A/N: Ta-da! Another chapter posted! And I've already gotten half of the next chapter written, so it will be updated soon! I hope you enjoy! As always, a huge thanks to my wonderful beta, Jenny Cullen, and to my lovely pre-reader and ficwife, EternallyCullen! You ladies are fantabulous!
Disclaimer: Sadly, I have no claim to Twilight or the characters. All I own is Matthew. All else belongs to the lovely Stephenie Meyer, who is kind enough to let us all play with her creation.
Bella buried her face in the pillow, trying to escape the muted gray light that, despite its weakness, was forcing its way through the gap in her curtains. She groaned, feeling her muscles protest. As her mind slowly awoke, the previous evening's events came rushing back to her, and a smile spread across her face. She stretched lithely and ran the sole of her right foot up Edward's calf. Blinking the remaining sleep from her eyes, she turned over to face him.
Edward.
Her very own personal knight in shining armor.
Well, she thought to herself, it is the twenty-first century. So, I guess I should call him my knight in a shining Volvo...
Edward had been watching Bella sleep and grinned at the giggle that escaped her lips. He could not recall ever seeing Bella in such a lighthearted mood, and the knowledge that he had been an integral part of her happiness caused his spirits to soar even higher. "Good morning," he said softly, reaching a hand up to brush a lock of hair behind her ear.
Bella felt the familiar blush spread across her face, but she merely smiled. "Good morning."
He returned her smile softly, stroking his fingers down her rose-stained cheek. "How'd you sleep?"
"Good. You?" Bella kept looking away from his face. She knew she had no reason to be embarrassed, but she could hardly bring herself to gaze into his clear green eyes. The face that was now only inches from hers was so beautiful that it made her chest ache; she still could not believe this god-like man was now hers. As she answered his question, she realized with a jolt that she had actually had a full night of sleep without being woken multiple times, either by nightmares or her worry for Matt. When he was a baby, every night, she had risen from her bed hourly to check on him, as he had been so ill. Then, when she would doze off, she would experience terrible nightmares of losing Matthew – sometimes to death, often to James. During the day, when she wasn't consumed with her son's health problems, she'd nursed a silent terror that James would appear out of nowhere and kidnap him, leaving her with a gaping hole in her chest that would never heal.
Edward placed a chaste kiss on her lips and wound his arm around her waist, pulling her closer. "Never slept better."
"I'm glad you stayed," she whispered, gazing at his lips. Those perfect, soft, warm lips...
Tucking her head under his chin, he kissed the top of her head. "What time do you need to pick Matt up?"
Suddenly, Bella's heart seemed to drop into her stomach. With his mentioning of her son, Edward had swiftly jerked her out of her happy place and back into reality. Matt's name brought back the horror she was facing with James and his ridiculous claim on her son.
Edward noticed the shifting emotion in her eyes. "Bella, it'll be all right. You have nothing to worry about."
She turned away and climbed swiftly out of the bed, pushing her arms through the sleeves of her robe. She knotted the sash a little harder than necessary and turned to face him. "I can't help it, Edward. He's my life...my soul. I can't lose him." Her voice broke, and she hastily swiped at the tears that had started to fall.
Jumping out of the bed, Edward slid his jeans on quickly and pulled Bella back into his arms, wrapping them snugly around her. "You are not going to lose him, Bella. I won't let it happen," he said firmly. "Now, let's go get some breakfast, and I'm going to make a few calls."
xXx
"What the hell do you mean he has a case? He hasn't been around once since he found out Bella was pregnant, and he sure as hell hasn't helped her support Matt! She's never gotten one damn dime from that bastard!" Charlie yelled into the phone receiver as he waved Bella into his office at the police station.
Bella sat down in a chair facing his desk and stared at him silently as he frowned at whatever he was hearing on the other end.
"Of course she tried to find him!" he shouted, slamming his fist down on the desk and making Bella jump. "The child support office has been trying to find him for six years!"
He listened again. "Evan, I know you're a top-notch attorney. That's why I called you... Sure, okay, we'll see you at three." He hung up the phone and ran his hands through his thinning hair.
"What's going on?" Bella asked apprehensively. She was praying the purple hue of Charlie's face would disappear quickly now that he was off of the phone. She not only worried about her son's health, but Charlie's dietary habits coupled with his genetic disposition for high blood pressure was a constant source of apprehension for her, as well. Her second greatest fear – only behind something happening to Matt – was that her father would suffer a heart attack or stroke. She tried to keep her tone soothing, not wanting to add to his stress level.
