Summary: When Bella's parents decide to go on a cruise for Christmas, her best friend Rose offers for her to stay at their cabin in Idaho for the holiday. It's a beautiful plan until her colleague shows up. Short story. AH, BPOV, olderward, lemon(s)

A/N: Happy New Year! I'm hoping the year brings lots of relaxing time to read (for you) and to write (for me and for the writers among you). Thank you all! I'm lucky to have you here :)

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Hiding (the Christmas Criminal)
by Anton M.

3: Trouble

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"I was an entitled little dumbass, Bella. Having servants and drivers at your beck and call since before you know how to wipe yourself doesn't do much to develop a well-rounded individual. My parents did their best, but even with my father being a homemaker, it was tough. We were all spoiled."

Edward and I sat facing each other on the couch in front of the fireplace. We were delightfully full and shared a bottle of white wine, unbothered by having to drink it from juice glasses. Christmas lights brightened the otherwise dark cabin, my computer had long ago switched from Sinatra's Christmas playlist to one from Enya, and the fire crackled beside us.

Having opened the door to the smaller bedroom when the temperature reached a beautiful 80 degrees, I added two logs to the fire and sat across from Edward again, but the whoosh of cold air on my back nearly made me climb into the fireplace before Edward offered me his knitted white sweater. Pretending that I had no warmer clothes (of course not) and that blankets didn't exist (what are blankets), I pulled it over my head, soaking in its scent, and caught Edward's gaze on my hair as I pulled my hair out of the sweater. Skin crinkling at the corners of his eyes, he looked like a man with a delicious secret as he sipped his wine, but I somehow kept myself from swirling away in his gaze.

"Did you ever kill anyone just because you could?" I asked, returning to the topic, thrilled that later had finally arrived.

Edward laughed. "No."

"Did you ever break the law?"

"Had I been old enough to drive, I'm sure I would've parked illegally just for the fun of it. But no, my mother always made it perfectly clear that she would ask Ireland to revoke diplomatic immunity if we did anything dangerous that resulted in someone's death. Whether she could've or would've, we never found out, but… we knew where she stood. Both the Georgian diplomat in the US killing a teenager in the nineties, and the death of Harry Dunn in the UK—these and similar incidents were discussed extensively in my family, even now that we're older."

"I think I heard of the last one," I replied, grateful that Edward didn't feel weird satisfying my curiosity. "It sounds like your parents are good people, but… it's still such an incomprehensible life for me. How many countries did you live in before you went to college?"

Edward's sigh felt so aggravated I nearly backtracked but he only laughed when his gaze met mine.

"I'm happy to share, it's just been a while since I went deep into it. Let me see if I can put them in order." Edward clinked his glass with mine and drank wine before he held out his fingers. "Okay. Singapore, born there. My first year. Portugal, the next four. Mozambique until I was nine, Dar es Salaam until I was thirteen—"

"I don't know that capital."

"Tanzania—not its capital, so you're correct. Irish embassy is there, though. Thirteen to sixteen, Spain."

"And sixteen to eighteen?" I asked.

Edward's smile, although gentle, looked like it had seen this conversation before. "Dublin, Ireland. My father drowned in the Black Sea while we were on holiday. Rip current. The Irish President had just hinted that he'd appoint my mother to be the ambassador for the US, and we were all stoked to be heading to an English-speaking country for once, but… she declined after he passed."

I grabbed Edward's wrist. "Fuck. I'm so sorry."

Edward trailed his fingers along my knuckles but only gave me a weak smile. "He was built like me, tall and strong. When he went missing, we all thought—even my mother—that no way would a man built like my father drown in a rip current. No way. He was immortal in our eyes. We were positive he'd be picked up by a boat and he'd grumble about having to float for so many hours, but, no. It didn't happen quite like that."

I squeezed his wrist. "You don't have to…"

Still running his fingertips along the back of my hand, he shrugged. "It's been a long time. Either way, we went to live in Ireland, and it was a—shock. Growing up with so many servants and meeting so many important people, you get the feeling that you're rich and special. The government takes care of diplomats in other countries, so it's easy to get the impression of both, but… we were neither. We were suddenly the most average middle-class teenagers going to an average school on public transport, but God, I'm sure you could smell our arrogance in the hallways."

"I'm sure it wasn't so bad."

