A/N – Chapter 28 people! Finally! This isn't what I originally wrote, but it's where the story took me when I started re-writing this, so I hope that it's ok. There are only a couple of more chapters to go on this so...Enjoy!

Chapter Twenty-Eight
EPOV

I couldn't help but keep my eyes on the beauty lying next to me in bed as she slept with a peaceful expression. She had said yes. I proposed to the love of my life and she said yes. The early morning light played upon her angelic face and caught the glint of her ring, throwing a myriad of colours on the wall. Every colour in the rainbow was there – red, blue, green, yellow – all of them twirling and twisting as Bella shifted onto her back, causing the covers to slip down to her waist revealing her beautiful mounds as they nearly spilled out over the top of her tank. No, we didn't have sex last night to celebrate. We were, after all, still recovering from being shot. No matter how much I may have wanted to make love to my fiancé, my injured shoulder and her neck put a kibosh on things pretty quickly when we returned from dinner. So, we settled for making out like horny teenagers and snuggling under the blankets by the fireplace before we headed to bed to make out some more and then sleep. To say I was sexually frustrated would be an understatement. If it was only about my own injuries, I would have continued to undress my Kitten and make sweet, passionate love to her – or fuck senseless, same thing. But...there was no way in hell I would ever hurt her and a tumble in the sack could tear her stitches and that shit just wasn't acceptable in my books. My pain I could take - hers...Never.

"Mmmm...Edward..."

I glanced back over to Bella as I heard her moan my name only to see her still fast asleep. She looked beautiful as the wane sun filtered through the curtains onto her. I reached over and trailed my fingers across her cheekbones and she leaned her face into my hand. Even in her subconscious she knew where I was. I watched as her eyes fluttered open slowly and focus on me, a smile breaking out as soon as her brown orbs found my green ones.

"Good morning, my love." I whispered with a smile.

"Mmm...Good morning, honey. How long have you been awake?" she replied as she stretched with a feline kind of grace. My mouth dried out as I watched her back arch off the bed, pushing her perfect breasts tight against her tank top. I swallowed heavily before answering.

"A little while." I answered hoarsely.

She turned back to look at me and her eyes darkened in response to the tone of my voice, "Hmm...Why didn't you wake me?" she asked.

I shrugged, "You looked too peaceful. Besides, I thought you could-" I broke off as I heard a key in my front door. That could only mean one thing. Emmett.

"Looks like we'll be announcing our good news sooner than we hoped." Bella smirked.

"Seems that way." I smirked right back.

I leaned forward and brushed my lips across hers and she hummed her approval. My left hand settled on her hip automatically as I hovered over her, using my right elbow as leverage.

"Whoa! Okay, so not the scene I was expecting."

I rolled away from Bella just in time to see my brother retreating out of our bedroom door with his hand clapped over his eyes. Bella pulled the covers up over her head to hide her blush and I growled in annoyance.

"I'm just gonna grab a shower. Meet you in the kitchen in ten?" Bella said as she tossed the covers back and climbed out of bed. I flopped onto my back and sighed heavily.

"Sure baby. I'll shower after you. Do you want coffee?" I replied as I rubbed the heel of my hand over my eye, ignoring the slight twinge in my shoulder.

"Coffee would be wonderful, honey." She answered as she gathered a towel and her clothing before heading into the bathroom.

I sighed again and rolled out of bed. I slipped on a pair of sweats and made my way out to the living room where my brother was watching TV.

"A bit early for a visit, isn't it Em?" I asked by way of greeting.

Em turned slowly to look at me and grinned, "You know, the doctor hasn't cleared you two for extracurricular activities, right?" he said smugly.

I felt the electricity move at my back and smiled slyly. It was now or never.

"What? You can't blame me for trying to kiss my fiancé, can you?" I retorted.

"I didn't say-." Em stopped mid-sentence as my words sunk into his brain, "Wait. What? Did you just say Fiancé?" he asked, shocked.

I shrugged and reached out my hand behind me as I felt Bella move closer. She slid her warm hand into mine and I smiled wider, bringing her to the front of me and wrapping my arms around her tiny waist from behind and resting my head on her shoulder.

"I believe that is exactly what he said, Em." Bella replied for me as she rested her right arm over mine and brought her left hand up to cup my neck, her ring on proud display.

Em saw the glint of it and jumped to his feet, "No. Way! This is awesome! Congratulations guys!" he boomed as he strode over to Bella and me and hugged us both at the same time, keeping it gentle due to our injuries. As he pulled back, I could have sworn I saw tears in his eyes but he quickly turned around and headed back to the couch and sat down staring at the game on the TV.

"I'm happy for you guys. It's been a long time coming." He murmured without taking his gaze off of the flat screen.

We spent the morning goofing off and just plain enjoying being with each other, having called both our friends and family to inform them of our engagement. My mother had the same reaction Alice and Sue did – to scream so loud the even dogs covered their ears. My dad, of course was a lot calmer and heartily congratulated us. Charlie was the most subdued one of the lot and quietly wished us the best. I have no idea what he said to Bella, but she had tears shining in her eyes when she got off the phone with him. I questioned her with my eyes and she silently nodded to show she was ok. I left it at that. If she wanted to tell me she would, I knew that.

It was funny watching Emmett and Bella together. If I didn't know better, I would have said that they were blood siblings or at least related in some close way. They argued, fought and teased each other as if they were brother and sister and after the last few weeks and months, it was nice seeing Bella being so damn carefree. I only wished it had lasted a lot longer than past that day.

