Greetings, Twi-Fans. I'm back with some new work, although this chapter isn't quite it yet. Bear with me, and please read the rest of this AN to find out more.
So, I decided I needed to start writing again, and as a number of reviewers of this one-shot asked very nicely for it to be extended, I thought this might be a good place to begin. For those who have already read the original story, this is actually the second half of that one-shot, which I have split in order to make it a little more manageable as a multi-chapter fic, so you may want to go back to Chapter 1 to familiarise yourself with the story. If you reviewed the original, please don't feel obliged to review this.
Going forward, I will start posting new chapters (i.e. new material) as of this weekend and will hopefully post weekly thereafter.
Bella screamed and dropped the letters.
How had she not heard him?
"I-I'm ... I'm so sor—"
Before she could even start to articulate an adequate apology, Edward was in front of her—she hadn't even seen him move—and his large hand was on her throat.
He wasn't squeezing, and he wasn't hurting her, but she nevertheless knew she was trapped. She looked into his eyes, which were a muddy sort of green, and she knew there was something unnatural about them.
"I'm sorry," she whispered again, knowing the words were wholly inadequate.
However, to her surprise, he sighed and dropped his hand, taking a step back. As she stood frozen, he stooped and picked up the letters. He gave them a cursory glance before shoving them back in the drawer and closing the desk.
Still glued to the spot, Bella watched in silence as he turned to her with a resigned look on his face.
"Did you read them?" he asked emotionlessly.
"I ... no, not really, I just saw the dates and who they were addressed to."
"I see. And what's your conclusion?"
He seemed genuinely curious, but Bella was wary.
"I don't know?" She couldn't help the rising inflection, turning it into a question.
Edward gave a wry smile and walked over to a wing-backed chair next to one of the bookcases, a twin to the one in the bedroom, and sat down to face her.
After a moment, Bella hesitantly pulled out the desk chair and lowered herself onto it.
"Come now, Bella, don't be coy. I think you're a very bright girl indeed, and I also think you have an opinion about me. I would very much like to hear it before I ask you to leave."
Edward wasn't sure why he was challenging her—did he really want her to give substance to any suspicions she might be harboring by discussing them? But, like picking at a scab, he needed to keep worrying at it until it bled.
Meanwhile, Bella's emotions were all over the place. She knew she had seriously overstepped and that Edward was absolutely entitled to feel angry, but she was afraid of what that might mean for her. He hadn't attacked her—not really—which gave her hope. But once she spoke of her suspicions—wildly speculative as they might be—would he be so sanguine?
Worst-case scenario—he would kill her.
Second worst-case scenario—he would throw her out on her ear, which she clearly deserved.
She stared at him as she warred with her internal dilemma. Goddammit, why did he have to be so attractive, so off-the-scale sexy? It was distracting.
As for Edward, his was a very different thought process. He was acutely aware that there had never been a time when he had felt quite so frustrated, all because the girl's mind was closed to him. Not a chink, not a snippet of her thoughts was available to him, and it left him feeling completely at sea. How could he make a decision if he had nothing on which to base it?
"You're throwing me out?" The object of his ire finally spoke, her voice small.
He sighed, crossing his long legs and running a hand through his hair. "Yes ... no ... I don't know. Bella, I ..." He paused, shaking his head. "Look, I need you to tell me what you're thinking. It's very ... difficult for me, not knowing. I don't want to hurt you, I really don't, but I'm concerned you may have become privy to matters you can't possibly understand. So, please, help me out here."
"And what if I confirm your worst fears? Are you going to kill me?" She bit her lip, bringing blood to just below the surface.
Edward turned his head away. "Please don't bite your lip," he whispered.
Bella frowned, releasing her lip. "Sorry, I wasn't aware I was doing it."
"You do it a lot, please desist," he growled through gritted teeth.
She cocked her head to one side. It was such an odd thing to say and was one more piece of weirdness that, when taken as a whole, gave her a bad feeling in the pit of her stomach.
Right on cue, said stomach let out its own growl and Edward buried his face in his hands.
"I'm sorry, I'm sorry. I did look for something to eat while you were out, but ... well, you don't even have any plates, let alone food."
He looked up, regarding her evenly. He then took his phone out of his pocket and started tapping rapidly on the screen. After a moment, he put it to his ear.
"What sort of pizza do you like?" he asked sharply.
