Bella grasped Edward’s hand so tightly that his palm began to sweat. No matter. He wouldn’t let go, no matter how slippery his grip became.
He led her slowly, resolutely, to the dance floor as the band’s guitarist began to pick out a mournful melody. The dancing co-eds parted like the Red Sea to allow them entrance. Their round eyes and gaping mouths made them resemble judgmental fish, waiting for the new pair of sinners in their school to sink or swim.
Bella was going to swim, even if he had to carry her. Even if the sharks circled in for the kill. He would make sure she survived.
Edward was grateful when the band’s sole female member began to sing a slow blues lament, drowning out the ugly whispers all around them.
Don’t you be wasting all your money
On syrup and honey. . .
Edward turned to face Bella, lifting her right hand in the air and placing his left at her waist, drawing her closer. She rested her left hand on his shoulder while the other gripped his hand so tightly that his fingers tingled. No matter. He would hang on until his entire arm went numb if that’s what she needed.
Because I’m sweet enough. . .
Bella was staring at his tie, looking like the same frightened fawn he’d encountered the first time he ever saw her. He hoped this would be the last time she was ever this helpless and lost.
Don’t you be using every minute
On making a living. . .
“Bella.” He moved his hand from her waist to her chin, lifting it gently. “Look at me.”
Her nervous eyes leapt up to his, and once he caught them, he refused to let go.
“You just keep your eyes on me, and your ears on the music. Nothing else matters.”
She bit her lip and nodded. She could do that. Those were the eyes she trusted; these were the hands that wouldn’t let her fall. He began to sway in time to the music, and she moved haltingly with him, letting him guide her.
Because we’ve got our love. . .
“Do you think Jessica was telling the truth? That that girl hired him to take her virginity?”
Bella winced at the offhand comment from the perimeter of the dance floor. Edward shook his head ever so slightly, silently urging her to ignore the remarks. She resisted squeezing her eyes shut and kept them focused on the blue-green buoys before her. They would keep her afloat.
Listen to me
One, two, three
Baby, baby, baby
Spend your time on me. . .
“So what if she did hire him? Hell, I would, too. Look at him!”
Don’t you be out all night long. . .
“Shut up, you would not. He’s not that hot.”
“Hotter than anyone you’ll ever date.”
Leaving me all alone. . .
“Well, at least I don’t have to pay someone to have sex with me.”
Because I need your love. . .
Bella’s eyes filled with tears. She blinked them back, swallowed hard and squeezed Edward’s hand. He slid his other arm around her back, pulling her tightly to him. His eyes reminded her again what was important—
what was true—
and what was not.
Don’t you be spending every day
Working away
Because I’m waiting for you
Listen to me
One, two, three. . .
As much as the harpoons of gossip thrown at them wounded Bella, the lyrics of the song pierced Edward. They spelled out his shortcomings with a poignancy that bludgeoned him into sense.
Baby, baby, baby
Spend your time on me
Spend it, spend it, spend it
Your time on me
Please, baby. . .
He stared into Bella’s pleading brown eyes as the soulful melody washed around them.
Please, baby. . .
And in that moment, he knew he was through. This was the last night he would spend as an employee of Renaissance Escorts.
Edward smiled down at Bella as the song came to a close.
“We made it,” he whispered.
She nodded and gave him a quick smile in return. Then he leaned in and pressed his lips to her forehead in a reverent kiss. The breath of her sigh was cool on his neck, her body limp with relief in his arms. His own feelings of freedom were overwhelming. He didn’t know how he was going to manage to walk away from escorting, but he would figure something out, somehow. Hell, he probably wouldn’t have to quit. Jessica would most likely make such a stink about tonight that Rosalie would have no choice but to fire him.
The blare of the next song began, an up-tempo number that had the couples around them separating and bobbing up and down en masse to the beat.
“You want to get out of here?” Edward asked Bella.
“Yeah,” she admitted. “Please.”
He gave her another quick peck on the forehead before turning and steering her toward the door. They were halfway to the exit when a shriek of outrage stopped them in their tracks.
“And just where do you think you’re going?” demanded Jessica Stanley, heading them off at the pass. She planted herself in front of Edward, hands on hips, and glared up at him.
“Frankly, anywhere else but here,” he replied coldly.
“Aren’t you forgetting something? You’re my date this evening, not hers.” She paused to give Bella a disparaging look before turning her attention back to Edward. “I own your ass right now, and everything connected to it. On top of that, you owe me a new dress. But I’ve decided to be forgiving and let you work it off for me later—
in private.”
Bella gaped at her, shocked at her audacity. She couldn’t be serious.
“I’m surprised you want to continue this charade,” Edward said, his tone caustic. “You made it pretty clear where you stand on the subject of hiring an escort. Or have your standards lowered in the last twenty minutes?”
Jessica gave him a withering look, then shot Bella a downright sneer. “You’re right. Like I’d want to scrape the barrel for your leftovers anyway, let alone pay for them.”
Fury rose in Bella’s chest, hot and explosive. “It sure didn’t stop you from going after Mike, did it?”
Jessica’s eyebrows shot up in surprise before her eyes narrowed. “Mike always deserved better than the scraps you gave him. He followed you around like a lovesick puppy all through high school, and when you finally went out with him, it was like you were throwing a pathetic dog a bone. If you think I’m sorry for exposing your dirty little secret so he’d finally see the truth about you, you’re wrong.”
“It’s nice to know what you really think of me, Jess,” a fourth voice cut through the noise, low and bitter.
Jessica blanched, then whirled to see Mike behind her. The cutting glare he gave her had her scrambling to remove her foot from her mouth.
“I didn’t mean it like that. I just meant you were nothing but wonderful to Bella and she treated you like you were something stuck to the bottom of her shoe.”
“Like dog shit, you mean?” he barked. “Well, this just gets better and better. Any other canine analogies you want to come up with to tell me what a clueless idiot I am?”
“Mike, come on. You’re taking this all wrong. You know what I’m trying to say,” Jessica pleaded.
“Yeah, I think I do, actually. You’ve never had any respect for me, or my decisions. Well, maybe you can respect this one: I’m through with you,” he hissed. He turned from Jessica’s horrified stare to Bella’s apologetic one. “Both of you,” he added quietly, almost regretfully. His mouth was twisted in a grimace as he did an about-face and marched to the ballroom doors.
“Mike, wait!” Jessica exclaimed, running after him. Bella and Edward watched as she tackled him near the exit. They couldn’t hear her pleas over the raucous music, but Mike’s angry shouts and Jessica’s wild gesticulations were easy to read. Their argument played out in almost comical pantomime as Jess grabbed at Mike while he warded her off and barreled out the door. She raced after him as fast as her high-heeled feet could carry her. Then the door swung closed behind them, leaving only their gaping and giggling peers behind.
Bella let out a heavy sigh. “Poor Mike. It was bad enough what she did to me, but he didn’t deserve any of this.”
Edward’s hand tightened on her waist. “Well, he did keep pursuing you even though you told him you weren’t interested. He was bound to get a wake-up call at some point.”
“I guess you’re right,” she agreed. “I shouldn’t have come here tonight--shouldn’t have led him on like that.”
Edward wanted to argue with her, but he found he rather agreed. “You’re too nice for your own good,” he said quietly as he steered her toward the exit.
“Maybe,” she replied with a dubious shrug as they walked. “I don’t feel so nice right now.”
“Well, you are. A lot of girls would have popped Jessica right in the mouth for what she did.”
Bella’s laugh was rueful. “I suppose she had it coming to her. But no, leave it to me to just faint like some wilting lily instead.”
“Well, Mike’s public rejection was nice little gut-punch to Jessica all on its own. Besides, it’s what you did afterward that matters,” he insisted. He guided her to the ballroom door, past the disdainful looks and snickers of the students around them. Bella’s arm tightened around his waist and she lowered her head, ducking their stares. “You gathered your courage and came back in here to face everyone. You stood up to Jess in the end.” Edward smiled down at her as he opened the door. “You were brave.”
“Was I?” She stopped and looked up at the guy who’d been supporting her and encouraging her to stand up for herself. Was this how she wanted to reward him? By merely enduring a public dance with him, then slinking out of the room with her proverbial tail between her legs?
Bella squared her shoulders and took a deep breath. She turned to face the nameless people whose opinions she’d pointlessly regarded. The comforting noise of the band came to a pause between songs, and she almost lost her nerve. But when she finally steeled herself and opened her mouth to speak, she surprised even herself with the strength of her conviction.
“Just for the record, Jessica was right. I did hire this guy to give me a night I’d never forget.” She glanced up at Edward’s stunned expression before she turned to face the gaping throng again. “And you know what? It was the best decision I ever made. Because every night I’ve spent with him since then has been just as unforgettable as the first one. And not for the sleazy reasons you probably all think, or because I paid him. He’s given me the best of himself freely, because he wanted to. We’re together because we want to be. So chew on that for awhile, all you gossip-mongers. He may have come here with Jessica, but he’s leaving with me. He’ll always end up with me.”
With that, she grabbed a pleasantly shocked Edward by the hand and whirled toward the door, turning her back on the stares and whispers for good.
.
.
“This view is incredible.”
Bella shook her head in amazement at the sight before her. The rectangular rooftop swimming pool of the Four Seasons glistened with the serene reflection of the moon above. But more stunning than that was the optical illusion created by the pool’s infinity edge, making appear that it emptied directly into the distant waters of Elliot Bay.
“It’s great, isn’t it? I wanted you to see it before we left the hotel.”
Edward smiled down at her, then followed as she strolled toward the bay. He suggested they have a seat on the built-in bench around the pool’s perimeter, and she agreed. He situated himself so that he could still talk to her, but not block her view of the scenic backdrop behind him.
“I can’t believe you did that,” he said at last. He hadn’t uttered a word about her mouth-dropping speech since she’d made it. He was still trying to wrap his mind around the fact that those amazing words had come out of her mouth. That she had boldly defended him, when so much of his past was indefensible.
“I know,” Bella agreed, still looking a little stunned herself. “I finally stopped giving a shit what everyone else thought, thanks to you. I just wish I’d done it sooner. You deserve better than my embarrassment.”
