Thank you to everyone who submitted/voted for the kids' prank on Tanya. I realize that I haven't been updating as frequently as I used to and I apologize for that. I probably won't be able to have a new chapter up everyday but my goal is to have one up once or twice a week. So, with that being said, I have another question for you guys, would you rather me just update randomly, or do you want a set day for each update? Let me know and I'll do my best to make everyone happy :)

Disclaimer: I do not own Twilight. That belongs to Stephenie Meyer. Also, I do not own any references to movies, songs, or other media.

BPOV

By the time Thursday afternoon rolled around, I was a wreck. Reverend was back with a vengeance, making work even more hellish than usual. Yay me. She still had me doing her bitch work but it had toned down a little bit. I was able to go back to doing what I was hired to do, which was kind of nice I guess. I still hated the fact that I was working at a place that I never saw myself working at. I never wanted a 9-5 job, or in this case an 8-6 one. I wanted to work in a daycare, or some child development center working one on one with kids and helping them learn and teaching them lessons they would need later on in life. I sighed again as I stared at my computer screen. I looked to my left and saw that Reverend had left files for me to bring to HR. Joy to the friggin' world. Normally I would have just brought them straight up to HR but the name on the first file caught my attention. CULLEN stood out on the lip of the file in big, black letters just calling me to look at it. I'm not one to snoop. I fucking hate people who do that. So with a disgruntled sigh I picked up all of the files and turned them into HR. However, just because I didn't read the file, didn't mean I wasn't curious about what was in it. Although most files are the same. They list the employer's name(s), number of children, name(s) of child/children, hours required to work, blah blah blah. I'm pretty sure I know most of the information in the file but I'm sure there's stuff in there that I don't know about. Like the Captain's wife for example. There's probably some information on her in there, and no matter how vague it might be it was more than I had to go off of now. But it's too late to do anything about it now; I'll just have to ask the Captain tonight. Riiiiiiiight, about that, I mean, don't get me wrong, I'm looking forward to seeing him, kind of. Well, I'm looking forward to seeing him if he's the guy from the nightclub, but if he's the arrogant asshole I worked for that he can shove his naval ship where the sun don't shine.

I had about 30 minutes to get ready before I had to leave to meet Edward at the restaurant. He offered to pick me up but I told him I'd rather drive. The truth was I really just wanted an escape route in case things took a turn for the worse. I quickly reapplied my make-up, made a few adjustments to my hair and walked over to my closet to try to decide what to wear. He was taking me to some restaurant called "Bella Italia" I had driven by it hundreds of times but had never eaten there. In the end I decided on dark skinny jeans, brown boots that went up almost to my knee, a brown v-neck sweater and my cream pea coat. I sprayed on a little perfume and I was good to go.

I arrived at the restaurant at exactly 7 o'clock. When I pulled up I saw the Captain standing outside the door of the restaurant. This took away some of my nerves. On the drive over here I had been trying to figure out if I should wait for him or get us a table, but then I wasn't sure if he reserved a table and if so was it weird to go to said reserved table without your entire party? Granted the "party" was only two people but still, it was the principle of the matter. So the fact that he was standing outside of the restaurant relaxed me immensely. After I parked I put on my coat, grabbed my purse and walked over to him.

"Hello" he said warmly

"Hi" I was hesitant, but he seemed to have put the arrogant asshole act on the back burner for now.

"Well" he said with his hand extended toward the door, "shall we?" he opened the door for me which shouldn't have surprised me, but it did. He was a sea captain after all, why wouldn't his manners be on point? Oh yea, because he had a tendency to not show them. That was also accompanied by the fact that I thought chivalry was dead. We reached the hostess and she made no move to control her ogling. I mean, I know he's attractive but really? Really? I'm standing right freakin next to him. He gave the hostess her name who proceeded to show us to our table. She seated us at a small booth in the back of the restaurant, away from everyone else. I wondered internally if this was intentional on her part or if the Captain had asked for a more private setting. I hoped for the latter. Once we were seated she gave us our menus and we looked over them. An uncomfortable silence descended on us and I wasn't sure I wanted to be the one to break it.

"Have you been here before?' he asked casually

"I haven't actually" he gave me a questioning look and raised one of his perfect eyebrows. "I've driven by here hundreds of times, but I've never actually been inside. From what I've heard the food is pretty good but I've just never seen a reason to come here by myself. Dinners in nice restaurants by yourself are kind of lame if you know what I mean."

