BPOV

"How humiliated do you think she is, I mean if it were me I wouldn't show my face," I hear Jess say from our office.

"Jess, keep your commentary to yourself," Ang sighs.

I had taken the past two days off since all this surfaced. Page Six also had no problem keeping up with the story and its developments. Jenks was able to take the surveillance footage into the DA yesterday.

He had the satisfaction of telling her his client and his client's partner would like an apology and a public statement to be released.

It turned out that when Edward arrived, Tanya had been watching his whereabouts. He was mostly with Jasper checking out the lighting problem the installation room was having, which is why he went there in the first place.

Tanya was watching as he went out back for a smoke and then made her way to the bathroom looking totally unscathed then came out with her dress torn. She looked around before exiting out the back door where Edward was.

The time stamps on the footage clearly indicated she wasn't even out there a full minute when she started screaming and the guy that opened the door supposedly stopped Edward from taking it even farther.

The camera at the back door showed Edward leaning against the brick with his head back as he exhaled and then Tanya opening and closing the door as she screamed. At first, Edward looked confused but his head whipped to where she was screaming beside him.

I was pissed when we all watched the footage. Tanya didn't have a leg to stand on, even her agency dropped her. Laurent's attorney reached out to Jenks after the news of Edward's innocence broke.

I wanted more than anything to get back to normal since this nightmare had started, but I knew better especially, with hearing Jess before I even got through the door.

I take a deep breath before walking to my desk. I can feel their eyes on me but I focus on getting settled. My phone buzzes and I see it's a text from Edward.

I miss you. – E

I smiled, he'd been still sleeping when I left. I did leave him a note reminding him I'd be at my place tonight. I had maid of honor duties to fulfill tonight with Rose, her wedding wasn't until the end of August but she got it in her head now she wanted her niece in it.

Edward said the decision was up to me but he agreed that a four-month-old would be very unpredictable for an event of this scale. I told Rose that she'd have to give me a detailed plan before I'd even consider it. Tonight was her proposal.

I see Ang move next to me and caught her sympathetic smile. I had texted with her over the past few days explaining to her that an ex of Edward's was trying to get money out of him. I knew I could trust her with this information.

"So Bella, anything you'd like to share with the class?" Jess snarked.

She was still bitter that not only was I with Edward, but also carrying his child. I was living her New York fantasy, it drove her crazy that I was still working. If it was her, she'd quit as soon as the pregnancy test said positive.

After this whole ordeal with Tanya, I hated the idea of how money-hungry these women were. I'd known Edward when he had none and though he liked nice shit, nothing other than that changed who he was as a person. He is the son Esme and Carlisle raised.

"No," I responded, checking my email.

She huffed but kept her mouth shut.

It was when Angela asked me to lunch that she opened it again. "Can I come?" she practically begs.

"I need to go over some baby stuff with Bella, you'd be bored," Ang says, throwing Jess's words back at her.

Jess hated when we'd talk about my pregnancy; it was one less thing she had in common with us. She also didn't like that we were both in committed relationships when she was still single. I felt bad for her sometimes but she was friends with the nurses and went to a lot of their happy hours so she had her people.

"I'm going to wait out there," I jab my thumb over my shoulder, replacing my white coat for my insulated puffer.

Once I was out in the hall I heard. "You don't want me there because she's going to tell you the truth," Jess sulks.

"No, I want to have lunch with my friend, as for the truth, Page Six printed a rather lengthy article about it this morning," Ang responds firmly.

I hear her before I see her exit our office. She looks exhausted by Jess and her antics. We don't talk until we're in the lobby.

"How are you really holding up?" she finally asks.

"I'm good," I sigh, zipping my coat up once the nippy air hits me. "I feel bad that he's going through this and he's so worried about me and the baby."

"I couldn't even imagine what I would do if one of Ben's ex's pulled something like that."

"I can't believe she'd plot to destroy someone's life like that, assault and rape survivors have a hard enough time being believed, but she takes something so traumatic and lies about it," I say, still feeling empathetic for women who have actually had to endure such events.

"Will she face any consequences?"

"Edward's lawyer is suing for defamation and false accusations, I believe the DA's office is also filing charges against her," I explain, I won't go into the specifics about the money she owes him as he told me that in confidence.

Rose only found out about the installment payments during the crisis briefing at Edward's loft two days ago. It wasn't public knowledge and it didn't need to be.

We stop at a deli a block over, we put our orders in, and wait at our table for our numbers to be called.

"How sulky do you think she's going to be when we get back?" Ang asks, a short while after we get our sandwiches.

"Probably very sulky, but I'm sick of her thinking my life is up for discussion. Yes, Edward is in the public eye here in the city, but I'm still me and value my privacy."

