A/N: I most first appologize for the long delay of this chapter and I most confess it's because I added so much it actually made an entirely new chapter. The good news is that since it's done the wait for the ch 12 will no where be as long, if long at all. I really hope you enjoy this chapter. I know I had a blast, maybe too much, writing this.
Chapter Eleven
Life was great. I had my best friend back, which in truth hadn't planned on going anywhere in the first place. She'd forgiven me before I had even ask for it but according to her, it was fun watching me beg. Apparently Alice had been curious enough to call over to my job to find out what was my hold up and had heard all about the 'missing' document.
She'd only put me on punishment to see how long it would take me to figure out that all of it was a game to her, too bad it had taken me four days and a lot of unnecessary work before she fessed up.
Two weeks after the opening, which was a grand success, I was hanging out at Alice's place as she sketched the final piece to her fall collection. It was of course beautiful, very elegant and very Alice.
I was leaning over her shoulder as her hands blurred inhumanly fast over the paper. Her collection was formulated by dresses, suit's and of course shoes inspired by the fashionable up town New York working women.
She stopped suddenly and held the pad up at arms length.
"What do you think?" she asked slightly hesitated and I thought it was so uncalled for because as I said before, everything Alice touched turned to gold, from her stylish jeans, to her line of red carpet attire. Alice was indeed a clothing God, or Goddess in her case.
It had only been two weeks and Alice in Wonderland was a hit, clothes were flying off the shelf and I for only was grateful that all the clothes I got from there were free of charge. Because there was no way that I, Bella Swan could afford them. To me jeans costing over $800 just wasn't worth it. But Alice's were.
"It's gorgeous." It was short baby doll dress, a beautiful deep purple, simple but complex all at once. She grinned up at me.
"You think so." It always surprised me when some one as beautiful and confident as Alice could sometimes be so self conscience but that was only because she loved doing it so much.
I nodded as I took a seat on the couch and began flipping through the movies she had saved on her enormous television. I wasn't sure what it was with rich people and large TV's but Alice had one and so did Edward Cullen.
Ooh, Interview with a vampire, I thought. I switched to the watch it and soon a young Brad Pitt was on screen. My heart melted. I didn't know anyone in their right mind that didn't find Brad Pitt extremely sexy in this movie. I glanced over and saw that the movie had caught Alice's attention as well.
In fact, this had to be on the many reasons why Alice and I were such great friends. We both had an apperception for Brad's godlike bone structure and killer smile.
Still it didn't compare to Edward Cullen's who had beat him out of the sexist man alive number one spot three years in a row.
I stopped myself. Where had that come from?
Too be honest, now that I thought about it, I had been having thought's like that for the last couple of days. One minute I was thinking about something random and the next I picturing his eyes, and his lips. Just last night I had dreamt about him for the second time. Was I having a mental break down? Was work becoming too stressful? If it was, It sure as hell didn't feel like it. But what else could be causing me to picture my incredible hot boss like this. I stopped my myself again. Great it was getting worst.
I didn't want to admit it, but I was beginning to think about Mr. Cullen outside of work in very inappropriate ways. And I was noticing things about him that I hadn't before.
I had never given it any real consideration because Mr. Cullen was that good looking but lately it wasn't just his looks had me thinking about him. It was the size his hands, so manly and the way that even after a day at the office he never had wrinkles in his clothes. It was the almost dangerous lure he had is eyes when he glance up at me when he was in deep thought.
And more so the way he always encouraged me even when I broke something or got something wrong. He didn't mind teaching me and none of my acts of clumsiness seemed to bother him. They actually made him smile. And man, was his smile something. It had the power from day one to wipe my mind clean to where all I could see was his perfect lips spread over his unnaturally white teeth.
The vision of him smiling as he wished me a good weekend earlier today cause me to grin absent mindedly.
"What are you so happy about so suddenly?" I heard and turned to Alice.
"Nothing," My smile disappearing. She leaned back to stared at me.
"What?" I asked.
Then she gasped and jumped to her feet. I barely saw her.
