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LadySharkey1 rocks my world by being the most amazing, kick-ass beta I could ever imagine.

Chapter 33

Romance…the unromantic way.

And so our trip began.

Every morning Charlie and I would get up with Edward and have breakfast, or in Edward's case, a cup of coffee, before we parted ways in the lobby. He went to eat with his peers (while schmoozing the hell out of them). We went to the beach where my daughter would play in the sand and look for sea creatures while I lounged in a beach chair with my Kindle, keeping a watchful eye on her, when I wasn't exploring the beach, as well.

When we weren't being tourists, Charlie would sign up for various activities with the resort's Kid's Club. Her newest obsession was learning to dive; she begged for extra lessons, which neither her father nor I could deny.

Once Edward could be pried away from his post-conference-day-schmoozing-over-alcoholic-beverages, he joined us for dinner and a relaxing stroll along the beach.

It's a hard-knock life, I know…

It was perfect.

Life was perfect.

In the little bubble that we'd created, the past didn't exist and, at times I could almost fool myself into believing that Edward and I had never broken up. There was a peace between the two of us that had been absent for years, which allowed us to talk more and, when we dared, about difficult subjects and less than stellar circumstances we'd put ourselves in.

We got to know each other all over again and found that though we'd changed, but underneath all the hurt and anger, we were still the same people we were when we fell in love. He was still the man who gave one hundred percent of himself when he saw a cause worth fighting for, and who would be loyal to those he loved until his dying breath. Adulthood and the disappointments of the years behind him had merely added a certain amount of tenacity to his actions.

He knew how hard-fought happiness could be and he was determined to achieve it no matter what he found in his way.

Sitting on our balcony at night, I sometimes wondered how he saw me. During those quiet moments when we merely sat, sipping wine and enjoying the warmth and the foreignness of our surroundings, I was afraid he would find me too changed…that small town prejudice and years of living with the burden of a bad mistake had made me too bitter to be lovable and my shell too hard to form a connection.

In those moments I wished he could see beyond that shell; that he could feel how much I yearned to be loved, but how my own insecurity and fear were holding me back.

Our moments were rarely awkward, though.

Even when we sat in silence there was always the comfort of familiarity between us.

Okay, and maybe a little bit of awkwardness.

But that was us too.

I stretched, my body lazy from the sun as I pushed my sunglasses further up my nose. It was nearly two in the afternoon: time to pick Charlie up from her diving classes. The course was designed especially to teach kids how to safely explore the underwater life. It was just what Charlie would love.

And she did.

Groaning, my body sprung to life again as I brushed the sand off my skin and started shoving my stuff back into the oversized beach bag before heading over to the diving center. I was just in time to pick up a very excited Charlie.

"We went to a coral reef today and you should have seen it, Mom! It was so pretty!" Charlie's eyes were wide with excitement, her hands gesticulating wildly as she went into a detailed account of all the fish, wildlife, and colorful coral she'd seen that day.

I meanwhile chuckled, delighted to see my kid so happy. "I'm glad you liked it, baby."

"I want to live here!" Charlie pouted, her eyes wistful as they moved towards the shoreline. "I can't believe tomorrow's the last day of camp. Can you and Dad find jobs on this island?"

"That's easier said than done, sweetie!" I laughed, trying to imagine a life on the island. It was pretty, and I felt more relaxed than I had in ages, but living there? "I'd miss Grandpa Charlie and Grandma Renee and all of our other loved ones from Forks. And what about the bakery?"

"I hadn't thought of that!" Charlie's pout deepened as the world she knew and loved came back into focus. "I like it here, though."

I sighed happily, taking in my surroundings. "So do I, Charlie. Maybe we can come back some day, though."

"I hope so." Charlie ran out in front of me, the short walk from the diving school to the hotel so familiar it was like we'd walked it all our lives. "Will Daddy be back soon?" she called out over her shoulder as we reached the entrance to the lobby, tugging her own bag stuffed full of a couple of towels and needed supplies after it slipped down her arm.

