BPOV

"We didn't really discuss this after my parents' party," Edward says nonchalantly as he peels the potatoes we're making for dinner. "But I don't think working with Royce King is wise."

I stop chopping the scallions.

It has been a few weeks since their party and this is the first time he's brought up my case. He has been weird lately, and spending time over at his sister's, essentially keeping me in the dark.

"You don't think it's wise," I repeat slowly.

"The press that the case is getting—"

"A lot of the cases your uncle's firm represents have press coverage," I argue.

He frowns again.

"I don't feel comfortable with you defending Royce King," he says with a tone that holds no room for argument.

This was different.

He never commented on the work I did or told me not to take on a case.

"Edward, you don't have a say in my work, just as much as I don't have a say in yours," I say evenly.

It was shitty that I was going there because we had come a long way in regards to us discussing his work stresses.

He was open about what he was working on and who he was working with.

"Real fucking nice, Bella," he snaps.

I drop my knife onto the cutting board and turn so I can face him.

As great as Edward is, he does have a temper. I also have a temper and never put up with his attitude when he is in a mood.

"You can't just demand I drop the case," I tell him.

As I say this, I think of the first argument we had where he told me I wasn't to do something he didn't agree with.

~PR~

Hey Bella, I know things between us ended pretty badly and for that I'm sorry. I've recently moved and found some things you left behind. A few of those things belonged to Charlie. I know how much your dad means to you so I thought I could bring them with me when I'm in Chicago next week. Please let me know what works for you.

Mike

"He really emailed you this?" Ang asks looking up from my phone.

I nod.

Trust me I've read it a few times since I got home from class.

"What are you going to do?" she asks, looking back at my phone.

"I don't want him keeping things that belonged to my dad," I say honestly.

I did leave in… haste. I was pissed and accepted the offer from Northwestern almost immediately, so I took it and ran.

Mike and I grew up in Forks together and were dating when Charlie was killed in the line of duty. He was for sure going to the University of Washington that fall and I was still undecided about where I wanted to go.

But after Charlie died I followed Mike to UDub. I had no direction during that time since I was still grieving.

Other than my distant mother, Mike was the person I had left who cared about me other than my dad.

Or so I thought.

We both were able to have our own college experiences without having to be attached at the hip.

I grew up with this guy, I had no reason to question him when he'd go to his Frat's parties and I'd be studying my weekends away in the library.

The same went for when I'd go out with people from class and he'd stay in playing Madden.

We moved in together during our junior year of college and that is where everything moved so fast and Mike thought the next step was obviously marriage.

I was his stability, that's what he told me in his proposal.

My trust in him made me blind to his infidelity.

Jessica was around all the time and I chalked it up to their internship, I was stupid to think that they were working that hard.

She spent more time with him than I did.

I was ignorant to the red flags or maybe just too busy to focus on my own relationship.

My current relationship wasn't at all like my last.

We spend a lot of time together regardless of our schedules, he genuinely is interested in what I'm studying.

There are nights we just stay in at his place and lounge on his couch while he helps me study. Sometimes we drink wine and he plays me what he's been working on in the studio while he makes us dinner.

Being with him is effortless.

"Are you going to discuss this with Edward?" she asks curiously.

She thinks that I'm too open with him even though he doesn't share a lot with me regarding his work.

It's a two-way street, she has told me.

I think because she despises Rose and she and Emmett didn't work out that she is leery of Edward.

"Yes, I'll tell him," I say, rolling my eyes at her.

"Mr. Perfect is just going to be okay with your ex traveling all the way from Washington to deliver your beloved father's belongings?" she taunts.

"He's not perfect."

"Where did you get them blinders on your ears?" she asks knowingly, raising an eyebrow.

"They were a Valentine's gift," I defend.

"Have you two actually ever had a fight?"

It takes me a minute and I can't think of any arguments or disagreements that we could have had in the time we've been dating.

He's fairly easygoing.

I've only seen hints of a temper when he's on the phone with work but he's never directed any of that at me.

He does leave the room to calm down for at least an hour or maybe he's sorting out whatever the emergency is at the time.

That's the thing though, he won't discuss it with me, but he lets me vent about my own stress with school and work.

"Edward and I are—"

"Blissfully happy," she finishes for me with a smile.

"I don't harass you about Ben," I point out.

She blushes.

They've been dating for a short time but I can tell she's enamored by him.

She has become his world, something that she wanted for Emmett.

I hear our front door open and see Edward walk in from my seat on the barstool at the kitchen counter.

Ang hands me my phone back before she greets Edward at the door and leaves for her date with Ben.