"Oh, uh, just cheese ... and mushrooms ... Oh, and a Coke ... in a cup."
He rolled his eyes and relayed the order, giving his address and hanging up.
"Okay, food is on its way. Please rest assured that I wouldn't bother paying good money to feed you if I was then going to kill you."
Bella huffed. "I can pay for my own food, thanks!"
He waved a dismissive hand. "Hardly. Consider it my treat. Now, Isabella, I need you to talk to me. Why were you searching my home? What do you think you know?" He paused. "But first, tell me your story. What were you doing downtown?"
So, she told him.
First, about her mom running out on her when she was four years old, about her dad, Charlie, being a cop and dying of cancer six months earlier. She told him about the bank foreclosing on the house, which had been remortgaged to pay medical bills. About being taken in by her father's best friend, about his son, who turned out to want more than she was willing to give … and who wouldn't take no for an answer. About his threats, his looming presence, his demands. She told him how, in the dead of night, she had crept out of the house with a hastily packed bag, got in her truck and started driving.
"Where were you going?"
Bella looked up from the pizza that had arrived in the middle of her story. She noted that he hadn't taken any, despite having said he was hungry when he found her and obviously not having eaten since.
"Nowhere, anywhere. Just … away. Away from that shitty town that did nothing to help a man who spent his life serving and protecting it. Away from Billy's desperate hope that I'd marry his son just to maintain a connection to his dead friend, and away from Jake and his possessive fuckery. He wanted to control my life. He wanted a little housewife who would knock out a passel of fat babies, cook his meals, and spread her legs whenever the need—his need—arose. My dreams of college may have been dead in the water after the money ran out, but I wasn't ready to give up on living a life of my choosing—not for Jacob Black or for anyone. My dad would have hated that."
Getting up, she carried the box with the remaining pizza to the kitchen and dropped it on the breakfast bar. Behind her, Edward was silent, and she wondered if she'd bored him to death or whether he was just trying to work out the politest way to tell her to go.
Turning, she was a little surprised to see him regarding her contemplatively, a slightly quizzical look on his face.
"What?" she asked.
At first, she didn't think he was going to speak, but then it seemed like he'd made a decision.
"You are such an enigma to me, Bella Swan." He shook his head, smiling wryly.
"Hey, right back atcha, Edward Masen. Like, duh, why don't you have anything in your kitchen or your bathroom, why don't you eat, and why do you wear colored contact lenses? I'm no enigma, I'm like an open book. But you? Wow, you're ... you're like that saying of Winston Churchill's ... what was it? You know, the one he said about Russia or something ..."
"A riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma."
"That's the one. That is definitely you."
"Well, are you close to solving the mystery? You must have a theory."
She gazed speculatively at him for a moment, leaning forward to rest her forearms on the counter.
Edward winced as he watched her bite her lip, but then she spoke.
"Honestly? I don't know, but there's something ... " She shook her head and looked down at her hands where they were clasped in front of her.
Edward leaned forward. If only he could read her damned thoughts. "Tell me."
"It's dumb, you'll laugh at me."
"Bella, if there's one promise I can keep, it's that I won't laugh at you for voicing your theory."
She looked up, staring at him for what seemed like a very long time.
"Are you going to make me leave?" she demanded.
He wasn't expecting the question and sat back in his chair, frustration once again gnawing at him.
"You don't want to leave? If your theory about me is so ... out there, then I imagine you'd want to get as far from me as possible."
"You'd think, wouldn't you?" she smiled. "But it's bizarre. I mean, there's definitely major weirdness going on with you, but ... is it stupid that I don't feel afraid, that I actually feel safe here with you?"
Edward was shocked. Humans were always afraid of him, even if they tried to hide it or didn't understand why they were scared. Human women were attracted to him, and he had brought one or two of them to his bed. But, regardless of their desire for him, and despite how good the sex was, he could always hear the fear in their thoughts. And no woman had ever captured his interest for longer than one night or two, be they human or vampire. He wanted to be intrigued, to be stimulated by the company of others, but their thoughts were so prosaic, so uninspiring. Or they were just mad, or bad—or both—and he couldn't imagine ever wanting to spend more than a few days with anyone, let alone an eternity. He had, of course, heard of vampires who mated for life, but it was such an alien concept to him, and he knew that, like the majority of his kind, he would almost certainly live out his existence alone. It was, as always, a somewhat depressing notion.
