A/N: Thanks to Stephanie Meyers for having the best dream ever! Thanks to everyone for your reviews and follows, I am humbled by your support. *mwah*

Thanks also to gooseonline my lovely and patient beta. Mistakes are my own.

Chapter 25 - fresh ground coffee and green tea

"Bella?"

"mmm?"

She's so cute when she's still all post-coital. She goes all limp and relaxed.

"What was all that rubbish about outstanding prostitution charges you were saying to Tanya? I looked into her background and there were no outstanding warrants. So what was all that about? Hmmm?"

We were both gloriously naked and her soft smooth body was wrapped around mine. She snuggled into my chest, damn I loved that. She then reached her hands up to play with my hair. Hmmm, she was definitely trying to distract me. Well, two can play at this game and she should know just how competitive I could be. It was time to turn the tables on this little seduction act, so I took her hands gently in one of mine and I reached the other across her hip and flipped her on to her back. I nudged her legs apart with my knee and I held her hands above her head against the headboard.

I tilted my head to the side and looked into her eyes. She blushed and I knew she was hiding something from me.

"What have you been up to my naughty little girl?"

Keeping her arms above her head I had her pinned beneath me. I pressed my hard cock against her heat and nuzzled my way down her neck before suckling on her left breast. She loved that, it always made her wet for me.

"Oh… Edward… don't stop… baby, please."

But that was exactly what I did, I stopped. Completely. I pulled back from her smirking at her, "Talk sweet one. C'mon, tell me what you've been up to."

She blew out a breath of frustration and I smirked at her again raising my eyebrows with expectation.

"Well… I may have exaggerated the situation when talking to Tanya… to scare her and get her to go away." She gave me a very guilty look as she spoke. "But I didn't really lie… well not really… well maybe…. but it worked didn't it, baby."

I sat up taking her with me and put my back against the headboard. I didn't want to break our touch so I pulled her up with me and cuddled her into my arms.

She rested her head on her shoulder and played with the hair on my chest.

"C'mon Isabella. I want to hear all of it."

My tone of voice was stern. Playtime was over.

She clearly understood that I was serious as she let the words pour out of her, "Tanya had been arrested on prostitution charges but she's only just turned eighteen. Apparently the prosecution argued that although she was guilty it was a first time offence and she had a clean record. The judge ruled that her record would not show the conviction unless she got into trouble again in the next year and that she didn't leave the state during that probationary time. The car theft charges occurred within six months.

"So when I said to Tanya that she was wanted on charges of prostitution and car theft, she believed me because she had stolen the car and she had left the state during her probationary period."

"But?" I knew there was more and she was going to fucking tell me. She was so used to keeping things to herself but this was going to stop. I had to show her that keeping shit from me was unacceptable.

"Buuuuut…. the car she stole was her father's. He only reported it because he wanted the police to help him find her but he dropped the charges as soon as he realised that if caught Tanya would face more serious consequences because she'd broken the conditions set by the judge. He lied to the police and said the car and his daughter were found and it was all a 'miscommunication'.

"But Tanya obviously know that the conditions set by the judge are now complete and that she is no longer under any threat of arrest. So my threat to get my lawyer to inform on her was a bluff."

"A bluff?" I looked at her.

"Yes. If need be I could've got him to inform Tanya's father of her whereabouts but I doubt I would've done that… not really."

We were quiet for while. I was stroking my fingers through her beautiful long hair while she played with the hair on my chest.

"Bella?"

"Yes baby?" Her voice was quiet, she was clearly nervous.

"Did you run a background check on me?"

She almost whispered, "Yes."

Fuck.

I pulled away from her embrace, swung my legs off the bed, pulled on my boxers and stood up.

"Edward?" She sat up pulling the sheet up to cover herself.

"Get dressed Isabella. We need to talk about this and I don't want to do that in our bed, okay." I didn't want to bring an potential argument into our bed. I wanted to keep that place for our love and for our love-making.

"I'm going to make myself some coffee, do you want some tea, love?"

"Green tea, please."

"Okay, I'll get us our drinks and then meet you in your office, okay. I am assuming that's where you have the background information on me?"

She looked at me with sad eyes. "Yes."

I nodded and headed out to the kitchen. I made the coffee and the tea in a numb kind of haze. As I watched the coffee drip through the beans into the carafe and the drops were mesmerising. Was I angry? I wasn't sure. I was shocked that was true. My sweet one hired a private detective to investigate me. Okay, yes I was definitely angry. I had to find out why she did that instead of just asking me what she wanted to know. Isn't that what people in relationships did?

Fuck. I was confused but I was determined not to run. I was going to sit down and find out what the fuck was going on.

I fixed carried the mugs with our drinks into the office to find her sitting in the chair in front of the desk waiting for me. She was fiddling with the corner of a folder which she had on her lap and was clearly very nervous. Fuck that. I put the drinks down on the little coffee table went over and reached my hand out for her to take. She looked up at me and I smiled down at her. "C'mon love, let's sit on the couch and talk, okay?"

