A/N: I don't own Twilight. I am just having fun of my own with the characters.

Many thanks to my Beta the lovely gooseonline. Mistakes are my own. thanks to Neyvada and Consuela23 for helping me with my high school level french. thanks to y'all for reading, the follows, favourites and reviews: *mwhah*

Chapter 8 ~ pour ma douce

"Someone got laid." Emmett almost shouted in my ear as we were walking into the gym. I pushed him away and punched him in the arm.

"I don't want the gory details of your sex life Emmett," I deflected. I knew he was fishing for details of my date with Isabella.

"Not me, I meant you."

"What makes you think I got laid, you nosey fucker?"

"That's not a denial, bro." He laughed as we headed towards the lockers to stow our gear. "That's a deflection."

Smart arse.

"Morning boys, ready to get sweaty with me," Lauren's sultry voice interrupted our brotherly banter.

"Do your worst Lauren. Edward here needs to up the pace though. He's been eating too many french pastries," he said wiggling his eyebrows at me.

"Oh yeah, that reminds me Edward, I have a bone to pick with you," Lauren said accusingly and narrowed her eyes. "Jess and I have added extra miles to our weekly run total to work off the tasty treats she gets from you and that bakery."

"Bella's Bakery should be off limits for all of us," Emmett joins in, "but I love the food and Eddie boy here just can't stay away from the place. Isn't that right Eddie?"

I couldn't help my smug grin because he was right, I can't stay away from the Bakery or Bella.

"It's worth the extra work out Lauren, believe me." I turned to Emmett, "And don't call me Eddie or I'll cut you off, no more patisserie treats for you, how about that?"

At that Emmett grabbed me in a headlock trying to wrestle me to the ground shouting, "Don't threaten me, Eddie."

"Okay boys, break it up we have some good cooking to work off. I've designed a new program for each of you which should compensate but let's keep the tasty treats in moderation shall we?" Lauren assumed her Personal Trainer authoritative voice as she handed us our new workout regimens.

I liked working out with Emmett, we'd always played sport together and now as adults it was a good way to keep our fitness up and spend time together. A testosterone bonding activity that didn't involve beer! Alice and I had our kickboxing session once a week but the rest of my workouts I did with Emmett.

Lauren was the Personal Trainer I hired to run the gym I had built in our building. It's a decent sized gym with all the latest gadgets as well as a lap pool, a running circuit and a squash court.

All the staff at Cullen & Masen have free access to the gym as an employee benefit and Lauren designs the regimen for each staff member who wants one. The gym is also open for private membership and it is always busy thanks to our location, set-up and to a large degree Lauren's excellent reputation.

Lauren is fabulous, tough as nails but so dedicated. She runs Tai Chi classes, yoga classes and some sort of music boxing classes which I have no idea about but are very popular.

The fact that Lauren is Jessica's partner is just icing on the cake for me. They're a fun couple and really dedicated to the company.

Reading the new workout sheet she'd prepared for me I started to whine. "Oh Lauren. Do I really have to do that many laps of the pool?" I'm not a big fan of swimming, I like to run.

"Yes, it'll be good for your joints and for your breathing stamina." The tone of her voice sounded a lot like Esme. There's no arguing with that motherly tone.

"C'mon Emmett, let's get started on the rest of this new circuit and then we'll swim to finish," I said heading to the jogging track.

"Good deal." Emmett was a natural athlete and never whinged like I always did.

After some stretches we began our jog starting slow and Emmett jumped right back fishing for information. "So? Did you?"

"Did I what?" I said, taking the inside track.

"Did. You. Get. Laid?" He pronounced each word like I was simple.

"I'm not telling you that!" I was not going to give him any intimate details from my date with Bella. I have done nothing but think about that good night kiss, she was right it was delicious.

"You did take her out didn't you?" he asked more seriously now.

I decided to tell him what I could. "Yes and she is lovely. I am taking her out again on Saturday night. I want to take her dancing so we're going to Twilight."

"You're smiling an awful lot for someone who didn't get laid." He was wiggling his eyebrows at me.

"Shut up you fucker! I'm not falling for that." I punched him in the arm again.

"Damn, Edward. I was just asking. No need to be so violent." He was holding his arm feigning injury. "I'm glad you went out with her and I'm glad you're going out again."

"Me too, Emmett. Me too."

"Let's lift the pace," he said trying to overtake me, "loser pays for coffee today."

"You are not coming to the bakery Emmett, you'll only make her uncomfortable with your teasing." I spoke more firmly than I meant to but seriously the fucker would scare her off.

"Well then I guess you'll have to beat me, then won't you," and we raced in earnest.

After our workout I washed, dressed ready to go to Bella's Bakery for our morning treats and to get my Bella fix.

I benched Emmett, it's too soon to expose Bella to my bear of a brother. Fucker thought he'd out race me - forget that - he may be stronger but I'm faster and he knows it. Well, he definitely knows it now.

I jumped in the back of the limo and headed straight to Bella's.

"Morning Rosalie," I said when I got to the counter, looking around for Bella.

"Hey Edward, how are you today? You want your usual?" said Rosalie with a bright smile on her face.

"Yeah, that'd be great thanks. Is Bella here?"

"Sorry Edward, she's just popped out for half an hour. You're later than usual, Bella always pops out at this time each morning."

"Good to know. I extended my workout session so I finished later than usual." Hell, I'll have to start earlier instead of finishing later, I don't want to miss my morning Bella fix. Damn.

"She had a nice time last night," Rosalie said smiling at me. I looked up and smiled.

"And you're going out again on Saturday night." It wasn't a question. I wondered where this was going.