“Do I?” It was Edward’s turn to shake his head. “I’ve put you in an impossible position the past few weeks. Somehow I thought that sex was the deal breaker. That it was okay to keep escorting as long as I didn’t get intimate with any of my clients. But when I saw your face after Jessica kissed me. . .” He grimaced at the memory. “Even though I was repulsed by it, that kiss was still a betrayal. I still hurt you. Not intentionally, but thoughtlessly. Carelessly. I should have known better.”
He paused and let out a wry chuckle. “I don’t know why I was so blind. I’m the one who told you it was never just about sex between you and me. So why would I think it was just about sex between me and any other girl?”
Bella said nothing, but her heart thudded erratically in her chest. He was finally getting it. Putting words to her nameless fears and frustrations. But could he put the words into action?
She soon got her answer. Edward looked down and took Bella’s hands in his, then studied them, rubbing his thumbs over the tops of her fingers as he spoke.
“Of all the things I’ve done, I don’t think I’ve ever been so disgusted with myself as I was tonight, when I realized that you’d seen me with Jessica. And then that song we danced to. . . The lyrics hit me so hard. ‘Spend your time on me,’” he sang softly. “That’s where I went wrong. Giving you part of me instead of giving you a hundred percent. I practically drove you into Mike’s arms. Never again.”
He looked up, his eyes reflecting the infinity pool and its fathomless night sky as he fixed his gaze on hers.
“I’m done, Bella.” His words were nearly a whisper, yet more emphatic than anything he’d ever said.
“Done. . . ?” she echoed, desperate for the clarification she needed. Edward’s grip tightened around her hands, and she suddenly realized how hard she’d been squeezing his fingers as her heart accelerated.
“Tonight was the last paid date I’ll ever have. The last night I’ll spend on the arm of another girl. I’m all yours. For as long as you want me,” he added with a cautiously hopeful laugh.
There they were again--twin tears, running down her cheeks. But this time she didn’t curse the waterworks. She embraced them, and then Edward, throwing her arms around him.
“I’ll always want you,” she promised. And even though she was only twenty years old, she somehow knew that time would not change the certainty filling every cell of her being right now. She sank her fingers into the thick hair at the nape of his neck and planted tiny kisses along his cheek. “Always,” she whispered into his ear.
Edward fought back his own tears then. How had he gotten so damned lucky? By all rights she should have told him to go to hell. Given him his walking papers in front of that room full of gawking kids downstairs, and gone on with her life. But no, she wanted him in it. She’d faced her biggest fears to keep him there. Now it was time for him to return the favor.
He held her close, marveling once more at out how this tiny creature could have such a big impact on his life. His fingers stroked the soft curls of her hair, then reached for the smooth skin of her cheek, wiping one happy tear away.
“Well, I hate to break it to you, but you’re stuck with me now,” he said, his joking words a thin disguise for the emotion lurking beneath them. But his eyes gave away what his words could not.
“You’re the one who’s stuck,” she argued, grinning back at him through her tears. “No more smorgasbord of women. Are you sure you’re ready for the same entrée every night?”
He laughed in earnest then. “You’re like pizza to me, Bella,” he said, chuckling even more at her look of dismay. “That’s a compliment. I always love pizza. I never get tired of the taste. Never.”
The grin was still on his lips as he lowered them to hers. But as they came nearer, Bella flinched involuntarily, drawing back.
“I’m sorry,” she instantly apologized.
“What is it?” He was almost afraid to hear the answer.
“Nothing; it’s stupid. I just had this flash in my mind of Jess. . . the way she shoved her tongue down your throat.” She shuddered slightly.
Edward frowned. “If I had a toothbrush and toothpaste on me, I’d use this pool water right here and now to brush all traces of her away.”
His eyes suddenly widened at another thought. “Wait here,” he instructed, then leapt up and headed for the poolside bar. Though serving hours had just ended, he bribed the bartender with a hefty tip in order to procure a couple of shots.
“The swan song of my extravagant spending,” he muttered to himself while he carried the drinks back to Bella, waiting poolside. “Worth every penny.”
“What was that?” she asked as he handed her a shot glass.
“Nothing. Just trying to come up with a toast.” He sat next to her, raising his own shot glass to hers.
“How about, ‘to us?’” Bella suggested.
Edward smiled at the simplicity of it. “To us. And our future,” he couldn’t help adding.
Her smile matched his. “Cheers.” She glanced down at the amber liquid before lifting it to her lips. “Um, what is this?”
“A very nice Irish whiskey,” he replied. “It should kill any remaining cooties from Jessica Stanley’s attack earlier.”
Bella giggled at that. “Never in a million years did I think I’d hear the word ‘cooties’ come out of your mouth.”
“Hey, my mouth will say or do anything to get your mouth back in its good graces.”
“Ah. That’s nice. I like that,” she said with a grin. They clinked glasses together again before each taking the shot in one large gulp. Edward took his time before swallowing, swishing the alcohol around his mouth and gargling loudly with it for effect.
Bella laughed and rolled her eyes. “All right, that’s enough. You’re disinfected.”
Edward downed the shot and grinned; then his smiled waned. “Am I forgiven?”
Her eyes flashed with mild exasperation. “I told you, there’s nothing to forgive. Let’s just move on now.”
He sighed in relief. “To the future,” he repeated.
When he kissed her this time, she didn’t flinch. She raised trusting eyes and lips to his. And for the first time ever, he felt like he might almost deserve them.
Monday, June 10, 2013
Sunday, May 5, 2013
Chapter 45
“What sorority are you in?”
The girl nearest Bella at the table gave her an expectant look. Bella knew her answer would result in instant dismissal.
“I’m not in one. I’m just a friend of Mike’s.”
“Oh.” The girl still smiled brightly, but her eyes went dull. “How long have you known him?”
She was making perfunctory small talk now, but Bella complied.
“About four years. We dated a little in high school.”
The girl’s eyes lit up again. “Oh, so you’re rekindling the old flame?”
Mike wishes, Bella thought. “No, we’re just friends.”
The girl smiled knowingly. “Oh, I get it. Friends with benefits. It’s always good to have a black-up plan while you keep your options open. Especially with a sausage fest like this one at your disposal. Am I right?”
The girl let out a raucous laugh as her eyes combed the room full of well-dressed young men. Bella tried not to openly cringe at the remark. She had no idea where to begin to refute it.
She simply gave a limp smile, sighed and looked toward the back of the room. She wished she’d followed Mike to the bar instead of sitting here, feeling like a fish out of water. She was debating going to find him when she heard it.
Piano music.
She immediately thought of Edward and smiled wistfully. What she wouldn’t give to be here with him tonight instead of Mike. Or, better yet, to be with Edward somewhere else, having a much more low-key evening together.
The music was quite lovely, a lilting melody that reminded her of the first night he’d played for her, when he’d added his own composition to the end of a much more intense piece. She twisted in her chair, looking over her shoulder to the piano near the mini-stage at the front of the room.
Then she froze.
Edward.
What was he doing here? The thrill of recognition was soon replaced by the horror of realization. There was only one answer to that question. If he was here, then he was on a date.
Her stomach dropped, like she’d just plummeted fifty feet on a roller coaster. She was surprised at her visceral reaction. She thought she had come to grips with his job, especially since he had promised that sex would no longer be a part of it. Even so, it was easier to deal with when she could push aside thoughts of the nameless, faceless females he courted, and the places he courted them.
But now, the place was real. It had a name; a physical identity. So would Edward’s date, if Bella stuck around long enough to discover who she was. The panic rolling through her gut in waves was evidence that she was not nearly as ready to handle that revelation as she hoped she’d be. There was no ignoring the truth any longer. It was beckoning her in deceptively dulcet tones from the baby grand at the end of the ballroom.
Bella could barely feel her body as she rose from the table. Her feet were moving, but her brain had forfeited all responsibility for their actions. Her brain wanted her to stay right at this table and pretend she was wrong, and that wasn’t Edward serenading this room full of college students. In lieu of that option, her brain urged her to run. Just run like hell and never look back.
But her feet glided slowly, inexorably to the dance floor, where a small crowd had gathered to hear this handsome stranger create magic on the keys. As she approached, she catalogued each detail of his physique that she knew so well: the long, slender body; the broad shoulders; the nimble, elegant fingers dancing over the keyboard. There was the bronze sheen of the ducktail tickling his neck, centered between small, telltale beauty marks - the same marks she had covered with kisses. They led to the strong jaw she had stroked and nuzzled; the beard stubble she had felt between her thighs, massaging her to delirious heights of abandonment.
She could not see the rest of his face from where she was standing, but she didn’t need to. She already knew his beautiful features were molded by intense concentration. His body moved with the music, leg pumping the piano pedals, head nodding in time. She could see the sweep of his eyelashes over his cheek when he closed his eyes to savor the sound. In this moment, he was a man possessed by his art; and she was a woman possessed by his passion— for music; for her. He had to be playing for her. She could not conceive of him playing such a poignant melody for anyone else.
He was hers. Hers and no one else’s.
She nervously fingered her bracelet to remind herself of that truth, in the face of the new and awful one that greeted her now. For leaning on the other side of the baby grand in a garish, attention-seeking dress was the embodiment of the ugly truth she must now acknowledge.
And the name of that truth was Jessica Stanley.
Bella gaped at her, dumbfounded. She blinked. She blinked again. She couldn’t believe what she was seeing. Yet there was no mistaking that smug grin, frosty blue stare and cavernous cleavage. They belonged to a girl Bella had once called a friend, and later, a “frenemy.”
But there was no friend left in this foe.
Jessica’s self-satisfaction was all too apparent as she leaned possessively over the piano. She seemed to be laying claim to the talented man sitting there, like he was somehow her own personal triumph. The puzzle pieces began to fall into place as Bella stared. This was no coincidence. Not only had Jessica never forgotten Bella’s drunken slip about hiring someone from Renaissance Escorts, she had remembered Edward’s name. When it came up again at the bar last week, Jess had obviously put two and two together, then checked out Bella’s story to see if it was true. Mike inviting Bella to this party was probably all the incentive Jessica needed to use her newfound knowledge to exact a little revenge - not only for tonight, but for the Forks High School Prom nearly two years ago.
