Hello my lovely's!!! How are you all doing, so sorry that this took so long. Long story short, I own a video store and I had all my year end tax crap to do and it took all of my free writing time. Good news though, I am done and I can devote all of my free time to you guys!!! Thank you all for reading and reviewing!! You guys are the best!!
I also want to give a shout out to my beta Yuki Sakura-Chan. Check out her stories, they are awesome!!
Just a reminder I put the links to their outfits on my profile. Check em out!!
Disclaimer: I sadly do not own Twilight or any of the lovely characters. They belong to the wonderfully talented Stephenie Meyer. I do own the original story line and any original characters. But I do own: All of the books, soundtracks to both movies, Team Edward t-shirt, Twilight the movie, and used ticket stubs to Twilight and New Moon.
Last chapter:
"I have something I would like to say to you," she sneered.
I stared at her in a stunned silence. What could she honestly have to say to me? I couldn't even imagine. She took my silence as the go ahead to say whatever she wanted to.
"I just wanted to say that I know what you are doing and if you think that I am going to lie down, so that you can sink your claws back into Edward, you are sorely mistaken," she ranted.
Strawberry blonde bimbo say what? "Excuse me," I said in shock.
"What part of that didn't you understand?" she retorted with condensation dripping in her tone.
"Who the heck do you think you are? Alice jumped up, as always quick to my defense.
I held my hand up, and stopping her from saying anything else.
"This Alice, is Tanya Cardell, Edward's business partner," I explained.
"I would be more than that if you would leave him alone," she said furiously.
"I really cannot, for the life of me, understand what you mean by that statement," I replied in all honesty.
"Hmm… well let me explain it to you then," she said, taking a step closer to me. "Edward was finally starting to move on right before we left Chicago. I knew that he was close to finally realizing how good he and I could be together, but then we have to run into you at that lame video store, and now he is all, I only love Bella, and I can only be with Bella. So, I am here to say, back off what's mine. I am the one who held his hand and put his heart back together. I am the one who deserves to carry his last name, not your plain ass."
Before she could say anything else, Rose jumped up and got in her face.
"I advise you to back the fuck up, before I make you," she said, pointing her perfectly manicured finger into Tanya's face.
"Rose," I said, standing up and gently pulling her arm away from Tanya. "I've got this."
I turned towards Tanya. "You have no idea what you are talking about. Edward left me four years ago, for extremely stupid reasons, and it is not my fault or my doing that he is unable to be with you."
Her eyes turned a deadly blue, and she replied with such arrogance, "I do know what I am talking about. I am the one who has been there for him the last four years."
"You keep saying that. Do you want a medal or maybe a cookie for being there? I find it so ridiculous that you are even confronting me about this. I will only say this once Tanya, so please pay attention. Edward is free to be with anyone he wants to be with. If you haven't noticed, he walked away from me. Not the other way around. So, if you have an issue with your relationship with him, you really should take up with him,… not me. If we have to have this conversation again, I can't promise that I won't punch you right in your perfect nose. Have I made myself clear?" I said, keeping my tone soft, and not wanting to draw any unwanted attention to our table.
"Crystal," she bit out. "I also want to make myself clear on something Bella. I am not letting you have him, so expect a fight if you even try."
Then she turned on her heel and stormed off. I huffed out a breath and flopped back down into my chair. Rose and Alice did the same.
"Can you believe the nerve of that girl," I ranted. "It's not my fault that Edward doesn't want her hoochie ass."
Alice snorted in laughter. "What?" I demanded
"You said hoochie ass," she chortled.
"Yes I did. Are you like twelve? Will you bust up if I say penis?" I mocked. "Maybe."
"Well I for one think that she is a bit of a psycho, if you ask me," Rose said, turning the conversation back to Tanya.
"The fact that she had the audacity to confront me in a restaurant is beyond me. Not only is it embarrassing, it makes me so angry. I was having a nice, normal day. The first that I have had in forever, but of course Edward drama has to rear its ugly head, once again," I spouted off, grabbing my glass of wine and downing it.
The more that I sat there and thought about it, the angrier I got. I can't believe that I am even in this situation. It reminds me of something off of some soap opera. I don't know if it was the wine, or the burning anger raging through my gut, but I finally realized that I was ready to confront Edward on all of this bullshit. I slapped my palm onto the table and said, "Well girls, I am going to have to take a rain check on lunch."
"What? You've already ordered," Alice said in confusion.
"Yeah, here," I said digging into my purse, and pulled out a crisp twenty and slapped it on the table. "This should cover my meal."
"Bella, don't let that bitch run you off," Rose said, pushing the money back towards me.
I snorted, "I should thank her."
"You are confusing the hell out of me Bella," Alice said.
"Sorry, I'm not meaning too. But I think that I am ready to confront Edward on everything."