"It was awful," Edward replied with a rueful smile. "We were awful. We'd never washed dishes, never learned to drive a car, never done any laundry. Our mother had never realized that being trained to treat world leaders and their families with impeccable respect didn't translate to knowing… anything. Not only that, but Dublin just felt… small. Suddenly, most of our classmates had never travelled beyond Ireland. We couldn't relate to their interests or their everyday concerns. My younger sisters—" Edward paused, observing me, tilting his head. "I'm boring you."

"Not at all!" I reassured, perhaps too enthusiastically. I'd seen the effect wine had on Edward at a few work functions, and I'd been lucky enough to sit near him on some of those occasions, but I adored listening to him. Especially now that wind was picking up outside, wailing against the frost-covered windowpanes, and the fire reflected in Edward's eyes as he shared details about his life I'd never been privy to. It felt intimate and magical.

"Please continue," I urged, realizing I was still holding his wrist. Embarrassed, I squeezed and let go of it to hold my juice-wine glass with both hands. Edward frowned. After a few moments of arguing over whether or not I was sure about wanting to hear more, Edward poured us both another glass and acquiesced.

"My mother was having a brutal time with us, obviously, all of us grief-stricken, but my younger sisters just wouldn't stop squabbling for months, and I— fuck, I shouted at them one day like I'd never shouted at anyone before. Totally lost it."

"I'd love to see that."

Edward's lips quirked up in an amused twitch. "Why?"

"It's fascinating. I've never seen you yell. You're the perfect gentleman, but when you pick your moments, it sounds like I should expect a spectacular show of fireworks."

He laughed. "I'm not sure that's a good thing."

"I'll be the judge of that."

"I dearly hope not."

I smiled. "But what happened next? Did you frighten them into silence?"

"Made them cry, actually, but it… I think it was the first time we all started to self-reflect even a little, hurting but privileged assholes that we were, and of course, I realized that most of our school-related misery was self-inflicted. We got knocked down a few pegs—nothing we didn't deserve—and it took a while, but we started turning into semi-decent humans. Meanwhile, our mother was desperately trying to pull herself together. Years later, my older sister Jane told me that our mother had told her that she would've walked off a bridge had we not existed."

"Holy shit," I whispered. "I'm so sorry."

Edward's smile was bittersweet. Averting his eyes, he lifted his shoulder in a half-shrug. "She always said our father was her one true love, absolutely adamant she'd never date or marry, but…"

"She met her current husband," I gently finished for him, used to his casual reference to her mother's husband Brian.

"I swear she felt she'd committed treason when she sat us down on my birthday, pacing, stuttering, holding back tears—we thought for sure she'd discovered she had terminal cancer or early onset dementia or something equally horrendous. I can't tell you how relieved we were when she admitted she'd met someone."

"Did you ever feel like she was replacing him?"

"My younger sisters did, I think," Edward replied. "Never said that to his face, of course. He's great. Totally different from our father but a good man who clearly adores her. My trouble is… I just think my mother's the luckiest person in the world. To find that kind of world-changing, all-consuming love, twice? Impossible. Wish I knew how she did it. I'm just now working on my first, at forty five."

"Your first? You don't count your ex-wife or any of your exes?"

"No. Even before she cheated, it was not even close to what my mother had, or has. Not that I understood it at the time."

"Mr. Masen, closet romantic," I teased, swooning inside. I kept my voice level. "But it sounds like you've met an exceptional woman if you're hoping she might be the one. I bet she's beautiful."

Edward's eyes danced with a warm, indecipherable energy. "Stunning."

Goddamn it.

"Smart?"

"No clue what she's talking about half of the time when she talks about her work."

Fuck. They must've been dating for a while if he knew this about her. I imagined a tall, slender redhead, some hotshot lawyer or CEO who'd probably stop by our office one day to break my heart with her gorgeous smile.

"Will you introduce me to her?" I asked, dying inside, hoping that the introduction would pour ice water on my flaming infatuation with a man I had no business being attracted to.

Edward swallowed wine down the wrong tube. I scooted closer to pat his back before he slowly finished coughing.

"You don't have to," I backtracked, scooting away again, a bit ashamed of assuming an intimate friendship with a colleague. I was probably just a passing, unimportant blip on his radar however magical Christmas in the cabin felt with the man. "It was not my place. I shouldn't have asked."

Still clearing his throat, Edward suppressed a smile until his eyes smoldered. Quietly, he said, "I'd love to introduce you."

Aw, man. My heart practically ached at the thought of it.

"I'd love that," I lied, hoping to get away from the conversation. I didn't dare to ask for her name or profession because I wasn't sure I'd survive the information without getting drunk tonight.

