**Quick reply to my guest reviewer, Demi. I wish you would log in so I could reply to your reviews directly. No, the purpose of the last chapter was not to gain any sympathy for Jasper. And I also disagree that this Bella is a weak piece of shit. Though, you are entitled to your opinion.
Edward
"I hate these fuckin' things," I mumble as I adjust the bow tie I was forced to wear tonight.
"Yeah, join the club," Emmett says from my side. "But Rosie loves me all dressed up in a tux." His waggling eyebrows just make me laugh.
"No, not the monkey suit, you dumbass, these fundraisers."
"Oh, yeah. But, our names were on the invitations," he says.
The annual Cullen Foundation fundraiser is Da's chance to give back to the city we run behind the scenes. Not much happens in this town without my father's say so or influence. He's got the ear of several sitting judges and politicians so he can get just about anything he deems fit, done. He helps them get re-elected, and they, in turn, pass legislation that benefits our business interests. It just so happens that many of them are here tonight, lining our pockets as Da greases their palms.
"Da say how long we need to stick around this time?" I eye Heidi from across the room as she chats up a suit and his arm candy.
"I think until the auction winners are announced." He turns to look at me. "You put a bid on anything?"
"Nah, but I think Heidi might have."
"Bet she has her eye on that trip to Tahiti," he says with a wink. "Don't tell me you couldn't use some sun and surf while you take in the sights. You guys might not be walking down the aisle anytime soon, but Ed, you've gotta admit she fills out a bikini rather well."
"Who fills out a bikini?" Rose asks as she steps up to his side, slipping her arm through his.
"You do, gorgeous." He saves his ass with a kiss to her cheek, but I can tell by her expression, she isn't buying it. She also lets it go, and I shake my head in disbelief, smiling into my glass as I sip my cheap champagne.
"Of course I do. Which is why I bid on that trip to Tahiti." Rose reaches up on her tiptoes to plant one on Emmett's cheek.
I just chuckle watching my brother's face get this far-off look. I'm sure he's picturing the lovely Rosalie in said bikini. It would be nice to get away from the cold and dreary weather that's descended over Boston this month. It's been the coldest February in recent memory, and even my occasional trips to Cork don't give me any respite. It may not be as fucking cold there, but the constant misty drizzle makes it more than miserable.
Heidi walks over to me, a familiar face at her side.
"Edward, good to see you again." He reaches out for a shake.
"You as well, Judge Fisher," I say, grasping his proffered hand.
"Oh, please, call me Daniel. After all, we just may be family someday." His adoring smile is directed at his daughter. As he puts an arm around her, I notice Heidi turns her head shyly, a sad smile on her face.
"Yes, well, I think that decision is best left to the lady and me." I glance at Heidi and meet her eyes, and in them, I see acceptance.
"Ah, well, you can't blame me for trying, now can you?"
"Daddy, not now, please," Heidi murmurs from his side.
"Sorry, Princess. I'll try to rein it in," he says regretfully. "I know I shouldn't try and push. I just..." He sighs. "I just want to see you happy."
I'm growing uncomfortable watching them discuss this in front of me, especially given the state of our relationship. But I'm soon off the hook when Daniel is distracted by one of his constituents who wants to talk shop. As he walks away, Heidi starts to apologize, but I cut her off.
"Don't worry about it. Come on, let's find our seats. I'm pretty sure they're about to start the auction." I lead her by the hand back to our table and join the rest of the family. Just as the emcee announces the start of the proceedings, the lights dim. Needless to say, neither Rose nor Heidi win the trip to Tahiti, and I'm not nearly as disappointed as I thought I would be.
Once the auction is over and the crowd fills the floor again, I ask Heidi if she'd like to dance. It shouldn't surprise me when her eyes light with excitement as I take her hand and lead her to the floor, but it does. It just reminds me how much I've neglected this girl.
"This is nice," she says as her eyes scan the crowd swirling around us, everyone dressed in their finest evening wear.
"It is," I say with a quick nod.
"I want to apologize for earlier." Her eyes meet mine. "I know Daddy has hopes that I'll end up Mrs. Cullen, but I haven't had the heart to tell him it isn't going to happen."
My hand at her hip squeezes her gently. "I'm sorry, Heidi, but I-"
"No," she says with a shake of her head. "Don't apologize. It is what it is, right?"
A sigh of acceptance leaves me, because I know she's right. This, whatever it is between us, hasn't felt right for a while. But, it was easy, and I was lazy. I know I wasn't fair to her, but I've been too preoccupied with other things over the past couple of years. In the last year, since I opened the pub, I've really tried to be receptive to the possibility of more with Heidi. And while we've both made an attempt to put forth a real effort, I think we've also come to accept there really isn't much of a future for us.
