A/N: I suck. I say that a lot, but it really is true. I wrestled with this one so much I was sure I forgot wtf I was even writing.

Okay *siiiiiiiiighs* before I start:

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Yes, I told MariaHantavirus to fuck herself and her awards. (I have nfi what her name is nor do I give a fuck, but I'm sure you know who I'm talking about) No, I do not regret it, and yes, I'd say it again. And again. Why? I despise that bitch. Despite the gaslighting, she made a shitlist and encouraged people in the fandom to unfriend, block, blacklist etc. I found myself on that list, so again, fuck her and fuck her shitty, lame asf awards.
Whoever nominated me, thank you, but still, fuck her. I can't. I won't. It is what it is.

Also, to the karens who don't read my stories, but decided to be offended on behalf of those who do, fuck you too. Go clutch your pearls, rosary beads, chihuahuas etc etc over a fucking cliff. To the karens who did read but are now vetoing me because "omg won't someone think of the children", go sit with the other bitches. I might remember to give a shit next week, but I highly doubt that. ADHD and all that. *shrugs*

Christ, enough of that bullshit. I've said what I needed to say and won't mention it again.

I hope you enjoy, and I'd like to thank Faith Hill (yes the singer) for getting me through this chapter.

By the way, to the person who PMed me (you know who you are) and said my online tenor does not match my writing, I laughed for a good 10 minutes. Thanks, doll. I'd be horrified if it did. I write in first. Yikes. All my characters would be Aussies who swear like late 19th century barmaids.

Lastly. I did not update Hoodwinked. I finished it eons ago. I have nfi what happened, but my account went completely loopy. It's still not showing things like alerts and traffic. I'm lowkey (highkey) hating the fact that it now looks like it took me 4 years to complete that story. I mean, I'm shitty, but not that shitty.

Omg, I'm shutting up. See below.

Footprints in the Sand

Chapter 28

Unlocking his car, Edward opens the passenger-side door for me, but I don't move.

His brother's hot on our heels, and if I thought Edward was intimidating when he's angry, Emmett is a lot more so.

"Bella," he coaxes me inside in a quiet voice. He's just as aware of his brother's presence closing in on him, as I am.

I can only shake my head, my eyes locked with the intensity of his before they dart over his shoulder and widen with alarm.

"At a wedding! —at a fucking wedding you do this!" Emmett seethes, grabbing Edward by the lapels of his jacket and dragging him violently to face him.

I instinctively hold my breath as Edward jerks himself free. "At a wedding, is where your fiancé"—his tone automatically restricts—"assaulted my girlfriend. Take a look at what she did to Bella and then ask Rose about the contract she signed."

Emmett instantly hesitates as something akin to uncertainty momentarily flickers across his expression. His deep blue eyes find mine in the darkness before they lock to his brother and then back to me several times as a frown steadily knots on his forehead.

"What c-contract?" he stammers, and what's more than obvious is he's completely in the dark.

Edward laughs once and full of sarcasm. "I don't know why I expected you to know about it, but she's in breach of it, and my patience with her has officially expired."

"Bro... come on," Emmett appeals to his brother, his demeanor completely reversing. "I don't know what happened between you two, but Rose is an emotional wreck and throwing her guts up."

"That's because she's a drunk, Emmett!" Edward points out the obvious without an ounce of tact, and to say Emmett doesn't take kindly to it is an understatement.

"Watch your damn mouth!" he barks out, facing off with his brother again while the warning behind his tone is unmistakable.

"Bella," Edward echoes my name, sounding increasingly troubled; he's clearly uncomfortable having this conversation in front of me.

Nodding in silence, I slip myself onto the leather of the same seat where he'd driven me to the peaks of bliss only a few short hours earlier.

Edward closes the door behind me and turns back to his brother, but while the sound of their voices is slightly muffled, I can still hear every word.

"Look, Emmett," Edward begins, and despite the hard edge to his voice, he almost sounds resigned, "if you want to salvage whatever it is you have with her, I'd get her into rehab now, but I'm not jeopardizing my firm because of her, and I've given her more than enough warning to pull herself together."