"Really?" Rose said, her eyes dancing in amusement.
"Before you ask Rose, no you can't come and watch."
"Fine!" she pouted, "but I want a play by play, once you're done."
"I will call you both once I am done," I said, standing.
"Give him hell," Rose said
"Yeah, open a can of whoop ass on him," Alice added.
"Al, do you even know what that means?" I asked.
"What? Em is always yelling it at the screen during football. I thought it was appropriate,"
"Okay," I responded chuckling. "I'll see you two yahoos later."
I made my way out of the restaurant. I then realized that I had driven with Alice and I had no idea where to find Edward. I pulled out my cell and quickly dialed his number.
"Bella," his voice surprised.
"Where do you live?"
"Huh?"
"Edward, I asked where do you live?" I said, impatiently.
"Oh, um, 19762 Patterson Avenue, Apartment 17B. Why?"
"I am on my way, and I am ready to talk," I said in a rush as I hailed a cab.
"I will let the doorman know that you are on your way."
"Fine," I said, closing my phone and then giving his address to the cabbie. I sat back against the vinyl seat and thought about everything. I held fast to the anger that had made its home in my gut. I knew I was going to need, to say everything to Edward that I needed to say.
Before I knew it, we were pulling up in front of a very nice, brick apartment building. I quickly paid the cab fare and exited the vehicle. After taking a few calming breaths, I stilled my nerves and pushed open the gilded doors of the building.
"Excuse me Miss, can I help you?" a large man asked from the concierge desk.
"Mr. Cullen, in apartment 17B is expecting me."
"Miss Swan?" he asked
"Yes."
"I need to see your ID, and then you're good to go."
I showed him my driver's license, cringing because I remember how awful I look in that picture.
"Okay Miss Swan, this way," he said, stepping out from behind his desk and walking towards the elevators. He punched in a ridiculously long code and then the doors opened.
"Have a nice day," he then walked back to his desk, leaving me to enter the elevator all alone.
Once the doors closed, shutting me in the metal box, I thought about how fancy this building is. I had never been to apartment that I had to show my ID and have to punch in a special code just to use the elevator. Edward must really be in the money now. The realization of that only fueled my anger more. The main reason for him leaving was because he was afraid that he couldn't support me, but only four years later he is living in one the plushest buildings I have ever been in.
The doors opened to his floor, snapping me out of the haze of anger that had spread around me. I quickly walked down the hall until I saw a large, golden 17B on one of the two doors in the hallway. I stopped in front of it and took a large breathe. It's now or never. I lifted my hand up and knocked twice on the solid wood door. A few seconds later, the door swung open to reveal a gorgeous Edward wearing nothing but a pair of jeans and a tight, black, long sleeve shirt. This is the Edward I remember.
"Bella," he said, his eyes taking me in. "Come in"
He stepped aside, letting me pass him into his extremely rich looking apartment. The entry way was done in black and white swirled marble. The heels of my shoes clicked against it sharply. I walked into his living room and sucked in a breath. The floors were a dark cherry wood, and the couches black leather with matching cherry tables. I can't even describe the different pictures on the wall, because the only one that caught my eye was a large black and white picture of Edward and I tangled together in the sand at first beach. I remembered the day that it was taken, we had all gone there as a group. Edward and I had only been dating a few months and still snuck off any chance to get to make out. On this particular occasion, we found a large sand dune and made ourselves comfortable, so comfortable in fact that we didn't hear Alice sneak up behind us and take a picture.
I broke my gaze away from the intimate photo, my cheeks turning a bright red in the process.
"Oh Bella, I don't think I can handle the blushing right now." Edward groaned out. My eyes snapped up to meet his, his normally green eyes were almost black. I knew what that meant, which only made me blush harder. "Damn it Bella," my brain snapped, "Remember your anger." I instantly snapped back into reality and the reason I was here.
Edward must have noticed the change in my expression, as the look of lust slowly faded from his eyes, replaced my instant…fear?…sorrow? Maybe a mixture of both.
He cleared his throat "Do you want anything to drink?" he asked nervously. "I have some juice, water…."
"I'm fine," I said a little too sharply. Edward winced at my tone.
"Okay….you said you wanted to talk,"
"I do. I would like to start by saying that I would appreciate it if you kept your friend Tanya the hell away from me,"
"What?" he asked, his eyes narrowing.
"She cornered me at a restaurant this afternoon,"
"What did she say?" he asked with his jaw tense.
"Basically, that I needed to stay away from you. She made it clear that she had feelings for you and that given the chance, you would return those feelings," I said as I started pacing back and forth. The anger was now welling up from my gut and spread throughout all of my body. "She seems to think that I am holding you back from being with her,"
"God, that woman is so infuriating. I spoke with her yesterday and clearly explained to her that she is holding onto to something that isn't going to happen. Bella you have to believe me when I tell you that I have no feelings for her, and it's only you."