The fun we had at the beginning hasn't been around in a while. I've even been more honest with her about my trips to Cork, so she knows about Bella and Kaitlin. It was hard for her to accept I felt a sense of duty and obligation to a girl that she thought was just a family friend. But, we talked, and she relented. She knew it was another one of my family responsibilities. What she doesn't know is that I'm growing more and more attached to the little princess and the young woman raising her.
My last visit was weeks ago, and as I was leaving, Kaitlin attempted to tell me goodbye. When the words bye bye Deddie passed her lips, it made my heart stutter. It sounded so close to daddy. It really made me stop and think about things; reevaluate my life.
"Kaitlin, baby, can you tell Edward bye-bye?" Bella asks her daughter, the twenty-one month old currently struggling to get away from her mother and get to me.
"No bye-bye," she yells.
"Hey, what's all this? I'll be back soon, Kaitlin, I promise," I say as I step close enough to brush away the dark blonde curls that have fallen into her eyes.
"Edward," Bella says with a warning tone to her voice. "Please don't promise anything. You don't know when you'll be back."
I look at them both, and a squeezing feeling seizes my chest, a deep ache that comes every time I have to leave them. The constant visits have grown fewer and further between over the last year as Da gives me more and more responsibilities. I still try to come see them every month if I can manage it, but it's January now, and the way my schedule looks, I may not be able to make it back here until the spring.
So, with a resigned sigh, I acknowledge defeat. "You're right. I'm sorry, but I will try and come as soon as I can. Besides," I say with a smirk, "I can't stay away from my princess for very long." I lift Kaitlin's shirt just enough to blow a raspberry on her rounded tummy, earning a squeal and a giggle in return.
"Okay, can you tell Edward bye-bye now?" Bella asks her.
Tucking her head under Bella's chin, she raises her little hand and waves at me with a shy grin on her face. "Bye-bye Deddie."
Bella's eyes go wide, probably unsure if I'm going to flip out hearing her daughter nearly call me Daddy. "No, sweetie," she says to Kaitlin. "Ed-ward, not Eddie. Can you say, Edward? Ed, Ed, Edward," she says slowly.
"Ed, Ed, Deddie!" Her head pops up, and she claps for herself the way we always do when she learns a new word.
"It's okay, Bella," I say, suddenly feeling the need to clear my throat for some reason. "She'll get it eventually. Won't you, Princess?"
"Uh huh," she says with a self-satisfied nod.
I step close again and kiss her forehead, breathing in the last bit of her sugar-sweet little girl smell to hold me over until my next visit. "I'll miss you, Princess." My words are quiet and mumbled against her head, that squeezing feeling once again making itself known. I pull away and look to Bella. "I'll be back when I can. Take good care of her."
I slip into the night and head for the airport, knowing I left part of myself behind.
That was five weeks ago, and I still don't know how to process everything I've been feeling since I got home. Heidi's voice pulls me from my memories and reminds me that I just drifted away while she was trying to have a serious conversation with me.
"I don't want to stay in this just for the sake of what other people want." Her eyes fall to my chest. "Neither of us are really happy, are we? So, maybe it's just best if we cut our losses?" She looks up then, a small smile lighting her face. "Besides, it was fun while it lasted, right?" Her smile falls, and she tilts her face down.
"Hey," I say, lifting her chin to look at me. "I really am sorry. I know both our fathers wanted this to work out... But maybe they wanted it more than we did."
"Oh, Edward, I always wanted you. I just wish you had wanted me as much." Her sad, tear-filled eyes hurt much more than I think they should. I know I've been an ass to her, but it was never my intention to hurt her.
But there's no way I'm going to allow anyone else to dictate my relationships. Not my father or hers, no matter what the benefits to our families would be. When I met Heidi and Da caught wind of who her father was, I could almost hear the gears grinding in his head. Even though I never let on that what we had was serious, Da was dead set on getting himself closer to Heidi's father. He may not realize I know he arranged it, but I know he had a hand in Jasper's marriage to Alice. I watched my brother devolve into the mess he is today after Da started making decisions about Jasper's future.
Thinking about that sick fuck only makes me angry, causing an ache to stir in my gut. The times I've seen him over this last year have been few and far between, and every time I do, I want to put a bullet between his eyes. But, without Da's say so, I don't dare make a move. He may not be first in line to run the family business after Da steps down, but Jasper is still his son.
"Maybe just this last dance, for old time's sake?" she asks me, interrupting my errant thoughts.
Before I can answer her, the vibration coming from my jacket pocket gets my attention. Since it's been on Do Not Disturb all evening, I know whoever it is must have called several times to get the call to come through. It's my personal phone, and almost everyone who has this number is in this room, so it could only be one person.
I fumble for the pocket, completely disregarding the woman before me, and answer the call.
"Bella? What's wrong?" I ask in a hushed whisper.
"It's Kaitlin," she says with a sniffle. "She's in the hospital."
