Sorry for the 2 week delay. I'll try to keep on schedule best I can. I like reading stories where the author updates on a regular schedule, so that is my goal. Here's the next chapter. Enjoy!

Disclaimer: I don't own Twilight, SM does!

Chapter 7

BPOV

Beep, beep, beep, beep

Damn, is it Monday already? I tried to roll over to hit the snooze button on my alarm clock but I was pinned down. I looked over to my side and seen him sleeping so peaceful. I reached over to the alarm clock as far as I could and finally moved it closer to hit the snooze button. I rolled over to my side and stared at the most beautiful man I had ever seen. Edward looked like an angel and so peaceful as he laid there. I thought about the weekend that just passed and everything that transpired between us. I was glad that he knew the truth now, I felt like a heavy weight was lifted off of me.

I thought about last night as well, the kiss between Edward and myself. I couldn't help but get the butterflies in my stomach again. I was pretty happy that Edward had enough respect for me to stop us from going any further. He was right, I would have regretted it. It was as if he could read my mind. He was an amazingly kind man and I was lucky that I hadn't scared him away. I knew that I loved him, but I don't think I'm in love with him, yet. There it is again, the word yet. What did I mean by that? Could I fall in love again, and would that person be Edward. I realized that if I gave my heart to anyone again, it would in fact be Edward and only Edward, but I had a ways to go. I am still trying to heal from the loss of Jacob so I knew he would have to be patient with me. I guess only time will tell.

I turned off my alarm clock and rolled back over facing Edward again. I liked waking up in his arms. I lifted my hand and gently stroked his cheek. He started moving around again. So this time, I leaned up and gently pressed my lips on his. As I pulled back, his eyes were wide open and he gave me the most beautiful smile in the world. I noticed that it was slightly crooked and that just about melted my heart.

"Good morning," I whispered.

"Good morning," he replied. "Did you sleep well?"

"I did, I don't remember sleeping thru the night in almost two years," I informed him.

I don't know if it's even possible, but his smiled got even bigger. "Fantastic."

My eyes suddenly saddened a bit, because I had to get up and get ready for work. He must have seen the sadness come over my eyes, "what's wrong?"

"I have to get up and go to work," I sadly answered.

He gently pulled me towards him and kissed the top of my head. "That's alright, I start my new job today as well, so I need to go to work also. I'd like to see you after if that's ok?"

My heart skipped a beat for a second, "yeah, come over after work, I'll make us dinner. I get home close to 5:00 pm."

"Then it's a date," he smiled at me. Those damn dazzling eyes and crooked smile were going to be the death of me. "I better get going so that I'm not late on my first day, but I will see you later."

He got up and I walked him to the door. Before walking out, he turned to face me and kissed me gently on my lips. My legs felt like jelly at that moment, if I hadn't been holding onto the door I probably would have fallen.

I got ready for work and headed to the office. Since it was Monday, I thought about my to-do list at work. It was the beginning of the month and all the remote teams would be heading in this week for the monthly Operations meeting. I was recently promoted so I was no longer the administrative assistant and wouldn't really have to deal with the meeting details. However, I was training a new girl to take over my duties, so I probably would help her out some. I also recalled that we had a new employee starting today as well. That meant I was going to do a New Hire Orientation with him/her. I had their file on my desk, but never thought to look at it. I had my packet already ready for any new hires. You would have thought I wanted to see this person's background since I was going to be working with them.

I recalled an appointment with the new person on my calendar for later this afternoon, so I had plenty of time. Since there was a transition between the new person and my boss, he didn't have an office yet, so I kindly offered mine up. I hadn't moved all my stuff in there yet, so it wasn't a big deal. I had a few photo's up that I hope he didn't mind. One of them was Alice, Rosalie and me at a party or something. It was taken back in college, so it was an old picture, but I loved it anyways. Then there were two other pictures, one of my niece, Leah and the other of my nephew Seth. Since this was the new person's first day, they wouldn't need an office today, so I was ok to work in there.

We hired a girl named Tanya to fill my previous role, but so far I was not impressed with her. She flirted with all the guys in the office and the remote teams as well. So it was no surprise when she knocked on my door to tell me about the new guy.

"Oh my goodness, Bella, the new guy is HOT," she claimed. "It took me about a minute to realize he was talking. I sat there like an idiot just staring at him not listening to a word he said."

"Tanya, you better be careful, you know that you report to me right. Please don't make me regret hiring you and being the one to have to let you go," I explained to her. "He's an employee of the company now and if you can't be professional about it or if there is a problem with you working here, then we will have to choose him over you. Do you understand me?"

Tanya just looked at me and rolled her eyes. I wanted to smack them out of her head and fire her on the spot but I needed to give her a chance. "Fine, but can I ask him out," she asked.