"Stop," I said. "I don't want to hear it Edward, I'm not here because I am mad that she thinks you have feelings for her. I'm here because she embarrassed me in front of a restaurant full of people, and I am also here because I need to get some things off of my chest."
"I deserve whatever you have to say," he said sadly. I took that as the go ahead to begin my rant.
"I want to start be telling you that the reasons you left are so fucking stupid, I can't believe you honestly left just because you were going to get cut off from Carlisle and Esme. Obviously you had no trust in me, in us, if you did then you would have known that we could have made it work no matter what. I know you said you didn't want me to give up on my dreams, so that we could afford to live, but you failed to notice was that you were my dreams. Waking up beside you, reading the news paper together, grocery shopping, making love, having your children, watching your hair gray and fall out, holding your wrinkled hand as we watched our grandchildren, those were my dreams. Money, college, material things, those were just fringe benefits.
I didn't need those things, as long as I had you. But you couldn't live without those things, you are so worried that you would have failed me, but in leaving you did that. I wouldn't have ever thought you a failure by quitting medicine, I would have thought you were brave, brave enough not to settle for something that made you un-happy and I would have supported and defended you because of it.
So for you to come here and tell me that you left because of those things, is a slap in my face because I thought that we had more than that, but now I realize that I was wrong, we had nothing." I said, walking over to the window and looking out at the gorgeous view that he had.
"Bella," he finally said after a few minutes. "I'm so sorry."
"That's not enough Edward," said softly, not turning around. "Maybe if you would have said that years ago, then maybe I could have accepted it and forgave you, but not now. Too much time has passed, too much hurt. There are scars there now that I'm sorry to say won't heal,"
"You have to believe me when I say that I only did what I thought was best for you,"
Hearing him say that made the anger flair back up in me. "That was always your biggest problem Edward, you always thought you knew what was best for me, but I have to say that you were wrong."
I turned to face him, he was standing closer to me then I realized.
"Your right," he whispered. "I was wrong. Please tell me I'm not too late though."
"You're kidding me, right?" I asked in disbelief.
"I'm very serious,"
"Have you not heard anything I said Edward? You left me, because you didn't have any money. But look at you, you live in the lap of luxury. You obviously did very well for yourself. You obviously found a way to support yourself. So you're really standing here in your penthouse apartment and want to know if you still have a chance?" I ranted.
"Yes I am. I have no explanations for my actions, except only that I was young and stupid. I didn't realize that I could do this by myself," he said, his hand gesturing around his apartment. "Please Bella,"
"I can't Edward," I said
"You can't what? Be with me?"
"I can't do this right now, I can't answer that,"
"Can you at least forgive me; can you at least give me a chance at fixing this?" he begged.
I thought about what he asked, was I ready to forgive him. I knew that I wasn't ready for what he wanted, I'm not even sure if I could ever be with him again, plus I had Riley to consider. I needed time to think about all of this, I needed time to talk to everyone else and hopefully they could help me. Then an idea came to me, one that would help buy me some time.
Smirking I looked up at Edward, his face going from sad to confused at my expression.
"I can forgive you Edward," I started, his face breaking out into a huge smile. "Only if Emmett does." I finished, the smile slipping off of his face.
"Are you serious?" he asked
"Very," I said, grabbing up my purse "Now I'm going to go,"
"Just a minute," he said, grabbing my arm. A slow smile spread across his face, he took a step closer to me, causing my breath to hitch. "I'm going to need Emmett's phone number if I'm going to gain his forgiveness."
"Of course," I stammered out, not liking how my body always seems to react to his nearness.
I spouted off Emmett's number from memory, he quickly added to his phone.
"Well, I really need to go now," I said, taking a few steps towards the door.
"Why? Do you have a hot date or something," he asked, his trade mark smirk dancing across his face. That smirk always pissed me off, narrowing my eyes at him I said "Maybe," and shrugged my shoulders.
His face contorted into an angry grimace before shifting back into one of passiveness.
"So your still see that guy then?"
"Yes I am," I stated calmly, taking another step towards the door.
"Why?"
"Why wouldn't I be?"
"He's not right for you," he stated like that was so obvious.
"Are we really going to have this conversation again?" I asked in annoyance.
"We are going to keep having this conversation until you realize the truth,"
"The truth Edward, do you want to know the truth?" I asked, anger seeping into my tone again.
"Sure," he drawled, closing the distance between us.
"I have feelings for Riley, and I plan on seeing where this relationship is going,"
He was so close that I could see the muscle in his jaw clench and then relax, only to tense again. He took a sharp breathe through his nose and then released it.