"Make her happy and we'll be friends. Hurt her and I'll hunt you down and feed you your balls." She smiled the sweetest smile as she said that to me. Why is it even scarier when a woman threatens you and smiles at the same time? Fuck.

"I won't hurt her Rosalie. I like the sound of her giggle too much to ever make her sad. I promise." I meant it too.

"Great," she said as if we'd been discussing the weather and not her removing my gonads.

I paid and dropped my change into the tip jar as usual, gathered my goodies and headed out. I was frustrated, I didn't get my Bella fix.

In the back of the car, I took a deep breath inside the bag of pastries and thought of my beautiful Bella.

I pulled out my phone and sent her a text:

'Missed you this morning. No Bella but I have Bella's pastries. :( … Edward'

'Sorry I missed you. No Edward for Bella today :( … B'

'Tomorrow? … E'

'I hope so, your usual time tomorrow? I hope Rose looked after you?... B'

'Oh yes. Rose was as sweet as her name, thorns n all :) ... E'

'? Did something happen with Rose? … B'

'No sweet one. She was just being a good friend for you. … E'

'Ah, Yes she is fiercely loyal :) … B'

'See you tomorrow, ma douce … xxx E'

'What does that mean? I'll have to look it up. Nice kisses - til tomorrow … xxx B'

I headed into the office, spreading the goodies out for the morning executive team meeting. The meeting went well and I poured myself into work the rest of the day.

After lunch I decided I wanted to send Isabella flowers but I didn't want to just send roses. I wanted to send her something unique or special.

"Jess, what's a nice flower to send someone after a first date?" I shouted to her from my desk. She strolled into my office, sat in the chair opposite my desk and raised her eyebrow.

"I take it this is for our favourite baker Miss Isabella?"

"Who else?"

"Oh I know," she said excitedly. "You should do what that guy did in that movie. Maggie Gyllenhaal was this beautiful baker and he was a boring accountant," she smirked at me when she said that and I just raised my eyebrows back at her. "Not that you're a boring accountant boss" she said condescendingly.

"Just tell me what happened in the movie, would ya," I rolled my eyes playfully.

"Okay," she laughed. "Well the boring accountant dude, that's you, gave the beautiful girl, that's Bella, flours."

"That's what I said before you came in here. I want to give her flowers, but I don't know what kind to give her."

"No, boring accountant man, he gave her flours. Y'know the stuff you bake with," she looked at me waiting for the penny to drop.

"Oh." Now understanding her meaning. "Mmm. … well that's cool but I can't do it if it was in a movie. But I should try and send something interesting like that?"

I had no idea what I was doing but I wanted to send her something nice.

"What does she like?"

"Cooking. She started when she was really little because her mother was useless in the kitchen, then she got this French cooking book for Christmas and that's what started her off."

Jess tilted her head to the side and smiled at me. "You really like her don't you, Edward?"

"Yeah, Jess," I said simply. "It's still early days. I want her to like me too but I don't think expensive gifts would impress her very much."

I sound a little pathetic but it was true I did want her to like me and I really had no idea what I was doing.

"Hey," having an epiphany of my own. "Maybe I could get her a book on french baking, sort of show I really was listening when she was talking last night?"

Jess ran to her desk, brought back her iPad and sat back down in her chair. "Let's search online and see what we can find boss."

She searched on her iPad while I jumped on my Macbook and we both searched for cookbooks which might be of interest to a professional baker. Jess found a few but none of them really sounded right.

Then I landed on the New York Journal of Books website and found a review of an excellent book by renowned French cook Ginette Mathiot, 'The Art of French Baking'.

"Listen to this Jess. 'experienced cooks and bakers will enjoy the thrill of working with recipes written like the ones our ancestors cooked from, demanding flexibility and ingenuity', that sounds perfect for Bella." I looked up at Jess and she was nodding.

"Let me find who stocks it boss and we can get it couriered over here."

"Thanks Jess. I want to write something in it before we send it to her," I said as she walking back out of my office to her desk.

Later when the book arrived. I wrote on the inside cover:

pour ma douce

tu es la plus douce des tentations

votre Édouard

(translation: for my sweet one - you are the sweetest temptation of all - your Edward)

I also included a copy of the New York Journal of Books Review with the section I'd read to Jess highlighted. I wrote next to the highlighted section 'this made me think of you'.

I still wanted to send some flowers in case she didn't like the book so I walked down to the florist a block from my building. What? I'm new to this dating thing, I don't want to fuck it up.

Apparently all different flowers have different meanings which I just thought was risky as hell. I didn't want to send her flowers that said 'sorry for your loss' or something weird. So I asked the florist to help me out.

There was a lot of blah, blah, blah about different meanings for different flowers and even different coloured flowers. What the hell. I eventually chose blue Iris. They apparently mean faith and hope which is what I am feeling for Bella, other than horny of course but I didn't ask what flower that was but I'll bet there was one.

The florist put the book into a gift box for me and we decided to add some other flowers for colour but I wanted the blue iris ones to be the main message. When he saw the title of the book he told me the Iris was the emblem of France or the Royal Family of France or something French anyway. I felt pretty smug about my choice after hearing that.

I told him I wanted to send a bouquet to my assistant as well for helping me find the perfect gift. He told me camellias meant thanks so I asked him to make up a colourful bouquet of those and deliver them to Jessica.

While paying for the flowers and delivery I took one of his business cards from the counter and placed it in my wallet. I had faith and hope that I would be needing him to send more flowers to my Bella in the future.

A/N: he is really trying hard to do this whole dating thing right - he's sweet though. So what did you think? Do you think Bella will like the book? and the flowers? how about Rosalie - she's a tigress isn't she! I'd love to hear your thoughts.