"Edward?"
He focused back on the girl and, as he did so, a sudden revelation hit him like a bolt out of the blue. This girl, this young runaway with a tragic past ... she, like no other woman, had captivated him. She intrigued him, and there was no way he could let her leave, not yet. Whether it was just her silent mind or something more, he had to find out.
"Edward, I know I have no right to ask, and I know you're really cross with me, but please don't make me go. I'll be really good ... I could keep your apartment clean, and I'll be quiet, I won't snoop, I promise, and you'll hardly know I'm here. Oh, and I'm a pretty good cook ..." She trailed off. "But you don't eat, do you?"
Edward sat up again, eyeing her intently.
"No, Bella, I don't eat—at least, not in the conventional sense. And I don't need a housekeeper. And I would definitely know you're here. So, tell me what you're thinking."
Bella met his gaze, and a cold feeling once again settled in the pit of her stomach. His eyes, which had been green when she woke up, and a muddy hazel when he returned from his brief absence, were now a sort of reddish maroon, similar to her memory of them from before she passed out.
"Your eyes ..." she whispered.
Edward blinked—the lenses had almost dissolved.
"Yes." It was flat confirmation of what she could see. "And?"
Bella straightened and took a deep breath.
"Those men didn't run away, did they?" she asked, her voice cracking.
"No, Bella, they didn't."
"You killed them." It was a statement, not a question.
"Yes."
There was no point in maintaining the subterfuge any longer. Let the chips fall where they may. If she ran, he would kill her, much as he would regret it.
Bella swallowed, suddenly regretting her final slice of pizza. She glanced around the room, but Edward fancied that she wasn't looking for an escape route—rather, she seemed to be trying to arrange the final pieces of the jigsaw. She was clever, he sensed that, and she was also a pragmatist.
"You ... you drank their blood?"
There it was.
"What am I, Bella? Say it."
"It's crazy."
"Perhaps, but that doesn't make it any less true."
"It's all circumstantial," she insisted, a hint of desperation in her voice.
"History is littered with men and women who have been executed on such evidence. Just say it, Bella."
"Vampire," she whispered.
Edward sat back, feeling strangely satisfied. It occurred to him that if anyone else had ever articulated what Bella had just said he would have laughed in their face or killed them.
He had no desire to do either to Bella.
"Wh-what happens now?" she asked, her voice shaking slightly.
Although a big part of her thought she should try to escape, the pragmatist in her knew there was no point. He had killed four strong gangbangers on the street and disposed of their bodies in a matter of minutes; should Edward decide that Bella must share their fate, she had no chance. At the same time, she found herself so drawn to him that she realized she didn't care what he was. And, presumably, if he'd had evil intent, he would already have acted upon it.
"That's the conundrum, is it not? Well, I suppose the first and most important thing is that you can never tell anyone. Believe me, Bella, it really is fatal knowledge, and I'm not the one you need to fear if any of my kind discovers you know our secret."
Bella frowned. "Who would I tell? Everyone I love or ever cared about is dead or has betrayed me. And who would believe me, anyway? Besides, you saved my life and I owe you more than I can ever repay."
He stared at her, in awe of her strength and courage. This girl had been beset by some of the worst misfortunes life could throw at anyone, but here she stood, resilient, determined, brave ... a survivor. He was full of admiration for her, which surprised him. Few had impressed him in his long existence, fewer still who had been human, but at just 19, Bella Swan had certainly joined that rare and exalted group.
He got up and walked slowly to where she stood on the other side of the breakfast bar, stopping just a foot in front of her.
She neither flinched nor moved away, but merely looked up to meet his gaze steadily.
"Perhaps a more pertinent question here is what are you, Bella Swan?" He raised a hand and gently cupped her cheek, reveling in the heat and the silky smoothness of her skin.
"Me?" She barely breathed the word.
"Yes, you. Are you a witch? Or a Siren, perhaps. Whatever you are, you've cast a spell over me. Every moment with you has brought a new experience, a new revelation. So, what are you? Tell me your secret." As he spoke, he brought his other hand up to frame her face and his eyes flicked to her mouth.