"You heartless bastard," Emmett practically growls as Edward scoffs, completely unmoved.

"I have nothing further to say."

"If you go ahead with this, we're done," Emmett threatens, "because fuck knows I was there for you through all your bullshit."

For the longest pause Edward doesn't utter a word. Instead, he props his hands on his hips and lets his head hang forward, and just when I'm convinced this conversation with his brother is over, he looks up again and adds, "When I get home, I'll email you the contract, and then you can decide whether you're done with me."

I don't catch Emmett's reply before he turns his back on his brother and walks away. An instant later, Edward pulls himself into the driver's side beside me, quietly fuming. His jaw's clenched and a storm is brewing behind the sharpness of his eyes as he stares vacantly ahead of him with both palms gripping the steering wheel. I give him a few moments to pull himself from it when he grabs my hand, plants his lips to my knuckles, and with a heavy sigh, starts the engine.

The first twenty minutes of the drive back to Seattle are spent in silence. I watch Edward carefully from my periphery, and while anger is still at the forefront of his emotions, he's very obviously wrestling with his thoughts.

"Are you okay?" I speak up when I absolutely can't stand another second of it.

He briefly turns to me and offers me a somewhat stiff but apologetic smile. "I'm fine."

"You're not allowed to tell me you're fine when you're not," I remind him delicately.

He doesn't initially react, until a conceding smile breaks slowly across his expression. "You have me there. Bella?"

"Yeah?"

"You need to tell me what Rose said to you. I have to be completely certain she's breached the contract or she's going to fight me on it."

I open my mouth to reply, but words escape me. "...I'm in the contract?"

"You are. So... what did she say?"

"She..." I pause and expel a wavering breath. "You said you don't like talking about your wife."

He turns to gauge me for a moment, before his eyes turn back to the road as a deep scowl transfixes his expression. "She mentioned her?"

"Yes," I reply, the tone of my voice falling.

He tsks to himself and mutters out what sounds like "of course she fucking did".

"Edward—"

"In what context?"

"She said... you're only with me because I remind you of your wife the least," I relay in a small voice, almost recoiling because the look on his face is beginning to concern me.

"You're nothing like my wife, Bel—"

"Physically, she meant. Implying that you're...downgrading...with me."

He laughs, bitterly and without an ounce of humor "That's the last thing I did. Please tell me you don't believe her?"

He won't look at me, and after regarding him closely for a few moments, I shake my head. "I don't."

"Good," he replies, speaking more or less to himself. "Bella?"

"Yeah?"

"Do you want to press assault charges against her?"

I think I scoff because the thought never crossed my mind. "No. It's fine," I say, realizing what I spoke the instant those two words leave my mouth. "I mean—"

"It's not fine," he interjects, his voice again turning hard. "What did you say to her?"

"When?"

"After she told you I'm apparently downgrading."

"I... I can't recall exactly, but I said something about her having no class and being a fall-down drunk," I admit sheepishly as a smirk tugs at the corners of Edward's lips. "What did you tell her?"

"I told her if she didn't pack up her office by nine a.m. Monday morning, I'd have security throw it on the street," he answers matter-of-factly; though, the subtlety of his smile doesn't fade.

"Ouch," I mumble to myself, but if I said I wasn't aroused by his admission I'd be lying. The intensity of this man is nothing short of erotic. "Do you think she'll fight you?"

"She might, but she'll regret it if she does," he says simply.

"Is Emmett really unaware..." I don't elaborate, but it's not as if I have to, and in reply Edward nearly snorts.

"Sweetheart, Emmett isn't anywhere near as gullible as he sounds. He's no more faithful to Rose than she is to him, but he's loyal to a fault."

"Oh..." I come to the obvious conclusion.

So, that's how it is.

"You're not doing anything tomorrow?" he asks after falling into a moment of contemplation.

"Other than sleeping off the hangover that was Alice's wedding?" I joke. "No."

