[Disclaimer] Stephenie Meyer owns everything Twilight. I own the plot for this story.

[A/N] to the Bella in my life; Thank you for always believing in my dreams. You bring out the best in me. I love you.

If you spend your whole life waiting for the storm, you'll never enjoy the sunshine

(Morris West)

Chapter 9

The next day at work, I have trouble focusing on the article I need to finish. My thoughts drift off to a blonde with the biggest chocolate-colored eyes I have ever seen. They are like expensive bitter chocolate. I break off a piece from the bar lying on my desk and suck it slowly. The combination of tart with a faint hint of vanilla is most delicious.

"Alice, are you finished with the article I gave you?" My boss asks, sticking her head inside my office. She is a nice person with too strict looking glasses on her nose. Her clothes are conservative. I have never seen her in other colors besides grey or navy.

She tugs on the sleeves of her shirt and steps closer, taking a look at my computer screen. "We have a dead line to meet."

"I know, Mrs. Cheney." I tell her. "I am almost done with the article about Tia Maria."

"Good," I notice the dark shadows under her eyes. "Not easy being a single mother." Mrs. Cheney yawns. She sighs and stretches her arms above her head. I know she and her husband just broke up a few weeks ago. They have a pair of two-year-old twins that they are fighting over now. Divorce is such an ugly thing.

"There is something I wanted to ask you." I say, trying to choose my next words carefully. "It's about the new project you have given me."

"The one about Volterra Dining?" Mrs. Cheney asks. She leans back against my desk and sits down on its edge. "What about it?"

I cough. "I was thinking if you could maybe give that job to someone else?"

My boss pushes her white-framed librarian glasses higher on her nose. "Why don't you want to write it?"

I shift on my chair, fishing for my shoes underneath the table. "It's personal."

"And this is your job." She states impatiently. "I expect you to act professionally."

Great she is in a bad mood. I bet her and her soon-to-be ex had another fight. She places the article Jasper wrote about my mother's restaurant on my desk. "I thought you would like to read this before it gets published. I'm sorry it didn't make the last online edition."

"It's okay. I understand." I whisper. Then I start another attempt on convincing Mrs. Cheney that I can't do the article. "Mrs. Cheney, I think Jasper would be better for doing the job on Volterra Dining. He has more experience."

"Mr. Hale is busy with other projects right now. If you need advice on your article, you may ask for his help anytime."

Mrs. Cheney pats my shoulder. She clicks her tongue and pushes her glasses back and forth to adjust the proper position on her nose. "Volterra Dining is important. Don't screw this project up if you'd like to keep your job here."

With that she walks out, her flat shoes making her look as if she's waddling. I have never seen her in heels. Maybe she has a complex about her height.

I read through the article Jasper has written about the place my mother and aunt built with their heart and blood. His words make me smile. The article is full of praise for the restaurant.

The perfect mixture of homemade food and haute cuisine. He writes. Your taste buds are going to feel embraced and much loved.

I scan the article because I want to show it to my mother before it gets published. Jasper has been far nicer in his report than I would have expected him to be. I make a secret vow to be nicer to him from now on. Hale may be a jerk, but he knows good food when he tastes it.

My phone beeps to announce a new text. There is a winking smiley in her message. I am not a fan of using emoticons but hers make me smile. Bella asks me if I want to see her during my lunch break. She needs to start her shift at 3 p.m. and will be stuck at the restaurant until they close, in the early-morning hours.

*I would love to see you. Meet me in front of my office in an hour. A.* I texted back.

The next forty minutes I give my best to polish up my article for the Tia Maria. I try to be fair. It's not the purpose of my job to screw restaurants. Well, I would love to screw one restaurant owner, but that is something completely different.

I need to convince Bella to get another job. I need to convince her that Volterra Dining isn't the right place for such a nice person like her.

I get up from my chair and head for the restrooms to rinse my mouth with cold water and freshen up my make-up a bit. Knowing that Bella is going to see me makes me feel vainer than I usually am. I want to look my absolute best for her.

I unbutton the first three buttons of my blouse and pull up my skirt a bit higher, exposing my knees and a bit of my thighs. On my way over to the elevators, someone whistles behind me.

"Heya, Milk-choc, you are looking smoking hot today."

For a moment I consider ignoring Tyler. He has a big mouth and nothing behind it. Mrs. Cheney's secretary has told me he lives in a van. Who in their right mind lives in a van?

I still and turn around. "My name is Alice, not Milk-choc." I step closer to him and grab his superman tie. A man who wears comic characters on his tie, is ridiculous. "And I don't care very much for your stupid attempts to flirt with me. I don't like you. Leave me the fuck alone, dipshit."