"Tanya, stop it now. I'm serious, I am handling HR and these are the kinds of issues I don't want to address here. Now go back to your desk and do some work," I told her.

For some strange reason, Alice kept calling me asking if anything exciting happened today at work. I wasn't sure what she was expecting to hear.

"Alice, it's Monday, how can you be so annoying already?" I laughed as I asked her the question.

"Did you say there was a new person starting," she asked.

"Yeah, I haven't met or even seen them yet. I'm not scheduled to do the orientation until this afternoon. Remember this week is Ops week, so there is a lot of hustle and bustle going on. I've actually had my office door shut for most of the day. Oh, but Tanya did mention that he is HOT and asked if she could ask him out," I laughed.

"Hmmm, interesting. Well let me know once you meet him, I want to hear all the details. Talk to you later," and Alice hung up.

It was lunch time and my co-worker stopped by wanting to see if I wanted to go grab a quick bite. He had to be back in 45 minutes so I knew we wouldn't be gone long, so I agreed.

As soon as we returned from lunch, Tanya asked where I'd been and that the new guy was waiting for me. I felt bad I thought I was meeting him later. I told Tanya that I would go to my office and to let who ever he was with know that I would be ready in five minutes. I rushed to my office and grabbed his file and the packet I was going to give him. I was reaching down into a drawer with my back turned away from the door when I heard a knock.

"Hi, I'm looking for Isabella Black," I heard his velvety voice and knew exactly who was standing at my door. I don't think he realized who I was and he also called me by my married last name. I had changed my name back to Swan after Jacob's death except for at work I didn't want to explain to everyone about what happened and the guilt. I wanted to crawl under my desk and die.

I took a deep breath and slowly turned around. I held my breath as his face dropped and his eyes locked on mine. Finally I spoke, "please come in." I jumped up out of my seat and pulled him into my office and shut the door. He was shocked and didn't speak for a few minutes.

"Edward, what are you doing here," I asked.

"I'm the new hire," he said. "Why do they call you Isabella Black?" He looked hurt by having to call me by a different last name. I think the reality finally set in that I was married before and I noticed him looking down at my ring finger.

"Listen, Edward, I never looked at your paperwork and this is as much of a surprise to you as it is to me," I began explaining. "Only my boss and supervisor know what happened, so I put up a façade here. I have changed my last name back to Swan everywhere but here. I try to get everyone to call me Bella, but they got use to calling me Isabella or Mrs. Black."

"And the ring," he glared down at my hand. "Why are you wearing it again?"

"Honestly, Edward, the first time it came off was Friday night and I did wear it off most of the weekend." I tried to explain the best I could, but I could see the hurt on his face. "Edward, please, this is my career here, I hope you can understand that I have a façade to put up here. I do not want to hurt you, please tell me how to make this right," I begged of him.

"Bella, I can't make you do anything your not ready to do. And now we are going to be working together," he trailed off. "Maybe I should decline this offer."

"Edward!" I just about jumped out of my seat, "you can't do that. They have been so excited after you accepted the offer I can't be the reason for you not accepting this job. I can find another job, you stay here and I'll be the one to leave."

"No Bella, you've worked here too long and just got a promotion. We will figure this out, I promise," and he smiled his wonderful crooked smile at me. "No one can know that we know each other, though, ok."

"I don't think that's a good idea, Edward," I began to explain. "If they find out later that we are, well what are we exactly?" I asked him.

He laughed. "That's a great question," he stated. "Right now we are, I guess friends, but I am hoping that it will grow into something much more," he gave me the crooked smile again. I could feel the blood flow up to my cheeks at that moment. "Bella, I want things to progress with us but I'm not going to rush you, like I explained last night."

"What can I do to make things easier for you," I asked.

"Bella, I can't ask you for what I really want, it has to be your decision and your idea."

"Please Edward, I want to hear it from you."

"Well, at the very least, if you would change your last name to Swan, that is how I know you and I love that name. But my hope is to change that name into Cullen soon enough," as he said that he gave me a devilish grin. "And I'd wish you were able to take off the ring, but now that would be asking a lot from you and I don't want you to feel any pressure. It's just that the name and ring make me feel like I have no chance with you, that you belong to another."

"Edward, I'm not a trophy or an object," I glared at him. I didn't like that he thought I belonged to someone else.

"I know, I didn't mean it like that, silly."

"So do you think we can actually pull off working together?" I wondered.

"I don't know, but at least it means I get to see you when I'm at work and at home." His eyes twinkled as he said that.

"Oh no!" I pretended to be scared, "you're going to get sick of me." And then I laughed.

I hadn't realized we had been talking for so long until there was a knock on the door and the CEO, asked if Edward was almost finished.