Fortunately, it was easy to guide him back to the topic of his family, what it was like to grow up as the second oldest and the only brother to three sisters, Jane, Tanya and Victoria, how he lived with his father's parents in London for four years when he went to college, commuting for an hour on the District line twice a day, how his career had taken him to no less than seven cities all over the world… I could've talked about his life all night long. I attempted to, until, tipsier than I was, Edward turned the tables on me. But, noticing that it was past midnight, I dodged his questions and forced myself to get up and away from his beautiful, alcohol-glazed eyes.

Standing up after me, Edward placed his empty juice glass on the table with the meticulousness of a man who wanted to seem more sober than he was. Then, he walked into my personal space, caressed my upper arm with unexpected gentleness, and leaned close to my ear.

"Tomorrow," he whispered, his lips brushing against my ear. "Tomorrow it's my turn to ask all the questions, hmm?"

He pulled back. His eyes held depth and affection, almost mischief, and I got so caught up in them I found myself dazed in his scent and squeezing his waist. Shaking myself out of it, I dropped my hand and tried to appear more put-together than I felt.

"Tomorrow," I replied with a smile.

I asked him where he preferred to sleep, the living room or the (warm) bedroom, but that was a mistake because tipsy, adorable Edward was tough to argue with and he was just as determined to give me the space I preferred as I was to give him what he wanted. After five minutes of back-and-forth, I decided I wasn't quite ready to kiss him silent and instead chose the bedroom, just to end the argument. I brushed my teeth, cleansed my face (without touching the spot on my temple he'd kissed, because priorities), and carried my bags to the bedroom. I'd already changed the sheets when I realized I was still wearing Edward's knitted sweater.

Having reopened the door in a rush, I drew my arms into the body of the sweater to remove it but stopped and stood like a doll whose arms were made of stuffed cloth as I stared.

Edward had just pulled off his T-shirt in front of the fireplace and stood in snug, dark boxer-briefs with his wide shoulders and hairy, fit torso on full display. Patches of scars covered his knees and elbows, probably from an active outdoorsy childhood. His shapely legs were perfectly proportional with his muscled frame, and I couldn't tear my eyes from the tempting bulge in his boxer-briefs.

Throwing his T-shirt on the armrest of the couch, he turned in a way that highlighted his upper back muscles, and I gulped.

He was gorgeous in his ruggedness.

Excluding pools and beaches, it had been years since I'd been around a half-naked man who wasn't Seth, and I'd known Edward was attractive, but witnessing his wide-shouldered, toned body in boxer briefs made all the hairs on my body stand on ends.

I felt liquid.

Edward, of course, sensing my stare, turned his head and met my gaze with surprised warmth in his eyes.

Mortified that he'd caught me ogling at him, I averted mine.

Goddamn his lucky bastard girlfriend better appreciate that beauty.

"I'm so sorry," I muttered, tearing off his sweater with the sound of static sparks. My hair was in an electric disarray as I folded his sweater. "I— I should've knocked. I didn't mean to…"

"It's okay," Edward replied with a hint of amusement, walking to me. Refusing to look at his face in case I turned into mortified fragments of light, I watched the silvery flecks in his otherwise dark chest hair, but being inches from his naked, broad chest only made me feel more gooey.

"Here." I pressed the sweater against his stomach. "I forgot. I don't want you to get cold."

"I'm never cold."

Yeah, with a smoking hot bod like that, I'd never be cold, either.

Edward slid his palms over mine before he gripped the sweater, opened it, and wrapped it around my shoulders. "Keep it for the night. The morning might get chilly." He tilted my chin up to see my face, and the laughter in his eyes was undeniable. "I'm not going to die if you look in my face, Bella."

"No, but I might."

Edward laughed. He pushed hair from my face, smoothing out its statics, and rested his warm, large palm on my neck. A sparkler may as well have lit up my insides when his alcohol-glazed eyes followed the contours of my face, charging the air between us. I licked my lips. His lips parted, and I felt the most insane urge to grip his neck, inhale his scent and press myself against his warm, firm body.

Fuck, I must've been drunker than I'd thought.

"Thank you." I squeezed his wrist as I removed it from around my neck, too turned on by his touch to dare speak much. "I'll give it back in the morning."

I fell against the door after I'd shut it behind me, closing my eyes and imagining his wide-shouldered, intoxicating presence inches from mine, touching my neck and staring at my lips like I was a drink in a desert.

Dear sweet baby Jesus, was I in trouble.

…