"What happened?" My feet are carrying me toward the door before I realize it, all thoughts of decorum lost. Our guests will just have to get over it.
"She's had a cold all week, but she was having trouble breathing tonight. I brought her in, and they put her on oxygen and everything. Edward, I'm so scared." Her choked tears as she speaks tell me she's struggling to keep herself together.
"Are you there alone? Is Maggie with you?" I'm at the coatroom waiting for my overcoat, handing them my claim ticket as she continues. As soon as it's in my hands, I'm running out the door toward the cold city streets.
"No, it's just me. It's the middle of the night, and I couldn't bring myself to wake Maggie. She hasn't been feeling well lately."
Damnit! I knew I should have had someone still there watching over her. Da called Jimmy home months ago. The comment about Maggie is news to me, but I decide to file it away for another time. "Okay," I say, trying to work out the logistics in my head. "I have a few things to figure out here, but I'll be there as soon as I can. But it might be midday your time before I can get there. Did they say if it's life-threatening?" Visions of my little Princess struggling for breath causes me to lose my own for a moment.
"I don't know. They're running tests, but they're not telling me much yet." She pauses, taking in a breath before speaking quietly. "She looks so tiny and helpless, Edward. All I want to do is hold her but I can't. She's in an isolation crib until they figure out what it is. I'm so scared."
"I know, álainn, I'll be there as soon as I can, okay."
"Okay." Her voice is small, and I know she's terrified. I haven't heard her sound like this since the night Jasper... I shake my head, ridding myself of my thoughts.
As the valet pulls my car around, I feel a tug on my tux jacket. I spin on my heel, and I'm met with Heidi's sad, blue eyes. "Hey. Were you going to say goodbye?" she asks.
My eyes close of their own volition, my shoulders slumping. As if I needed any more reminders of how badly I've treated Heidi. I can't even be bothered to say goodbye. Looking to her, I open my arms, and she steps into them. My hands run up and down her bare arms as she shivers in the cold, Boston night air.
"This is it, isn't it?" she asks quietly.
"I'm sorry." At this point, I feel like a broken record. "You deserve so much better than me."
"I'm sorry I couldn't be what you needed." She looks up at me. "But, maybe someone else is?"
"Heidi, it was never you, it was-"
"Please don't say it," she says with a shake of her head. "Don't say it was you and not me. We just weren't meant to be, I guess."
We're quiet for a few more moments, a few stray snowflakes swirling around us before she breaks the silence.
"Take care of yourself, Edward," she says as she places a kiss on my cheek before turning to walk back inside.
"The antibiotics seem to be working because her condition hasn't worsened, even if she doesn't seem better just yet. So, it's only a matter of time before she starts to show any marked improvement. Do you have any questions?"
Bella's eyes are closed as she rubs at her temples, the stress of the last two days lining her forehead. "Um, I'm not sure." Opening her eyes, she turns to me. "Edward? Do you?"
I shake my head. "No, I don't think so. You seem to have explained it fairly well. But, you said it's a several dose treatment? Will she need to be in the hospital the entire time?"
"Yes," he says, nodding his head. "She's actually on two different antibiotics. One is for three days, and the other is for seven, so she'll be here for at least the week, as long as her oxygen saturation improves." He looks between us, making sure we understand. "Okay then, if you have any other questions or concerns, let me or one of the nurses know, and we'll make sure we address them."
"Sounds good. Thank you, Doctor," I say, reaching out to shake his hand.
"Yes, thank you," Bella says from my side, though her eyes haven't left Kaitlin's tiny form huddled in the hospital crib.
I step closer and put my arm around her shoulders. "Well, that was good news, yeah?"
"It was. Doesn't make it any less scary, though." She pulls away from me enough to take her seat next to Kaitlin's bed. And it is her seat. Since I arrived, she hasn't left the room except to use the facilities. I think she even sleeps in the chair. She refuses to go home, but then again, I won't leave either.
"But she should start improving soon," I say as I take my own seat at the foot of the bed. "We could have her home in about a week, right."
I'm rewarded with a small, tired smile. "Yeah, hopefully." She continues to stare at her daughter, and I can almost hear the gears turning in her head.
"What are you thinking about, Bella?"
"I'm thinking I've never been so scared. I was really worried that I was gonna lose her. It all happened so fast. She was congested and had a cough, so I gave her medicine and put her to bed. Then she woke me up, gasping." Her eyes find mine. "Edward, her lips were turning blue. I was terrified," she says as a stray tear slips down her cheek.
"Hey, you heard the doctor, she's fine now. She'll be back home before you know it."
"I know. I just felt so...alone."
Her words remind me that the woman she's been living with for the better part of two years, save the time I was with her in the rented cottage, isn't here. And she wasn't with Bella when she brought Kaitlin in.
"Bella, why didn't Maggie come with you last night?"