Bella continued to stare, the panic in her gut escalating. Even she had never known her former friend could be this calculating, this vindictive. But if she hadn’t realized it before, Jessica drove the point home with nauseating clarity the minute Edward finished playing. She looked Bella right in the eyes to make sure she was watching before she attacked him with a sloppy, open-mouthed kiss.
Bella thought she would throw up, right there on the plush carpet beneath her feet. How dare that vile wench touch him? How dare she violate him like that?
She paid for the right. That’s how she dared, a sadistic voice in her head reminded her.
The bile rose in Bella’s throat. She fought it back, but her face grew clammy. She had to get out of here. If she didn’t get out of here, she would faint.
Her head was spinning when she heard a familiar voice break over the continued clapping and cheering that surrounded her.
“Jess! What the hell are you doing?”
Mike was suddenly there, standing a few feet to her left, still holding fresh drinks in his hands. She couldn’t quite zero in on him, but she could see him out of the corner of her eye. She focused on the amber liquid sloshing around in the lowball glasses he carried. If she looked back at the piano, she would be sick.
“What does it look like I’m doing? I’m kissing my date,” she heard Jessica say, her tone reeking of entitlement. Bella could hear the rustle of her loud dress coming closer. Every hair on her body bristled in revulsion.
“Your date?!” The incredulity in Mike’s voice was impossible to miss. “What the fuck are you doing on a date with Bella’s boyfriend?”
Jessica’s answering cackle was sharp and cruel, cutting Bella to the bone. “See, that’s the beauty of it, Mike. Edward here will be anyone’s boyfriend, if the price is right. And tonight, he’s mine. Isn’t that right, Edward?”
Bella’s eyes slammed shut. She wished she could shut her ears as well. She didn’t want to hear, let alone see, the train wreck piling up in front of her— especially since she was the one tied to the tracks in its path.
“Get your hands off me,” she heard an unmistakable velveteen voice hiss. And then, closer: “Bella, open your eyes. Look at me.”
But she could not. She was frozen in a cocoon of silence, eyes squeezed shut, trying to disappear.
“What the hell are you talking about, Jess?” she heard Mike demand.
“Let me spell it out for you. Edward Cullen is a gigolo. A literal, fucking male prostitute. She hired him for sex— didn’t you, Bella? Mike, you remember that crazy story she was telling us at your dorm party when she was drunk? About paying an escort to take her virginity? Well, she wasn’t joking. It was the truth. I guess you and Jake weren’t man enough for her— she had to go shopping online for the perfect prick to pop her cherry.”
“Shut. Your goddamned. Mouth.” The velvet voice shook with barely controlled fury. Bella could envision Edward’s livid face in her mind, but she couldn’t bring herself to look at him. She was too busy trying not to vomit, or pass out. She finally opened her eyes a sliver, but fixed them unseeingly to the fleur-de-lis pattern on the carpet between her shoes.
“Excuse me? I’m the one calling the shots tonight, not you. I paid very well for that privilege, remember?”
“Which makes you no better or worse than Bella, you do realize,” Edward snarled. His tone changed abruptly. “Baby, don’t listen to her. You don’t have to take this. Let me get you out of here.”
“Are you serious?” Mike’s confusion and denial were apparent. “What are the two of you trying to pull here? This is bullshit. Bella, tell me this is complete bullshit. It can’t be true. Tell me you didn’t actually pay this douche-bag to . . .”
She heard his voice falter and die. What she had done was clearly unthinkable to him— not to mention everyone else within earshot. Their shocked whispers and barely stifled laughter ricocheted between her ears as loudly as the gut-churning conversation taking place in front of her. She wondered if it was possible to die of mortification. She felt like a pillar of fire, burning head to toe in excruciating humiliation, yet somehow encased under an icy shell that rendered her immobile.
“Bella, don’t let them do this.” Velveteen softness at her right, coming closer. “Look at me. Let me help you.” She thought she saw his hand in her peripheral vision, reaching out to her; but she couldn’t seem to move her eyes, let alone her limbs.
“Oh, please.” Jessica’s snort was derisive. “She’s fine. She’s just embarrassed as hell to admit what she did, and for good reason. Mike, you’ve always had such a blind spot when it comes to her, and she uses it to her advantage. She’s been stringing you along while she pretended to be dating Edward, when he’s nothing more than a hired hand. And other parts.” She snorted again; Bella’s stomach lurched. “You deserved to know the truth. You’ve always deserved better than her.”
“Oh, and I suppose that’s you? Someone who claims to be her friend, and mine, but then sets us both up to be publicly humiliated? With friends like that, who the hell needs enemies?”
“You can’t seriously be taking her side. She hired a male hooker to fuck her! After you tried to get in her pants all through high school and she always said no. She’s the one who humiliated you! How can you forgive her for that? For resorting to something so low— so trashy?”
Bella’s head spun like a top. She could feel her equilibrium give way as her ankles wobbled and her knees buckled. The velvet voice cried out her name. A strange commotion immediately followed, punctuated by a loud shriek. The last thing she saw was the fleur-de-lis surging up to meet her before everything went black.
.
.
Edward caught Bella before she ever hit the ground.
He’d been watching her like a hawk throughout this entire tawdry exchange. He didn’t give a flying fuck what that bitch, Jessica, said about him, or what any of the overdressed co-eds in this giant ballroom thought. The problem was, Bella did. She clearly couldn’t handle being called out on the carpet like this in front of her peers. He’d never seen her so pallid, so devoid of color. She’d changed from beet-red to snow-white in the space of a few minutes, and that’s when he began to really worry.
He wished he had grabbed her sooner. Just grabbed her hand and pulled her out of this situation before his disgusting date had time to spew her vitriol. But the truth was, it had taken him a couple of minutes to even figure out what the hell was going on.
He’d been mostly annoyed, and slightly repulsed, when Jessica had laid that kiss on him. He’d fought the urge to wipe his mouth with his hand afterward. But when he turned and saw the true target of her attack, he was stunned.
What was Bella doing here? She wasn’t in a sorority. A U-Dub Greek function at a four-star hotel was the last place he ever thought he’d find her. And yet, there she was, in that unforgettable blue dress; staring at Jessica with a horror and betrayal he hoped to never again see in her eyes.
His horror matched her own in that moment. How? Why? What was going on?
Her eyes left his and flashed to her left. Edward’s followed, to find that idiot Mike Newton standing there, his astonishment nearly equal to theirs. Edward didn’t even know the guy was in a fraternity. Bella had never mentioned that. And she’d certainly never mentioned she’d be attending this party with him, or Edward would have found a substitute escort for Jessica. He never would have knowingly subjected Bella to seeing him on a paid date like this.
But his pangs of regret soon grew to stabs of pain when he realized what Bella was truly being subjected to. Every ugly word that fell from Jessica Stanley’s lips filled him in, letting him know that his presence here was no mere coincidence, but part of a personal vendetta in which he was an unwitting pawn. Why had Bella never mentioned this girl’s name before? Had she even realized how Jessica had it in for her?
He’d get the answers later. For now, he had to save Bella. He watched helplessly as she visibly shrunk under this harpy’s accusations, folding into herself like a collapsing house of cards. She didn’t seem to hear him speaking to her, or simply couldn’t respond. The second he saw her going down, he shoved arguing Jessica and Mike out of the way and grabbed her up in his arms before she hit the carpet. She fell limply against him, a tiny rag doll in his embrace.
“I’ve got you, baby,” he whispered, scooping her up in his arms. “Wake up, Bella. I’m here. I love you. Wake up.”
He continued to murmur in her ear as he adjusted her in his arms so he could carry her outside.
“You ruined my dress, you asshole!” Jessica screeched, at either him or Mike, he wasn’t sure which. A quick glance proved that in his haste to catch Bella, he’d pushed her into the drinks Mike had been holding, thoroughly dousing her tacky outfit.
“Looks like a vast improvement to me,” he spat as he elbowed past her, an unconscious Bella cradled to his chest.
He carried her out to the chair-lined foyer and looked around for a vacant seat. Bella stirred slightly, her head moving against his chest.
“What happened?” she slurred.
“Your worst nightmare,” he muttered, taking her to an isolated corner and sitting her carefully in one of overstuffed armless chairs. “And you survived.”
He gave her a grim smile as he knelt on the floor next to her. “Now, I want you to lean forward and put your head between your knees for a minute or two. Can you do that for me?”
She nodded woozily and bent over, elbows on her thighs, face in her hands. Edward rubbed her shoulders and back in long, gentle strokes. She finally turned her head sideways to look at him.
“Did I black out?”
He nodded. “You scared the hell out of me.”
“I’m sorry.” She felt one fat, hot tear roll down her cheek.
“You have nothing to be sorry about. Not one fucking thing. No matter what anyone tries to tell you.”
He reached up to wipe the tears from her face. He hated what all of this had done to her. He felt as culpable as Jessica in this mess, despite his ignorance to her scheme. He was the one who’d remained a gun for hire. How did he ever think he could keep Bella out of the line of fire?
“Bella . . . are you okay?”
Edward looked up to see Mike standing there, mouth hanging open. He looked as shell-shocked as he sounded. He reached a tentative hand out to touch her, but Edward’s cold glare stopped him.
“I’m okay, Mike. I just got blindsided for a minute, that’s all.”
Leave it to Bella to downplay what she’d just gone through. Edward continued to stroke her back, her hair, while Mike fumbled around for words.
“That’s good. Shit, that was brutal, what Jess just did in there. I know she can be bitchy, but I had no idea she’d do something like this. You know, bring Suit-Guy— ” he halted at Edward’s questioning gaze— “uh, Edward to this party, just to fuck with us.” He paused and pulled at his shirt collar, like it was cutting off his breath. “She wasn’t serious, was she? About the hiring? And . . . the virginity. . . ?” Mike trailed off with a grimace.
“Now is not the time for this,” Edward warned him.
“No, it’s fine.” Bella took a deep breath and slowly raised herself to a sitting position. She looked at Mike with weary resignation. “It’s true. Everything she said was true.”
Mike stared at her blankly. He obviously didn’t want to hear that, or absorb its implications.
“She was wrong about one thing,” Edward said. Bella gave him a curious look. “I’m not with Bella because she pays me— she doesn’t. I’m with her because I love her.”
Her eyes pooled with tears again. Edward grabbed her hand and gave it a reassuring squeeze.