"So, you don't mind coming with me to have Addie's ears pierced?" His voice stiffens, and it's obvious he isn't exactly keen about it.

"I don't mind," I assure him. "You going to watch?"

"Hell no." He's so insistent that I break into laughter, and it quickly reverses the ambience within the car.

I only gauge him for a few long moments, considering whether to ruin it by confessing to him what Rosalie not long ago revealed to me.

While I promised myself I'd wait until he made the decision to confide in me, I'm beginning to suspect how detrimental it could be to keep secrets from him—especially where she's concerned.

"What?" he prompts me after noticing my attention on him. His smile hasn't waned and he's finally relaxed.

Do I really want to revert him back to Frowning Daddy?

"Nothing. I'm just admiring how damned handsome you are," I decide to make light of my complete falsehood only to feel like an absolute rat.

He half laughs silently through his nose, his smile turning internal as he keeps his eyes steeled to the darkened road before us. "You were the most beautiful woman in the room tonight," he reciprocates, only his voice is reserved and contemplative.

"Hmm?" I know my tone sounds skeptical, but the fact that he believes I'm beautiful gives me such an indescribable feeling.

He's the only man aside from my father who's ever proclaimed that to me.

"How many times do I have to say it before you believe me?" he asks, though his question appears more or less to himself.

"I believe you," I assure him, because I believe he believes I'm beautiful.

He sighs to himself, loud enough for me to catch it, only the smile is inching across his handsome face again completely contradicting those ever-constantly wrong assumptions I often have about him.

"Woman..." he muses this time, and it's honestly not a term I ever thought I'd grow fond of, but then, Edward could read the dictionary and still sound insanely seductive.

I make the decision to stay quiet. For now at least, and whether I'm making the right decision, I can't say for sure. All I know is I prefer the lazy grin on his face over the brooding scowl, and I want it to stay that way.

. . .

Edward likes to take baths—we have that in common—and the instant he carries me over the threshold of his bedroom, as though we were the ones who just recently married, he heads immediately into his adjoining bathroom to run one.

For a man who's prone to hoarding work clutter around his space, his bathroom is spotless. And Large. Twice the size of mine at least.

Without a word, he removes his suit jacket and tosses it to the hamper in the corner of the room. Then, taking my hand he draws me slowly to him.

"You look tired," he bends down and speaks against my ear.

In reply I snap one of his suspenders back against his chest, causing him to jolt and break into an immediate grin. "I am."

Taking a deliberate breath, he releases it, bathing me in its warmth as he drops his lips to the side of my neck. "No sleeping quite just yet." His voice turns thick and husky, but I have no intention of it.

I've been eagerly anticipating Act II since he left me achingly wanting after our very awkward romp in the front seat of his car earlier tonight.

I shake my head, and in silence, he turns me in his arms and unzips my dress all the way past my hips, before slipping it from my shoulders.

It drops to my feet, leaving me completely naked before him.

Snaking one hand around me from behind, beneath my breasts, he curves his other around my forehead, forcing me to meet my own gaze through the reflection of the vanity mirror.

"See this beautiful woman?" he says, walking me a step closer, his still-clothed body pressed flush to my back. "This is what I see every time you're in front of me."

I break into a small smile, while a very significant part of it stems from insecurity. He's forcing me to face my own naked body and it's not exactly something many women are comfortable with.

Turning in his arms, I carefully begin to undo his tie. "You envision me naked every time you see me, do you?"

Apparently, he finds this amusing, and shaking his head to himself he muffles his laughter beneath his breath. "You still say the complete opposite of what I'm expecting."

"Do I?" I tease him coyly, dropping his tie to the tiled floor and making similar work on the buttons of his shirt. "First car sex and now bath sex. Is that what you want to do?"

"Bed sex," he corrects me, "but first I want to relax with you."

I'm not exactly averse to the idea of it, either, but the mere thought of lying against him in warm, soapy water is making me desire sleep more than anything else.

That's exactly what I very nearly do, but Edward wants to talk, and it's hard to fully succumb while there's a very discernible grit of arousal behind every word he speaks.

