Thank you Sri, who noticed something and made this so much better.

Thank you Iris. You're beta skills are unmatched and you always give me a little boost.

Thank you readers! You are awesome. I love responding to your reviews. It's fun to chat about these flawed people.

Edward pulled back. He knew what was coming. He'd said more than he'd meant to, but he had very little left to lose. He just hoped the push he meant to give her didn't end up shoving her away.

"Edward, listen to me. We're friends. I know you didn't mean what you just said. That's not who you are. I'm going to go home now. You're going to hunt, or whatever it is you need to do, to come back to your senses."

"You think I'm joking? After all that...? And you think I didn't mean it? I promise you, I haven't said anything I don't mean." Edward scrubbed his hands over his face. "I said stuff I probably shouldn't have said out loud..."

They looked at each other for a moment, and Edward broke first. His nervous laughter rang throughout the quiet house until Bella's soft giggle joined in.

"I can't believe I just begged you to sleep with me. How the tables have turned." He raised a single eyebrow to her.

"I guess that's another thing I can add to how you've changed. You went from anti-pre-marital sex to pro-adultery." She went to nudge his shoulder with hers, to show she was joking, but stopped herself. Now probably wasn't the time for contact.

His hands pressed to his temples, and he raised his eyebrows, his eyes opening wide. He looked both comically surprised and horrified. "I'm going to apologize now."

She smiled and quickly patted his hand. "And I'll accept. I'm going to go home, and we'll both pretend this conversation never happened."

Bella gathered up her things and handed Edward the box. "I don't think this should come home with me. Things are bad enough without me bringing this in to it."

She didn't need the box to carry all her Edward baggage in. Once, he'd planted a seed of doubt that she was unlovable. He'd now planted one that threatened to consume her.

As Bella waited to turn onto the 101, she tried to regain her composure. She had no idea how she managed to laugh off what had just happened.

What had just happened?

Had Edward Cullen just told her he loved her? Had he really asked - no, in his own words, begged - Bella to sleep with him? She was still fighting for control when she saw the yellow Porsche barrelling down the highway. It was just the nudge she needed to lock everything away. By the time Alice turned and stopped beside Bella, there was no physical indication that anything had been wrong.

Bella leaned over and rolled her window down. Alice looked suspicious.

"Hey, Alice!" Bella thought it was best to respond to the unasked question right away. "Edward couldn't come into work today, so I came here." She smiled lightly but Alice didn't.

"Is everything okay?"

"Yeah." Bella continued to respond nonchalantly. "We've got deadlines to meet, even when the sun's out."

"Are you sure?" Alice remained serious, and Bella started to worry that Alice had caught the end of her panic attack.

"Yep. I've gotta get back to the library. See you later, Alice." Bella didn't even bother to roll up the window before driving off.

Bella's strange behavior coupled by what had sent Alice to Edward's in the first place put Alice on edge. She guarded her thoughts as she approached her brother's house.

"Door's open," he called out as she walked up from her car.

"What happened? I just drove up on the tail end of Bella doing her thing. She was in a full scale panic attack, and then nothing. Her breathing went from frantic to normal. Her heart rate instantly settled. Don't tell me nothing's going on. I can see it all over you. Plus," she continued, pointing to the floor between them. "I heard you break the coffee table that's in shambles in front of you." She stepped over the splintered wood and sat beside her brother on the couch. She knew Bella had just been sitting here, because she could feel the warmth she'd left behind on the leather.

"I decided to listen to you and Emmett. I thought I'd give her a little push."

"What did you do?"

"I gave her back the things I hid in her room." He pointed to the box that lay among the ruins of his table.

"That doesn't sound so bad. Did she not take it well?"

"No. That was fine. But then I went ‒ in what I'm sure Emmett will later describe ‒ 'full Edward' on her."

Alice wanted to laugh. She knew her brother was hurting, but it was refreshing to see him not consumed by it. "What did you do, Edward?"