"Okay." There was relief in her voice, she took my hand and we moved to the large leather couch.

"Sweet one. I want you to know that I am upset about this, in fact, I am very angry about this but I want to hear you out and hear why you thought it necessary to investigate me rather than just ask me your questions. But I also want you to know that I love you. That sometimes we are going to argue and sometimes we are going to be angry with each other, but I meant it when I said I was never going to run from you again. We can disagree, we can even fight and be angry but we'll still be together. We'll just work it out together. Okay?"

Tears fell down her cheek and she nodded.

I picked up my coffee and sat back in the chair. "So why don't we start with why you felt the need to investigate me."

She put the folder down on the coffee table, picked up her tea and turned to sit sideways so she was facing me.

"Edward, I actually have a private investigator on retainer. I use him often to run background checks on people I am personally going to hire through the Helping Hands program.

"As you can imagine with the bakery and catering businesses I have people in the building at odd times of day and night. They not only have access to me but often times they have access to Lil Bit. So as a safety precaution I usually get a background check on each person to make sure they are telling the truth about their background. I believe in helping people get a second chance in life but I have to be careful with Lil Bit's safety."

"Okay. I understand that. That actually makes a lot sense. Elizabeth's safety is very important to me too. I am grateful you have this practice with your employees especially given many of them have lived rough and may have been involved in illegal activities. I am relieved actually that you do this. It reminds me that I want to talk to you about travelling on the bus with Lil Bit, but we'll talk about that later."

She looked at me quizzically but obviously thought it is wise to leave it alone for now.

I reached forward to put a stray hair back behind her ear. I wanted to touch her and comfort her because she was still distressed but calmer than when we first sat down.

"So, love, now I understand why you have a P.I. on retainer and you use him routinely to run background checks. When did you decide to run one on me?"

"After you stopped talking to me." She looked at me with tear filled eyes. "Baby, I didn't know what to do. I was already in love with you, we'd only been on two dates but I knew you were the one. You were so sweet, so loving. You'd warned me that you'd had a terrible past with bad relationships and that you had trust issues but when you ran from me, I just didn't know what to do. I was lost."

"I tried talking you, I tried visiting your office but you just wouldn't see me. I was desperate Edward. I'm sorry if you feel I invaded your privacy and I see now that I did and that it was wrong. I could lie and tell you that I did it to make sure there was nothing in your life that was a threat to Lil Bit or to me. I could say that I was protecting myself from gold-diggers. But none of that would be true.

She put her tea down and took my coffee from me to place it on the table too. She surprised me, again, and climbed onto my lap to straddle me. I wrapped my arms around her, holding her close to me. Her hands cupped my face, leaned forward putting her forehead to my forehead.

"The truth is I wanted to find the answer to the mystery. How could such a handsome, loving, successful and wealthy man be so insecure. I wanted to know what had happened to you. I thought that if I solved the mystery I'd be able to find a way to get you to talk to me. That's the truth baby. I know now that it was wrong.

"Love is patient," I reminded her as I leaned forward and placed a gentle kiss on her nose.

"Baby, I should've waited because in the end you did reach out to me. You sent me the text." She reached back to pick up the folder. "I didn't need this information and honestly it didn't help me anyway."

She slid off my lap to sit close beside me and I wrapped my arm around her, I didn't want her to move too far away from me.

"So what exactly did you find out?"

She opened the folder and starting flicking through the pages. "I found out that you lost your parents when you were young. That Esme and Carlisle adopted you, as well as adopting Emmett and Alice. I found out that you were a Volturi, a Cullen and a Masen. I found out that despite that and having all the money you could ever need from all three of your family fortunes, that you didn't take advantage of that but that you built your own successful investment business yourself.

"I also found out that you'd had three significant relationships, Irina in high school, Kate in college and Tanya until recently."

"I told you all about that myself, you didn't need a P.I. to tell you that, love."

"I know and I realise now how wrong it was for me to do it."

I took the folder from her and started flicking through the pages. Apparently, Irina is married to a wealthy developer, so all her dreams seem to have come true. Kate has two children but is divorced from the professor she left me for, apparently he cheated on her with another student. I suppose what goes around, comes around.

I tossed the folder down on the table.

"I'm sorry Edward, I should've trusted you to tell me when the time was right. I wouldn't normally invade someone's privacy this way unless it was for employment checks and they are aware that I am doing that as it is condition of the Program. I just seem to lose sight of good sense when it comes to you. I love you so much."

"Love is trust. I am trying so hard to trust and it is really difficult for me because women have betrayed my trust in the past. Finding out that you've done this and that you've kept this from me is challenging my resolve, Bella."

I reached across and pulled her into my lap. She leaned her head on my chest.

