Disclaimer: Twilight does NOT belong to me. This story is inspired from the show "Sunny Happiness". I don't own that one either.
I'm back after almost two months. Some of you know my computer hard disk was attacked by a virus and it was damaged. I had to spend my Eid shopping money to fix it. So, no new clothes or shoes for Eid this year. Eid is, you could say, a Christmas-type religious festival, for Muslims.
Thanks to my Beta, Ninkita 3
Previously:
"Then Mr. John Berry, what should we do next?" Edward asked worriedly.
"We should start from both inside and outside. To truly be a couple who lives together," said John with a look that said that he already had a plan for us. We both gulped as we exchanged a look with each other.
Chapter 4
The next day, Edward and I ventured out to do some shopping for each other, on John Berry's orders. He instructed us to buy clothes according to each other's choice. The first thing Edward decided to buy me was a pair of new red "Betsey Johnson Caseyy" back bow satin pumps with black trims on them. They had four inched heels on them. I told him again and again that I'm extremely clumsy; and that me plus heels was just an accident waiting to happen. But he didn't listen to me. He forced me to accept them, saying that a CEO's wife always wears heels and as long as I was his wife, I must wear them too. That bastard! But the shoes were actually… very pretty. Not that I was going to say that aloud.
Then came time to buy me dresses, and he started buying me designer dresses that I can't even pronounce the names of. "You know…I often wanted to tell you…" Edward said from the couch where he was watching me try on the clothes with an amused look. "Though you may cook and clean, there's still no need for you to look like a tomboy. Your dad will definitely be grateful to me for turning you into a girly girl," he announced smugly, looking quite pleased with himself. "Look at you now! You actually look like you have girly parts."
"Haha... you are one funny guy, Edward," I replied sarcastically. "And I don't look good. I look like Barbie," I whined, stomping my feet. Edward chuckled and said with a cheeky grin, "Next!"
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Then, when it was Edward's time to dress according to my choice of clothing… let's just say, I thoroughly tortured him as revenge. After a morning of torturing each other, we had lunch in a restaurant where we talked and got to know each other. In the afternoon we decided to do touristy stuff and clicked our 'couple' picture—John Berry's orders. To tell you the truth, Edward was looking like Adonis in his casual jeans and t-shirt. When I had first met him I would never have thought this uptight jackass could be a fun guy too.
"One last photo… a selfie for my phone," announced Edward. Raising the phone in front of us, he said 'smile'. As I smiled at the camera, I felt him place a kiss on my cheek and the flash went off. "Now we look like a couple in love!" Edward said, grinning as he checked the photo. I was still standing shell shocked. When he touched me, I had a sudden flash of naked bodies, him moving inside me as he sucked on my neck.
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It was decided that we would sleep in the same room, but not together. Our bedroom in this house didn't have a couch in the room, so Edward decided to sleep on a mattress on the floor by the bed. We sat on our beds and started asking each other questions, stuff that husbands and wives should know about each other.
"I love steak. Rare, with the taste of blood that melts in the mouth," he said dreamily.
"How disgusting! They really speak the truth. You are what you eat, and in your case, bloodthirsty!"
He chuckled. "So, tell me, how many boyfriends or lovers did you have?" asked after writing down our favorite foods.
"That's easy—two. The first guy was our neighbor and he used to share his candies with me." I smiled at the memories.
Edward raised his eyebrow at me. "Next one?"
"He was a pen friend when I was in high school."
"PEN FRIEND!? That doesn't count as a love interest," he exclaimed.
"It so does. I really, really liked him. We used to write about our deeper feelings without being awkward," I explained.
"So what happened to him?" Edward asked huffing.
"The first time we decided to meet, he… never showed up. I think he saw me from the entrance and didn't like what he saw. So he left. After that there were no other letters," I shrugged; the abandoned feelings crawled in my memory. "We had agreed to meet in an amusement park. It was my first time going in an amusement park. But after waiting for him for 8 hours, I left the park without riding any of the rides. I never went to an amusement park after that incident." I gave him a sad smile.
"So it was an amusement park where you got hurt?" he asked with a soft smile. At my nod, his grin widened. "Then we'll have to replace the sad memories with happy ones. One of my friends is the owner of the biggest amusement park in Seattle. I'll talk to him and hire the park for one whole day. I'll take you there and we can make happy memories," he offered.
"Really?" I could feel a huge smile spreading over my face and tears pooling in my eyes.
"Of course! If I can't do this much for my wife, what kind of husband would I be?" he joked.
"Okay, smartass. Your turn. How many love interests?"
"One," he replied with a grimace. "The one-night stands they spoke about in the media never really happened. They printed bullshit and I didn't bother correcting them. I simply stopped caring about others' opinions of me." His tone turned bitter.