Mike still looked confused. “But you are an escort, right? And Jessica did hire you for tonight?”
He took Edward’s guilty silence as confirmation. He shook his head in disbelief, shifting his focus to Bella. “And you’re okay with that? With him sleeping around on the side, for money?”
“He doesn’t sleep with them,” she quietly denied, but her eyes couldn’t quite meet Mike’s.
He erupted in an incredulous guffaw. “Oh, sure, of course not. He doesn’t actually have sex with any of them.” He let out another hysterical laugh. “I’m sure that’s what he tells you. I just can’t believe you fall for it. Wow.” He looked up at Edward and shook his head again. “That’s some snow job, Cullen. You’re good, I’ll give you that.”
Edward stood and took a menacing step toward Mike, fists clenched. “That’s enough from you. You don’t know a damned thing about either of us, so shut your fucking mouth before I shut it for you.”
Mike glared back, nostrils flaring, mouth twisted in disgust. “Apparently I don’t,” he agreed. He glanced down at Bella. “I guess I never knew you at all.”
The disillusionment in his voice cut her more deeply than the contempt. She closed her eyes and let out a ragged sigh as he turned and walked back into the ballroom. Edward immediately dropped to his knees in front of her, reaching out to cradle her face in his hands.
“Don’t listen to him. I’m not lying to you. You know that, don’t you?”
Another tear escaped, making her frown. She wanted to be done with tears already. “I believe you,” she said. “I know you wouldn’t do that to me.”
“Do you?” he asked. Traces of doubt lingered in her voice, despite her reassurances. “I know how much I’m asking when I ask you to trust me. Have they made you doubt that trust?”
More tears. She reached up and angrily wiped them away before Edward could. He dropped his hands to her lap, gripping her knees. The warmth surged up her legs, calming and protective. She looked at his face, stricken with worry, desperate for an answer. Those were the eyes she trusted. The ones she was desperate to believe in.
“No,” she said adamantly. “I won’t let their petty bullshit come between us.”
Edward’s face relaxed slightly and he let out a grateful chuckle. “That’s my girl. Fuck ‘em, right?”
“Right.” But despite her smile, she sounded less than convincing, and her eyes were still rimmed with red. Edward reached up to stroke the hair at her temple, pushing it off of her face. He repeated the gesture a few more times in an effort to soothe her. But he still wondered what upset her most: lingering doubts she might have about him, or being humiliated in a vast sea of her peers.
“Do you know what I thought when you first told me the story about Jake, and why you hired me?” he asked her.
She frowned and shook her head.
“I thought you were really brave,” he said. When she smiled at that, he added, “And crazy.” Her smile faded. “Brave for being so decisive about what you wanted, and hiring me to make that happen. But crazy for caring what Jake, and all the other judgmental kids at that party, thought of you. I don’t understand why their opinions meant so much to you that you would do something so drastic. I don’t understand it now,” he confessed, his eyes glancing to the ballroom next to them.
Bella stared, her eyes brimming over again. He had finally posed the question that had stumped her whenever she tried to answer it, even to herself.
“I. . . I don’t know,” she began haltingly. The earnestness of his gaze had her delving deep for answers. “Maybe it comes from a lifetime of being picked last for the team in gym class because I’m so uncoordinated. Or laughed at in the locker room because I was the only eight-grader who still didn’t need a bra. Or passed over by the boys at every dance because they never noticed me. No one ever noticed. I mean, my mom was pretty much my best friend when I was growing up. I never felt like I fit in with anyone my age until I moved to Forks when I was sixteen. And that misfit girl is still in here somewhere, after all this time. I keep trying to outgrow her, but she still finds me and trips me up, at the worst possible times.”
Edward ached inside at her words. Kids were cruel, sure, but she’d seemed to take every slight to heart and let it fester there instead of letting it go. He imagined that each new tear he wiped away with his thumb was another latent insecurity coming to the surface, finally being released.
“Mike noticed you,” he said. “He was the first, right?”
She nodded. “He actually picked me first for his volleyball team, even though I always nailed him in the head with the ball.” She laughed, then sniffled. “I was just flattered he wanted to date me. I thought that would be enough to make me feel the same way about him. Instead, I just ended up hurting him. And Jessica, though I didn’t know it at the time. She never let on how much she liked him. I didn’t find out until later. And I never knew just how much resentment she had toward me until now.”
Edward nodded slowly as the picture became clearer. “Bella, you have to understand something. Any unintentional pain you caused them doesn’t even come close to what they did to you tonight, especially Jessica. She was intentionally, excessively cruel to you. You didn’t deserve that. No one deserves that kind of public humiliation. But my guess is that this will all backfire on her in a big way. Maybe she succeeded in changing Mike’s feelings about you, but in the process she probably changed his feelings about her, too. You may think he’ll never forgive you for not loving him, but when all is said and done, she’s the one he won’t forgive. And she’ll be the one suffering because of it. Not you. She brought it on herself. I’m just sorry she was able to use me to do it, and hurt you so badly in the process.”
His voice grew low and hoarse. “I hate that I hurt you. I’m so sorry. Please forgive me.”
She stared at him, trying to take in everything he’d just said. Somehow he’d managed to shoulder part of the blame in Jessica’s machinations. She wanted to argue with him, but maybe he was right. All of them had played a part in the ugly scene that transpired tonight. There was no point in playing the blame game now.
“There’s nothing to forgive,” she told him. She placed her hand over his as it cupped her face. “You didn’t know who she was or what she was up to. I never thought there was any reason to tell you about her. I kept trying to push Mike in her direction. I even tried to get him to ask her to this party instead. I wish he’d asked her first, before it was too late.”
Edward took her hands in his and let them rest on her lap. He looked down at her tiny fingers entwined in his, nestled on that blue satin he remembered so well. Why had she worn that dress? He frowned, knowing he shouldn’t ask, but he couldn’t stop himself.
He raised his head to look her straight in the eyes. “Bella, why, did you come here with him tonight?”
Her forehead creased; her eyes were filled with regret. “To distract myself. So I wouldn’t sit around, wondering what you were doing on another Saturday night.” She let out a wry laugh. “Got my wish, didn’t I?”
Edward’s eyes closed; he took a deep breath. “I didn’t get out soon enough,” he muttered. He raised her hands to his and tenderly kissed her knuckles. “I’m sorry.”
“Stop,” she ordered. “Stop blaming yourself for Jessica’s vindictiveness. You were here to catch me when I fell. That’s all I care about.”
The light finally returned to Edward’s eyes. “Prove it,” he said with a challenging smile. “Prove that she can’t touch us— that she hasn’t won. She thinks she succeeded in bringing you down, making you a laughing stock. Don’t give her the satisfaction.”
Bella brows knitted warily. “How?”
He heard the band begin to play again, starting their second set. He nodded toward the ballroom, gave Bella’s hands a squeeze and said, “Dance with me.”
Her eyes grew round with anxiety. “I can’t.”
“I know you think you can’t, but I don’t believe that. You’re stronger than you know. You can stand up to them. I’ll help you.”
“No, I mean . . . I can’t dance,” she admitted. “At all.”
Edward couldn’t help but smile at that. “I’ll teach you,” he promised. “You just follow my lead. You know I won’t let you fall.”
She looked into his eyes and knew there was little she could refuse him, even though she wanted to go back in that room like she wanted to stick hot pokers in her eyes. Enduring public ridicule was, indeed, her worst nightmare. But maybe she needed to face it in order for it to stop haunting her.
Edward could see the dread on her face. He was desperate to help her conquer this demon.
“Bella, do you know anyone else in that room, aside from Mike and Jessica?”
“No, not really.”
“So they’re all strangers, most of whom you won’t likely see again, unless you start hanging out at frat parties. Right?”
“Right. And I really don’t see that happening after tonight,” she said with a bitter laugh.
“Exactly. So their opinions really don’t matter in the grand scheme of things, do they?”
She balked. They shouldn’t matter. So why did they?
And then, self-realization dawned.
“They matter because I agree with them,” she said, so quietly that Edward could barely hear her.
He stared at her, his heart thumping uneasily. “What do you mean?”
“What I did . . . hiring someone to take my virginity . . . It isn’t normal. My whole thought process in doing that wasn’t normal. Thinking that having sex would change me; force me to grow up. Make me confident and impervious to everyone’s opinions about me.”
Edward could see the epiphany written all over Bella’s face as she spoke. He held his breath, and his tongue, while he waited for her to continue.
“But it was my own opinion I didn’t like. My own judgments about myself. So their judgments are just a giant mirror reflecting back at me. If everyone agrees with my assessment, then we can’t all be wrong, can we? They’re just affirming what I already know about myself; what I don’t like about myself. That’s why it hurts. That’s why it’s so hard to ignore.”
Edward swallowed hard. “Do you regret hiring me? Do you regret us?”
“No,” she insisted. “You’re the best thing that’s ever happened to me. The one good thing that came out of my mistakes. I only regret how we got here. I know I can’t change it. But it’s just hard to accept sometimes. Whenever I realize I won’t ever be able to admit to my mom and dad how I met you, that’s when I know that deep down, I’m ashamed of it.”
She could see the flash of pain in Edward’s eyes before he looked down at their hands, still folded tightly on her lap.
“You once told me you could never be ashamed of me,” he whispered. He looked up again, his eyes beseeching. “Has that changed?”
“No.” She gripped his hands more tightly. “I’m not ashamed of you. I’m ashamed of myself.”
He took a deep breath, his mouth twisting in frustration. “So it’s okay for me to make mistakes, but not you?”
Her eyes widened in surprise. “That’s not what I meant.”
“Then what did you mean? We’re in this together, Bella. I’m no prouder of being a gigolo than you are of hiring one. We’ve each made mistakes; done things we regret. Maybe neither one of us is normal, whatever that means. If being normal means being perfect, then I guarantee you that not one person in that ballroom fits the bill. Every single one of them has done something they’re not proud of. Something that would make them as mortified as you were if it was exposed in front of a room full of people.
“At some point, you have stop beating yourself up for not living up to whatever ideal you have in your head. You’re human. You’re going to fuck up sometimes. You need to stop judging yourself and start forgiving yourself. Cut yourself the same slack you cut me.” Edward let go of her hands in order to wipe away the brand new tear that trickled down her right cheek. “Give yourself the same unconditional love you give me. Love yourself the way I love you.”