"You can't seriously have feelings for this guy," he said through clenched teeth.
"Why not?"
"Because I said so,"
"Because you said so? Really Edward, what are we thirteen? You're so mature," I spat out at him.
"It's not like that Bella. I just don't think he's what you want. I think that you are settling for him because your too scared of your heart is telling you," he amended.
I just shook my head at him, how he even has the nerve to stand there and tell me that I am too scared is beyond me.
"Call me when you get Emmett's forgiveness," I said pulling open the door and walking out.
"I'm not giving up on us Bella, I will fix this," he said, sounding so much like the Edward from my dream.
I didn't turn around. I kept walking until I was in the elevator. I didn't even look up, and just let the doors close, and then let the tears follow..
I composed myself before I left the elevator, not really want to give the doorman a show. I was in a daze all the way home, not even remembering that I was even in a cab until we pulled up to my building. I silently paid the man and climbed out, I was exhausted. I decided that I needed a long hot bath and a good night worth of sleep. I knew that Rose and Alice were expecting a phone call, but it would have to wait until tomorrow.
I woke the next morning feeling a lot better. I had a night of dreamless sleep, which was something that I was very thankful for. I made my way into the kitchen, to make a pot of coffee, which something that I was going to need before I talked to either of my girls. Once I was properly caffeinated, I picked up my phone and called them on three way. There was no way that I was having this conversation more than once.
After getting a thorough ass chewing from Rose about not calling the night before, they finally let me tell them everything. They had a good laugh at my Emmett plan, and Rose reminded me that I better talk to Emmett before Edward calls though, and I quickly agreed with her. I told her that I would call him this evening after my date with Riley. I really didn't see Edward calling Emmett anytime soon.
After I finished with that conversation, I realized that I needed to get ready for my lunch date with Riley. After a quick shower, I sent a text off to him, asking when he would be here. I didn't have to wait long for a reply.
Bella,
I will be there in about an hour beautiful.
Riley
Crap I didn't have as much time as I thought. I quickly slipped on the pink dress I had chosen early. I added some gold jewelry and strappy gold sandals. I let my hair do its natural soft waves and added some soft makeup. I stopped to admire my handy work in the mirror, "Not too bad Bella" I thought just as a knock landed on my front door.
I fluffed my hair one last time and opened the door.
"You look absolutely amazing," he complimented, pulling me in for a soft kiss.
"Thank you. You don't look so bad yourself," I said taking in his khaki pants and nice blue button up.
"Well I'm glad I decided to take you somewhere nicer then Subway," he laughed, taking in my pale pink dress.
"Oh, we could go anywhere you want, I just wanted to look nice for you," I added on shyly.
"And waste how amazing you look, I don't think so," He said, grabbing my cream cardigan wrap and helping me into it.
We had a very lovely lunch at a high end sushi restaurant, we joked, laughed, and talked. None of the awkwardness from our last conversation present, thankfully. As we finished lunch, he grabbed my hand.
"Bella, would you like to take a walk?"
"Sure, I would like that,"
We spent the next hour walking, stopping to check out different little boutiques. At a sidewalk flower stand, he bought me small, lovely bouquet of white roses, which earned him a kiss. I was having such a nice time, and I really hated to see the afternoon end. I told him as much as he deposited me at my front door.
"I had a really good time too Bella," he said leaning in and giving me chaste kiss.
"Thank you for the lovely lunch and the flowers," I said, twirling the small bouquet in my hand.
"Your very welcome, I would like to see you again soon," he said
"I think we could work something out," I said, laughing.
"Good," he said leaning in again and capturing my lips in a heated kiss. I wound my hands up into his hair, tugging him closer to me and earning a throaty moan as well. Just as I felt his tongue slip out and trace my bottom lip, I heard Emmett's ring tone blaring from my purse. I chose to ignore it and continue kissing Riley. After the ringing stopped, it started again. Groaning I pulled away from Riley and gave him an apologetic smile.
"That would be my brother," I explained, pulling my phone out.
"Well I should let you take that, it must be important if he's calling again," he said, softly kissing me one last time. "I will call you tomorrow,"
"Okay, I'll talk to you then," I said, pulling open my door and walking inside. I quickly called Em back before he called me.
"Isabella Marie Swan, why the hell didn't you tell me that you talked to Edward again," he demanded.
Okay all together now: Dun, dun, dun…..I know I am an asshole for always leaving it at a cliffy, it was necessary as this chapter is mondo long.
I will be sending out an excerpt from next chapter to everyone that reviews. I can only send it to signed reviews. So if you are reviewing anonymously then I won't be able to send you anything, So, sign your reviews and get a little treat!!! I still love all you anonymous reviewers though, so still feel free to review and let me know what you think!! Have a great week!! ;)