Monday morning brought about normality and that meant work and other real life issues. Bella had pretty much moved into my apartment in the last three weeks since we had been home from the hospital so we dressed and left for work together. She didn't have her car and was not yet cleared to drive yet and since neither was I, we shared a cab – dropping her off first. The police still had an alert out for the arrest of Jacob and Jared but had had no luck in actually locating them as yet. I worried about her safety every time she left my sight and I was finding it hard to concentrate on real life. Josh had assigned us both new security and this time he personally vetted and selected each one himself.

The day after Bella woke up; Josh had come to see us at the hospital. He had explained that Josh had been hired as a last minute replacement for Tim, one of his finest men who had resigned to move back home to North Carolina to be closer to his ailing mother. Tim had been the one to vet and hire Jared, but obviously had not thought it anything major when Jared's background checks came back with ties to the Black family. Why would he? After all, the whole Jacob deal kicked off after Tim left, but the whole deal taught Josh to be more in tune with his business and the hiring of his staff. He felt incredibly guilty for not having caught onto Jared sooner thus causing Bella and me harm, but Bella of course, being the kind heart she is, waved off his apology and told him under no uncertain terms that he could not take on the blame for one madman's crazy mind and his stupid cousin.

I loved her all the more for it.

In addition to the new security team tailing both Bella and me, Josh had also equipped us with GPS trackers. Mine was in the form of a silver waterproof and fireproof watch and Bella's was a matching watch bracelet that looked beautiful on her delicate wrist. Added to that were tracker chips installed in our cell phones - ones that allowed us to send a distress call with the touch of the # key. Pressing the key would notify not only Josh and his team but NYPD too that we were in need of assistance and from there they could track the movements of the chip. The watches were in fact a back up to the cell's. Josh didn't want to take any chances that the chip could be discovered and/or destroyed. Our watches also had a 'Panic' button in the place of the stopwatch button. One touch and it would do the same thing as the # key on the cells.

It wasn't enough to give total peace of mind, but it was enough that we breathed a tiny bit easier.

I swung open the door to my office building and grimaced at the sight of Lauren sitting at the reception. I strode in and simply nodded my head at her in greeting, not pausing to call out a 'Good Morning'. I made it into my office and started booting up my desktop and pulling out various blueprints and files that I needed to work on today. I needed to keep busy so as not to give into the panic threatening to overwhelm me at being away from Bella. Something just felt off about today and I couldn't put my finger on what it was. I silently sent a prayer up to Heaven that my Kitten would be ok and set to work.

It wasn't until around 3pm that I realised that Bella had not called me or texted me today. As soon as that thought hit me a wave of unease washed through me and I hurriedly picked up my desk line to dial hers. It rang for several moments before it was answered.

"Isabella Swan's office, Tami speaking. How may I help?"

Dread now pooled in my gut. Bella always answered my call as my number came up on the caller ID.

"Tami, this is Edward Cullen. Is Bella in?"

"Sorry Mr Cullen, but she hasn't yet returned from her lunch meeting."

I sucked in a large breath.

"Tami, when did she leave for the meeting?"

My voice was urgent and came out sounding like a growl.

"Uh...Um...I believe it was around 12.30pm. No! 12.15pm. I was still here then. I didn't go for my lunch until 12.30pm and I came back around 1.15pm and she still wasn't back then. I haven't seen her since before she left. I assumed she was having lunch with a client. I can check her schedule and-"

I cut off her rambling.

"Do it."

"Oh...Oh! Yes...Um...let's see..."

There was silence on the other end as all I heard for a few seconds was the tapping of keys and then Tami gasped.

"What? What is it?"

"Mr Cullen, it appears that Izzy had a lunch appointment with a Mrs Dwyer. I could have sworn that, that was Izzy's-"

Again I cut her off.

"Mother."

The unease increased and the dread spread from my gut right up to my chest and throat. I only knew of one Mrs Dwyer that could possibly be meeting my Bella. Renee.

"Tami, call Charlie Swan and tell him about this and do me a favour, keep it to yourself after that."

"Yes Mr Cullen."

"Thank you. I'll be in touch."

I hung up the phone and immediately pulled out my cell.

"Readon."

"J, it's Edward. I need your help, man."

I was trying to remain calm, but the dread was starting to choke me up.

"Hey, E. Sure man, what's up? Is my new team doing ok?"

"Team's fine. It's Bella."

"Not again. Shit."

"Mmhm..."

I went on to tell him about not hearing from her today and my conversation with Tami and my concerns. Josh listened to everything quietly but I could hear the tapping of key in the background. He was silent for a few moments longer once I was finished and then he sighed.

"Her tracker says that she's at Cannelloni's on 34th and West. No distress signal. I'll give her guards a call and see what's going on. Hang tight for a few, yeah?"

I exhaled loudly.

"Yeah. Thanks man."

"No probs."

Josh hung up and I slumped back in my chair. Would this drama never end? All I wanted was to spend the rest of my life with the one person who made it worthwhile living and right now that just seemed like a pipe dream. What had I ever done to anger the Gods? Was this my punishment for my darkest days eight years ago? Or had I done something in a previous life that warranted this?

My mind raced as I tried to come up with the different scenarios and possibilities as to why Bella would agree to meet with Renee and still came up blank. From the way she had acted the day I brought her home from the hospital and Renee showed up at my apartment, I would have thought that she wanted nothing more to do with her, so why the change of heart now?

Above all else, my veins pulsed with fear for my Bella's safety. I couldn't go through almost losing her again. Not for a third time. Not ever. I could only hope that Josh came back with some good news.

I was so lost in my thoughts that the ringing of my phone startled me. I quickly snatched the receiver up, trying to regulate my breathing through the fear and trepidition.

"Edward Cullen."

"E, It's Josh. We got a problem, bro."

Shit. Here we go again.

A/N – Uh oh...Cliffy. How much do you guys hate me right now? Any thoughts on what's going on?

As always R&R!