"I told her I loved her. I was straight about what she meant to me, what she'll always mean to me."

"Okay, so Rose'll be pissed you didn't listen to her. Don't sweat it. Emmett and I are working together on this one. He'll iron that out. I think she needed to hear it."

Edward nodded and looked at Alice. He didn't need to say it out loud. He just needed to decide to tell her.

"Oh, Edward!"

He shook his head and looked away. "I know. I meant to give her a push, and instead, I just jumped right over the edge."

Alice laughed. "I'm sorry." She held her hands up to show she meant no ill will. "You really did go full Edward, didn't you?"

He ran his hands through his hair as he leaned back against the couch, making a strangled sound of frustration as he went.

"How did she react?"

"Actually, she was great. She refused me, obviously."

"You don't seem like you're upset about the rejection."

"I'm not. I'm relieved. I asked her for one time, and then I told her I'd go. Like I could leave her! But I couldn't share her, either." He shook his head as if to clear the memory. "I apologized, and we laughed about it. I have no idea where we go from here."

"Edward..." She paused, careful to not give anything away until she had qualified it. "I saw something. It was just a flash, and I didn't know what to make of it." She showed him what had sent her racing to his house. Alice's vision was a cubist's erotic dream; a tangle of limbs, skin, and lips in ecstasy. Edward recognized the voices behind the cries. It lasted less than a second.

"Holy shit." He breathed out. It was so much.

"I know. I think, for the quickest moment, she dropped her shield."

"The moment she was going to agree."

Bella was busy at the library, but she struggled to keep her mind from straying to Edward. She didn't know how to feel. She should probably be angry with him for what he'd said. He'd completely crossed the line of friendship. She wondered if she was guilty, too. Was going to his house to work an excuse? No, she needed to get things done and signed by him before the weekend. She was guilty of sitting too close, of letting lingering touches pass between them. But when they were together, it was unconscious. There was something about being with him that was too natural, too easy.

And now that she was away from him, she thought of Mike. Despite what they were going through, they'd had good times. She loved him.

"I love him," she whispered to her desk before breaking down. "I love him." She repeated it over and over as the tears fell, until it sounded like she was saying, "I loved him," to the empty room.

For a woman that had two men declaring their love for her, she'd never felt lonelier.

Bella had faxed the documents that needed to be faxed, scanned and emailed the documents that needed to be sent electronically, and sent the rest by courier. She'd called Calvin, their most senior employee, and asked him to close the store tonight. Mike was in Port Angeles for a bachelor party, and Bella wanted to take advantage of the time alone to process her day.

So she was surprised to see Angela's car in her driveway when she got home.

Well, she thought to herself as she got out of the car. If I'm going to stop putting off difficult conversations, this is the easiest place to start.

Angela was sitting on the couch, and Bella could smell the pizza coming in from the kitchen. She thought to all the times Angela had let herself into Bella's house and vice versa. Their lack of boundaries had once been a testament to their close friendship. For a moment, Bella thought about confessing everything to Angela. It would be good to have someone to talk her through this, but she couldn't. Not only because she couldn't tell Angela details that would make what was happening with Edward make sense, but because she realized she'd never really had that relationship with Angela.

It was quite the thing to recognize, looking at one of the people she'd been closest to the past ten years, and realize that she had managed to not let her in at all. So, of course Angela could feel like pushing Bella towards a baby was the right thing to do. Bella had agreed to everything before. Why not this?

"Thanks for dinner," Bella said, genuinely grateful.

"You're welcome. I brought it by the store, but Calvin said you weren't feeling well. So I thought I'd bring it here, and we could share it and watch a movie, if you were feeling up to it. Are you okay?"

"I've had a lot going on, Angela. I feel like you and Mike are working against me. I don't know what to say." Bella collapsed on the couch beside her friend.

"I'm sorry. I guess I could blame it on hormones, but that's an excuse."