"Hey," Edward says from the doorway of the kitchen.

His smile is soft and he leans in to give me a quick kiss.

When I pull back I notice that even though he looks happy to see me, maybe it's more relief.

"How was your day?" I ask, placing my hands on his chest.

He tenses slightly.

"Good," he responds.

It's short and he doesn't elaborate.

"How's yours?" he murmurs.

"I got an interesting email today," I tell him because I have nothing to hide.

"Oh yeah?" he asks, taking a seat on the barstool next to me.

"Mike reached out, apparently he found a box of my dad's things that I left behind," I explain.

"It's been over a year since you moved," he says with a frown. "He's just now reaching out?"

I nod.

"He recently moved and I guess found it then," I tell him not understanding the annoyance now radiating off him.

I don't add that I knew he moved because my curiosity gets the best of me and I creep on Mike's socials from time to time.

He's engaged to Jess now.

Their engagement party was a big production.

Jess is a big production.

She was an intern at the same advertising firm as Mike but has now turned her marketing expertise into a career as an influencer.

She made the Seattle Times' annual thirty under thirty list.

Now she was a polished Kylie Jenner clone in life and appearance.

I don't even care about Mike, but there is something that hits your ego and self-esteem when someone cheats on you.

Things like why wasn't I enough and why her and not me?

I knew that it was more a Mike problem than a me problem.

Who's to say he isn't going to cheat on Jess or if he hasn't already?

I saw the way he eyed a girl who appears in a lot of Jess' posts.

"So he's going to send it out to you?" Edward asks, picking up a napkin out of the holder and he starts to tear at it.

"Actually, he'll be in Chicago for work—"

"You're not going to meet with him," he interrupts automatically.

"Excuse me?" I say taken aback and a little pissed that he's trying to order me around.

"I don't understand why you would want to meet with him," he says with a slight flare of his nostrils.

"I want to get my father's things back, Edward," I say bluntly.

"So he can send them to you," he argues.

He moves to stand before leaning against the countertop.

I find this to be a little power-driven, like he thinks this gives him control over the situation or something.

"I don't understand why it's such a big deal if he's just handing them over. He will be in town—"

"You were engaged. You grew up together," he ticks off each point on a finger with a glare.

I blink.

This wasn't Edward or at least I've never seen him behave like this before.

"He cheated on me, it's not like I'm going to run off with him," I argue.

"Exactly, so why would you want to see him," he says with a hint of accusation in his tone.

"Are you kidding me with this?" I bite out. "You work with Tanya quite frequently and you're telling me that I can't get my things from my ex?"

"My situation is different from yours," he snaps.

"You weren't engaged but you were fucking her on a regular basis," I retort.

"There weren't any feelings—"

"Oh, come off that," I cut him off, rolling my eyes. "If you didn't feel anything, you wouldn't have kept going back for more."

"Okay, you're right. I fucking loved her, so fucking much," he spits his vitriol.

I flinch as if I'd been slapped.

It was one thing that we hadn't even said to each other and to hear him say that about her when he doesn't mean it makes my blood boil.

"You're an asshole," I get out but even I can hear the emotion in my voice. I'm off the stool and before I can move he blocks me from leaving my kitchen.

"Move," I demand.

"No, we're hashing this out," he says getting louder.

"I think it's best that you leave and we both calm down," I tell him as I fold my arms across my chest.

"I knew you weren't okay with Tanya—"

"No, I believed you when you said that you broke things off and had no feelings for her. It's your behavior when it comes to discussing your work that bothers me," I snap.

"It's work," he grits.

"It's work, but I know she can't be making it easy on you. How can we move forward if you aren't open with me?" I reason. "I tell you what's going on in my life."

He starts to pace but remains quiet.

I sit back in my seat and watch him.

After a few minutes, he stops.

"She has threatened some legal action…" he trails off. "I tried to be civil but then she became demanding of me. My producer and sound engineer advised we replace her but she's under contract."

"She's trying to say wrongful termination?" I guess.

"Among other things," he sighs. "I said if I am as horrible as she's accusing then why does she still want to work with me."

"Is she saying you assaulted her?"

"No, but she is insinuating that I'm in a position of power and am trying to ruin her career," he explains.

"How long is her contract?" I ask.

"She renewed her contract last year and it was for five more years at the time," he says, running a hand through his hair.

"So, she can just make your life hell?" I surmise.

"Pretty much," he sighs.

I watch him.

We just had this very intense fight and now he's seemed to have calmed down, so have I, but I don't like that everything escalated as quickly as it did and that he has what appears to be a short-fuse temper.

Maybe it was more of a long-fused one because it seems that he has been letting all this build.