Charlie picked up a pack of stapled papers and then threw them back down on his desk. "Nothing. Don't worry yourself about it, Bells."
She scowled at him. "Dad…"
He sighed, rubbing his hands over his face. "We're meeting with Evan Bradshaw at three today to go over the custody suit. Can you make it?"
An icy heaviness settled in her stomach. "Of course. The office is closed the rest of the afternoon because Dr. Cullen had to go to some training seminar. Does he think James could win?" Her voice sounded small and thin to her ears.
Charlie looked up and met her eyes. "He says that if James can prove he's Matt's biological father, then there's a good chance he could be granted at least visitation."
"No," Bella replied firmly.
"Well, try not to worry about it just yet. We're gonna fight this, Bella."
"Evan Bradshaw is the priciest lawyer in Forks," Bella said suddenly.
Charlie shrugged. "He's also the best. I've seen him in criminal trials. The man's like a shark after blood. He's the one we need for this."
"But I can't afford that."
Looking back down at his desk, Charlie started to shuffle papers from one side to another. "Don't worry about that."
Bella sighed heavily. "Dad…"
Charlie cut her off. "Bella, I said don't worry about it. I know Evan; I've been able to help him out in the past, and now he wants to do the same for me. There has to be some perks to being the chief in this town," he added, trying to induce a smile from her.
She grinned slightly and sighed. "Yeah. And I don't have a choice. I'll do whatever I have to do to make sure James never gets his hands on Matt."
The phone rang, and Bella excused herself to allow her father some privacy. Sitting down in one of the roughly covered chairs that were connected to each other, she pulled her phone out of her purse and sent a text message to Edward.
Hey, are you busy?
She waited for a few moments before her phone buzzed.
Just studying for a pharmacology test. What's up?
Bella's hands were shaking as she typed out her reply.
I'm at the station with Dad. We're meeting with the lawyer today at three.
Who's the attorney?
Evan Bradshaw.
Good. He's the best there is. My dad's a friend of his. Bella, please don't take this the wrong way, but do you need any money for him?
Bella shook her head in slight exasperation, but for once, she did not feel insulted. What she felt was...grateful.
I appreciate the offer, but I don't think so. Dad said he worked it out.
Do you want me to come with you?
I don't want to interrupt your studying. I know I've kept you from your work lately.
She blushed, remembering their recent nocturnal activities. Her heart turned over in her chest when she read his reply.
You're more important. If you need me, just say the word, and I'll be there beside you.
Bella wasn't sure what she should do. The selfish part of her wanted nothing more than for Edward to be sitting beside her, holding her hand. But her logical side told her that she would be fine without him – to grow up and put her big girl panties on.
Her emotions won out.
Only if you promise I won't make you fail your test.
His answer was instantaneous.
I'll see you at three. I love you.
Bella smiled widely, unable to stop herself. Edward Cullen loved her. Her. She felt as if she had been magically transported to some parallel universe, and she had no desire to leave it.
I love you, too, she typed back, hitting "send" before she chickened out. Charlie suddenly walked out of his office, and she stood quickly, tucking her phone into her purse.
"Ready?" he asked her gruffly. She nodded, and he spoke to his deputy, who was playing Solitaire on the computer. "Mark, I'll be out the rest of the day. Call me if you need me."
Deputy Mark nodded and waved to them. Bella followed Charlie out of the door and walked to her truck. She followed him slowly through the streets of Forks, her mind a million miles away. When she looked up, they were stopped in front of a small house that had been converted to the law offices of Evan Bradshaw. She slid out of her truck and slammed the door shut, wincing at the loud noise of the protesting metal. Hearing the silky purr of an expensive engine pulling up, she turned and stared as Edward gracefully stepped out of his Volvo, looking as if he were shooting a commercial for a luxury car.
"Bella," he said in greeting before turning to her father. "Chief Swan." He stuck his hand out to shake Charlie's.
Charlie grimaced. "Hi, Edward." He opened the door and led them into a comfortably furnished entryway.
"Hello, Chief Swan," greeted a small woman sitting behind a large, oak desk. "Evan will be just a moment. If you will all have a seat"—she gestured to two couches facing each other in front of a dark fireplace—"I'll let him know you're here."
