Bella´s Second Date
Bella stared at her phone, a mixture of annoyance and dread coursing through her. It buzzed relentlessly, refusing to be ignored. She never knew the caller could be so persistent.
¨Just pick up already,¨ Alice called out to her, her voice filled with impatience and curiosity.
Bella hesitated, her mind racing with a billion questions and none of them were pleasant. ¨But what does he want?¨ she asked Alice.
She shrugged. ¨You never know until you pick up the phone.¨
¨Maybe he wants to cancel?¨ Bella heard and hated how hopeful and desperate she sounded. Damn it, pretending to be Alice had never been so hard.
Summoning all the courage that she had, she finally picked up the phone and greeted her caller as happily as she could. She could almost feel Alice as she rolled her eyes at her.
¨Hey Edward,¨ she said.
¨Alice, hey,¨ Edward´s voice came through the line, warm and friendly. ¨I´m really looking forward to our date tonight.¨
Bella´s eyes widened. She glanced at Alice, her eyebrows raised, silently pleading for help. Alice nodded and quickly understood the unspoken distress. She rushed from the kitchen to the couch and pressed her ear to the phone.
¨Ah yes, me too,¨ Bella stammered, while she tried to regain her composure.
¨Shall I pick you up? Where do you live again?¨ Edward continued.
Bella´s heart skipped a beat and she glanced at Alice, who mouthed a curse word that made Bella almost giggle by the absurdity of it. Almost.
¨One second, please,¨ Bella asked, and she quickly pressed the button on her phone that would delay this call before Edward had a chance to speak again.
¨I didn´t hear that correctly, right?¨ Alice asked hopefully.
¨He wants to pick me up,¨ she whispered back. ¨You heard it, he wants to pick me up.¨
¨Oh, shit!¨ Alice started to walk back and forth. ¨Just tell him you´d rather meet there.¨
Bella pondered for a moment. ¨Do you think that´ll be enough?¨
¨Only one way to find out,¨ Alice whispered, gesturing at the phone so she could continue. She held Bella´s hand in hers.
¨We won´t even know for sure he wants to buy the apartment,¨ Bella said quietly as a way to calm her nerves.
¨But do you want to find out?¨
Bella made a face and raised her phone back to her ear. ¨Oh Edward, thank you so much for the offer. But I think I´ll just meet you there.¨
¨That works too,¨ Edward said surprised.
After they said their rather awkward goodbyes, Bella ended the call and faced Alice.
¨How did I do?¨
¨Perfect. Not get your ass to your room and put your dress on, otherwise you´ll be late.¨
…
Exactly one week had flown by since Bella´s first encounter with Edward Antony Masen, and she couldn´t help but feel a surge of excitement as she sat across from him once again.
Just like last time, he was dressed to the nines in his green buttoned-up shirt which made the auburn of his hair stand out. Every now and then, his hair fell in front of his eyes, tempting her to reach out and brush it away. But she knew better than that, because if she gave in to that temptation, she was sure she would smell his expensive cologne and lord knows what that would do to her.
Seeing him was one thing, but smelling him? She wouldn´t dare. She was already on a dangerous path.
He was simply too good-looking, and it was distracting her from her mission. Time seemed to fly by, and Bella didn´t even need to sneak glances at the borrowed silver watch from Alice this time to know that.
¨How are you finding the ravioli?¨ Edward asked.
Lifting her gaze from her plate, Bella couldn´t help but smile. ¨It´s heavenly. You must really like La Bella Italia.¨
¨Well, can you blame me?¨ he smirked.
Oh goodness. Not only was he impossibly good-looking, but his smile was also too distracting. As Bella pushed back a few strands of her loosely curled hair with her freshly manicured hand, she cussed inwardly at herself for her raging hormones.
¨How is working at Esmasen?¨ Edward asked as he bit down a spoonful of his risotto.
¨You should know, considering you own the damn place,¨ Bella replied as her usual self, before realising who she spoke to. And after realising that it didn´t matter, as this was just a pretend date and nothing more.
Edward looked amused. ¨Well, that´s only half true,¨ he admitted. ¨My mother Esme handles most of the CAO tasks. I mostly just tag along, attempting to look like I know what she´s talking about.¨
So he was apparently also too well-mannered, giving all the credit to his mother, which also interfered with her mission. Damn it!
¨So you´re just the pretty face then?¨ Bella asked, figuring she could scare him off by being a slightly more extravagant version of herself. Anything that could help her, she would gladly take.
¨Ah Miss Cullen, so you think I´m pretty?¨ Edward laughed and she rolled her eyes at him.
For some reason, he was also a bit more relaxed, and Bella wondered how that could be. He hadn´t drunk a lot, judging from the half-empty glass of white wine in front of him.
¨But in all seriousness, is it challenging to balance your work with your studies?¨ Edward asked when he was finally done laughing.
¨Oh no, they combine quite well,¨ Bella answered. ¨It´s not hard to combine the two when you like your job and your studies equally.¨
¨Really? I´m sure Carlisle must be proud, knowing that his daughter speaks so ambitiously about medicine.¨
Bella bit her lip. She needed to up her game and not get so distracted easily, as she totally wanted to correct Edward and tell him she studies literature, not medicine.
¨How´s your risotto?¨ she instead blurted out.
Edward´s brow furrowed. ¨It´s quite good, actually. But don´t worry though, next time we will go to a Greek restaurant, I promise,¨ he assured her.
Bella blinked. Greek? What did that have to do with Alice? She knew her friend inside and out and she was ninety-nine per cent sure that Alice wasn´t Greek in any way, shape or form.
Oh no, she suddenly realised what Edward meant. That summer a few years prior, where Carlisle insisted Alice needed to learn Greek for their upcoming trip. Little did he know, that Alice had put her newfound linguistic skills to good use that same summer. Bella knew that Alice had used her knowledge of Greek phrases and words to impress her first girl-crush from the beach with her strange accent. It turned out, the girl liked it and Alice liked the fact that she expanded her language knowledge. She had even continued to refine her Greek through language-learning apps on her phone.
¨Yes, great. Greek food is so tasty,¨ Bella stuttered, in desperate need of a distraction.
Edward looked intrigued. ¨I heard you speak the language quite well. Could you teach me some basic sentences?¨ he asked politely.
Panic coursed through Bella´s veins. Now she really needed a distraction, and fast!