He sits back down next to me and turns so he's facing me.

"I'm sorry," he murmurs.

"For?" I ask because I want him to elaborate on why he is sorry.

"I shouldn't be upset about you wanting to get your father's things back. If you need to meet with him in order for that to happen, then you should," he tells me almost reluctantly but I can see his sincerity.

"I feel like this should have been an easy conversation, but it became—"

"Our first fight," he says with a rueful smile.

"It didn't need to be," I say honestly.

"I think it did," he says with an insistent nod. "We obviously have a communication issue. You've talked about Mike and what he did to you… how he disrespected you. I don't want him to hurt you any more than he already has. I also shouldn't have held back on what was going on at work, but you felt something was up and never addressed it with me either."

"You're right, we both should have talked more about why you were avoiding discussing work," I agree.

"I'm not perfect, Bell," he says softly. "You were going to marry the guy and something about that just seems wrong."

I almost laugh, remembering what Ang said earlier.

"Wrong?"

"I don't know, I feel like you were always meant for me," he mumbles bashfully.

His admission melts whatever ire I had with him from our argument.

"I promise to be better at discussing what's going on at work with you," he tells me.

"I will email Mike about specifics but I'd like you to be with me when he gives me Charlie's things back," I say hoping he'll take my olive branch as well.

He nods.

~PR~

We of course had other arguments since then, but what is going on with him now is very similar to what was going on with him then.

"He rapes and assaults women," he roars throwing his hands up.

"He's being accused of that, yes," I reply, surprised that he used plurals.

"Bell," he groans.

"Edward, be reasonable. I don't know what the problem is if all you are giving me are all these vague demands," I say in frustration.

He fists his hair and pulls.

"I can't tell you what I know, I swore. I only found out because I suspected," he says.

"We're going to get married, how am I supposed to trust if you are hiding things from me?" I ask hurt that he's withholding information from me.

He looks defeated but remains quiet.

Any time we had an argument in the past, we had our own space and would take a few days to think about whatever we weren't agreeing on.

Since we've moved into the house, we haven't had an argument of this magnitude that requires space to figure everything out.

I know that some people would never process like we do but this works for us.

"I think I'm going to head over to Ang's place," I tell him before I walk over and quickly wash my hands.

"What about dinner?" he asks, waving his hands at what we've already prepared.

"We already had most of the food done," I point out because right now the meatloaf was keeping warm in the oven.

I don't think us having dinner together right now is a good idea.

"Bell," he says with a strained voice.

I grab my phone off the counter and begin to text Ang to see if she's home.

She lives with Ben so it won't exactly be just the two of us if she is.

Come on by. – A

Is her response.

I slip my shoes on in the mud room and grab my coat off the hook.

Edward leans in the doorway watching me as I leave.

I need him to tell me why he's so insistent on me stepping away from Royce's case if he wants me to consider it. If it has anything to do with Rose, then I would need to talk to his uncle.

And I do think Royce possibly did something to Rose and Edward just found out about it.

I make it to Ang's in record time, she meets me at the door and I spill my guts telling her what I could without breaking any confidentiality of my client's case.

"He most definitely did something to Rose," is Ang's response when I finish. "Emmett also knows and Edward probably just found out."

"You think he just found out?"

"If he was fine seeing Mrs. King when you were with his parents, and then suddenly changed after you summarized Royce's case, then he had to have pieced things together," she rationalizes. "You once said that Emmett told you that Rose changed at some point when she was in high school, so this might explain that."

"I don't know what to do," I tell her with a sigh.

"You need to talk to Edward, you two are too important to each other to have this come in the way of your relationship," she says simply. "Knowing him, he's probably sitting on the couch pouting with a beer in hand."

She's not wrong, that's usually a go-to for him.

"I just wish he would talk to me instead of trying to order me around," I say with a sigh before I lean back on her couch.

"Men lack emotion," she says with a shrug.

I let out a laugh.

"You're right, he's too sweet sometimes, so I forget that," I tease.

"Ah, Mr. Perfect," she says in understanding.

I shake my head before looking at my phone for the time.

"I should head back," I tell her.

"Let me know if you need anything and remember to address things with him. Tell him what you think you know and go from there," she encourages.

It's when I pull into the garage that I let out a long sigh knowing that I need to dredge up Rose's past so a solution can come out of this.

A/N: Nothing got banked and my time off was super busy so I will try to update at least once a week. Not sure where a lot of you went last chapter but thank you to those who are reviewing since FF no longer does a reader views count. As always a huge thanks to CoppertopJ for her betaing! Any mistakes are my own.