"Yeah, I have a few more pages, but I'll send him out in about 5 minutes," I replied. After the CEO left, I started laughing, "Well, I guess were going over the paperwork tonight after dinner."

Edward just laughed and shook his head. I gave him the packet and told him that if anyone asked that we went over everything and that he just wanted time to look all the documents over.

Before he got up, he noticed the pictures on my desk. "That's the picture that made me fall in love with you," as he pointed to the one for me, Alice and Rose.

"I guess it's a good thing you're going to be using my desk for the next two weeks, you'll get to look at it everyday," I was teasing him.

He laughed and opened the door, but before walking out, he looked at me, "see you at dinner." And turned around and walked out.

I fell back into my chair at work. How in the world had Edward invaded my life, I wondered? Was the all almighty power trying to get Edward and me together? That thought made me laugh. Then I realized why Alice had been calling me all day. She knew and didn't tell either of us. Just for that, I'm not going to talk to her all day. That will be a good punishment for her.

EPOV

I can't believe that I'm going to be working with Bella. I was shocked when Bella opened the door. I don't know what I was expecting, but I know I wasn't expecting her. Once the excitement of working with her settled, then I got angry. Why was she going by her married last name and wearing her ring? Is she playing games with my emotions? Once Bella explained that no one knew what happened, the hurt and anger just diminished. I really couldn't blame her for not sharing her story and I knew that she is trying to work thru this the best way she can.

Not only will I get to see Bella at night, but I will now get to see her during the day. She made me laugh when she claimed that I would get sick of her. That is not going to happen! Nope, no way! I'm pretty getty over working with her. When interviewing, I was told that they had someone who was a quick learner and caught onto things pretty easily, so they promoted her. Now I'll be working with her daily. The only conflict is that I'm her supervisor now. I'm not sure if we should disclose that information yet or not. Officially, we are not together, but that is only a matter of time.

What I'm not so excited about is the receptionist. From the moment I arrived, she has done nothing but flirt and insinuate sexual desires. Her high pitched voice grates on my last nerve and her fake strawberry blonde hair and fake breasts do absolutely nothing for me. Actually, they make my balls want to shrivel up and die. I can see a conflict here though. I can tell Tanya, the receptionist that company policy doesn't allow inter office romance but then that would put an end to anything between Bella and I. I will have to give this some thought as how to proceed.

I feel my phone vibrate and reach down to grab it and notice that Alice has been calling all day. Wait a minute, I told Alice where I was interviewing and I'm pretty sure she knows where Bella works. That darn little pixie totally knew that we would be working together and didn't say a word. Hmmm, I'm going to have to think of a way to pay her back.

Since there is not an office ready for me and Bella was in hers, I stayed in the conference room to work. A little while later there was a knock at the door.

"Come in," I said and enters in the CFO that I will be replacing.

"Hi Edward, how did today go?" asked Riley.

"I think it went pretty well. I have to say that the trading operation's meeting was interesting to say the least. The company seems like it really has great people working for it," is my response.

Riley just smiles then hesitates before speaking again. "I have to agree with you Edward. One very valuable asset is Isabella though. She is the glue that holds this place together, so I really hope you see the value she can bring to the firm."

"I'm sure in time I will." I internally had to laugh at that. From what I know of Bella, she will be a joy to work with.

"However, there is something you should know as well that many people here do not know about Isabella," Riley began. I'm pretty sure I knew what he was going to say, but I waited for him to continue. "As great as she is, she also has a lot of personal stuff she is dealing with right now. Only myself and her supervisor know what is going on and since you will be working with her I feel that you should know. Normally, I would have her tell you, but she is still trying to cope with things."

I was getting frustrated that he was viewing Bella as a fragile piece of glass, when I know that she really is a strong, independent woman.

"What is going on with her Riley," I ask.

"Isabella is having a hard time coping with the death of her husband. He passed away over a year and a half ago, but she has never fully gotten over it. Again, I wouldn't be telling anyone, but I just want you to know in case she has a set back or something. With that said, she has always remained professional and a hard work, but she does break down at times and we have been pretty understanding about it so far. We just want you to understand as well and be sympathetic as well."

"Well Edward, I'm going to head home to my wife. Hope you had a good first day and I shall see you tomorrow," said Riley.

"I did have a good first day and look forward to the future here, Riley. Have a good night," I responded.

As I sat there and thought about the conversation with Riley telling me about her emotional state at times, I couldn't help but hope that things would change. That Bella's feelings would change and that she would be able to move on, especially since I wanted her to move on with me. Only time will tell, so I must learn to be a patient man.

So what did you think? I'm really trying to decide if I should continue you this story or not. Please leave me some feed back whether positive or negative, both will be welcomed. Is the story to similar to one's you have already read? I am really trying to not write a story similar to any others. This is just something that has been floating around in my head.

Until next time,

Steff