She's quiet, as if she doesn't want to answer me. "She's not been feeling well."
"Not well how?" I ask, sitting forward in my chair to catch her eyes.
She huffs out a breath. "She got sick." Her eyes finally meet mine. "It was just the sniffles at first. But she refused to go to the doctor to get checked out, even though I argued with her that Kaitlin couldn't even afford to get a simple cold. Remember the doctor's warning to us that her being a little premature could make her more vulnerable to infection?"
I nod my head in agreement. "Yeah, I remember."
"That's what I told her, but she said it was just a cold and it would pass quickly. Well, by the time Maggie's sniffles turned into a cough, Kaitlin was sick, and her cold went from sniffles to blue lips in about forty-eight hours. And it's all because Maggie was too stubborn to go see a damn doctor."
I can sense her irritation, thinking that maybe their relationship is a little more tenuous than I thought.
"If anything happened to her, Edward, I don't know what I'd do," she says, still looking at her daughter.
"Have you spoken to her since you brought Kaitlin in?"
She shakes her head. "No. I called after I got off the phone with you, well, once it was morning, but she didn't answer."
"What do you mean she didn't answer? She should have realized by now you aren't there." My own irritation is rising, and I have the sudden urge to go have a little chat with Maggie. How can she be keeping watch over Bella if she doesn't even realize she isn't home?
"Edward, she sleeps like the dead. Especially now that we're back at her house full time."
"Which you know I'm not happy about, by the way."
Her gaze is sharp, and I know I'm walking a thin line here. "What do you expect me to do? I can't be in hiding the rest of my life. It was time for me to go back to Maggie's."
"I know, but Jasper-"
"No, Edward. You said yourself that Jasper isn't a threat right now. He's not made any other attempt to contact me, and I don't think he's going to try anything else. You said it was probably just him trying to satisfy some sick curiosity."
A heavy sigh leaves my lungs, knowing she's right. My brother has actually been relatively quiet and stayed out of trouble for the last year. He's gone for months at a time, though, doing God only knows what. I have no idea what he's up to, but I know he hasn't tried again to make contact with Bella.
"Which is why," she says with a sigh, "I want to come back to the States." She lets her statement hang between us for a moment.
"You don't think it's too soon?" I ask.
She shakes her head. "No, I don't. I love what Maggie has done for us, but it's time for me to come home. I looked into some schools since I can't take the civil service exam until I'm twenty-one, which means I have time to get my Associates in Criminal Justice. And Kaitlin's old enough that I can leave her with a sitter while I take classes, and since your family said they'd support me, I don't need to worry about work right now." She shrugs her shoulders. "Your parents told me they'd take care of all my expenses so I might as well take what they're offering."
"Okay, well, if you feel as though you're ready to come back, I can help you look for schools, even a place to live if you want. Have you thought about where you want to go to school? I hear there are some great ones in New Yo-"
"No, Edward," she says, cutting me off. "I already know where I want to go to school."
"What have you decided?" I ask nervously.
"I'm coming back to Boston."
Later that night, I'm pulling up to the house Bella has called home for the better part of the last two years, and not a single light shines from inside. When she asked me to come back and get a few clothes and toiletries she didn't bring along, I psyched myself up to have a little talk with Maggie. Every hour that passed with no word from her, my anger only grew. But now, looking at the dark house, a sense of dread fills my gut.
Using the key Bella gave me, I let myself in. The only sound I hear is the ticking of the clock on the fireplace mantle. There's no sound coming from a radio or television, and there's no sign of Maggie in her kitchen.
I quietly climb the stairs, pulling my gun from my waistband in case there are any uninvited guests. Stealthily making my way from one room to the next, I make sure there isn't anyone hiding in the shadows. The thought that my brother could send someone is always in the back of my mind.
It's when I reach the room at the end of the hall that I see her. The woman who made this place a home for Bella and my princess is lying cold and still in her bed; undoubtedly she succumbed to the bacteria Kaitlin's little body is fighting at this very moment.
So whether or not she was ready, there's no doubt now.
Bella's coming home.
A/N: Big thanks to Fyrebyrd, Gabby1017, Life and Death's Lullabies, and TheMetroDad for pre-reading, and to my beta, SunflowerFran. I fiddled a bit, so please remember, all mistakes are mine.
So, Heidi is finally out of the picture! I'm sure you all have something to say about that. I'd love to hear it! I apologize for not replying to last week's reviews. Please know I read each and every one of them, and I truly appreciate them all!
Well, the impossible happened... I actually had the privilege of meeting Robert Pattinson in Savannah during the SCAD Film Festival! The stars aligned and we happened to cross paths while we were walking around the city. He was gracious and soft spoken and completely adorable. He stopped to take pictures and sign a couple of autographs. It was a once in a lifetime experience and I will never forget it. The rest of what we saw of the film festival was fantastic as well!
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