"You got laid, didn't you?" she pointed at me accusingly.
I was taken back by surprise. "What!"
"Tell me who it was?" She inquired, perching her small frame right next to me. Actually it was more like on top of me.
"I didn't get laid," I answered slightly saddened by that fact that my words were true.
Alice frowned as she searched my face. She seemed more disappointed than me.
"Don't lie to me," she tried one last time, still searching my expression.
She sounded sadly like my mother but like my mother she should know that lying was not my forte. I had never been good mainly because my every expression was plastered on my face. I hadn't been a good liar when I was six and accidentally broke my mom's jewelry box and definitely not when I had first moved to New York and I tried to make everyone believe that I loved it here. I was still working on that.
"I'm not I swear!" and I almost wished it wasn't true. Still she must have believed me because she backed up enough for me to breath again. I sighed. I needed to get a man.
The weekend flew by quickly, but not before Kate, Alice and I, mostly Kate decided to form a morning jogging club. So early and when I say early the birds weren't even up yet, we headed to central park. Now everyone had heard the rumors about the park but really it was a beautiful place, I realized as my lungs screamed for air.
Just like lying, running was not my cup of tea, and with two left feet it often left me with bruised knees and hands, sometimes elbows.
Alice was a natural runner and jogged with Jasper all the time so that it was only Kate and I who were out of shape. Maybe this was a good thing I thought, and then felt my chest burn for oxygen, and thought never mind.
I wasn't sore to my surprise when I walked into the building and said hello to Bill the security guard but I was sure I would feel it in the morning.
I stood grinning as I waited for the elevator so happy that I could have burst into song but I wouldn't cause that was just another thing I wasn't good at.
"Hello," I looked up
"Hey Mike" I beamed. The elevator doors opened and we entered,
"How are you this morning?" He asked flashing me a brilliant smile.
"I'm great, how are you?" and then I remembered
"Did you ever get that fax from Japan?" he nodded and shoved one hand into the front pocket of his dust gray suit.
"Ya!" He chuckled.
Late Friday Jessica had come up to talk to me about something that had apparently gone wrong in the Japanese branch of the Cullen Corpation. But they wouldn't know more about it until they got more details, aka the fax.
"So you'll be pretty busy today," I added for a conversation.
"I guess" he replied. "But not to busy to show you where you can get the best Panini's in New York City." He grinned and glanced over at me from the corner of his eye.
"Really, where?" I asked truly interested.
The elevator dinged, telling us that we had reached our first destination.
"You'll just have to wait and see. See you at lunch," And then he was gone and I was left staring at the inside of the elevator doors. I smiled.
I realized I liked Mike, he reminded me so much of a friend of mine from College. I hoped we'd be good friends.
I was seated in front of my computer working on Mr. Cullen's schedule for the next week, when the phone rang. I actually jumped because I had been completely focused trying to train my brain to leave my thoughts of my boss out. It had worked.
" Good Morning, Edward Cullens Office,"
"Hello," came a voice, soft and pleasant. Instantly I was charmed.
"May I speak to Edward please." I noted the use of Mr. Cullen's first name.
I listened for a moment, and I could still hear Edwards voice faintly going on and on in Japanese. He was trying to get the problem solved and he did not sound happy. Come to think about it, my extremely talented boss was fluent in more than 25 languages and here I could speak very little Quileute and even less Spanish.
"I'm sorry, but he not available right now. Can I take a message and have him call you back." I rummaged around for a sticky pad.
"Sure, tell him to call home, and that his mother would like to speak with him."
So this was his mother, I noted.
"Sure." I replied as a wrote.
"Oh and tell him he's in big trouble for ignoring my call." she added. I grinned and held back a giggle.
"Okay." Edward's mom was sweet as well as funny. I remembered the dark haired women in the photo on his desk.
"I'll be sure to let him know."
"Thank you. What's your name by the way," She asked curoiously.
"Bella Swan,"
"Bella! So you're Eddy's new assistant." I nodded, as if she could see me. My face also lit up.
"Oh, Edwards so pleased with you. He's always saying how good you are."