He laughed and said "Yea they can be pretty boring." We continued to glance at our menus when the waiter came by and asked for our drink orders. I looked at the Captain and he simply extended his hand in my direction. The waiter looked at me expectantly. "Umm I'll just have a water for now" he nodded then looked over at the Captain "I'll have the same" the waiter just rolled his eyes and walked back in the direction he came from.

"I would have guessed you were a wine type of girl" the Captain said.

"I am most days, but I don't know what's good here and there's nothing worse than a bad glass of wine" I grimaced.

He laughed and said, "you're definitely right about that one". He turned back to his menu and I was able to fully take him in. he had on a white button down shirt with the sleeves rolled up much like they had been that night at the club, a pair of dark jeans and black tennis shoes of some sort. When I was done ogling him I looked up and saw that he was watching me with that fucking sexy smirk of his. I blushed and looked down at the table.

"So, Bella, how has your week been?" he asked

"It was alright I guess, nothing terrible, nothing great. What about you?

He laughed and said "Mine was as well as could be expected. My nanny quit on me after only one day so I've been left in kind of a sticky situation." I was about to tell him how rude he'd been toward me and how disrespectful he was but I saw him smirk and wink, signaling that he was only joking. I let out a small laugh and he continued to talk.

"Speaking of sticky situations, my children decided to have a little fun last weekend. Needless to say, I've been trying to clean up that mess all week so if I was short with you I apologize, I had a lot going on." Wow. The man who claimed he never apologized had apologized to me more times that I could count. He, in so many words, also explained why he had been so short that night on chat, another thing I never expected to do. I took a sip of my water and asked, "What did the children do exactly?" He ran his hand through that glorious hair of his and sighed.

"They uhhh decided to play a prank on Tanya and it didn't exactly end well".

"That still doesn't really answer my question" I smirked at looked at him. He smiled and said, "No I guess it doesn't." he sighed, "They thought it would be funny to put hair dye in Tanya's shampoo bottle." I didn't know whether to laugh because that shit seriously sounded hilarious or be shocked by the fact that Tanya stayed over at his house. However I could have been misinterpreting so I decided to get confirmation.

"How did they manage to get a hold of her shampoo bottle?" I asked

"While I was out here with Emmett on Friday night she offered to watch the kids. Something I knew was a terrible idea. She's not exactly what you would consider the babysitting type" he chuckled and I smiled at him while he continued, "Anyway, one of them, and I'm not sure which one of them at this point, snuck into the room Tanya was staying in and put some kind of permanent dye in her shampoo. The next morning when she shampooed her hair she effectively shampooed it with green hair dye. She tried washing it but it wouldn't come out. If she wasn't so pissed off about it I might have laughed, it was quite funny. So needless to say she's been on a rampage trying to get me to force the children to confess who did it. I told her I would deal with them later and that appeased her for a while. But she was still pissed." I laughed as the waiter came back to take our orders. Again I looked at the Captain and again he extended his hand in my direction. Between ogling him and listening to him talk I barely had time to look at the menu. I glanced down at it quickly and ordered the first thing I saw "Ummm I'll have the mushroom ravioli please" the waiter wrote down my order then turned to the Captain, "I'll have the chicken picatta, no mushrooms" he smiled at me and handed the waiter our menus. "I take it you don't like mushrooms?" I asked him. He laughed and said " I never really cared for eating fungi. I take it you like them?" Now it was my turn to laugh, "Hey, don't hate on the fungi. They are in fact very delicious specimens". We continued to converse lightly until the waiter brought us a basket of bread. Yummmm. We both reached for one when our hands accidentally bumped. Again, there was a spark that shot down my arm. I pulled my hand away and took a sip of my water.

"So, Captain, I feel like I've told you my life story but I don't know anything about you other than that you have 4 kids and you're a retired Naval captain."

He put down his bread and looked at me with the most intense stare I've ever received in my life. And it wasn't a bad stare per say, it was one of those stares that shook you to your core, that made you believe the person staring at you could see right through you and see you for everything you were, and everything you weren't. I had to look away. I reached for a roll and put it on my plate.

"Bella I thought I asked you to call me Edward. Please." I looked at him and nodded. "I'm sorry Edward, I'll try to remember that" He smiled and his stare lessened, though it still took my breath away.

