the history of the world would ever make me feel the way Bella did. I had to believe she felt the same. This was never going to happen for us again.

If I got her back, I would do whatever she wanted. That included making her a vampire. I would do anything. The thought of having her forever, unbreakable and mine, made my breathing quicken and my muscles instinctively tensed from the surge of excitement.

I followed her scent to the Italian restaurant on the corner. Images of La Bella Italia invaded my thoughts. How innocent we both were then. It was hard for me to picture myself innocent about anything, but I was definitely naïve about the precious girl that was sitting across from me in the booth that night. I had no idea how much she would change my existence.

I heard Thomas say that he wanted to take her on five dates, and then let her decide if she wanted their relationship to continue. What he didn't say out loud, was how much he desired her. If Bella decided to keep seeing him after the five dates, he planned on changing the nature of their dating considerably. My teeth ground together as the venom flowed. His fantasies of her made me want to kill him.

I swallowed down my murderous thoughts and waited in agony for her answer. I didn't have to wait very long. She agreed to the five dates. I felt a knife twist into my dead heart, but there was no way I was giving up. I wasn't going to just hand her to Thomas. I would fight for her and let her know exactly how I felt.

Then Thomas mentioned my name. "This Edward Cullen, is it hard to go up against someone you have a history with?"

She laughed a callous, harsh laugh. "There is no history with Edward Cullen. Our relationship didn't even last a year. He's in my past and that's where I want him to stay. It makes no difference to me who my opponent is. There is nothing special about this fight. He is just like any other adversary I have ever gone up against."

I didn't want to hear anymore.

If Bella was in pain, it wasn't because of me. It didn't matter that fate had once brought us together. Seven years ago I'd forced a new outcome for us both. I now had to live with that choice.

I walked for hours and ended up on the same bench where I'd spent all my nights since coming to Manhattan. Before this was over, I would tell her I loved her. But for now, I decided that I wanted to help her with her pain, whatever the cause may be, in some small way if I could.

The real Bella was still in there somewhere, but I doubted I was the one to bring it back again. She needed someone that didn't leave her feeling threatened, someone who had always made her laugh. Perhaps another member of the family should come and visit? I would take a few days and think it through.

I slunk down on the bench and prepared for another bleak and windy night.

Option three was getting closer and closer all the time.

So, which member of the Cullen family is coming to visit? Let's find out!...