DISCLAIMER: all recognizable characters belong to Stephenie Meyer. No copyright infringement intended.

And you know damn well

For you, I would ruin myself

A million little times

~ Taylor Swift, illicit affairs

A collection of scenes from the Butterflies Series in Edward's point of view

Part One

Bad Kind of Butterflies—Guilty as Sin?

Bad, bad, bad kind of butterflies

Like when you got something to hide

Lies, tellin' you that I'm alright

~ Camila Cabello, Bad Kind of Butterflies

I keep recalling things we never did

Messy top lip kiss

How I long for our trysts

Without ever touching his skin

How can I be guilty as sin?

~ Taylor Swift, Guilty as Sin?

One.

People thought I didn't know.

A broad statement that covered so many different aspects of my life.

Seven years ago Irina thought I didn't know she had been fucking my (former) best friend. Over the years Masen and Lucy thought I never heard their scheming on how to get us back together so they could stop going from house to house. My parents thought I didn't know how big of a disappointment I had been to them since I was seventeen. The people in these halls thought I didn't know they all hated me. The network probably thought I had no idea how shitty the show had become.

I knew.

But when life had handed you blow after blow, it was hard to come back. Hard to keep getting up and putting a smile on your face when you were living day to day. Hoping to get through it without another shoe dropping.

I was a lucky man. Great at brooding, but I had it so fucking easy compared to the majority.

I had my show. My kids. And my family.

Every day I convinced myself that was all I needed. That I was happy with short weekends with the kids and weekly phone calls from my parents and a bi-monthly assault by my sister.

It was fine. I was fine.

Until a pair of chocolate brown eyes met mine in the mirror one Friday night after we had finished filming for the day.

"Who the hell are you?"

We both froze.

Brown eyes.

Chocolate hair.

Fuck me.

My brain didn't have the capacity to take in much else about her. Dark jeans, white blazer, but a face that would be impossible to forget.

Her nose was slightly crooked, had probably been broken in the past by the looks of it. Her lips were full and a natural pink that complimented her pale skin. Her hair fell down her shoulders in a silky wave. And the eyes. Fuck me the eyes would be the death of me.

Because most people saw right through me. Not in the way that they knew my every thought or could tell that I was lying or knew when I was struggling. In the way they saw right through me and onto the next thing. The better alternative.

But her… she looked at me.

And somewhere in the back of my head, I knew I was fucked. Especially when the unprovoked image of that silky wave of hair wrapped around my hand floated through my mind.

My teeth clenched together.

She grabbed her bag, and took a few fluid steps in my direction. The soft click of her heels, even on the carpet, was nearly as loud in my ears as my heartbeat.

The woman held her hand out—a tiny, delicate hand with perfectly manicured pale pink nails—with almost an… air of annoyance. I was already on her nerves. Whoever she was.

"Isabella Swan," she said confidently. "I work for Newton & Cheney Relations."

My brows pinched together. Fucking hell. "The PR firm?"

"Yes," she said with a beautiful but obviously forced smile. "Esme Cullen has hired us to work with you. You should have an email from her explaining the situation.

I huffed out a breath, grabbing for my phone where I stashed it during every show. Sure enough, brown eyes was right. About the email. The explanation was crap, but I knew my mother was just trying to be nice.

The publicist wasn't for them—their publicist hadn't recommended it to help with their latest award show campaign.

It was because I was dangerously close to losing the show.

I knew it. But wasn't sure if I cared most days.

My eyes went back to brown eyes. Isabella.

Beautiful woman, but one I wasn't in need of. Professionally. Unprofessionally, I thought about how fan-fucking-tastic she would look in my bed. Blazer and business forgotten as I wrapped that silky hair around my hand to keep her in place.

The slight quiver of her lip caught my attention. And then my eyes fell down her body, studied her more closely.

Too closely.

"How old are you?"

She blinked at me. "Twenty-two."

My brows shot up. "The biggest PR firm in Los Angeles sent a girl fresh out of college for me?"

I didn't care about the firm. I cared about the fact that I still couldn't get the picture of her in my bed out of my mind, even though it was now much more inappropriate than before.

Twelve years.

I had a pair of four-year-old twins when I was her age.

Her shoulders shrugged. "No one with any say over their clients wanted you."

An unexpected laugh burst through my lips.

I did appreciate her honesty.

Once I regained my composure I asked, "How much are you getting paid?"

It was her turn to frown. "Um—"

"I can get you an interview at any other PR firm in the city and cover your living expenses until then if you walk out of here right now."

Her jaw clicked. Eyes flared. "No."

"No?"

"No. I was hired to do a job, and as unfortunate as that job is, I'm going to do it. Could we meet sometime this weekend and discuss things?"

I bit the inside of my cheek. I could very easily tell her no. Fire her. Not bother to get her an interview anywhere else. Raise the price until she agreed to walk away.

Instead, I invited her over Sunday afternoon.

Because what if? What if it was time? What if it was now or never?

"Okay," she agreed before I could take it back. "I'll see you then, Mr. Cullen."

She turned to leave quickly.

My eyes followed her form as she went.

Twenty-two, I reminded myself. In the car. As I ate a quick dinner before bed. Told myself I wouldn't have another inappropriate thought about the girl while she was working for me.

Biggest lie of my fucking life.

A/N: well hi! We all knew I wouldn't be able to stay away from these two for very long. You can all thank my amazing new beta Wendy for this because it started with me writing a few EPOV scenes to get into the swing of things for a holiday Butterflies short story and has ended up being much more after we got to talking about it.

Some notes:

Chapters are going to be much shorter than usual. This isn't going to be a complete story of Butterflies, Easy, Closure, or Mine in EPOV. It's just going to be some scenes here and there that I've always wanted to do in EPOV. Because of that, it's likely going to be fairly confusing if you haven't read the originals first.

Same trigger warnings that were posted in the originals will apply here. If you didn't enjoy or had to skip some of another part of this story, you will need to skip this one as well.

I have nine moments from BKOB already pre-written. Let's have some fun!