"Don't you think you'll need to maybe be a little more public?" she asks.

"We haven't talked about it, he knows I'm not a fan of being in publications as it is."

"Isn't the no talking what caused months of friction between you?"

I'm startled a little by her point, this was something we probably should talk about. I knew he didn't mind sharing his work life, there were a few posts of me and him on Jazz's IG but they were mostly group shots or sneaky ones without our faces shown in those shots. We never dictated what our friends could or couldn't post.

"Yeah, you're right," I nod, choosing my words. "It's just that social media seems like such an odd thing to have rules about or even have a reason to find a middle ground on."

"Ben is like you, he really doesn't care about posting but he does grumble about me posting pictures of Lola. I mostly post for our families to see since they live so far away," she tells me as she finishes off her sandwich.

I did agree with Ben, but I also didn't want to hide our baby. She's important to both of us, once she's here she'll be the center of our world.

"I'll talk to him about it," I say.

When we got back to the office Jess was sulky and more than a little rude. An hour before we are done for the day she's standing next to me awaiting my acknowledgment.

"Yes?" I ask, looking up at her.

"I think if we're covering your caseload it's only right for you to address the reason you were out," she says.

I turned in my seat and glared at her. "I'm sure you can figure out why I was out."

"Because your whatever—" she rolled her eyes, "tried to rape his ex and paid his way out of it," she spat.

"I know for a fact you stay glued to your phone all day, so you know that isn't true," I say, giving her a wry smile.

"Your life is a distraction to this department and hospital. Shelly had to talk to the board about you yesterday," she says, looking really satisfied with herself.

I look at Angela who is shaking her head furiously. I ignore Jess not really wanting to stoop to her level of unprofessionalism. We all sat in our office for the last forty-five minutes, Jess watches me and Angela. She's making sure she isn't the first to leave but I don't care. I gather my things and walk down to Shelly's office.

She has always been someone I've looked up to and I needed to know if she had to talk to the board. The last thing I wanted was to lose my job; it was something I was proud of.

I knocked on the open door seeing she was still at her desk, she looked up at me with a warm smile. "Bella, this is a surprise, is everything okay?" she asked.

Shelly is an older woman with frosted blonde hair always in a low bun. She also had an array of colorful pantsuits she wore every day. Everything about her screamed maternal, even though she had no children.

"Uh, can I talk to you for a moment?"

She nods.

"Jessica has informed me that my personal life is affecting the department and that you had to talk to the board about it yesterday," I say.

Shelly looks absolutely horrified. "Bella I did have to talk to the board only because your name was mentioned in a few articles that they read about your partner, but nothing about what happened proves to be a distraction to your work or the department," she assures with a sad smile. "I mostly went to discuss your promotion."

"Oh—"

"I didn't want to give you too much excitement until after you had your darling girl," she explains sweetly. "But I will be retiring at the end of the summer and want you to be my successor."

"Really?"

"Yes, you're the best candidate, you're also the favorite of the patients."

"Thank you, Shelly—" I paused, feeling emotional. "That really means a lot to me."

"You deserve it."

She reassures me that she will talk to Jess about gossiping and keeping things professional in the office. As I leave I can hear Angela scolding Jess as I pass our office, I can't help but smile because I'll be her supervisor.

Sam is waiting for me downstairs, taking me home for the day. As we drive I call Edward to tell him the news.

"Hey," he greets.

"So my boss just told me at the end of the end of this summer I'm going to be replacing her," I tell him.

"That's so great, Bell," he says, I can hear the smile in his voice. "So everything was okay, today? That one girl didn't give you any trouble?"

I laugh because he heard me vent quite a lot about Jess. "Oh, she tried to give me trouble but I went to Shelly about it."

"Good."

"Anything new?" I ask.

"She's been served by my lawyers and Jenks got the restraining order in place, " he explains.

I bit my lip, I felt bad for her daughter. She had a mother that chose money and a lifestyle over her. Tanya was selfish and fame-hungry; she isn't the same girl we met in college.

"Bell, I know you feel for her kid, but Tanya is a toxic human being. Also, she'll be with her dad, maybe we're doing her a favor," he says basically reading my thoughts.

"Yeah—" I noticed Sam is in front of my house. "I'm home now, I'll talk to you later."

"Want me to stop by?"

"Yes, but let me have some time with your sister," I warned him.

"Yeah, yeah, I get it you have wedding shit to discuss," he says, I know he's eye-rolling.

"Love you, bye," I giggle, hanging up on him.

I get out of the SUV with a little bit of Sam's help, I thank him for the ride before going in. I dropped my messenger bag in the hallway, slipping my flats off.