Resting my head back against his shoulder, I expel every last molecule of air in my lungs and turn almost limp against him. My thoughts are racing and beginning to scramble, and I'm struggling to calm them.

"I'm sorry you had to witness what happened between me and my brother," he adds after few minutes of light chatter.

"It's...alright," I catch myself at the last moment as he very pointedly sighs.

"I've made you self-conscious about that word, haven't I." It's not exactly a question and there's something weary about his tone.

"It's made me conscious that you don't like it," I reply, choosing my words carefully.

"I don't." His voice is subdued.

"Because it was once your default response," I relay what he once confessed over text.

He hums, tightens both arms around my mid-section and turns to press his lips to my temple. "Your memory isn't nearly as bad as you often claim it is."

"It's not that bad," I say in partial protest as he breaks briefly into laughter.

"I'm teasing you, Bella."

I groan languidly. I'm becoming just as exhausted as I am aroused, and it's making me feel slightly scrambled. "When I say I'm fine, most of the time I am."

"I know."

"How did you used to say it?" I ask, suddenly curious.

"Ask me how my wife is," he instructs me after the longest pause where I was certain he wasn't going to answer.

"I'm sorry? —I mean... How's your wife?"

"She's fine," he replies, and if ever two words could exude passive-aggression they would be it.

"Oh... So, you don't like it because it's associated with her," I conclude.

"Partially, and because it's a reminder that every time I spoke it, I was still married to her. I used to give myself deadlines to leave, but always let her talk me around." He exhales heavily as the torridness of it prickles my damp, naked skin.

"How did you respond after...?" My voice trails off. After she died, it was on the tip of my tongue to say, but my thoughts are once again occupied.

Should I tell him I know how she died?

"Differently," is how he decides to reply after another short pause. "Bella?"

"Hmm?" Turning my head, I bury my face against the side of his neck. The trace scent of aftershave still lingers on his skin, and I use it to center my mind.

"When I call her my wife, it's not because she was ever one even in the loosest sense of the word." He huffs to himself and there's a bitter edge to it. "When we were married, I never used it to refer to her—ever. I knew it was a lie, and it used to piss her off. She was always demanding to know why it was so hard for me to call her my wife. I always told her when she started behaving like one I would." He stops to chuckle, and I'm fairly certain I know where he's going with this. "The first time I ever spoke the words 'my wife is dead' is the first time she ever lived up to it."

"Jesus, Edward," I whisper, half shaking my head. "It must have felt like you were in prison."

"It did, except I was the one who sent myself there."

I sigh, hating that he's putting so much on himself. "You were...mid-twenties when you got married?" I speculate, catching his gaze over my shoulder.

"I was."

"Who has the perfect relationship at that age? You've seen the guy I was with," I say lightly in an attempt to placate him.

"You weren't stupid enough to marry him."

"No..." I keep my tone deliberately responsive, even as I come close to shuddering at the mere thought of it. "My father would have rolled over in his grave."

Never take back a man who cheats on you. It's something Charlie often drilled into my head. Especially when I was older, so breaking up with Tyler and walking away was a no-brainer, and I'd never disrespect my father by disrespecting myself like that. That's not how he raised me.

"My father insisted I take my vows seriously and make it work," he adds sounding distracted after another lapse. "So, I did what he's always done."

"What was that?"

"I used work as a diversion," he says a little too simply.

"Are...your parents unhappy?" I ask because from all outside appearances they appear to be.

"They're happy enough, I guess, but my father's not home long enough for any real problems to occur between them." He shifts, submerging the both of us a little deeper into the water.

"Married to his job?" I surmise, closing my eyes as a stifling yawn erupts from me.

"More or less."

"The two of you look a lot alike," I mumble, beginning to feel myself drift away.

"So they say," is the last words I hear Edward speak.

. . .

When I wake, I'm in Edward's arms, partially wet and completely naked as he carries me into his bedroom.