They silently filed into the waiting area, Charlie sitting on one sofa and Bella and Edward on the other. Charlie picked up a fashion magazine and idly flipped through it; Bella fought the urge to giggle hysterically. Obviously, her father wasn't paying any attention to the pages in front of him. Edward slid his arm around her shoulders, and she relaxed into his side, the warmth from his body soothing her ragged nerves. They'd only been sitting for a few minutes when a middle-aged man greeted them.
Bella had seen Evan Bradshaw in town before, but today, she truly appreciated how...lawyer-y he looked. He was dressed in tailored pants and loafers, his button-down shirt was loosened at the neck, and the sleeves were rolled up. His hair looked freshly styled, and he flashed them a dazzling white smile.
"Charlie! It's good to see you again. This must be your daughter Isabella?" He held out his hand to them.
"Just Bella," she automatically corrected, gripping his fingers in a fleeting handshake. "This is a friend of mine – Edward Cullen. I hope you don't mind if he joins us."
Evan shook his head and led them toward his office. "Not as long as you don't mind. Edward, tell your father I'm ready for a golf rematch any time he's ready! Now, would any of you like something to drink? Water, soda, coffee?"
They declined his offer and settled into the plush leather seats in his office.
"Now, Bella," he began, picking up a file folder. "Your dad sent over a copy of the motion your son's father filed in ClallamCounty Circuit Court. It appears that he's seeking full custody of Matthew Swan."
"Does that mean he's here...in Forks?" she gasped. If James was here, she couldn't let Matt out of the sight of any of the few people she trusted implicitly.
He shook his head. "Not necessarily. His attorney could have filed the motion from another county in the state of Washington. Now, Bella, have you had any contact from James Taylor since your son was born?"
She shook her head. "Nothing."
Evan sighed and fidgeted slightly in his chair. "I hate to ask you this, but I have to. Are you positive that James Taylor is the father of your son? Is there any possibility his father could be someone else?"
Bella bristled. "Of course he is. I'm sure of that."
"I'm sorry if I offended you, but I had to ask. Did he know you were expecting?"
Feeling her face bloom scarlet at the direction the discussion had abruptly taken – in the presence of her father and Edward, no less – she nodded. "Yes."
"Of course that bastard knew," Charlie said loudly. "That's why he ran out of town with his tail between his legs!"
"Bella," Evan said patiently, firmly ignoring Charlie, "I know this is uncomfortable for you, but in order for me to make sure you win this case, I have to know everything. Please start from the beginning."
Edward leaned forward in his seat a bit. His curiosity had burned from the beginning about Matt's father, but he'd never asked Bella directly, as he knew it hurt her to relive her past.
"Um...okay," Bella said, her voice shaking. "Well, I met James one night when I went out with some friends from school."
"Where did you meet?" Evan asked, a legal pad in front of him.
"At the McDonald's one Friday night. He was just hanging around outside with a couple of his friends – I think their names were Victoria and Laurent – and he started flirting with me. He asked for my number, and I gave it to him." Bella hung her head, ashamed of how she had been duped. Stupid, stupid, stupid!
"So, he called you?"
She nodded. "Yeah. He asked me out for the next night. I accepted. We went to Port Angeles and saw a movie, and then he took me home. But he asked if he could see me after school on Monday."
Evan continued to write notes. "Was he in school?"
"No, he'd dropped out the year before from a school near Olympia. He'd just moved to Forks...said he was looking for work."
"Charlie, did you meet him?"
Charlie shifted in his seat. "Yeah, I met him a couple of times because I insisted he come in and meet me face to face before taking my daughter out."
"And what was your reaction to him?"
He scowled. "He was a punk. I didn't like him then, and I hated him later. He wasn't good enough for my Bella, but I knew if I told her she couldn't go out with him, then she'd just do it behind my back. I know how teenagers work. I thought I was doing the right thing," he muttered.
Bella reached over and patted his hand. "I'm sorry, Dad."
Evan paused and then resumed his questioning. "So, what happened after he met your father?"
"We just started hanging out. He had his own apartment, and we spent most afternoons there." Bella felt her face flame. It was mortifying enough to relive all of her transgressions aloud in front of her attorney; it was made even worse by having her father present.
Charlie shifted uncomfortably in his chair and cleared his throat. Obviously, he wasn't thrilled about their little trip down memory lane any more than she was.
"Was that where you two would have sex?" Evan asked.
Bella blanched. "Uh...what?"