" I can assure you Mrs. Cullen, he's over exaggerating." Inside my heart was racing, but somehow I had managed to keep my voice steady. So Mr. Cullen was pleased with me, huh?
"I didn't care to much for the other assistants he had but I like you. Anyways I don't want to take up too much of your time. Have a good day." I smiled.
" You too, Mrs. Cullen." There was a silence on the other end before the dial tone kicked in and I replaced the phone on it's hook.
She liked me? I grinned.
But she'd never met me, I frowned. And why was my boss talking about me to his mother? Were they that close? After letting my mind race for a few moments I collected myself, stood and taking a deep breathe before I knocked on Mr. Cullen's office door.
"Come in," he answered.
I pushed open the door smiling more than I should have but it was utterly impossible to see him and not.
Upon viewing me in his door way, he waved me in.
"Bella, come in," I closed the door behind me and got straight to it.
"Your mother called," I announced. " She wants you to call her when you get a chance," I read the post it in my hand. He glanced up surprised.
"My mom called?" He sounded slightly horrified. "What did she say?" He prompted. Without reason I found it slightly cute that he referred to his mother as mom. His eyes also brightened when I mentioned her though his face was seldom.
" She says you're in big trouble." I grinned. "Apparently you ignored her call." I nodded toward his phone. He picked up his cell phone off his desk and eyed it before he muttered something that I didn't quite understand.
"I'm so dead," he voiced as he scrolled through his I phone. I chuckled.
"Oh she can't be that bad." I voiced off handedly. "Certainly not worst than my mother. Ignoring her calls is not an option."
He arched on eyebrow as he glanced up at me and the gaze in his eyes stopped me. He suddenly became very serious and very dangerous.
I had never seen him like this.
"You think this is funny?" he rose and traveled around his desk. He was actually making his way toward me. My smile fell from my face and I realized for the first time that Edward Cullen was more dangerous than I had ever imaging. I didn't mean dangerous as he would hurt me but in how he could actually cause people to feel. He had the power to drive women insane, I knew that more now that I ever had.
Seduction came naturally to him, it was in every fiber of his being whether he wanted it or not. My pulse began to rise and my palms were starting to sweat. I wondered why I hadn't seen it before, but then I realized I had been blinded by his perfection.
"No," I answered, swallowing what I could to moisten my mouth that had gone dry.
I caught myself in awe, hypnotized by the way he floated as his inched his way over to me. I was closer to the door than his desk thankfully, so I didn't have far to go to escape but I was frozen, my legs bedded in concrete. He stopped just before and I tilted my head up to gaze at him, anticipating his next move.
Still all I could do was stare in his amazing green eyes noting how they shone mischievously before he broke into a very familiar slanted grin.
"Good, because you have no idea how scary that women can be." His grinned widened. I blinked stunned. Had all of this been just a joke to him? Had he in deed been playing with me?
I couldn't believe it. Edward Cullen was always in control. He was never like this. But at that moment there were two things I were hyper aware of; One, he smelt lightly of cologne, not over powering but just enough to make me want to lean in and breathe deep. Two, he was standing entirely too close. He was less than an arms length away and taller than I remembered, much taller. I could have sworn I could feel the heat from his body. I lost myself staring up at him and he continued to flash me a smile that made me weak in the knees. Then the next thing I knew I he was holding me up.
"Bella?" He caught me. My face brightened when I realized that I had actually collapsed. He held me to him for support, making his scent even more pronouced.
"Are you okay?" he half laughed. I returned to myself then and pulled out of his grasp. I retreated a few feet but the places he had touched me burned in the back of his mind.
I nodded, looking away too overcome by shame to look at him. Then like a knight to my rescue I heard a low voice from the front.
Mike, I thought. Relief swept over me as I moved to make my escape.
"I guess I should see what he needs," I exited swiftly, fleeing because I was wading in dangerous waters. And I knew if I stepped in any further I would drown and I could not, would not fall for Mr. Cullen.
Okay, it was long over due but I hope it was worth it.! Next one's written already so it won't be long. Promise!