I have no idea how long I've been asleep, but even as I consider it, my thoughts become distracted by Edward's profile silhouetted by the semi-concealed moonlight.

This man is so damn beautiful it seems illogical.

"Do you do this often?" I ask. I'm not exactly coherent and it shows.

Edward chuckles; its thick tenor suggesting he was not long ago asleep as well. "Carry beautiful girls to bed, you mean? Every night."

"Smooth," I reply, and I'm definitely still half asleep.

"You like that word, don't you?"

Taking a deep breath, I release it into a hum and allow my head to roll against his shoulder. "I like you more."

"Bella..."

The second time I wake, it's to the sensation of Edward's sultry lips planting tenderly against my throat and shoulders.

We're in his bed, his sheets haphazardly tangled around the both us, and the scent of him is all around me; in the air I breathe.

"Bella?" My name is a whisper in the darkness, but it's a definite question this time.

"Hmm?" I query drowsily, rolling clumsily to my side as he curls his arms around me and pulls me against his chest.

For the longest moment, Edward holds me cocooned in his arms; the only sounds are his quickening breath and my pulse echoing in my ears. For some inexplicable reason, coils of panic are beginning to curl around my heart, but then I remember; dark thoughts always have a habit of creeping into your head in the dead of night. The Witching hour my father used to say, but I'm lucid enough to know where it stems from.

Rosalie filled me in on a very significant part of Edward's life, and I'm still not sure how he'll feel about it; whether he'd prefer to tell me himself. Or how he'll react to me knowing.

I imagine how I'd feel if he knew all the sordid details of my mother before I got the chance to explain. Mortified is the only word that comes to mind.

I can't tell him, I once again vow. He'll tell me when he's ready.

He does not like to talk about his wife.

"Are you going to wake up so I can have my way with you?" he all but growls against my ear.

I meet his eyes and open my mouth to completely cave, when what comes out of it surprises the both of us.

"Edward, she told me."

He pauses for a spell, his brow bunching with confusion. "She?"

"Rosalie?" I confess behind a resigned breath.

He notably tenses against me and softly clears his throat. "What did she tell you?" he asks stiffly.

"How your wife died while giving birth to Addie," I answer in a small voice, and unable to hold his gaze, I sever it.

He huffs and mutters a very dark "fucking bitch" only fractionally to himself.

"I know you don't like talking about—"

"I don't, so let's not." And just like that, Frowning Daddy is back front and center.

"I'm sorry. I-I just didn't want it sitting between us," I stammer in explanation.

"She died in childbirth," he says a little bit too cavalierly. "How does that affect us?"

"Does my job—"

"Hey!" He instantly cuts me off as irritation begins to restrict his voice. "Have I ever given you the impression it does?" He clearly understood my meaning.

"Sometimes..." I hesitate, and decide to let it go. I have to. He doesn't want to hear it.

He doesn't want to talk about it.

Releasing me, he rolls to his back, and reaches up to drag both set of rigid fingers through his hair.

"I'm sorry," I repeat my apology timidly, but I'm frustrated at myself, wishing I'd just kept my damn mouth closed.

I knew I should have let him tell me on his own.

"I should have anticipated this," he says, but whether he spoke it to me or himself I'm not certain.

"Edw—"

"You have nothing to be sorry about," he once again interjects, and in the next moment, he launches himself out of bed and disappears behind his bathroom door; emerging again only a few seconds later with a pair of boxer shorts low on his hips.

Without a word, or even a glance in my direction, he leaves the room and I listen as his bare feet thud heavily and rapidly down the hardwood of the stairs.

Pulling myself upright, I feel around awkwardly for something to cover my nakedness. I find Edward's navy-blue robe hanging over the foot of his bed, and hastily wrapping it around myself, I follow apprehensively behind to the first floor.

He's sitting at his desk in his study, leaning into the sparse amount of light the screen of his iMac gives off in the unlit room, as he types and clicks on his mouse with anger ingrained in every movement.

He looks to be writing an email, and I wonder whether this is the one he promised his brother.