Bella is already waiting for me when I walk outside. Today the sun is shining. She is wearing sunglasses and a baseball hat. Her mouth lights up into a smile when she sees me.

"Hey, beautiful woman," she calls out. The butterflies in my stomach awaken to life when she pulls me into a hug. I smell oregano and rosemary on her hair and inhale a bit deeper. Bella notices it and pulls back from the embrace. "I'm sorry. I know I must smell like pasta sauce."

"It's fine." I tell her. "I know how it's like. My mom is a chef too."

"You didn't feel like following in her footsteps?" Bella asks me. "I mean, being a journalist is probably more exciting. Isn't it?"

We walk side by side to the coffee shop around the corner of my office building. I order two coffees and a pastrami sandwich. Bella claims not to be hungry. I get some bacon and cheese on wheat bread for her. The girl needs to get something on her bones.

"Eat," I tell her. Then I use the same crappy sentence on her my father always brought up when I was little. "Kids in Africa are starving."

Bella grabs the first half of her sandwich and takes the bacon out. I shake my head and grab it from her plate. No one in my family has ever wasted crispy bacon. Then the poor pig would have been killed for nothing. "Are you a vegetarian?" I ask her, chewing the slice of bacon. It's crunchy, salty and perfect in its unhealthiness.

"I do eat meat. But I don't like cold bacon."

I take the second slice from her plate and eat it too. "You have no idea what you are missing out on." I lift my fingertips to my mouth to lick them clean. She stops me, making me hold my breath when she takes my hand and puts them against her own mouth.

The tip of her tongue flashes over my fingertips. A soft humming sound leaves her lips, and then she sucks the tip of my forefinger between soft, moist lips.

My heart is in my mouth. Its beat turns into a fast-paced staccato. Glowing heat rushes through my body. Underneath the table, I rub my thighs together.

Bella lets go of my hand and leans back in her chair. "Salty and full of promises to come."

I feel redness flushing into my face. I grant her a big smile. "I am very happy to see you again."

"Likewise," Bella whispers. She takes her sandwich and nibbles on it. "How is your grandmother doing?"

It feels strange to talk to someone I haven't known for long about my Nana. That feels too intimate somehow.

"I don't know." I say. "It's hard to tell. The nurse told me she's sleeping a lot. When Mom and I visited her, she was so quiet. The only thing she talks about is Henry."

Bella adds milk to her coffee and stirs it around. Then she lifts the teaspoon to her lips and licks it clean. It would be beyond satisfying to have her tongue lick gently all over my body. The thought sends another wave of pulsing warmth between my thighs.

"Who is Henry?" Bella asks me, taking another bite from her sandwich. I have a strange fun watching her eat. It's probably because it draws the attention to her pouty lips.

"Was," I say, taking a small sip from my coffee. "He was my grandfather. "

"I'm sorry for your loss." She pushes around on the sunglasses. Why is she still wearing them inside the coffee shop? White people are so sensitive with the sun sometimes.

"Thanks." I mumble. "He died a very long time ago, when my mother and aunt were still little girls."

"Oh, I see. That must have been hard for your grandmother to raise two kids on her own."

"She is strong." I lift my coffee cup to my mouth again. "I mean she was strong. It's painful to see someone you love being wasted away by a sickness."

She nods her head. Her lips press together into small line. "That is how I feel about Charlie. He and I used to be very close. You know, before his accident."

I reach out my hand over the table and caress hers very lightly "It's not sunny in here. I think you can take these off now." I lift my hand to her sunglasses to take them off. I miss seeing her Bambi Eyes. They are one of my favorite features of hers so far.

"No," she mumbles, turning her head to the side. "I need them."

For what, I wonder. Are those prescription sunglasses? I smile at her and place my hand on her underarm. "There's this new invention called contacts."

I grab the left side of her sunglasses and pull them down. "Let me see your beautiful eyes for a moment."

She tries to protest but it's too late. I have already seen it. There is a dark bruise on her left eye, topped with a bit of crusted blood.

Crap.

"It's nothing," Bella whispers shifting on her chair. She puts the sunglasses back on and opens the ponytail she's wearing to push her hair forward so that it is partly covering her face. "It's nothing."

"It sure as hell is not nothing." I hiss. "Who did this to you?"

She doesn't answer my question. Her bottom lip quivers. Shit. If she starts crying now, what am I to do then?

"I am sorry," I tell her. "Does it hurt a lot?"

"It stings. Honestly, it looks much worse than it is."

Very gently I touch the side of her face and push her hair behind her ear. Its silky texture is fascinating. Does she straighten it or is it naturally like this? I take off the sunglasses again.

Ouch. This looks awful. "Did you have a doctor take a look at this? The laceration could get infected. It's going to scar if you don't get it stitched."

