Jokes
"Well...you see...the thing is..." Carlisle began, but Esme had already made her own assumptions about the 'business' that Riley and Carlisle had together, and it was not an idea that she liked that much to be honest. With lightning speed Esme vaulted over the table that stood between her and Riley and picked up and lemon. Esme rammed the lemon right down Riley's throat until the whole of her hand was lost inside his mouth. Riley gagged, clutching his neck, trying to cough up the lemon that must have tasted foul to his vampire taste buds, and he stumbled around the kitchen unable to concentrate on where he was going on account of the large lemon that was lodged inside his oesophagus. After a few minutes of watching this, everyone was too shocked to actually do anything to help the poor boy, Riley collapsed into a heap on the now sticky linoleum.
This time it appeared that Riley truly was dead and every stood, still stunned, staring at his lifeless body. "By 'dirty little secret' Edward meant that I was helping Riley to piece himself back together after the...incident" Carlisle said calmly for a man who had just watched his wife murder an un-dead colleague of his for no apparent reason. Edward nodded. "I think I may have overreacted, I meant that it was a danger for all of us, seeing as Riley did try and kill both me and Bella just a few short months ago" Edward reasoned.
"I have reason to believe he changed, like Jasper, he was unaware that there was another way and I was showing him how we live" Carlisle replied.
Esme looked horrified, she had jumped to the wrong conclusions and now a (mostly) innocent vampire was dead, she knew that Carlisle would never betray her like that. Why had she jumped to the wrong conclusion? On that thought Alice burst into the room shouting "NO! ESM-" but she cut off before she could even finish her sentence. Glancing at the floor Alice added "Oh, it appears I am too late, sorry about the interruption, carry on" and she left the room in a graceful leap, smirking as she left.
Bella could not understand why Alice was smiling about this. A vampire had died for no reason and they were stuck with the body of a boy who went missing presumed dead, what exactly where they supposed to do about that? "So...what should we do with the body" Edward mused aloud "We can't just leave it here"
"I suggest we-" but for the second time the end of the sentence was cut off. Riley leapt off the floor, coughing out the lemon. When the fruit was finally free of his airway he shouted "JOKES! I don't even need to breathe" clearly assuming that he had just played an immensely funny joke on the Cullen's and Bella.
Everyone shot steely glances at Riley and Carlisle quickly ushered him out of the room, Esme whipped around the room cleaning it at lightning speed until she too left, leaving Edward and Bella alone. "Sorry about your surprise" Edward said apologetically "I suppose I will just have to make it up to you some other way" and he whisked Bella up in his arms and carried her to his bedroom at the end of the hallway on the second floor.