"Well my life story as you like to put it, isn't very interesting I'd afraid. I grew up in Seattle with my parents, and Emmett. I graduated from Dartmouth but then decided to join the Navy. I was shipped out to San Diego for training, along with Emmett, who by that point decided that the Navy sounded like a good idea. And while I increased in rank I quickly learned that with power came sacrifice. I didn't spend as much time with my family as I used to, and that messed me up at bit. When I wasn't on base I was out with my crewmates drinking and just being stupid. After I met my…ahem my wife…things settled down a bit. I was still on base a lot but I adjusted to being a father and being a Naval captain". By the time he finished he story he looked kind of, well, sad to be perfectly honest. His eyes no longer held the warmth they had only a few minutes ago. Instead the warmth was replaced by sadness, though he was still breathtakingly beautiful. I wasn't really sure what to say so I offered him a small smile. Thankfully, the waiter arrived with our food at that moment, effectively eliminating the awkward silence. We both dug into our food like it was our last meal. If the topic of conversation hadn't been so heavy I might have laughed. It was quite funny. After about 10 minutes of just the clinking of dishes I decided to break the silence because that shit was driving me crazy.

"I'm sorry about your wife Edward. And I know that's probably not what you want to hear but I truly am sorry. I'm sure she was a wonderful woman. If you ever need to talk about her, or anything for that matter, you can always call me. I'm a damn good listener". I let out a small laugh and he looked up at me and smiled, but it didn't quite reach his eyes. They still held the same sadness they had earlier but it wasn't as evident. After we finished our meals Edward paid the bill, which I argued with him about but I let him win, this time. We then walked outside and were hit by the cold Port Angeles weather. I shivered and wrapped my arms around myself as Edward walked me to my car.

"Are you cold?" he asked

"A little bit but it's okay, I'm going home and my car has a heater" We stopped in front of my car and he pulled me to him. I froze for a brief second, shocked that he made such a bold move, well, bold for him anyway. It took me a second to relax but eventually I wrapped my arms around his torso and let my head rest on his chest. I felt his chin resting on my head.

"Thank you for agreeing to come out with me tonight" he said.

"Haha you're welcome but you don't have to thank me, I enjoyed spending time with you. Thank you for dinner."

He chuckled and said "You're welcome Bella". He pulled back and placed his hand on my cheek so it was cupping it. His other hand was wrapped in my hair behind my neck. My arms were still wrapped around his torso and I was positive he could feel my heart racing. He leaned in and planted a soft kiss on my forehead. I let out a breath I didn't realize I was holding and opened my eyes that had closed on their own accord. I looked up at him and smiled. He smiled back but again, it didn't reach his eyes. He looked like he was fighting something and I could only hope he figured it out soon because seeing him hurt made me ache for him. I couldn't understand this connection to him. I mean, a little over a week ago we were at each other's throats and now we were standing in from of my car holding each other. Eventually he pulled away and we exchanges farewells and promises to call. I opened the door to my car and sat down. I allowed myself a few minutes to comprehend what just happened. And I wasn't talking about the kiss, or whatever you want to call it. Because as nice as it was, I was hoping I would get to actually kiss him. Where did this leave us? Why would he ask me out right before he leaves? What did all of this mean? And how does Tanay fit into this equation? Does he take all of his nannies out to dinner? Are we friends? Are we more than that? My thoughts were interrupted when I saw Edward walk back over to my car and grab my face in his hands.

"I'm sorry" he said before he captured my lips with his. His lips were soft and gentle, yet they had a fierceness to them. The electrical current that always seemed to be around when he was was amplified. The buzz coursed through my body as his hand cupped my cheek and I wrapped my arms around his neck. My fingers entwined themselves in his hair and he let out a soft groan. I felt his tongue graze my bottom lip and I opened my mouth eagerly. Our tongues explored each other's mouths before we had to break apart for air. Our foreheads rested together while we were both breathing heavily.

"Don't ever apologize for something like that" I said lightly. He chuckled and said, "I'll try to remember that" using my line from earlier that evening. We stayed there for a while longer until the cold weather finally forced us to break apart and say goodbye.

"Goodnight Edward"

"Goodnight Bella. Sleep well" he gave me a chaste kiss and then walked back to his car. I finally shut the door to my car and sat there again, reveling in what just happened. And this time, I was thinking about the kiss.

A/N: I am SO sorry about not updating sooner. I'm a horrible ff writer I know. I promise there won't be such a big gap in between chapters in the future. I felt bad about making you guys wait so long so I pushed up the ExB moment. Let me know what you thought of it!
Xoxo SeattleSavvy393