She grabs the sunglasses from my hand and puts them back on. "I can't see a doctor. All my money goes into the payment plan to keep Charlie in the retirement home."

I sigh, wiping my mouth with a paper napkin. "Come with me. I know where we can get you treated for free."

The E. R. is crowded like always during the lunch hour. I take Bella's hand and guide her directly to the elevators. Dad's office is in the seventh floor. That's the best floor in the entire hospital because it has the soda and candy machine on it.

I knock on the door while Bella next to me shifts nervously back and forth on her feet. "I don't have any money." She warns me. "And I can't accept you paying for this."

"No worry." I whisper. "You will be fine."

"Come in," Dad calls and we step inside. His office is crowded with books and magazines. There is a world map with countless red and a few green pins all over it. The green ones are for the places where he and Mom have already been. The red ones are for the trips they still plan on taking.

"Alice, my darling! What a surprise." He hugs me close. When he's in the hospital he always smells like coffee and medical soap. "What brings you here? Aren't you working today?"

I clear my throat and push Bella forward, placing my hand on her shoulder. "My friend here needs a doctor to look at this." I take the sunglasses off from Bella's nose and hold them in my hand.

Dad turns his doctor mode on. When he does that he gets this frontal lobe appearing on his forehead. He lifts his hand to Bella's chin. "May I?"

He pulls the tiny flashlight from his lab coat and shines it into Bella's eyes. Then he murmurs something to himself that I don't understand. "How did this happen?"

"I fell," Bella says. "I am a bit clumsy sometimes."

Dad grabs a bottle of disinfectant stuff from his desk and dabs a bit of it on a cotton ball. "This might hurt a bit. I'm sorry." He puts it carefully against Bella's blood-crusted eyebrow and wipes it clean. "Are you sure you fell?"

"No," she whispers. "But it doesn't matter. It was an accident."

My father sighs. "We need to stitch you up. Women don't like having visual scars, right? Alice has one under her chin because she tried to climb up the chimney in her aunt's house."

I cross my arms in front of my chest and watch how Dad puts on a pair of purple-colored rubber gloves. "Sit down, Miss…?"

"Bella," I say. "Her name is Bella. We don't need to document this in a chart, right?"

He looks up at me. His mouth twitches. "Alice, we need to report cases of domestic violence. It's the law. Men who abuse women and children need to be stopped."

"I fell down the stairs in my apartment." Bella says. "No one hurt me."

She is a bad liar. I know there are no stairs inside her apartment. I am also sure that if she'd really fallen down, she would have hurt her hands and knees, not her eye. I need to know who hurt her. Right now, I just want to help her though. "She fell," I say calmly. "If she said she fell, she fell. Can you please take care of her wound now?"

Bella nods her head. "Dr. Cullen, I don't have money to pay you for stitching me up. It's not going to be a big scar, is it? I could cover it up with make-up, couldn't I?"

My father shakes his head. "I am going to stitch you because that is why Alice brought you here. Next time you fall like this, put ice on it right away. It will reduce the swelling."

I sit down on the side of his table and watch how he begins to stitch up the wound on Bella's eyebrow. He works quickly. Years and years of practice have turned jobs like these into a routine for him.

"Why did you try to climb up the chimney?" Bella asks me. "That's crazy."

"I was seven." I explain. "My brother told me that Mom and Dad bring our presents and not Santa Claus." I play with the bracelet around my wrist. "I didn't believe him and wanted to prove him wrong. So, I tried to climb up the chimney to wait for Santa."

Dad smiles and wipes a bit more disinfectant over Bella's eyebrow. "She was a stubborn child, cute, but stubborn."

He puts a little piece of gauze on the stitched-up cut and pulls back. "We're done. Try to keep it dry and come back again in a week, so we can pull the stitches out."

"Thank you, Dad."

"Thank you, Sir." Bella whispers. "Thanks for helping me."

She notices something on his desk and squeaks. "Oh my Gosh, that's the new Cynara Parker novel, the sequel to Pirate's Embrace." She takes the book and holds it up as if it's fragile. "How did you get this? The book isn't even expected out before summer."

Dad takes the book from her and places it back on the desk. "You seem excited." His voice is kind and warm. He loves having the books being praised. "Did you like Pirate's Embrace? It didn't do well with the critics."

"Book critics know shit. The book is awesome. It's my favorite of hers." Bella tells me. "Cynara Parker is a genius. She's a true romantic. How did you manage to get a copy of the unpublished book? You are so lucky."

"You are lucky we got your injured eye taken care of. Thanks again, Dad. We need to leave now." I tell him, trying to pull Bella outside the office. My lips touch against her temple when the door closes behind us.

"I don't like you being hurt."