She felt another tear spill as soon as Edward wiped the first one away. He was hitting her with a truth even more profound than the one she’d just uncovered. She knew he was right. She thought back to the poem she’d written when she first met him, detailing her struggle to accept herself. She’d known then that his acceptance and love was the key to her finding the same within herself. Now she realized just how right she’d been.
“I don’t regret a single thing about us, Bella. I’ve hated myself for the past two years for prostituting myself, but I’d do it all over again in a heartbeat if I knew you were waiting for me at the end of it. Every minute I’ve spent with you was worth it. I wouldn’t dream of trading any of it for a perfect track record. If either of us had been normal, we never would have met.”
“I would never trade one moment with you, either. For anything.” She sniffed back her tears and reached out to touch him, to rest her hands on either side of his neck, thumbs stroking his square jaw. “I like to think we would have found each other somehow, anyway. That we were destined to be together. I felt it that first night— that there was a reason we met.”
“And you were right,” he agreed. “But maybe tonight was part of that reason. Part of the journey you had to take. You have a chance to let go of all of it now. All those unrealistic expectations of yourself. Your guilt at not living up to them. Your regret over whatever mistakes you think you’ve made. This is your chance to be free.”
Bella smiled through her tears. She knew he was referring to their conversation the night they met, when she thought he was the one who needed to be set free.
“Thanks for not throwing my words back at me,” she said with a rueful laugh.
“Hey, they were wise words. And they weren’t the only ones. You told me to fuck the rules, remember? Don’t let anyone tell you what’s normal and what’s not. What’s forgivable and what’s not. Be proud of who you are.”
He smiled, then stood up and held out his hand.
“Dance with me, Bella.”
Edward was right. Maybe it was time to take her own advice. If he loved her, she could certainly find it in her heart to love herself. And that was the only opinion that really mattered.
She took a deep breath and put her hand in his. Then she stood tall and walked with him back to the ballroom.
The girl nearest Bella at the table gave her an expectant look. Bella knew her answer would result in instant dismissal.
“I’m not in one. I’m just a friend of Mike’s.”
“Oh.” The girl still smiled brightly, but her eyes went dull. “How long have you known him?”
She was making perfunctory small talk now, but Bella complied.
“About four years. We dated a little in high school.”
The girl’s eyes lit up again. “Oh, so you’re rekindling the old flame?”
Mike wishes, Bella thought. “No, we’re just friends.”
The girl smiled knowingly. “Oh, I get it. Friends with benefits. It’s always good to have a black-up plan while you keep your options open. Especially with a sausage fest like this one at your disposal. Am I right?”
The girl let out a raucous laugh as her eyes combed the room full of well-dressed young men. Bella tried not to openly cringe at the remark. She had no idea where to begin to refute it.
She simply gave a limp smile, sighed and looked toward the back of the room. She wished she’d followed Mike to the bar instead of sitting here, feeling like a fish out of water. She was debating going to find him when she heard it.
Piano music.
She immediately thought of Edward and smiled wistfully. What she wouldn’t give to be here with him tonight instead of Mike. Or, better yet, to be with Edward somewhere else, having a much more low-key evening together.
The music was quite lovely, a lilting melody that reminded her of the first night he’d played for her, when he’d added his own composition to the end of a much more intense piece. She twisted in her chair, looking over her shoulder to the piano near the mini-stage at the front of the room.
Then she froze.
Edward.
What was he doing here? The thrill of recognition was soon replaced by the horror of realization. There was only one answer to that question. If he was here, then he was on a date.
Her stomach dropped, like she’d just plummeted fifty feet on a roller coaster. She was surprised at her visceral reaction. She thought she had come to grips with his job, especially since he had promised that sex would no longer be a part of it. Even so, it was easier to deal with when she could push aside thoughts of the nameless, faceless females he courted, and the places he courted them.
But now, the place was real. It had a name; a physical identity. So would Edward’s date, if Bella stuck around long enough to discover who she was. The panic rolling through her gut in waves was evidence that she was not nearly as ready to handle that revelation as she hoped she’d be. There was no ignoring the truth any longer. It was beckoning her in deceptively dulcet tones from the baby grand at the end of the ballroom.
Bella could barely feel her body as she rose from the table. Her feet were moving, but her brain had forfeited all responsibility for their actions. Her brain wanted her to stay right at this table and pretend she was wrong, and that wasn’t Edward serenading this room full of college students. In lieu of that option, her brain urged her to run. Just run like hell and never look back.
But her feet glided slowly, inexorably to the dance floor, where a small crowd had gathered to hear this handsome stranger create magic on the keys. As she approached, she catalogued each detail of his physique that she knew so well: the long, slender body; the broad shoulders; the nimble, elegant fingers dancing over the keyboard. There was the bronze sheen of the ducktail tickling his neck, centered between small, telltale beauty marks - the same marks she had covered with kisses. They led to the strong jaw she had stroked and nuzzled; the beard stubble she had felt between her thighs, massaging her to delirious heights of abandonment.
She could not see the rest of his face from where she was standing, but she didn’t need to. She already knew his beautiful features were molded by intense concentration. His body moved with the music, leg pumping the piano pedals, head nodding in time. She could see the sweep of his eyelashes over his cheek when he closed his eyes to savor the sound. In this moment, he was a man possessed by his art; and she was a woman possessed by his passion— for music; for her. He had to be playing for her. She could not conceive of him playing such a poignant melody for anyone else.
He was hers. Hers and no one else’s.
She nervously fingered her bracelet to remind herself of that truth, in the face of the new and awful one that greeted her now. For leaning on the other side of the baby grand in a garish, attention-seeking dress was the embodiment of the ugly truth she must now acknowledge.
And the name of that truth was Jessica Stanley.
Bella gaped at her, dumbfounded. She blinked. She blinked again. She couldn’t believe what she was seeing. Yet there was no mistaking that smug grin, frosty blue stare and cavernous cleavage. They belonged to a girl Bella had once called a friend, and later, a “frenemy.”
But there was no friend left in this foe.
Jessica’s self-satisfaction was all too apparent as she leaned possessively over the piano. She seemed to be laying claim to the talented man sitting there, like he was somehow her own personal triumph. The puzzle pieces began to fall into place as Bella stared. This was no coincidence. Not only had Jessica never forgotten Bella’s drunken slip about hiring someone from Renaissance Escorts, she had remembered Edward’s name. When it came up again at the bar last week, Jess had obviously put two and two together, then checked out Bella’s story to see if it was true. Mike inviting Bella to this party was probably all the incentive Jessica needed to use her newfound knowledge to exact a little revenge - not only for tonight, but for the Forks High School Prom nearly two years ago.
Bella continued to stare, the panic in her gut escalating. Even she had never known her former friend could be this calculating, this vindictive. But if she hadn’t realized it before, Jessica drove the point home with nauseating clarity the minute Edward finished playing. She looked Bella right in the eyes to make sure she was watching before she attacked him with a sloppy, open-mouthed kiss.
Bella thought she would throw up, right there on the plush carpet beneath her feet. How dare that vile wench touch him? How dare she violate him like that?
She paid for the right. That’s how she dared, a sadistic voice in her head reminded her.
The bile rose in Bella’s throat. She fought it back, but her face grew clammy. She had to get out of here. If she didn’t get out of here, she would faint.
Her head was spinning when she heard a familiar voice break over the continued clapping and cheering that surrounded her.
“Jess! What the hell are you doing?”
Mike was suddenly there, standing a few feet to her left, still holding fresh drinks in his hands. She couldn’t quite zero in on him, but she could see him out of the corner of her eye. She focused on the amber liquid sloshing around in the lowball glasses he carried. If she looked back at the piano, she would be sick.
“What does it look like I’m doing? I’m kissing my date,” she heard Jessica say, her tone reeking of entitlement. Bella could hear the rustle of her loud dress coming closer. Every hair on her body bristled in revulsion.
“Your date?!” The incredulity in Mike’s voice was impossible to miss. “What the fuck are you doing on a date with Bella’s boyfriend?”
Jessica’s answering cackle was sharp and cruel, cutting Bella to the bone. “See, that’s the beauty of it, Mike. Edward here will be anyone’s boyfriend, if the price is right. And tonight, he’s mine. Isn’t that right, Edward?”
Bella’s eyes slammed shut. She wished she could shut her ears as well. She didn’t want to hear, let alone see, the train wreck piling up in front of her— especially since she was the one tied to the tracks in its path.
“Get your hands off me,” she heard an unmistakable velveteen voice hiss. And then, closer: “Bella, open your eyes. Look at me.”
But she could not. She was frozen in a cocoon of silence, eyes squeezed shut, trying to disappear.
“What the hell are you talking about, Jess?” she heard Mike demand.
“Let me spell it out for you. Edward Cullen is a gigolo. A literal, fucking male prostitute. She hired him for sex— didn’t you, Bella? Mike, you remember that crazy story she was telling us at your dorm party when she was drunk? About paying an escort to take her virginity? Well, she wasn’t joking. It was the truth. I guess you and Jake weren’t man enough for her— she had to go shopping online for the perfect prick to pop her cherry.”
“Shut. Your goddamned. Mouth.” The velvet voice shook with barely controlled fury. Bella could envision Edward’s livid face in her mind, but she couldn’t bring herself to look at him. She was too busy trying not to vomit, or pass out. She finally opened her eyes a sliver, but fixed them unseeingly to the fleur-de-lis pattern on the carpet between her shoes.
“Excuse me? I’m the one calling the shots tonight, not you. I paid very well for that privilege, remember?”
“Which makes you no better or worse than Bella, you do realize,” Edward snarled. His tone changed abruptly. “Baby, don’t listen to her. You don’t have to take this. Let me get you out of here.”
“Are you serious?” Mike’s confusion and denial were apparent. “What are the two of you trying to pull here? This is bullshit. Bella, tell me this is complete bullshit. It can’t be true. Tell me you didn’t actually pay this douche-bag to . . .”
She heard his voice falter and die. What she had done was clearly unthinkable to him— not to mention everyone else within earshot. Their shocked whispers and barely stifled laughter ricocheted between her ears as loudly as the gut-churning conversation taking place in front of her. She wondered if it was possible to die of mortification. She felt like a pillar of fire, burning head to toe in excruciating humiliation, yet somehow encased under an icy shell that rendered her immobile.
