Chapter two

Tired and sore, she stumbled out of her dorm the next morning, clutching her robe tightly with one hand as she carried her key and shower-bag in the other.

The night before, she had been too tired and ashamed of herself to let herself be seen in the halls of her building, so she had fallen asleep on top of the covers so she wouldn't get any of his or her juices on her freshly made bed.

Warm water had always been her cure for bad dreams, bad mornings or simply bad days. She felt refreshed and ready to take on the world again as she walked back to her dorm, humming Goo Goo Doll's Iris softly as she swung her shower-bag back and forth. Her mood was so light that she barely saw the white envelope taped to the middle of her murky brown door. It was only when the light from the window of the end of the hall caught the whiteness of the envelope that she saw it.

Still humming softly to herself, she plucked it down and brought it with her. The shower-bag was hung on the hook next to her closet, as usual, before she started to remove her robe as she also opened the envelope.

Standing naked as the day she was born, she read the note inside three time before picking up the small, grey business card that followed.

Edward A. Cullen, attorney of Law.

1-617-987-864

The note read

Isabella Swan,

I now know your name and along with that, I can get my hands on your life story if I want to. I can assure I will not do so and I will neither let the public know of your little "side-job", as long as you do as I say.

I find you good at what you do and you helped me release some much built up tension last night, and because of that, I am willing to make a deal with you: let me call you whenever I will need some much needed release, and answer, and your dirty little secret will be safe and you can live a life outside of the bars of jail.

Call it blackmail if you want to, but I guess there is a reason for why you have let yourself go to such a job, so if I were you, I wouldn't think too much about it and just take the deal: I'm only giving you one chance to do so. If you decide to turn me down, I will not hesitate to let it all become public and no matter how long you crawl on your knees, a position I enjoyed tremendously, I will not bow down to you.

You have until the end of the day, at midnight, to give me your answer.

Edward A. Cullen

Shocked, Bella sat down on her bed and stared into nothing for what seemed like forever. When her eyes started to burn with dryness, she blinked a few times and glanced at her clock. It was one in the afternoon, giving her only eleven hours to actually form a coherent thought.

Blackmail had just been thrown in her face by a man who actually held his power over her head and out of her reach, her choice of living over her head. From the moment she had decided to let the boys on campus use her like arm-candy, she had only thought about her dad and how much he needed her help, no matter how hard he tried to refuse the truth.

With Charlie Swan in her mind and heart, she had come up with a way that would lead the boys to her dorm, a way that filled her two shoeboxes with money faster than she liked to admit. It became a trend among the guys at campus to use her if they needed a date and didn't dare to show up alone, or if they only needed someone to make a girl jealous. Swamped with school at day, she became swamped with dates at night, some nights so fully booked that she sometimes didn't enter her dorm again until two in the morning.

The stress from school and the stress from keeping the truth from Charlie had taken it's toll on her and when her second Christmas in Boston came around, she gave Charlie a lame excuse about school that made it impossible for her to travel home to San Francisco and see him. She spent the holidays sleeping and eating, resting her body.

A deep sigh escaped her and she squeezed her eyes shut as she thought about her opportunities: she could ignore him, Edward A. Cullen, and go on with her life as he spread her dirty secret to everyone she knew, and some more. On the other hand, she could pick up her phone, call him and agree to his terms, at least almost.

"Eleven hours," she murmured to herself, her eyes strained on the note in her hands.

Five minutes to midnight, she picked up her phone and dialed his number, her mind all over the place as she paced the floor in front of her twin bed.

"Edward Cullen," his dark and masculine voice sounded through the phone.

"It's me," she said in a small voice, realizing that he didn't know who 'me' was, "Bella, from last night."

"Ah, Bella, cutting it kind of close aren't we?" he laughed and she almost laughed with him, his laughter infectious.

"I've been thinking," she murmured into the phone as she stopped in front of her window, one hand caressing the smooth wood, memories from the night before flooding her mind.

"Well, since you called, I guess we have an agreement. If you're calling to tell me that there will be no agreement, I will have the dean at your college know about your little side-job," her hand stilled on the windowsill and she stared back at herself through the window.

"We have an agreement," she whispered, gripping the phone tightly.

"Fantastic. Meet me tomorrow at the coffee shop one block from the bar we met, Little Cup, at noon. If you don't show up, well, you know what will happen." And then he hug up.