"I love you so much Isabella. You are smart, beautiful, loving, a wonderful mother to Lil Bit and you are fantastic in bed. You are my dream girl. I know that you've been on your own and that you've had a lot of responsibility but you're going to have to start letting me in. I honestly cannot be angry with your for doing this Bella. If you had cut me off and wouldn't talk to me I'd probably do this or worse to find out how to fix it. Don't get me wrong I don't think investigating someone you care about is right but I understand why you did it.

"I want us to share good times and bad times but most importantly I just want us to share with one another. Neither of us have very much experience with relying on someone else or opening up to someone else. You were right the other night when you said this is a first time for both of us. I for one have never been in an open, loving relationship where trust was a factor. I think it will take us some time to work it all out and we'll probably stumble every now and again. We just have to help each other and lift each other up when we fall. Love forgives and we have to forgive each other when we make mistakes."

We shared a slow, passionate, loving kiss. Neither of us in any hurry. Both of us enjoying the warmth of each other's hold. We pulled away just enough to rest our foreheads together.

"I think that was our first fight, sweet one."

"Does that mean we get make-up sex now?"

I laughed, my innocent girl has developed a taste for sin and I love it. "Soon baby, There are just a few other things we need to talk about before I take you back to our bed and ravage you." I tickled her sides and she squirmed, giggling and trying to get away from me. I wasn't having that!

"Seriously, sweet one there are a few things I want to sort out."

"Okay." She handed me my coffee mug and picked up her own mug of tea. "Shoot."

"I don't want you and Lil Bit on public buses anymore. It is an unnecessary risk. I'm going to talk with Tyler about getting an SUV with full safety features and install a proper safety seat for Elizabeth. Whenever you want to go somewhere you'll call Tyler and he'll drive you. I'm not really going to ask you this one, love. This one I am just going to lay down the law. Yours and Lil Bit's safety is too important to me, okay?"

"I just don't want Lil Bit growing up spoiled. She's my little princess but I don't want her to grow up so privileged she has no idea how to catch a bus or balance a cheque book. But I do agree that at the moment it is an unnecessary risk. So I agree to the car and the driver but I want to pay for it."

"No."

"Edward? I can certainly afford my own car and driver."

"I don't care. No."

She pouted at me.

"I warned you, love. I am a controlling, possessive man. You and Lil Bit are mine and I will take care of you. Okay."

She narrowed her eyes and looked at me. I can only assume she was trying to work out if this was a battle worth fighting.

"Okay."

"Good girl. Please understand that I just can't bear to think of you being hurt again. You are very wealthy and so is Lil Bit. That makes you targets. I just want to keep you safe."

I leaned my lips down to hers for a soft, chaste kiss.

"I just have one more topic I want to discuss before we get lost in each other again - birth control."

"I don't want us to use any, Edward."

I looked at her with my head tilted to one side a I took in her words. "Why not, love? I mean, I just want to understand it."

"Well, I'm not sure if can really explain it properly. My reasons are complicated and yet they're simple too. I have never had any interest in a fling or casual sex. I was never even attracted to a man before you. I waited until I was in love to give myself physically to a man… to you.

"As you said before, I've been alone a lot in my life. I lost my father to cancer, I lost my mother and Phil in that terrible accident. But what little family I had I loved and they loved me. Unconditionally. I value family and that unconditional love above all other things even though the only family I have left is Elizabeth.

"When my own mother threatened to abort her pregnancy I begged her not to and I thank heaven everyday because if she had I would be alone right now and I would not have my sweet Lil Bit. Add to that that I've watched Emily and Sam go through the agony of trying repeatedly to have a baby of her own only to miscarry each time. I've watched Leah come to terms with the fact that she'll only have one child even though she'd love to have another.

"How could I in all good conscious try and prevent having a baby when I have love to give, money to support a child and a healthy body to bear a child.

"I don't know if any of this is making sense but if you put all these things together they seem to point to the simple truth which is that in my individual circumstances, I simply want to accept the natural consequences of having sex with the man I love. In fact Edward, if I were blessed with your child I would be both grateful and happy."

"Well my love, you can be sure of one thing if or when you become pregnant our child will be born a Cullen."

She smiled and nodded. "So we're agreed. No contraception. We'll let nature take its course."

"Yes, Bella." I spread my hand across her abdomen. "I cannot wait until you are round with my child growing inside you."

"Does that mean we can have make-up sex now." She waggled her eyebrows, reached her hands up behind my head, tugged on my hair and then pulled my head closer to hers. Our chaste kiss became heated.

I stood up taking her with me. I carried her bridal style walking down the hallway towards our room.

"When is Lil Bit coming home?"

"Not until ten tomorrow morning."

"Can we go get her before then, I miss her already."

Bella smiled at me. "Yes, baby, we can get her whenever you like."

"Good, but for now I want to make love to you and make you scream out my name… repeatedly."

A/N: I hope you like it and that it answered some of your questions. I also thought we needed a little Bella/Edward alone time. Thank you for reading. I'd love to hear your thoughts.