Rose is already in the living room in sweats with a glass of red wine in hand. She looks up from her laptop once I'm in the doorway. I take a seat next to her on the couch.

"How was work?" she asks.

"Jess was her usual bitchy self and I found out I'm going to be getting a promotion once my supervisor retires," I tell her laying my head against the back of the couch.

"Congrats on the promotion," she says, giving me a weak smile.

"Thanks—" I trail off, still seeing the same despondent mood she'd been in a few days ago. "Okay, what is going on with you?"

She swirls her wine around in its glass then takes a large swig. "He never told me she was stealing from him," she says quietly. "Or that she was paying him back in installment payments."

"Rose—"

"You knew didn't you?"

"I did, but the only reason he told me was because of the issues we were having," I told her honestly.

He told me because he trusted me with knowing and we were really trying to build something not only for us, but for our child as well.

"Jazz knew," she says, taking another sip of wine.

"Jazz is his business partner, what she did affected their business," I reasoned.

She pulls a face taking yet another sip.

"I think he didn't want me telling him I told you so," she snips, glaring at her laptop.

"I think she humiliated him in more ways than one," I defend taking her glass from her to place it on the table. "The more Edward and I have spoken about it, there were a lot of things that I thought I knew but I was wrong."

"Like what?"

"We listened to other people and made assumptions. I thought your brother was some kind of lothario, but then he confessed he had dates for events but never slept with the majority of them. He'd listened to you when you thought I was secretly dating someone," I confess.

Her face looks like she has been sucking on a lemon.

"You used to stay out."

"Rose, people can have casual sex and not be in a relationship, if anything, the more Edward and I talk maybe I was the lothario," I tell her.

There had been many misconceptions between us, he has been an open book with me since we got back from Forks. He started dating Tanya because Rose had said I was dating a boy in our dorms. He thought if she was friends with me she had to be a good person.

He only took Irina to the gallery opening because Rose had said Jake was my date at brunch. He voiced that he only said she was his date at the moment and asked her after the brunch. He took her back to his place that night because he thought I went home with Jake.

"So this is all my fault?" she asks with a frown.

"Jesus no, my point is that Edward didn't want to have to relive the embarrassment of what Tanya put him through," I explain hoping she understands that it wasn't personal.

She lets out a sigh.

"Don't let this bruise your ego, you know Edward values your opinion above all else," I add trying to smooth it over.

"That might have been true, but now he has you," she says, finally cracking a smile.

I hugged her hoping that this talk really helped her, but I guess time would only tell. She does go from her wallowing to wedding planning quite quickly. Though the wedding planning turns into hours of productive brainstorming, she actually suggests the baby be the flower girl and we pull her in a wagon behind us while the flower petals are attached to the sides, filtering them out in a container.

"I don't think I'm comfortable with that idea," I tell her as soon as it's out of her mouth. "Maybe Edward or I can carry her down the aisle and give her to a grandparent so if she starts to fuss there is a quick exit."

Rose mulls this over for a few minutes, I hear the front door open and Edward comes into the living room. He gives me a kiss then kisses his sister's cheek.

"What's up?" he asks, pulling me to him.

"She wants the baby to be pulled in a wagon," I stage whisper.

He is immediately shaking his head telling her no. "She's going to be too little for that, Rose," he says in annoyance.

"Fine," she takes it off her Excel sheet. "Bella suggested one of you carry her."

I turned my head so I could see his face, he still looks annoyed. "She's not even out yet and you want her to be a prop in your wedding."

"I don't want her to ask about her Aunt Rosie's wedding and then ask why she wasn't included."

I laugh, lying my head against Edward's chest, he wraps his arms around me resting his hands on my stomach.

"Rose, you are certifiable," he says.

She pouts, obviously not getting anywhere with Edward. He leans his head down tugging on my earlobe with his teeth. "Are you okay with her being in the wedding?" he asks softly in my ear.

I shrug, "It might be cute."

He's eyeing me before agreeing to carry our daughter down the aisle for Rose's wedding. Rose cheers like she's at a monster truck rally. Em walks down the stairs asking why she's so amped up.

"Edward agreed to let the baby be in your wedding," I told him with a laugh.

Then Em is joining in her excitement being just as loud as his fiancée. Edward calls them both lunatics once they start doing a victory dance.

"I can't believe they wore you down," I tease against his neck.

"There better be some pretty fucking cute photos of my girl," he says to Rose.

"Which one?" she asks with a wink.

"Both of them."

I snuggle closer to him, feeling for the first time that this could actually work out for us.

A/N: The things you all focus on are interesting. Thanks to CoppertopJ for her edits!