Bella could hardly breathe. She had been kissed before, and it had sometimes even been welcomed, although rarely enjoyed, but never had it been so ardently craved as it was in this moment. All she could think was that she wanted this man to kiss her. She didn't care that he was a vampire, that he'd killed people. He couldn't be all bad, surely—hadn't he gone out of his way to rescue her, to keep her alive?
"I'm just a girl, Edward. There's nothing special about me," she responded softly.
He chuckled, a remarkably warm sound.
"Oh, Bella, you're wrong. You are so much more special than you can know. I've been assaulted by the thoughts of others for almost a hundred and seventy years, but you—"
Bella lurched back, breaking their intimate contact, her eyes round with horror. For the first time since he'd pulled her from her truck on that dark, fetid street, Edward saw real, naked fear on her face.
"You can read minds? Ohmygod, ohmygod ..."
She turned away, genuinely seeking escape this time, but his hands on her shoulders pulled her back to him. He spun her around and bent his knees so he could look into her eyes, which were currently glued to the floor.
"Bella, listen to me—"
"Oh, my God, why would you let me believe you were so desperate to know what I was thinking when you already knew? That's so mean, you—"
"Bella, stop." He tipped her head up with a finger under her chin. "I kept asking for your thoughts precisely because I couldn't hear them. For the first time in my very long life, I've been unable to access a mind."
She finally met his gaze, looking uncertain. "You can't read my mind?"
"No, Bella, I can't. It's incredibly frustrating."
A small smile made her lips twitch. "Yeah, I can see how it might put a kink in that cocksure exterior."
Edward's mouth dropped open, and then he tossed his head back and laughed loudly. It was such a rare occurrence that it astonished him. This girl ... this girl. Nothing in his life had prepared him for the tumult of emotions coursing through him.
Again, he took her face in his hands, but this time he didn't hesitate.
He kissed her. This was no chaste show of affection. Neither was it a venom-tainted means of rendering her unconscious. The moment his lips met hers, the torrent of feelings he had experienced the first time he had run his nose down her throat came flooding back, but this time he embraced them.
To his endless delight, Bella responded with passion, her hands sliding up over his chest and around his neck. As her fingers tangled in the thick hair at his nape, she pressed herself ever more urgently against him, clearly accepting of the evidence of his need.
As if it were the most natural thing in the world, he swept her up in his arms and carried her to his bed, where he set her down with tender care.
Standing up, Edward looked down at the dazzling nymph before him. "Do you want this, Bella?"
In answer, she held a hand out to him. "I've never wanted anything more."
With that, he divested himself of his clothes in a heartbeat, making Bella catch her breath as he was suddenly revealed to her in all his glorious splendor.
Moments later, he had made equally short work of her clothes and had begun his long, intense worship of her body. She was a goddess and he her willing acolyte. Nothing existed outside this room, there was only a man and a woman in perfect accord.
As Edward's mouth and hands showed her the depth of his feelings, Bella felt beautiful for the first time in her life. Without words, he told her how precious she was to him, how captivated he was by her. And the pleasure he drew from her body was like being reborn, over and over.
For Edward, the moment he entered Bella's intense heat was no less a revelation as he discovered, at long last, his reason for being. Here, after all, was why he'd lived so long. It was like coming home after a long sojourn in a dark, hostile country. Back to the embrace of a lover he hadn't realized he'd been missing until the moment her arms encircled him.
Moving inside her, Edward understood for the first time what writers meant when they told stories of the act of love being a religious experience. With every gasp and cry of pleasure he wrung from her, the intensity of their connection grew, and when she finally began to breathlessly chant his name over and over, like a litany, Edward knew that no matter the brevity of the time since their first, auspicious meeting, he would love this woman until the end of his existence.
This epiphany presaged the most intense and satisfying orgasm of his life. Bella cried out, her body twitching and pulsing around him as she clung to him like a drowning victim to a life-raft.
"Never let me go, Edward," she cried as tears coursed down her face.
Rolling onto his back with his arms around her, he stared up into her lovely smoky-brown eyes, using his thumbs to wipe her tears away.
"Never leave me, Bella," he responded.
Satisfied, she let him wrap the comforter around them and fell asleep in his arms.
~o0o~
"Tell me about the letters."
Bella was sitting across Edward's lap, her legs dangling over the arm of the chair as he held her close. A week had passed, and they had rarely strayed more than a few feet from one another, their need to touch seeming to grow rather than diminish. Edward had been reading to her—"Sense and Sensibility"—and he paused to look at her. After a moment, he sighed and put the book down.