“Bella, don’t let them do this.” Velveteen softness at her right, coming closer. “Look at me. Let me help you.” She thought she saw his hand in her peripheral vision, reaching out to her; but she couldn’t seem to move her eyes, let alone her limbs.
“Oh, please.” Jessica’s snort was derisive. “She’s fine. She’s just embarrassed as hell to admit what she did, and for good reason. Mike, you’ve always had such a blind spot when it comes to her, and she uses it to her advantage. She’s been stringing you along while she pretended to be dating Edward, when he’s nothing more than a hired hand. And other parts.” She snorted again; Bella’s stomach lurched. “You deserved to know the truth. You’ve always deserved better than her.”
“Oh, and I suppose that’s you? Someone who claims to be her friend, and mine, but then sets us both up to be publicly humiliated? With friends like that, who the hell needs enemies?”
“You can’t seriously be taking her side. She hired a male hooker to fuck her! After you tried to get in her pants all through high school and she always said no. She’s the one who humiliated you! How can you forgive her for that? For resorting to something so low— so trashy?”
Bella’s head spun like a top. She could feel her equilibrium give way as her ankles wobbled and her knees buckled. The velvet voice cried out her name. A strange commotion immediately followed, punctuated by a loud shriek. The last thing she saw was the fleur-de-lis surging up to meet her before everything went black.
.
.
Edward caught Bella before she ever hit the ground.
He’d been watching her like a hawk throughout this entire tawdry exchange. He didn’t give a flying fuck what that bitch, Jessica, said about him, or what any of the overdressed co-eds in this giant ballroom thought. The problem was, Bella did. She clearly couldn’t handle being called out on the carpet like this in front of her peers. He’d never seen her so pallid, so devoid of color. She’d changed from beet-red to snow-white in the space of a few minutes, and that’s when he began to really worry.
He wished he had grabbed her sooner. Just grabbed her hand and pulled her out of this situation before his disgusting date had time to spew her vitriol. But the truth was, it had taken him a couple of minutes to even figure out what the hell was going on.
He’d been mostly annoyed, and slightly repulsed, when Jessica had laid that kiss on him. He’d fought the urge to wipe his mouth with his hand afterward. But when he turned and saw the true target of her attack, he was stunned.
What was Bella doing here? She wasn’t in a sorority. A U-Dub Greek function at a four-star hotel was the last place he ever thought he’d find her. And yet, there she was, in that unforgettable blue dress; staring at Jessica with a horror and betrayal he hoped to never again see in her eyes.
His horror matched her own in that moment. How? Why? What was going on?
Her eyes left his and flashed to her left. Edward’s followed, to find that idiot Mike Newton standing there, his astonishment nearly equal to theirs. Edward didn’t even know the guy was in a fraternity. Bella had never mentioned that. And she’d certainly never mentioned she’d be attending this party with him, or Edward would have found a substitute escort for Jessica. He never would have knowingly subjected Bella to seeing him on a paid date like this.
But his pangs of regret soon grew to stabs of pain when he realized what Bella was truly being subjected to. Every ugly word that fell from Jessica Stanley’s lips filled him in, letting him know that his presence here was no mere coincidence, but part of a personal vendetta in which he was an unwitting pawn. Why had Bella never mentioned this girl’s name before? Had she even realized how Jessica had it in for her?
He’d get the answers later. For now, he had to save Bella. He watched helplessly as she visibly shrunk under this harpy’s accusations, folding into herself like a collapsing house of cards. She didn’t seem to hear him speaking to her, or simply couldn’t respond. The second he saw her going down, he shoved arguing Jessica and Mike out of the way and grabbed her up in his arms before she hit the carpet. She fell limply against him, a tiny rag doll in his embrace.
“I’ve got you, baby,” he whispered, scooping her up in his arms. “Wake up, Bella. I’m here. I love you. Wake up.”
He continued to murmur in her ear as he adjusted her in his arms so he could carry her outside.
“You ruined my dress, you asshole!” Jessica screeched, at either him or Mike, he wasn’t sure which. A quick glance proved that in his haste to catch Bella, he’d pushed her into the drinks Mike had been holding, thoroughly dousing her tacky outfit.
“Looks like a vast improvement to me,” he spat as he elbowed past her, an unconscious Bella cradled to his chest.
He carried her out to the chair-lined foyer and looked around for a vacant seat. Bella stirred slightly, her head moving against his chest.
“What happened?” she slurred.
“Your worst nightmare,” he muttered, taking her to an isolated corner and sitting her carefully in one of overstuffed armless chairs. “And you survived.”
He gave her a grim smile as he knelt on the floor next to her. “Now, I want you to lean forward and put your head between your knees for a minute or two. Can you do that for me?”
She nodded woozily and bent over, elbows on her thighs, face in her hands. Edward rubbed her shoulders and back in long, gentle strokes. She finally turned her head sideways to look at him.
“Did I black out?”
He nodded. “You scared the hell out of me.”
“I’m sorry.” She felt one fat, hot tear roll down her cheek.
“You have nothing to be sorry about. Not one fucking thing. No matter what anyone tries to tell you.”
He reached up to wipe the tears from her face. He hated what all of this had done to her. He felt as culpable as Jessica in this mess, despite his ignorance to her scheme. He was the one who’d remained a gun for hire. How did he ever think he could keep Bella out of the line of fire?
“Bella . . . are you okay?”
Edward looked up to see Mike standing there, mouth hanging open. He looked as shell-shocked as he sounded. He reached a tentative hand out to touch her, but Edward’s cold glare stopped him.
“I’m okay, Mike. I just got blindsided for a minute, that’s all.”
Leave it to Bella to downplay what she’d just gone through. Edward continued to stroke her back, her hair, while Mike fumbled around for words.
“That’s good. Shit, that was brutal, what Jess just did in there. I know she can be bitchy, but I had no idea she’d do something like this. You know, bring Suit-Guy— ” he halted at Edward’s questioning gaze— “uh, Edward to this party, just to fuck with us.” He paused and pulled at his shirt collar, like it was cutting off his breath. “She wasn’t serious, was she? About the hiring? And . . . the virginity. . . ?” Mike trailed off with a grimace.
“Now is not the time for this,” Edward warned him.
“No, it’s fine.” Bella took a deep breath and slowly raised herself to a sitting position. She looked at Mike with weary resignation. “It’s true. Everything she said was true.”
Mike stared at her blankly. He obviously didn’t want to hear that, or absorb its implications.
“She was wrong about one thing,” Edward said. Bella gave him a curious look. “I’m not with Bella because she pays me— she doesn’t. I’m with her because I love her.”
Her eyes pooled with tears again. Edward grabbed her hand and gave it a reassuring squeeze.
Mike still looked confused. “But you are an escort, right? And Jessica did hire you for tonight?”
He took Edward’s guilty silence as confirmation. He shook his head in disbelief, shifting his focus to Bella. “And you’re okay with that? With him sleeping around on the side, for money?”
“He doesn’t sleep with them,” she quietly denied, but her eyes couldn’t quite meet Mike’s.
He erupted in an incredulous guffaw. “Oh, sure, of course not. He doesn’t actually have sex with any of them.” He let out another hysterical laugh. “I’m sure that’s what he tells you. I just can’t believe you fall for it. Wow.” He looked up at Edward and shook his head again. “That’s some snow job, Cullen. You’re good, I’ll give you that.”
Edward stood and took a menacing step toward Mike, fists clenched. “That’s enough from you. You don’t know a damned thing about either of us, so shut your fucking mouth before I shut it for you.”
Mike glared back, nostrils flaring, mouth twisted in disgust. “Apparently I don’t,” he agreed. He glanced down at Bella. “I guess I never knew you at all.”
The disillusionment in his voice cut her more deeply than the contempt. She closed her eyes and let out a ragged sigh as he turned and walked back into the ballroom. Edward immediately dropped to his knees in front of her, reaching out to cradle her face in his hands.
“Don’t listen to him. I’m not lying to you. You know that, don’t you?”
Another tear escaped, making her frown. She wanted to be done with tears already. “I believe you,” she said. “I know you wouldn’t do that to me.”
“Do you?” he asked. Traces of doubt lingered in her voice, despite her reassurances. “I know how much I’m asking when I ask you to trust me. Have they made you doubt that trust?”
More tears. She reached up and angrily wiped them away before Edward could. He dropped his hands to her lap, gripping her knees. The warmth surged up her legs, calming and protective. She looked at his face, stricken with worry, desperate for an answer. Those were the eyes she trusted. The ones she was desperate to believe in.
“No,” she said adamantly. “I won’t let their petty bullshit come between us.”
Edward’s face relaxed slightly and he let out a grateful chuckle. “That’s my girl. Fuck ‘em, right?”
“Right.” But despite her smile, she sounded less than convincing, and her eyes were still rimmed with red. Edward reached up to stroke the hair at her temple, pushing it off of her face. He repeated the gesture a few more times in an effort to soothe her. But he still wondered what upset her most: lingering doubts she might have about him, or being humiliated in a vast sea of her peers.
“Do you know what I thought when you first told me the story about Jake, and why you hired me?” he asked her.
She frowned and shook her head.
“I thought you were really brave,” he said. When she smiled at that, he added, “And crazy.” Her smile faded. “Brave for being so decisive about what you wanted, and hiring me to make that happen. But crazy for caring what Jake, and all the other judgmental kids at that party, thought of you. I don’t understand why their opinions meant so much to you that you would do something so drastic. I don’t understand it now,” he confessed, his eyes glancing to the ballroom next to them.
Bella stared, her eyes brimming over again. He had finally posed the question that had stumped her whenever she tried to answer it, even to herself.
“I. . . I don’t know,” she began haltingly. The earnestness of his gaze had her delving deep for answers. “Maybe it comes from a lifetime of being picked last for the team in gym class because I’m so uncoordinated. Or laughed at in the locker room because I was the only eight-grader who still didn’t need a bra. Or passed over by the boys at every dance because they never noticed me. No one ever noticed. I mean, my mom was pretty much my best friend when I was growing up. I never felt like I fit in with anyone my age until I moved to Forks when I was sixteen. And that misfit girl is still in here somewhere, after all this time. I keep trying to outgrow her, but she still finds me and trips me up, at the worst possible times.”