"I don't know," I replied. Edward's conference had ended that morning with a final breakfast and a formal farewell speech. Last night's informal drinks found him stumbling into our room decidedly tipsy.

It was why I was almost certain he would be in our room, probably with some elaborate plan to make up for what he would probably think was the lack of commitment he'd shown his family by choosing to work over having dinner with his family.

Silly man!

I was no idiot. I knew what had been the driving force between our trip and I damn well knew it wasn't founded on family dinners. It was founded on Edward's education and the advancement of it by mingling with the most talented in his field. If that had him stumbling through the door at three in the morning, knocking over everything in his way en route to his bedroom while not-so-quietly humming the Battle Hymn of the Republic. Then so be it. When he'd finally spotted me standing in the doorway of his room while he was hard at work trying (and failing) to unbutton the buttons of his shirt, he'd been so shocked he'd toppled from the bed, mumbling how pretty I looked in my nightclothes.

It wasn't until I was back in my room after I'd helped Edward undress and tucked him safely into his bed, trying to ward off grabby hands, that I allowed myself to laugh at what had just happened.

That drunk Edward was fun (compared to his night on my front porch a few months ago). But it was a little bit disconcerting to see a man normally so put together let himself go.

I was right about the guilt though.

When we reached our room, we found Edward sitting next to a huge picnic basket, his smile beaming as he watched us walk in. He'd organized it all, down to the tiniest little detail; from the car waiting to pick us up, to a nice, not too long, walk through the magical Manoa rain forest and a delicious picnic next to the thundering roar of the waterfall. He'd even timed our journey back so that we could park the car on the edge of a cliff and watch the sun disappear on the horizon, with his arms lazily slung around Charlie and me.

"You're amazing, you know that?" I spoke, walking onto our balcony after safely tucking a very sleepy Charlie into bed. "How did you find the time to organize all that?" He was standing at the railing, looking out over the ocean, his nearness as I stood next to him made my skin vibrate with the desire to close the gap and touch him. The rest of me, though, still lacked the guts to do it.

He shrugged, his arm brushing against mine as he angled his body towards me. "I wanted to spend some time with my family and one of the other guys mentioned the hike. He did it with his wife and kids a couple of days ago."

"It makes me feel kinda guilty." I sighed, pouring wine into the two empty glasses on the table before sitting down on the small bamboo bench, hoping he would take the hint and sit next to me. Please, do it… "Here I was lying on a beach all day or getting pampered at the hotel spa while you were working and finding the time to think of us."

"Don't be," he was quick to assure me. "I might have been stuck indoors and pretty busy at times, but I was having a great time, even more so because I knew you and Charlie were enjoying yourselves. After everything that's happened, you deserved to have a few days of fun without having to worry about anything else."

"I could say the same for you, as well," I spoke, as he finally sat down beside me, the sides of our bodies so close I could feel the warmth of his skin radiating against me. "You deserve a break as much as I do, maybe even more so since we wouldn't be in this position if I hadn't—"

"We both dropped the ball, Bella," he cut me off. "You might have been the one who ended things and blamed yourself for keeping your mouth shut about your feelings all these years, but what about me? I allowed you to push me away. I didn't fight for my family. I made the choice to leave everything I loved behind! Or did you forget how easily I gave up?"

"After I sent you away," I argued.

"But did you never stop to think about how easily I walked away?" he countered, shaking his head. "If I'd have been a man, I would have put up a fight for you; forced you to explain how you could be in love with me one second and completely out of love the next." He paused, his eyes briefly flickering to mine before settling back on the horizon, his body tense with regret as he went on, "The truth is, a part of me was almost relieved to be offered an 'out'. I loved you and I was completely in love with Charlie but, at the same time, I was nowhere near ready to be a dad; it made it so easy for my dad to talk me into leaving…accepting my spot at U-Dub."

I nodded, organizing my thoughts as I took a sip from my wine. "I always wondered about that. Those days were so confusing; my feelings so conflicted that half of the time I didn't know what to think or feel…but I always did wonder why you left so easily when I expected to have to put up one hell of a fight."