"It is. Why the sudden push to us having babies?"

"Mike's been talking to Ben for a while now. Ben's talked to me. No one was talking to you." Angela gave an embarrassed shrug.

"Angela, do you get that it isn't your place to talk to me about this? This is something that Mike and I have to work out."

"I get that, but you weren't."

"That's my marriage, though, Angela."

"Why won't you? You keep saying you don't want to, but why not?" Angela decided to push ahead. "Has this got anything to do with Edward?"

"All right, Angela. I'm going to ask you to let this go before we have another fight. I'm going to get a slice of pizza, and when I come back in, we can watch that movie. But no more talk of babies. This conversation's over." Bella's tone was firm and left no room for argument.

"Okay," Angela conceded. This wasn't worth losing Bella over. It didn't escape her notice that Bella ignored her question about Edward.

She should have known it was a dream from the same clues that told her who was behind her. The old biology lab took on the gray-hued haze-induced in slumber. She was leaning over her microscope, regurgitating scientific vocabulary, when a hand covered hers. She continued to recite the stages of mitosis while another hand pressed against the back of her thigh and continued to push as it made its way up under her skirt and past the end of her stockings. The figure behind her said nothing, but he pushed the microscope away and moved to press against her. As Bella tried to take notes, she was pushed forward. Her notebook slipped out of reach. Her skirt lifted up as the she felt a palm rest against her. While one hand stilled, the other started. She felt the smooth, firm palm at the top of her leg. It squeezed the supple flesh of her ass, but instead of resting like its mate on the other side, it continued up. Bella was pressed further forward, reaching for her notebook as it slid further away from her, when she felt his hand in her hair. He twisted his fingers into its strands and pulled. Bella's pencil flew from her hand as she was bent backwards, away from the desk.

"See me."

She knew the voice, though not the tone that made this rough command. His lips brushed against her ear before she felt his tongue dart out to taste her neck. He licked and nipped his way down to her shoulder while the hand that had been at rest started to move. His fingers floated to the curve where her ass met her leg, and then they slowly stroked their way to the inside of her thigh. His knee nudged hers, opening her up a little more for him.

"I know you can feel this." His lips were back to her ear, his fingers teasing. "I know you feel this. It's gentle, barely there." His fingers illustrated his words, a ghostly touch between her legs. "You thought you knew what you wanted. You thought you should keep being a good girl and get your work done, fulfill your commitments, but that's not what you want anymore, is it?"

The hand that held her hair relaxed, and she shook her head.

"But this…" He paused as his hand drifted further away from where she wanted it. "This isn't going to get you anywhere. You need to see me, really see me."

"I can't see you." Her voice dripped with frustration. "I can't."

"I'm right here."

"You're behind me."

"I don't have to be."

"Look at me, Bella. Look at me. I'm here."

Dream Bella opened her eyes but kept her head down. Now she was sitting on the edge of her desk at work. Her skirt was pushed up so that she could see the skin of her thighs disappear into the lace of her black stockings. Her legs were spread, knees bent, and her feet were resting on the arms of her chair. Between them, there was a vague outline of a man.

"Look at me, Bella. Look up. See me."

As Bella's eyes slowly made their way up, the figure solidified. When she finally met his eyes, Edward was standing in front of her.

"You see me."

"I do."

They met each other halfway. His mouth was on hers, and then it was back on her neck. He sucked at her skin as his fingers plunged into her. She arched against him but couldn't get close enough. Her hand came off the desk to pull his hair. His mouth moved off her neck to find hers, and his tongue thrust past her lips as his fingers pushed and curled into her. He grabbed her hand from his head and stopped kissing her to lick and suck her fingers before bringing her hand between them to where his fingers dipped into her.

"This. This is what I should've done. I should've given in to you and fucked you and changed you. I should have made you mine in every way."

She pressed into him, seeking an end to this frustration. "But you couldn't." She took her free hand and pushed against his chest. "And now I can't."