Edward reached over and squeezed her hand in encouragement. "Bella, it's okay. He's here to help."
Evan set his pen down on the desk. "Bella, I'm very sorry, and I know how difficult this is for you. Please know that I wouldn't ask if I didn't have to. But I need to know the whole story, from beginning to end, so that if he comes back with a different version, we'll be able to discredit him. And anything we can do to show he left you in a precarious situation with a newborn and never attempted to contact you or his son will only be to our advantage."
She nodded. "I understand. Um, yes. That's where we...had sex." She reached up and covered her eyes with her free hand. She would never be able to look at her father again.
Evan resumed his note taking. "And had you ever had sex with anyone else?"
"No!" she answered a bit too loudly. "Uh, no. I hadn't." She attempted to modulate her voice.
"Well, that's something," Charlie muttered.
Bella pretended that she hadn't heard him. She knew this was probably worse for him than it even was for her.
The lawyer smiled slightly. "I'm sorry, Charlie."
A grunt was his only reply.
"So, Bella, what happened after that? When did you discover you were expecting?"
"Two months after we started dating. I realized that I was late, so I took a home pregnancy test one day after school. It was positive."
"And when did you tell James that you were pregnant?" Evan asked, his hand still moving smoothly across the paper.
Bella didn't answer at first. She was suddenly back in the small bathroom at her father's house, staring at the little white plastic stick that had told her her entire life was about to change. "Th-That afternoon. I took it over to James's apartment and showed him."
"What was his response? Did he break up with you? Tell you to have an abortion? Ask you to marry him?"
She shook her head. "He held me and told me not to worry, that he was going to take care of me and the baby. And I believed him," she said with a small laugh. "God, I was so stupid!"
Edward shook his head. "Bella, you're not to blame here. You were sixteen and pregnant and scared. He told you what you wanted to hear." He was keeping his anger under control by a thin thread by mentally imagining Emmett using James's head as a football during kicking practice.
"Was he with you when you told your father?"
Bella laughed again, the sound hollow. "No. I wanted him to be there. I told him how much I needed him, but he told me that things would go better if he wasn't there. At the time, I thought he just didn't want to risk getting shot—" she glanced over at Charlie "—but later, I realized that he had no intention of sticking by me. When Dad went over to his apartment that night, James was gone. He used the time I was explaining things to my dad to pack up and head out of town." She quickly swiped at her eyes, not wanting the tears to fall. She'd promised herself a long time before that she had shed her last tear over James Taylor.
Edward squeezed her hand again, wanting nothing more than to hold her tightly and keep the world from causing her any more pain.
Evan looked up from his notes. "Did he leave any forwarding address? Try to contact you later?"
Shaking her head, Bella spoke. "No. Nothing. I talked to his landlord, and he said that James just moved out late one night without paying his rent for the month. I tried looking for his friends, but they were gone, too. I guess he changed his phone number, because eventually, the cell phone number I had for him was answered by someone who said they had just set up that phone account."
"And you filed for child support through the county attorney's office?" he asked.
"Yes, a month after Matt was born. I lived with Dad for almost two years more while I finished school, but then when I turned eighteen, I moved into an apartment on Section Eight. Dad told me that we could stay as long as we needed to, but I didn't feel like it was fair to him. So, I got Matt on Medicaid...and I did apply for food stamps." She hung her head.
Charlie shifted in his seat. "Bells, I told you then, I didn't mind—"
Evan interrupted him. "Bella, you have no reason to be embarrassed. You took a bad situation and did what you had to do. I commend you for taking responsibility for your son. You certainly had to grow up a lot in a short amount of time."
"I just did what I had to do," Bella muttered, uncomfortable under his praise. She looked over at Edward and was confused at the large smile on his face.
"And the child support office was unable to locate him?"
She nodded again. "Yes. Dad even tried with all of his police contacts, but it was like he'd fallen off the face of the earth. I finally just gave up trying to find him. When Matt was a baby, I hoped he would come back and want to be a dad to him. But eventually, I accepted that he wasn't coming, and later, I realized that it was in Matt's best interest to not have anything to do with his father. He certainly didn't care about his son," she added bitterly.
"Evan," Edward asked, "why is he back now? What's led him to file for custody of a son that he's never laid eyes on or had anything to do with?"
He looked up at Edward, a grim expression on his face. "I'm getting to that, but there, Edward, is the crux of the matter and what is going to cause us the biggest problem."