"They're from someone named Alice. She's been writing to me since the 1930s, spouting some nonsense about her 'seeing' me living with her and her coven—she calls it a family. There are six of them, which is almost unheard of among my kind outside of Italy. Most are solitary nomads, or maybe you get small covens of two or three. Anyway, she says I'm destined to be a part of their family. Every so often, she writes to let me know their new address and to renew her pleas for me to join them – God knows how she finds me each time. But she hasn't written in a while, so hopefully she's given up."
"And yet you keep her letters, hidden away in a secret drawer."
He arched an eyebrow at her but said nothing.
"So, why aren't you interested in joining them? I mean, don't you ever get lonely? Wouldn't it be nice to have friends, a family of sorts?"
Again, he sighed, tightening his hold on her.
"I'd be lying if I didn't say this hasn't been a lonely existence, but I get by. I go out and meet people; the city has a lot to offer. And who wants to be the seventh wheel in a houseful of couples? Besides, right now, I don't feel lonely at all."
He smiled, cupping her head and kissing her. He wanted very much to take her back to bed, but they had made love—and fucked wildly—pretty much non-stop for most of the week and she was sore and tired. He knew she would acquiesce if he initiated it, but it wasn't just about his pleasure and neither of them would enjoy it if she was in pain.
Not for the first time in the last seven days, he found himself thinking about changing Bella, how much better it would be if he didn't have to keep such a tight check on himself, but then immediately forced the thought from his mind.
He pulled back, gently stroking her cheek. "That aside, they have some weird ideas about diet. They only drink the blood of animals, which sounds gross."
Bella sat up suddenly, wriggling to face him. "That's an option? They don't kill people?"
"I guess. Alice said their 'father', a guy named Carlisle, was the one who discovered it. It's pretty much unknown in my world, although apparently, there's another small coven in Alaska—she calls them their cousins—who also drink animal blood. She says it means they can stay in one place for a while—Carlisle's a doctor, for fuck's sake. It's unnatural."
"Why is it unnatural? Do you actually like killing people?" She looked away for a moment, shaking her head. "I can't believe I'm sitting here, calmly talking to a ... a murderer about killing people."
Edward dropped his head back against the chair. When he finally spoke, his voice was quiet and full of emotion. "I try not to be a monster, Bella. I didn't ask for this life but I try to live it as well as I can. I have a home, which is unusual for a vampire. I indulge a passion for music and literature, and I only kill those I know to be bad people, like those brutes who attacked you."
"So, you're judge, jury, and executioner." She tried not to make it an indictment, but knew it came out sounding accusatory.
Edward stood suddenly, setting Bella on her feet, and walked over to the breakfast bar. Leaning on it with his back to her, his voice was hollow when he spoke. "What would you have me do, Bella? Starve? Feast on rats and family pets? I don't know how else to be, but at least I use my gift to try and rid the world of scum—those men who attacked you would have raped and killed you. Were their lives more valuable than yours or any of their other victims, past and future?"
He turned to face her. "Tell me, Bella, what should I do?"
She went to him, reaching up to touch his face. "That's not what I'm saying, Edward, truly. I wouldn't be here if I thought you were a monster. I'm just trying to understand. You could make contact with this Alice person, maybe visit and try their lifestyle for a while—"
He snatched her to him, holding her close. "Oh, Bella, no, please don't say that. I could never leave you now; I've only just found you."
She pulled back slightly, placing her hands on his chest. "But I could come with you—"
"To a house full of vampires, smelling the way you do? Bella, talk sense."
She gazed up at him, an oddly determined look in her eyes. "Then make me like you," she whispered.
~o0o~
Bella stood at the edge of the lake, gazing out over the still water. Behind her, she could hear Edward inside the cabin—well, he called it a cabin, but she called it a luxury chalet. He'd apparently bought it in the 1980s, and it was to this peaceful haven he retreated whenever the noise and clamor of the city became too much.
There had been many arguments before he agreed to bring her here. And, truth be told, if she'd known just how painful the transformation would be, she might have thought twice. His main concern was that she was giving up everything and everyone she knew and loved to live a life in darkness and shadow, but she had countered that she had already lost all that she had once held dear, and he was the only thing she never wanted to let go of.