Leaning against the double-doored frame, I observe him for a moment. His jaw is set and clenching, but he's a hell of a typer; he can type faster than I can.

"Edward?" I venture, despite the fact that he's well aware of my presence.

"I'll be right with you, sweetheart," he replies, his obvious distraction turning his voice almost monotone.

I groan, barely managing to keep it to myself, before walking into the room and practically collapse on the small loveseat directly opposite him.

"When did she tell you?" he asks, his bare back remaining turned to me, after several minutes pass with nothing but the sounds of his keyboard and mouse breaking up the silence.

"...The day... Addie gave me the love heart candy," I answer reluctantly.

The day he told me he loves me.

"If she wants a war, she's got one," he adds in a voice so quiet I barely hear him. It's clear this time he's not speaking to me, so I offer nothing in return.

Roughly thirty minutes pass when he shuts down his computer, pulls himself to his feet and turns to me. While anger is still his most prominent emotion, his intense eyes are apologetic; something he doesn't have to articulate.

I take the hand he holds out to me, and he draws me out of the sofa before him.

"When I set my mind to something..." he offers by way of explanation against my hairline as his heated breath floods me.

I nod and flatten both palms to his chest, feeling his heart working tirelessly skin deep. I almost reply with it's fine, but I think I'm too tired for any real response.

"It's almost five a.m.," he adds softly.

An exhausted utterance passes my lips, but I'm starting to feel dead on my feet and am beginning to sway against him.

Without warning, he hoists me back into his arms and carries me upstairs, and with each step he takes, the anger slowly melts away from that tall frame of his until he's almost as fluid against me as I am.

"I want you to promise me something," he says seriously, after dropping me to his bed and leaning over me on his hands and knees. His eyes are boring intently into mine, reminding me again how intimidating he's still so capable of being.

I raise my eyebrows in question, suddenly fearful I'm about to be reprimanded.

"Don't keep things from me—even if they're about my wife." Despite the final word strangling from his throat, his tone softens and his eyes drift momentarily to my lips. "Deal?"

"Deal," I echo as my smile pulls in mirror to his.

"Promise."

"I promise."

"Good." He kisses me and then again before resting his lips against my forehead. "I'm sorry."

"I know," I say, because there really is no substitution for it's fine—not that Edward's under any misapprehension of what I'm doing.

He laughs gently through his nose, and it suddenly occurs to me that this man is able to completely catalogue events in his life and keep them separate from what he's doing in the moment.

I wonder how he does it, while wishing I could do the same, but ADHD does not allow you the luxury to disconnect. I often carry everything at once, all running through my head at a thousand miles per hour. I struggle with it, to multitask. Alice always laughs at me over the fact I can't walk and text.

"Hey," Edward pulls my wandering thoughts back, "I'm losing you again."

"Huh?"

"It's damned near adorable the way you lose yourself in your head," he says, the laughter remaining in his voice as he wipes a strand of hair off my face with his index finger.

"Please don't tease me," I appeal to him, wanting to shrink into myself. I honestly don't know how I'll react if Edward ever snaps his fingers in my face the way Tyler used to. "It's worse when I'm tired."

"You're tired," he says rhetorically.

"I'm overtired," I deliberately emphasize, "and I have a very horny boyfriend who won't let me sleep."

He laughs again, it's husky, and beginning to awaken parts of me I really don't have the energy for. "Everything about you Bella is so fucking refreshing," he murmurs, and gathering me in his arms he moves to his side and clumsily yanks the covers around the both of us.

He hasn't removed his boxers, so I assume we're about to sleep—for what remains of the night, I'm hoping.

"I'll try to kill you in the morning," he teases gruffly against my brow, imitating what I often say to him after he completely exhausts me. "Go to sleep, baby."

What I can manage in reply is unintelligible as I curl myself further against him and lazily expel my breath.

My last thoughts are of our quickie in his car earlier tonight, how he looked, sounded, tasted... It threatens to pull me back from the cusp of sleep, but I'm not sure that's even possible right now.

Part II will have to wait until morning.