"Would I have been able to persuade you?" he wondered, his eyes returning back to mine.

"Yes," I answered without pause. It was an answer I knew he was going to hate but I had to be honest at that moment. If we wanted to move forward, the last thing we needed between us was secrets. "I regretted my decision the minute you walked out the door. I think that if you'd been persistent, you would have worn me down in the end."

"So we both sucked at making mature decisions," he sighed after a laden silence.

"In our defense: we were still kids who were pretending to be adults," I tried to joke, but it fell flat against the backdrop of our shared past. "I just wish we could put it all behind us and not talk about it again. It happened, we both made mistakes. Is there any reason to keep digging it up again as we battle over which one of us fucked up the most?"

"You're absolutely right." He smiled, his eyes softening as he shifted even closer. "But then, I guess, the million dollar question is: what will we do about the future?"

I swallowed hard, breaking my gaze away from his and cursing myself for doing it at the same time. Coward! "Do we have to decide that now? Can't we just play it all by ear and figure it out as we go?"

"I want you, Bella," he persisted, his fingers slightly clammy as they lifted my chin, forcing my attention back on him. "I might have given up too easily in the past but I'm not going to walk away now. Not again." He paused, his honesty and boldness made me fall in love with him even more. "I know you need time because you're scared of having this blow up in our faces; scared of what will happen to Charlie if it does. But I know it won't end like that."

"How can you know?" I demanded, my voice so thick with emotion that it barely reached above a whisper.

"I've never loved another woman like I've loved you and I know I never will," he declared. "I don't know exactly what's in our future, no one does, but what I do know is that if we don't give this a try, we're only going to end up miserable. So why keep denying it? Why fight fate?"

"Because it makes sense to be cautious?" I was fighting a lost battle. With Edward so persistent and perfect, and my heart already firmly on his side, my head was starting to lose more and more terrain until I found myself half wondering why I was keeping up the fight in the first place. "A couple of months back, we were both in relationships with other people and, up until a few weeks ago, I have to admit I kind of hated you."

"But you don't hate me now, do you?"

I smiled. "No. Not in the slightest."

"Good." He grinned, my heart beat like a hummingbird's wings. "Do you love me?"

"Yes." I blushed, trying to duck my head away but his fingers were still keeping it upright.

His grin deepened. "Even better."

"I'm afraid," I admitted, voicing what little remained of my resistance.

"So am I, but we're going to have to take the plunge here, love," Edward reasoned. "You want this, too; I can see it in your eyes. Your fear is the only thing that's holding you back, but you have to let it go or we'll both be unhappy when we could be making a life together. Haven't we wasted enough time already?"

"We have," I admitted. "But how are we going to make this work? What's going to happen when we get back to Forks?"

"We're going to work out a schedule that fits in both our jobs, a lot of time with our amazing daughter, as well as more than enough time to spend with just the two of us," he started, "and then we're going to tell our friends and families about our decision and ask them for their help and support."

"That will be easier said than done," I muttered, thinking about how my father was going to react when he found out we had rekindled our relationship.

"Then we're just going to have to work a little harder to convince them," he insisted. "When all of that's said and done, we'll have to figure out our long-term goals and expectations, like living together and how we're going to ease Charlie into seeing us both as a unit instead of two separate entities."

I chuckled, leaning my head into his hand. "You talk about it like it's a business merger."

"We can't be too careful about this," Edward reasoned. "If we want to be together, we're not only going to have to put forth a lot of effort, but we're also going to have to keep a level head. We're not kids anymore. We both have grownup responsibilities, and while I'm as committed to my job as you are to yours, I'm not going to stand by and let the world drive us apart again. We're going to find a way to make a beautiful, loving life together."

"Okay," I nodded, swallowing again, with difficulty as I tried to let go of my fear.

The smile on his face was radiating, his eyes shining with happiness and disbelief as he whispered, "Okay?"

I nodded, blushing as I bit my lip. "Okay."

And then he kissed me.

Thoughts?