They had come to the lake house six months ago, and Edward had been astonished by Bella's control. He had warned her that it could a year or more before she could be integrated back into human society without going berserk and revealing their secret, thus attracting the attention of some weird, murderous ruling body of vampire royalty in Italy.
However, when she woke up and he had presented her with a semi-comatose man in the basement, whom he had captured in the act of trying to abduct a little girl in a nearby town, she had gone rigid, seeming to call on some inner power, and had then run into the forest. Discarding the man, Edward had set off in pursuit, pushing hard to catch up with Bella's fleeter newborn speed.
A loud crash ahead told him he had found her, and he couldn't hide his shock when he exploded into a small clearing, finding the love of his existence sucking the blood from a large deer. Her eyes met his across the animal's shoulder and he fancied he saw a glint of amusement there.
Twenty minutes later, he found himself biting into the pulsing jugular of another deer, tasting animal blood for the first time. He grimaced a little at the gamey flavor, but he supposed it wasn't quite as bad as he'd imagined.
He still drank from the child molester in the basement later that evening—no way was he letting that piece of shit back on the street.
A month ago, Edward had risked all by taking Bella into town. At first, he had just driven through with the front windows cracked open a little to let in the air. Then he had parked and they had walked along the boardwalk, his hand clutching hers tightly. He doubted he would be strong enough to hold onto her should she attempt to break away, but he hoped his grip would be enough to give her pause.
Miraculously, despite people walking within a few hundred feet of them, Bella remained calm. It was as though she had created an invisible bubble around herself, blocking their scent. It was extraordinary.
She was extraordinary.
If Edward had thought their lovemaking had been incredible when Bella was human, nothing had prepared him for the mind-blowing ecstasy of what he now had with this stunning woman.
As for Bella, Edward's love made her feel like a high priestess, a goddess, an all-conquering warrior queen. She felt as if their passion could move mountains, and she truly believed that an eternity would never be enough time to explore all the ways she could love him. They could have stayed in Edward's cabin for years. The vast forest offered plenty of food—Edward's diet was already getting close to fifty percent animal, not because he preferred it but because he couldn't bear to spend any more time away from Bella than was absolutely necessary.
However, they had both agreed it was time to leave.
A week earlier, a letter had arrived. It was from Alice. How she had found them, they had no idea, but she had. And she knew about Bella.
It was spooky.
Now, as she stood at the lake's edge, Bella lifted the letter she held in her hand, reading again the words of a woman she had never met, but who now wrote as if to a long lost and much-missed friend. There was an address in Wisconsin.
Edward's strong arms wrapped around her waist from behind, pulling her back against his chest. Automatically, she tilted her head to the side, an invitation he would never refuse. His long fingers moved the veil of silky mahogany hair away and lips that had been so cool before her change were now warm as they trailed along the sweep of her neck.
She turned in his arms, looking up at him, meeting his smile with one of her own.
"Ready to go?" he asked.
She glanced over her shoulder at the lake and then to the cabin where so much had happened in such a short time.
A finger under her chin brought her attention back to Edward.
"We can come back any time we want, you know. It will always be here."
"I'd like that. I love this place, but I'm ready to see what else the world has to offer."
Edward nodded. For the first time, he felt optimistic and hopeful about the future, no longer stretched before him like an endless, tedious interstate. He had no idea what the future held, but as long as he had Bella, he felt ready for every twist and turn fate could throw at them.
~o0o~
The house was imposing despite being surround by a vast, towering forest. As the handsome couple exited their car, the front door was thrown open and a short, dark-haired girl practically danced onto the wide veranda, her smile wide and almost bright enough to light a city.
"You're here!" she cried.
Behind her, a tall man sporting a mop of shaggy blond hair emerged from the house and put a restraining hand on her shoulder, even as he smiled indulgently down at her. He was followed by another man, also blond, who slipped past them to greet the visitors with a welcoming smile.
"Hello, I'm Carlisle Cullen." He swept his arm back to indicate his companions. "This is Alice and her husband, Jasper Whitlock."
As he spoke, three more people crowded onto the veranda, all smiling widely, all equally and inhumanly beautiful, and all with matching topaz eyes.
"Ah, this is my wife, Esme, and these two are Emmett and his wife, Rosalie. You must be Edward and Bella. You're both so very welcome to our home. We've been expecting you."