"Tanya?" I asked.
He nodded with a smile. "I was a geek in school and college. Studying was more important than having a girlfriend. I went to Harvard. I met Tanya there in our freshman year. We dated for four years of college and just one month before Graduation, I asked her to marry me. I didn't have a ring with me at the time. So I proposed to her with my watch." He smiled at the memories.
"Why… why did you guys divorce?" I asked hesitantly.
"After graduation, we got married in a courthouse without any of our family members there. Tanya wanted to move to LA for her career and I supported her. We moved there in a tiny apartment. I got a job while Tanya joined a news channel. Things were going well. Then Tanya told me she was pregnant. Trust me Bella, I was over the moon. The thought of having a baby…I…I can't explain how happy I was. But the next morning Tanya informed me that she had booked an appointment to get the baby aborted and handed me a consent paper for abortion. I was livid. She didn't even ask me. I told her that if she had the baby, I'd stay at home and take care of him or her. But Tanya didn't want a baby and said when she came back that evening there would be no baby. I saw red. After she went office, I contacted my lawyer, signed those consent papers and within hours, I was on a plane back to Seattle. I left the abortion consent papers on our bed. Two weeks later I received signed divorce papers in my mail."
"God! Hey… if you thought she aborted the baby… then how did you know about Anthony?"
"Um… Tanya came to Seattle for a interview with one of the richest CEOs of the USA. Anthony wanted to join his mom. They were having lunch in one of the restaurants in the city where I had a meeting. Tanya had given Anthony a picture of us and told him that his father was dead. So when he saw me in the restaurant, he went off. He ran to me exclaiming 'Dad' over and over. I thought he was lost or something, but when Tanya followed him to stop him from approaching me, well… looking at his bronze hair, green eyes and Tanya's guilty face, I knew," he smiled.
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The next day, Edward drove both of us to the hotel. I was crouched down, hiding. "You're overreacting," he deadpanned, glancing at me.
"People will spread rumors if they see a lowly cleaning maid arriving with the Chairman," I pouted.
Edward just shook his head. "Why do you start work so early? You didn't even let me have breakfast," he huffed.
"Because, my boss, the Chairman wants his office clean early in the morning before he arrives in the office himself," I replied with a smirk. Edward's eyes widened in realization as he opened his mouth in a perfect 'O'. "Of course, if the Chairman changes his rule about early cleaning… then I won't have any problem abiding by it."
He gave me a look and said, "Forget I asked. My fault." he added, grimacing, causing me to giggle.
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That weekend, three days later, when Edward and I were loading our groceries after our grocery shopping, a man approached us. "Hello, Mr. Cullen."
"Hmm… where have I met you…" Edward trailed off. "Oh yes! You're Tanya's friend/producer…um Laurent, right?" He shook hands with the guy.
"Yes. And you must be Miss Swan?" he asked me.
I smiled at him in answer. Wrapping my hands around Edward's waist I said, "It's Mrs. Cullen actually. But since you're Tanya's friend, call me Bella."
"Bella!" Edward whined. "Didn't we agree that we won't go public so soon?"
"But he's a friend of Tanya's and she knows," I shrugged in answer.
"Alright, beautiful." He placed a kiss on my head, then turned towards Laurent. "Yes, Laurent, this gorgeous woman is my wife, but please don't leak it in your shows or sell it to any of your reporter friends. We're trying to keep it under the radar for a while," he explained with a smile.
"Last time when I met you, Mr. Cullen, you were single," Laurent stated suspiciously.
"Fate works in mysterious ways, Mr. Laurent," Edward said as he gave me a soft kiss on my lips. Butterflies flattered in my tummy at his action. Even though I knew it was all a pretense, I liked the feeling of his lips. "I've a beautiful wife, I got my son back; what else do I need," Edward added.
"You seem content, but isn't it a little unfair to Tanya? I heard that you threatened her into giving you Anthony's custody; saying that you'd expose Tanya as a mom and not a single, unattached person." Laurent sounded angry.
"Listen. Tanya gave up custody of Anthony willingly. And it's not like she was telling anyone that he is her son. My son deserves to be recognized and not hidden because his mom wanted to pretend to be young and single. And that is a fact." Edward clenched his hands tightly.
"Fact? The fact is that to get custody of Anthony… you bought this girl and faked marriage," Laurent accused.
"FAKE MARRIAGE! How dare you talk about my wife?!"Edward roared making even me believe that this marriage was real… which it wasn't.
"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to hurt you," he avoided Edward and said to me. "I find it strange that a girl who married a rich guy like Cullen is still working as a maid while letting her husband pretend to be a bachelor. Don't you get jealous? Why would you do that?" he asked in an accusing tone.