Edward ached inside at her words. Kids were cruel, sure, but she’d seemed to take every slight to heart and let it fester there instead of letting it go. He imagined that each new tear he wiped away with his thumb was another latent insecurity coming to the surface, finally being released.
“Mike noticed you,” he said. “He was the first, right?”
She nodded. “He actually picked me first for his volleyball team, even though I always nailed him in the head with the ball.” She laughed, then sniffled. “I was just flattered he wanted to date me. I thought that would be enough to make me feel the same way about him. Instead, I just ended up hurting him. And Jessica, though I didn’t know it at the time. She never let on how much she liked him. I didn’t find out until later. And I never knew just how much resentment she had toward me until now.”
Edward nodded slowly as the picture became clearer. “Bella, you have to understand something. Any unintentional pain you caused them doesn’t even come close to what they did to you tonight, especially Jessica. She was intentionally, excessively cruel to you. You didn’t deserve that. No one deserves that kind of public humiliation. But my guess is that this will all backfire on her in a big way. Maybe she succeeded in changing Mike’s feelings about you, but in the process she probably changed his feelings about her, too. You may think he’ll never forgive you for not loving him, but when all is said and done, she’s the one he won’t forgive. And she’ll be the one suffering because of it. Not you. She brought it on herself. I’m just sorry she was able to use me to do it, and hurt you so badly in the process.”
His voice grew low and hoarse. “I hate that I hurt you. I’m so sorry. Please forgive me.”
She stared at him, trying to take in everything he’d just said. Somehow he’d managed to shoulder part of the blame in Jessica’s machinations. She wanted to argue with him, but maybe he was right. All of them had played a part in the ugly scene that transpired tonight. There was no point in playing the blame game now.
“There’s nothing to forgive,” she told him. She placed her hand over his as it cupped her face. “You didn’t know who she was or what she was up to. I never thought there was any reason to tell you about her. I kept trying to push Mike in her direction. I even tried to get him to ask her to this party instead. I wish he’d asked her first, before it was too late.”
Edward took her hands in his and let them rest on her lap. He looked down at her tiny fingers entwined in his, nestled on that blue satin he remembered so well. Why had she worn that dress? He frowned, knowing he shouldn’t ask, but he couldn’t stop himself.
He raised his head to look her straight in the eyes. “Bella, why, did you come here with him tonight?”
Her forehead creased; her eyes were filled with regret. “To distract myself. So I wouldn’t sit around, wondering what you were doing on another Saturday night.” She let out a wry laugh. “Got my wish, didn’t I?”
Edward’s eyes closed; he took a deep breath. “I didn’t get out soon enough,” he muttered. He raised her hands to his and tenderly kissed her knuckles. “I’m sorry.”
“Stop,” she ordered. “Stop blaming yourself for Jessica’s vindictiveness. You were here to catch me when I fell. That’s all I care about.”
The light finally returned to Edward’s eyes. “Prove it,” he said with a challenging smile. “Prove that she can’t touch us— that she hasn’t won. She thinks she succeeded in bringing you down, making you a laughing stock. Don’t give her the satisfaction.”
Bella brows knitted warily. “How?”
He heard the band begin to play again, starting their second set. He nodded toward the ballroom, gave Bella’s hands a squeeze and said, “Dance with me.”
Her eyes grew round with anxiety. “I can’t.”
“I know you think you can’t, but I don’t believe that. You’re stronger than you know. You can stand up to them. I’ll help you.”
“No, I mean . . . I can’t dance,” she admitted. “At all.”
Edward couldn’t help but smile at that. “I’ll teach you,” he promised. “You just follow my lead. You know I won’t let you fall.”
She looked into his eyes and knew there was little she could refuse him, even though she wanted to go back in that room like she wanted to stick hot pokers in her eyes. Enduring public ridicule was, indeed, her worst nightmare. But maybe she needed to face it in order for it to stop haunting her.
Edward could see the dread on her face. He was desperate to help her conquer this demon.
“Bella, do you know anyone else in that room, aside from Mike and Jessica?”
“No, not really.”
“So they’re all strangers, most of whom you won’t likely see again, unless you start hanging out at frat parties. Right?”
“Right. And I really don’t see that happening after tonight,” she said with a bitter laugh.
“Exactly. So their opinions really don’t matter in the grand scheme of things, do they?”
She balked. They shouldn’t matter. So why did they?
And then, self-realization dawned.
“They matter because I agree with them,” she said, so quietly that Edward could barely hear her.
He stared at her, his heart thumping uneasily. “What do you mean?”
“What I did . . . hiring someone to take my virginity . . . It isn’t normal. My whole thought process in doing that wasn’t normal. Thinking that having sex would change me; force me to grow up. Make me confident and impervious to everyone’s opinions about me.”
Edward could see the epiphany written all over Bella’s face as she spoke. He held his breath, and his tongue, while he waited for her to continue.
“But it was my own opinion I didn’t like. My own judgments about myself. So their judgments are just a giant mirror reflecting back at me. If everyone agrees with my assessment, then we can’t all be wrong, can we? They’re just affirming what I already know about myself; what I don’t like about myself. That’s why it hurts. That’s why it’s so hard to ignore.”
Edward swallowed hard. “Do you regret hiring me? Do you regret us?”
“No,” she insisted. “You’re the best thing that’s ever happened to me. The one good thing that came out of my mistakes. I only regret how we got here. I know I can’t change it. But it’s just hard to accept sometimes. Whenever I realize I won’t ever be able to admit to my mom and dad how I met you, that’s when I know that deep down, I’m ashamed of it.”
She could see the flash of pain in Edward’s eyes before he looked down at their hands, still folded tightly on her lap.
“You once told me you could never be ashamed of me,” he whispered. He looked up again, his eyes beseeching. “Has that changed?”
“No.” She gripped his hands more tightly. “I’m not ashamed of you. I’m ashamed of myself.”
He took a deep breath, his mouth twisting in frustration. “So it’s okay for me to make mistakes, but not you?”
Her eyes widened in surprise. “That’s not what I meant.”
“Then what did you mean? We’re in this together, Bella. I’m no prouder of being a gigolo than you are of hiring one. We’ve each made mistakes; done things we regret. Maybe neither one of us is normal, whatever that means. If being normal means being perfect, then I guarantee you that not one person in that ballroom fits the bill. Every single one of them has done something they’re not proud of. Something that would make them as mortified as you were if it was exposed in front of a room full of people.
“At some point, you have stop beating yourself up for not living up to whatever ideal you have in your head. You’re human. You’re going to fuck up sometimes. You need to stop judging yourself and start forgiving yourself. Cut yourself the same slack you cut me.” Edward let go of her hands in order to wipe away the brand new tear that trickled down her right cheek. “Give yourself the same unconditional love you give me. Love yourself the way I love you.”
She felt another tear spill as soon as Edward wiped the first one away. He was hitting her with a truth even more profound than the one she’d just uncovered. She knew he was right. She thought back to the poem she’d written when she first met him, detailing her struggle to accept herself. She’d known then that his acceptance and love was the key to her finding the same within herself. Now she realized just how right she’d been.
“I don’t regret a single thing about us, Bella. I’ve hated myself for the past two years for prostituting myself, but I’d do it all over again in a heartbeat if I knew you were waiting for me at the end of it. Every minute I’ve spent with you was worth it. I wouldn’t dream of trading any of it for a perfect track record. If either of us had been normal, we never would have met.”
“I would never trade one moment with you, either. For anything.” She sniffed back her tears and reached out to touch him, to rest her hands on either side of his neck, thumbs stroking his square jaw. “I like to think we would have found each other somehow, anyway. That we were destined to be together. I felt it that first night— that there was a reason we met.”
“And you were right,” he agreed. “But maybe tonight was part of that reason. Part of the journey you had to take. You have a chance to let go of all of it now. All those unrealistic expectations of yourself. Your guilt at not living up to them. Your regret over whatever mistakes you think you’ve made. This is your chance to be free.”
Bella smiled through her tears. She knew he was referring to their conversation the night they met, when she thought he was the one who needed to be set free.
“Thanks for not throwing my words back at me,” she said with a rueful laugh.
“Hey, they were wise words. And they weren’t the only ones. You told me to fuck the rules, remember? Don’t let anyone tell you what’s normal and what’s not. What’s forgivable and what’s not. Be proud of who you are.”
He smiled, then stood up and held out his hand.
“Dance with me, Bella.”
Edward was right. Maybe it was time to take her own advice. If he loved her, she could certainly find it in her heart to love herself. And that was the only opinion that really mattered.
She took a deep breath and put her hand in his. Then she stood tall and walked with him back to the ballroom.
Sunday, April 28, 2013
Chapter 44
Jessica Stanley was in her element.
Seated in the Four Seasons Grand Ballroom at a table overlooking Elliot Bay, she was surrounded by her best girlfriends and their suited-up dates, with a not-so-virgin cocktail in one hand and the arm of a drop-dead gorgeous guy in the other.
This was the life.
She smiled at her date and gave his forearm a squeeze. “Thanks for the vodka and cranberry,” she said. “It certainly wouldn’t have been the same with just the cranberry.” She raised her glass, then grimaced at the ugly neon-orange bracelet that dangled from her wrist. The paper eyesore marking her as a minor was more than a minor irritant to her. Not only did she have to beg her date to get real drinks for her, the bracelet was tacky and clashed horribly with her dress.
“It’s called a Cape Cod. And you’re welcome,” he replied in a low, velveteen voice. Very seductive, that tone. He lifted his gin and tonic in a matching toast and said, “I could get arrested for buying you drinks, you know.”
“That’s what you’re afraid of getting arrested for?” she retorted in amusement. “I would think that’s the least of your worries.”
His smirk faded. He looked like he was about to speak, but then pressed his lips together as if he thought better of it.
That’s right - hold your tongue, Edward Cullen, she thought, with a smirk of her own. You know which legality you should really worry about.
She appraised him for a moment, wondering if she would sleep with him at the end of the night. She must concede that Bella Swan had good taste. Ridiculously handsome, well-mannered, glibly charming - the man sitting next to her would be difficult to resist, especially after a few more vodkas. But when she thought about all the places his gabardine-concealed dick had been, a slight shudder went down her spine. Not to mention, she wasn’t about to settle for Bella’s sloppy seconds.
