BPOV

On the last day of November, as I'm packing my bags to leave my childhood home, my phone rings, and Edward's picture flashes on the screen. He's been … elusive the last few days. He's texted to check in, but we haven't had much time to talk about anything that's been going on. Sitting down on the bed, I answer the phone.

"Hey, baby, I'm sorry I've been so absent the past few days. I've just been trying to process the information about the breach and not overreact." He sounds tired and worried, like he's holding something back.

"I understand. You've been clear that you've had a lot to deal with, and I know how much of a priority this is for you. Is everything okay?" My thumb comes up to my mouth as I begin to bite the dead skin along the edge of the nail.

"I'm sure it will be. I need to ask a favor from you."

"Anything. What do you need?"

"When you get back to Seattle tomorrow, I need you to come by the office. I think you may have done something unintentionally, and I want to show you what I've seen." Edward sighs deeply, and I can't help but wonder how long he's been preparing to tell me this.

"Edward, what's going on?"

"Please, Bella—"

"Okay, I'll be there. But I don't like being in the dark."

"I know. Look, I'm not telling you because I don't trust you. I'm not telling you because this is how I would handle it with anyone in this situation, and I need you to bear that in mind." I can imagine him sitting at his desk with his tie undone, his hair a mess from running his hands through it, and a slight look of despair on his face.

"All right, I understand. But I'm leaving today; I can be in the city by late afternoon."

"Bella, you don't need to."

"I want to. Whatever this is is just going to eat at me until we clear it up, so I'll leave within the half hour. I'll call you when I reach the city." When we say goodbye, Edward apologizes, but I try to assure him that I understand where he's coming from.

Saying my goodbyes to Charlie and Sue are more difficult than I anticipate. I promise that I'll visit more, and they vow to come into Seattle. When I head out, I'm not relieved to be leaving but feeling renewed. It's just what I had hoped for.

The feeling carries me most of the drive back to Seattle. I think about the long talks that Edward and I had over the past weekend and how we have ideas about how we want to move forward. We both have wants and needs; we just need to be better at communicating what those are so we can move forward.

Neither of us wants to end up being toxic for the other one, but we're quickly slipping down that path. We need to stop and fix it now if we want to survive.

We just need to get through whatever this thing is first. I send Edward a text to let him know that I'm downtown and should be at his office within ten minutes or so. I have no idea what to expect, but I have to assume this has to do with the security breach. I'm worried about what I could have possibly done and what could have happened.

Edward said that it looked like it was intended as a scare tactic, but that doesn't change the fact that I was somehow involved. As I'm riding the elevator up, I'm nervous that I'm going to be met with security or the police, but what's even more surprising to me when the elevator doors open is Edward waiting for me at the reception desk.

He's smiling warmly, but he's not as put together as he usually is. Instead of his usual suit, he's wearing just slacks and a dress shirt. When I step out of the elevator, he wraps me in a tight hug, pressing a kiss to my temple.

"You're scaring me a little bit."

He pulls back, staring into my eyes while chuckling softly. "Let's go clear this up, and I'll tell you everything I know."

Instead of leading me to his office, he leads me to a conference room where I see a younger man is already waiting for us. He smiles timidly as he adjusts his laptop. "Bella, this is my IT department head, Ben."

I reach out to shake his hand, smiling. "You're the one who's going to be negotiating a huge raise?" I laugh, but Ben doesn't join in with me.

"We'll see about that."

After we're all sitting down, Ben taps a key on his laptop and his home screen is projected onto a screen behind him.

"Can we just get this over with already? My nerves are shot, and I just drove for four hours. Please, tell me what's going on?"

Ben clears his throat and begins to explain how he traced the malware that was hiding in the system. When and where it was downloaded … and what time. He begins to show file traces of his work, timestamps, and that's when I see what they're getting at.

"That was the day I filled in for Irina for about an hour." Turning to look at Edward, he has his gaze fixed on mine. "The day we got into that huge fight."

"Yes. I want to face this with you head on. We can see that you logged into your Facebook account and immediately went to check on your dad's page. Then we can see that you scrolled through your own timeline a bit, and then clicked on an external link." Edward motions to Ben, who taps away again and some listicle pops up.