"YOU..." Edward grabbed Laurent by his collar.
I cut Edward off with the only reply I could think of. "Because I love him. Mr. Laurent, do you even know what true love is? I love Edward not because he's rich, nor to be Mrs. Cullen whom everyone envies. It's simply because I want to be with him. He makes me feel alive. If because of me, the love of my love can be together with his child, then that is my achievement. As long as the person I love is happy, I'm content. Do you understand?"I asked. Laurent nodded and with a sigh, he turned around and left.
If only at the time I knew that I was telling the truth. His happiness was my greatest achievement.
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The next morning when I came downstairs, I found our dining table covered with all my favorite dishes. I looked at the kitchen and found him cooking something else. When I approached him, he asked me to take a seat and the soup would be ready soon. When I didn't comment or anything and just kept staring at him, he stated with a charming smile, "I'm a good husband and taking care of my wife with my great cooking skills is my duty."
I took a seat while he brought the soup to the table and informed me that he made everything from scratch. "You know, Mr. Laurent wasn't lying. It's true that I'm a fake wife that you bought with money," I stated with a soft smile. "Prior to the wedding, I just thought that I would be helping my dad. But actually…what I did to others… I'm just a girl who used underhanded means to obtain money… maybe not directly, but it was all for money." I felt cheap at that moment.
"How could you take his words to heart?" Edward sounded angry. "Both of us know it wasn't like that. No matter how others view you, I'm grateful to you. Thanks for the lie you said yesterday." He placed his hands on mine and squeezed softly.
"Lie?"
"The words you said… about loving me?"
"Oh." I gave him a smile. Something inside my chest hurt at that word. Lie? Was it a lie? "You're welcome," I said with a smile.
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Next morning, Edward had an early meeting so he left before me. When I arrived at the hotel, I went to his office first. I had made him lunch. I placed the box on his table and leaning against the table I reached down and removed my shoe. I was wearing the red shoes he bought me a few days ago. Damn! I hated high heels. My feet felt like they were on fire. I placed the shoe on his table and started massaging my toes.
The door opened and Edward entered. Seeing me in the room, he greeted me with a "Good morning."
"Good morning, Chairman Cullen. You came so early that you didn't have breakfast. So I brought you a huge lunch," I said pointing towards the box.
Edward grinned at that. "Thanks. What happened to your legs?"
"It's all your fault," I pouted. "You gave me these heeled shoes and they gave me blisters. Do you know how painful they are?"
"Don't even think about slacking off. Today is recycling day. You need to get theses boxes to recycle," he said, smirking while he pointed to a few boxes by the table.
"Don't worry. I won't slack off…just because you gave me a pair of red shoes," I replied playfully.
"Okay… I have to go to the meeting now. See you at home." He smiled and left the room with the lunch box, making me chuckle.
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One of my colleagues was helping me get the boxes downstairs through the exit stairs a few hours later. We were talking to each other about how we had worn matching shoes that day. Angela was distracted and before anyone could do anything, she stumbled and tumbled down the stairs. I threw down the boxes and ran down the stairs. I called for help and in a few minutes we were heading towards the hospital. When they took her inside the operation theater, the nurse gave me one of Angela's shoes and said that the patient didn't have the other one on. It seemed her shoe had fallen on the stairs. I shrugged and headed towards the infirmary to get the meds the doctor asked for.
When I returned from infirmary, I found Edward sitting in the waiting room with his head in one of his hands and a red shoe in the other. "Edward?"
At my voice his head snapped up and he looked at me with relief. He got up from his seat and pulled me into a tight hug. He didn't say anything for a while but then he said, "Thank God you're okay."
"Edward, what's going on?" I asked, curious about his strange behavior.
He pulled back from me and looked quite angry. "Clearly you're alright. Then why did you come to the hospital in an ambulance? Do you have any idea how many scary thoughts were floating in my head? And when I saw your shoe…" he raised said shoe. "I almost felt my heart stop," he cried out.
"No… no. You got it wrong. It wasn't me who got hurt. It was a co-worker and we had matching shoes on. See." I showed him my shoes. "That's hers. I have the other one," I said, showing him Angela's other shoe. "She broke her leg," I explained.
"God! I was so scared," he said, handing me the shoe and pulling me in his arms again.
"I'm fine," I tried to assure him once more. I felt him nod against my head.
"Mr. Cullen?" I heard a familiar voice call. Pulling apart from each other, we found Laurent standing behind us.
"Why are you here again?"Edward asked angrily. "Wasn't the other day's insult enough? What do you really want?"
