two.

One week.

I was able to keep my thoughts - mostly - professional for one goddamn week.

Then she told me she had a date. And we collided into each other as she was leaving, dressed to impress some lucky fucker, and my fingers wrapped firmly around her biceps to keep us both from falling.

She was focused on a bracelet and hadn't seen me. I was focused on the way her dress hugged every curve of her body and the impressive amount of muscle tensing underneath my fingers.

And, unfortunately, her skin. The pale contrasting with her chocolate hair falling in waves around her, with the black dress that had a slit up her thigh I was desperate went just another inch higher.

Twenty-two.

"Oh, I'm sorry," she gasped out, looking up at me with those espresso eyes that had, in my mind, become mine in the last week. She looked at me with those eyes, teased me and reprimanded me and fascinated me. It was a ridiculous idea, but still there nonetheless.

I cleared my throat and my mind and dropped my hands from her arms. "You okay?"

"Um, yes. Thank you. Sorry," she stuttered over herself, angrily tossing the bracelet she had been fussing with in her monstrosity of a bag.

She stepped away.

My heart sank at the distance.

Twenty-two.

"Have a good night, Bella." I forced the words out of my mouth. Throat constricting, every ounce of my body fighting against the polite departure.

But I let her go. Watched her walk away from me, hips swaying but not in an overly provocative way. A natural way that was just how she walked.

I thought about it the entire drive home.

That was how she would walk up to her date. Greet him with a hug, maybe a kiss on the cheek. Smile at him with my eyes and talk to him with an ease she never had around me because I was her asshole of a boss. She would laugh at his juvenile jokes and brush her fingers across his. Kiss him goodnight.

Fuck him. Make love to him. Either way, it sent a blind rage through my system.

All night, my eyes kept going to the nearest clock. An hour in — were they getting along? Two hours — was dinner over? Three— was she moaning his name?

I threw back a glass of whiskey. Reminded myself she was my twenty-two year old publicist and had every right to date or fuck or be whoever she wanted to be.

I was the one trapped.

Not her.

So I swallowed up my pride, downed another glass of whisky, and forced myself into the shower in an attempt to wash away the day, wash away the thoughts, start over on a clean slate.

That was the first night I came with Bella Swan's name on my lips.

A/N: short and sweet, but I hope you liked it. As always, thank you to my amazing beta Wendy! And thank you for the love on the first chapter. It always warms my heart to know how much you guys love these two :)