"I vaguely remember that. I also remember that I closed it after reading one or two entries because it crashed." I'm staring at the screen, trying to remember why I clicked on it, but I can only assume it's because I was bored out of my mind sitting at that desk. "Is this where the malware came from? Wouldn't there be a blocker or something to prevent it?"

"There is. This is more sophisticated than we could have anticipated," Ben explains, and I look to Edward.

"I'm so sorry. I didn't mean to do it; it was a total accident." I can feel tears welling in my eyes.

He reaches for my hand. "I believe you. I'm not worried about this. It could have been anyone, but I think you were personally targeted. The link wasn't just an ad or something sponsored. It was posted by a friend of yours."

"Edward, I have like 4000 Facebook friends." I giggle at the mere stupidity of it.

"I know. I don't expect that you know all of them, especially after Ben explained that a lot of your followers on Instagram can also be friends on Facebook. But what I need to know is when did you and Maria Xavier become friends?" He's staring at me, not unkindly, but he wants answers, and I have no idea what he's talking about.

"Maria Xavier? You mean—"

"Let's not get into that now. I would never have Ben hack your accounts to get the information, so I'm asking you to log in and find out when you two connected."

I take a deep breath and stand up. I walk over to where Ben is seated and ask him to move so I can log in. I want them both to see what I'm doing. "Instagram doesn't have a feature that tells you a follow date, but if she follows me on there, we can at least get a roundabout timeline based on if she's a recent follower and when she joined. Facebook will give an exact date. Here's my profile," I explain as I navigate the page. "When I go into my activity log, I can find my friends and find out the date."

I only have to scroll a little bit before I find Maria Xavier. I friended her a few days before Halloween. After the photo dump when we decided to go official. I look over the laptop screen to Edward, who simply nods. I open another tab and go to Instagram. Under my most recent followers, Maria is listed. When I go to her profile, she only joined in October.

Leaving both my accounts open, I clear my throat. "I don't know who she is. If you want to go through my activity log, you'll see that I rarely log into Facebook. My Instagram posts to it automatically, but I don't actively maintain it."

"Don't unfriend her. Just leave it as it is." Edward stands and gestures to me to join him. "Ben, thank you. I think we're all set from here?"

"Sure thing, Edward. We're good to go."

Following Edward out of the room and down to his office, I feel like I'm a kid being led to the principal's office.

He closes the door behind us and sits me down on the couch next to him. Before I can open my mouth to speak, his mouth is on mine, needy and hot. His hands roam over my back, gripping my waist, and it takes every ounce of willpower not to climb into his lap. Breaking the kiss, I pull away panting. "What is going on?"

"One, I missed you and I wanted to kiss you when I saw you, but we had to do something very important first. Second, you were so commanding in there; I loved it." Edward grins, but when I don't return it in kind, he sobers up. "I didn't think you knew who this Maria person was. But I did need you to be honest without any prior knowledge about what was going on. I'm sorry that I didn't tell you what Ben found."

Sighing, I lean away from him. "I can understand your reasoning. I felt a little blindsided, but truth be told, you handled it like I would want anyone else to. You didn't jump to conclusions, and you let me show you what I could to defend myself."

We sit in silence for a few moments before I break it. "I truly don't know who she is."

"I know you don't, but I think I do." He stands and paces behind his desk. "Would you be willing to give my PI access to your Facebook account? So he can snoop on this Maria Xavier."

"Of course. Whatever you need." I eye him for a moment as he whips his phone out to write a text. He asks me to send my username and password and hands me his phone. When I pass it back, I let out a single breath.

"You think it's Jane, don't you?"

Edward stops, turning to look at me. "I think she's connected, yes."

"But I'm asking if you think Maria and Jane are the same person."

"I'm starting to feel that way." He moves around his desk to come sit by me again. "How would you like to go on a trip with me again? Nothing as flashy as Milan, but something short." Edward wraps one arm around my shoulders as I lean into him.

"Why do I get the feeling this isn't a trip for us?"

"It's for us, but I'll need to do some work as well, and so will you." He presses a kiss to my forehead.

"What did you have in mind?"

"I was thinking we could go to Boston, maybe Philadelphia and Washington. Stop over in Delaware for a bit."

"Delaware? I can't say the great state of Delaware has ever been on my bucket list, but sure. And what, pray tell, will I be doing on this trip?" I look up to see his crooked smile.

"I'm sure you'll be documenting a lot of things for your Instagram."