"Look, I'm sorry. A while back, I hired someone to investigate your marriage on behalf of Tanya because I thought it was unfair to her. But I got impatient and got myself involved. When I followed you from the hotel to here, I thought I would finally find something that would prove that your marriage is fake. But when I arrived and saw firsthand, how much you love your wife, how worried you were, I finally understood that nothing about your marriage is fake. You two really love each other." Laurent sighed. "Bella, I'm really sorry for what I said to you the other day. I won't harass you guys anymore." With that he left us alone.
"Strange! I didn't even know he was following me." Edward sounded so puzzled. That poor thing!
A few minutes later the doctor informed us that they had set Angela's bone and had a plaster on it. Edward informed the hospital that he'd bear the expenses. Giving Angela her shoes back, we went back to work.
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Another week passed. I was in Edward's office, happily cleaning his windows. He was in there too; working on some project or file or something. Every so often he would ask me something, we'd talk and then we'd go back to our work. I noticed him glancing at me a few times looking nervous.
"You can go first if you want to. I still have works to do, so I'll be late," I stated with a small smile.
"I…um… I think since Laurent's suspicions are settled and he is gone, we can move out of that house and go back to our own homes, you know?" he suggested nervously. I nodded at him thinking about it. I knew that would be the next logical step, but for some reason… it hurt so bad just thinking about staying away from him. "You were a great help," Edward said as he approached me. "And for that, I want to take you to dinner." He smiled boyishly.
"If that is so…then… can you take me to the amusement park you wanted to take me?" I asked excitedly. He chuckled at my enthusiasm and nodded. I giggled at that.
A knock on the door alerted us and we moved away from each other. Edward went to his table and called out, "Come in." I started cleaning again. His assistant entered the room and informed him that there was someone named Tanya Denali outside, who wanted to meet Edward without an appointment.
Edward asked his assistant to let Tanya in. We exchanged a worried glance at each other. When Tanya came in, she greeted us with a wide smile and said that since we didn't get to celebrate our marriage with our families, and she knew Edward from college, so as a college friend she wanted to treat us.
Later that evening, we went to an expensive restaurant. Tanya informed us that she had decided to move to Seattle. That way both Edward and Tanya could spend time with Anthony. After that Edward and Tanya started reliving their college days. I watched him laugh with her and felt like someone was twisting something inside my chest. I kept silent, only offering smiles whenever either one of them glanced at me, and kept drinking glass after glass of wine.
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That weekend, I was in Edward's office, cleaning as usual. The previous day we had returned to our own homes. The door opened and Jasper strolled in. "Miss. Swan! What are still doing here? It's 6.45pm already," he asked.
"Hello, Mr. Cullen. I still have a little cleaning to do," I informed him.
"You're really efficient," he chuckled.
My phone rang and excusing myself, I answered, "Hello?"
"Hello, Bella. It's me Billy… Billy Black from La Push."
"Oh, hi, Billy." I was puzzled.
"Bella, Charlie fainted while we were coming back from our fishing trip," he informed me.
"Dad fainted? Oh God! Where is he now?"
"I have admitted him to Forks General Hospital. Come here as soon as you can."
"Yeah, I'll be there. Bye." I hung up and taking my cleaning supplies with me, I left to go change out of my uniform.
I changed into my normal clothes and went to the basement to get my bicycle. I was trying to hurry, but my clumsy self decided my fate and I fell down with my bicycle on top of my leg. I tried to get up, but my leg hurt badly. It seemed I had twisted my ankle. Footsteps echoed through the basement and someone started helping me up. I turned and saw it was Jasper.
"Are you okay?" he asked, concerned.
"Yeah… I'm fine," I nodded. "Thank you." I tried to get my bicycle to move, but the chain got stuck and wouldn't move.
"You seem to be in a hurry. Where are you going?" he asked.
"My dad went on a fishing trip with his buddy in La Push but he fainted and is admitted in a hospital," I informed him as I started pulling on the chain.
"Which hospital is he admitted in?"
"Forks General hospital."
"Forks? What? Is there really a place named 'Forks'?" he asked, looking like a golden curious cat.
"Yeah. Ugh…why it won't get unstuck?" I complain to myself.
"Hey relax, okay? Let me take you there," he offered.
"Huh?"
"I don't have anything planned for the time being. I can drop you off," he explained.
"Are you… are you sure? I don't want to be any trouble." I bit on my lip, hesitating.
"Yeah, sure. Come on. You don't want to be late." He helped me up and led me to his car. Helping me in, he started driving towards Forks. That was the start of my friendship with Jasper.
A/N: Thanks to all of you for waiting so long. Thanks for being patient.
Remember to leave a review to let me know what you think so far.