*** C R S ***

Her hands were shaking and she was tripping on her feet as she tried to convince herself that it wasn't such a big deal if everyone found out about her little side-job, but she couldn't: it would not only ruin her reputation but it would ruin her dad if he found out.

Smoothing down her light blue denim shirt and her dull brown hair, she took a deep breath before entering the small coffee shop. It was her favorite place and through her three years in college, she had spent countless hours in one of the many corners, reading and surveying.

He was easy to spot among all the customers who came in to get their daily caffeine to survive the day: even sitting, he held himself in such a way that it was impossible not to notice him.

Wearing a tight black t-shirt and a grey west over it, showing of his beautiful art on his arms, he looked like a Greek God in the sunlight coming through the window, and the bad boy every parents wanted to shield their daughters from.

"You seem to have a habit of cutting it kind of close, don't you?" he said as she reached his table in the far corner of the coffee shop.

"I apologize if my timing isn't satisfactory to you," she said calmly, sitting down, hanging her little black purse over the back of the chair.

"Why so formal, Bella?" he asked, her name rolling delicately off his tongue.

"Can we just start and get this over with?" she asked as Ana, one of the many girls who worked at Little Cup, came with a cup of black coffee, three sugars and a small dash of cream, Bella's favorite.

"Here you go Bella," Ana smiled and Bella gave her a ten dollar bill, knowing fully well that she was overpaying Ana.

"Thanks," she smiled warmly at the girl as she stuffed the bill in her pocket and went back to her job. Turning back to him, her smile disappears.

"Since there's no need beating around the bush," he took a swig of an unlabeled bottle, "I know what you've been doing for the last two years and we both know that it's illegal, and that if any teacher had found out, you would have been banned from schools all over the country. There's still a chance that you will be banned from schools if anyone found out, making it practically impossible for you to take a masters in whatever you've studied. I'm your saving angel," he smirked and she felt the urge to slap it off his face.

There was a long silence between them and she stared down at her coffee. "You are threatening to out me, so what would you want in return?"

"I think I made it clear in the note I left you yesterday, that there's only one thing I want from you and so far, you've already given it to me once. Through the summer, at least for three months, you will be available for me whenever I need it. I know for a fact that you have your dorm until the middle of August and that you don't have a job, other than the obvious one we've already talked about."

"You want me to be on your beck and call?"

"Yes."

"Uhm, ok?" she was agreeing with him but her answer still came out sounding like a question. However, he didn't pick up on it.

"I expect you to give up all of your clients right away," he said with a face set in stone.

It wouldn't be a problem, as her job as Cupid was over, the jealous girlfriends back with their loving and caring boyfriends already, but she didn't tell him that: it was better to let him have his own illusion of her.

"Ok," was all she said.

"I will of course pay, so you don't go poor over the summer, but instead of using a steady amount, I will decided depending on how you please me."

"So if I one day doesn't feel good and, what, gives a bad blowjob, you will then give me basically nothing?" she didn't care about the money, she never really had, but they were still very important for others.

"Exactly," he nodded, "Over the summer, there might be some late summer parties, Fourth of July is of course important, and there will be several baroques. For those, I just might need you to play the part as my date so I don't have to take time of getting to know someone new."

They sat in silence and Bella took the chance to look around to see who had decided to visit the little shop, but she didn't recognize anyone from her classes or any of those who had been her 'customers' through the last years.

"You know," she started, looking out through the window and those who hurried down the street, "I find you rather shallow."

"Says the girl who's selling herself," he shot back at her.

"You are blackmailing me for your own gain. At least what I've been doing has been for the pleasure and need others have had. I've given them what they needed, not taken what I wanted."

"I see you point," she hadn't expected him to agree on anything that would ever leave her mouth and head snapped in his direction, "But I have disagree on one thing: I'm not shallow, I only know when there's something for me to gain."

"In my eyes, that's the same thing as shallow."

Sitting back in his chair, she watched how the black t-shirt stretched across his muscular chest and how they moved as he lifted up his left arm, glancing at his watch.

"I have a meeting in twenty minutes, but I will be at your dorm around four. Be there." Before she could come with a crud comment, he left.

Expect chapter three Friday 30th of January!

AN: for no reason at all, I want to explain why I'm having a two weeks break between every chapter. There are two reasons. One: to build up the anticipation, the longing for a new chapter. Two: to give myself time to continue the story. I have enough chapters to post one every week for the next five weeks, but where is the fun giving it all away, right away?