She still couldn’t believe that the mousy girl she’d known in high school actually had the balls to hire a male prostitute. She’d assumed Bella’s drunken admission at the dorm party last month had merely been a joke, or a substance-induced hallucination. Bella tried to play it off as such at her birthday celebration last week. But as soon as Jessica heard Mike and Riley talking about the “Edward” who’d showed up in a suit that Friday night to walk Bella’s drunk ass home, she knew it was no joke, and no coincidence. How many young guys by the old-fashioned name of Edward were walking around the city? It had to be the same guy Bella claimed had taken her V-card.
She grimaced at the thought of paying a stranger to be her first, even though she could see the logic in it. A professional would undoubtedly know what he was doing, unlike the moronic frat boy she’d given it up to last year. And Edward Cullen certainly had a dreamy, Prince-Charming allure. But it was sad - no, pathetic - that Bella had bought the fantasy literally as well as figuratively. It was one thing to hire some gigolo for sex, but quite another to go around telling people he was her boyfriend. She knew that was the line Bella was feeding to Mike in order to put him off. He deserved better than that. He’d always deserved better than oblivious Bella, who never seemed to appreciate what she had. Apparently normal, good-hearted guys like Mike and Jacob Black weren’t enough for her. She had to go trolling the internet for stud service instead. Mike deserved to know the unvarnished truth about her.
And tonight, if luck was on her side, Jessica would deliver it to him in spades.
She gave a sly smile to the good-luck charm sitting next to her. He gave her a careful smile in return. His wary expression made her wonder if he could somehow sense her plans for him this evening. Maybe Bella was one of his regular customers, and he’d told her what he was doing tonight. That would definitely put a monkey wrench in the works. But Jessica had a hard time believing that was the case. She doubted he discussed his clientele with one another. He’d have to be a complete idiot to do that. And regardless of whatever else he was, she could see that Edward Cullen was no dummy.
“So, have you come up with a cover story yet?” she asked him. During the ride to the hotel, Edward had inquired if she had any preferences for who she’d like him to pretend to be this evening. She didn’t. He could claim he was an astronaut or a deep-sea diver for all she cared. By the end of the evening, the choice would be moot.
“I’m a professional pianist,” he announced.
“Professional penis?” she exclaimed, a split-second before she realized what he’d actually said.
He gave her a patronizing look. “Pi-an-ist,” he repeated, enunciating each syllable. “I’m a musician. A piano-player for a jazz group that plays in the area.”
“Oh, right. Cool,” she said with a shrug. “That’ll work. Very classy.”
“I’m glad you approve,” he said with a curt smile.
Jessica’s eyes strayed to the front of the ballroom, where a band was setting up. The musicians were dressed like 1950s Rat Packers to fit the retro theme of All-Greek Cocktail.
“Too bad your profession is lie - there’s a baby grand piano up there,” she noted. “You could impress the hell out of everyone if you actually played.”
“Is that what you’re after this evening? Impressing everyone?”
She was sure she detected a condescending tone in his voice, though his face was the picture of congeniality.
“Why else would I hire you for a big bash like this? I wanted to make an impact. And I’m pretty sure you’ll do exactly that.”
His eyes hardened with a quick flash of distaste, or maybe distrust. But his affable grin was immovable.
“Maybe I can slip a quick concerto in between sets from the band if you think that will annoy your ex-boyfriend, or whoever it is you’re looking to make jealous. Assuming, of course, that you have a specific target in mind for this big impression you want to make.”
Jessica should have known she wouldn’t get much past this guy. He’d obviously been around the block a time or three. She put one elbow on the table and leaned toward him, debating. It was so tempting to spill the beans. But that would spoil all the fun. Patience, she reminded herself. Once Mike and Bella showed up, this whole web of deception would unravel all on its own.
All she had to do was sit back and wait for the precise moment to pull the thread.
“You assume correctly,” she said, giving Edward a coy smile. “I do have a specific target in mind. But you don’t need to worry about that. You just be your charming self and leave the rest up to me. But in the meantime, could you get me another drink? These martini glasses don’t hold much.” She waved the empty vessel before setting it back on the table.
He definitely looked a bit suspicious now, his perma-grin crumbling on one side. But he gave her a conciliatory nod, got up from the table and headed back to the bar. She took the opportunity to scour the ballroom for Mike’s telltale spiky blond hair or Bella’s pallid complexion in the throng. There were so many people here, they could be anywhere. To complicate matters, the Sycamore room across the foyer was rented for this shindig as well. It was decorated in a casino theme with card games being held at every table. Knowing Mike, he easily could be sidetracked with a round of poker and take his sweet time coming to the main ballroom.
She sighed and turned back to the table, reaching for the platter of crudités for something to munch on. The sorority sister to her right leaned in, heavily-lined eyes round with curiosity.
“Where the hell did you find that gorgeous guy sitting next to you?” she demanded. “He is hot and a half. I know I haven’t seen him walking around campus.”
“You wouldn’t. He’s not a student - he’s a little older. He’s a professional,” Jessica said, trying not to snigger.
“Professional what?” the girl pressed. She eyed Edward up and down as he walked back toward their table.
“You really don’t want to know,” Jessica replied, not bothering to hold back a snort this time. “Don’t worry, you’ll find out soon enough.”
Edward glanced at Jessica’s smug countenance, then the baffled one of her friend, as he approached the table with two more drinks. The girls quickly parted and leaned back in their chairs, giving him matching grins of faux innocence.
“Should my ears be burning?” he wondered aloud, handing his date her second cranberry martini before sitting down.
“My friend here was just admiring your good looks and wondering what you did for a living,” Jessica explained, nodding to the blonde on her right. The girl’s cheeks turned scarlet.
“Ah. Thank you,” he said to the blonde. And then to Jessica, “What did you tell her?”
“I hadn’t gotten to that part yet. I was just about to tell her you’re a professional . . .” she paused, enjoying the resulting alarm that flitted through Edward’s eyes before she continued. “. . . pi-an-ist. If we’re lucky, you’ll wow us all later with your chops at the baby grand up there.”
He gave her the same plastic half-grin he’d worn all evening. “I’ll do my best not to disappoint you.”
Jessica grinned back, but her eyes were cutting. “I’m counting on it, Edward.”
.
.
“Wow.”
That was all Bella said as she and Mike strolled down the modern but elegant foyer on the second floor of the Four Seasons hotel. Her fingers tightened around his elbow, sending a little surge of excitement through him. He glanced over at her face, watching her big, brown eyes take in the splendor. They hadn’t even reached the ballroom yet, and she was already impressed.
“Nice, isn’t it?” he commented. “Have you ever been here before?”
“No. It’s pretty amazing.”
“This is my first time here, too. I guess the party is in a couple of rooms - the Sycamore, up here on the right, and the ballroom on the left.”
Bella nodded, peering to her right as they neared the entrance. The room had been turned into a makeshift casino, complete with a blackjack, roulette and poker tables. Dressed-up college kids milled around the room, gambling and ordering drinks from the bar at the back.
“Nice,” Mike enthused, pausing at the door next to Bella. “Reminds me of our prom, but a hell of a lot swankier.”
“No kidding,” she agreed with a laugh.
“Want to check it out?” he asked.
“Sure.” She looked agreeable enough, so he escorted her in. He searched the room for one of his fraternity brothers, hoping to find someone of age to get them real drinks. The matching orange bracelets he and Bella wore guaranteed an evening of kiddie cocktails if he didn’t find someone to hook them up with the good stuff.
“See anyone you know?” she asked.
“Not yet. But I know a couple of Delt brothers who rented rooms upstairs so we can have a beer or something to take the edge off.”
Bella shrugged. “I don’t have to drink this evening,” she said. “But if you want to, that’s fine. I can drive us back to the dorms later.”
“You don’t need to do that,” he protested. “I can get us a cab or we can crash in one of the rooms. I want you to have a good time, too.”
She looked slightly offended. “I don’t need to drink to have a good time.”
“Oh, I know. I wasn’t suggesting you did.” He bit his tongue as he ambled along side her toward the bar. She dropped his elbow and crossed her arms instead.
Shit. Why did he always screw things up? He didn’t want her to think he was trying to get her drunk. But the truth was, he did hope she’d have a couple of drinks so she’d loosen up and enjoy herself. He knew she wasn’t as naturally social as he was, but he also knew she could have a lot of fun if she’d only let herself - if she’d just forget to be so shy and self-conscious. A little liquor might accomplish that and put her at ease.
He took a deep breath as they approached the bar. “Virgin cocktails it is. Any preferences?” he queried.
“No, not really. I don’t really know drinks that well. Surprise me.”
“Okay.” He thought for a few seconds, then asked the bartender for suggestions. Moments later he walked away with two matching amber-colored drinks and handed one to Bella.
“Here you go - the alcohol-free version of a Surfer on Acid. I have no idea what they use instead of Jägermeister,” he said with a laugh.
“Surfer on Acid?” Bella giggled and raised her glass. “Cool. I’ll drink to that.”
Mike took a swig of the pineapple concoction and sorely wished for the missing rum and Jäger to cut the sweetness.
“How about a game?” he suggested. “Maybe some roulette?”
She readily agreed, and they headed to the gaming tables. When their turn came at the roulette wheel, Mike asked Bella to pick her lucky number.
She paused for a moment, and then quietly said, “Twenty-four.”
He thought he detected a certain softness, even tenderness, in her voice. He wondered what the hell that number signified to her. He wondered even more when the spinning marble miraculously plopped right into the twenty-four slot and Bella’s face lit up like a Christmas tree. She grinned and fingered her charm bracelet, staring at it like it was some kind of oracle.
“Well, that was some nice beginner’s luck,” Mike commented. “Too bad we’re only playing for chips instead of money.”
“That’s okay,” said, still grinning. “Money isn’t everything.”
“True, that. I’d trade it for your company any day.”
Bella rolled her eyes slightly and laughed. “Sure you would.”
“I would!” he insisted. He took her arm again, and she didn’t pull away. “How about we check out the ballroom?” he suggested, steering her toward the foyer.
She gamely followed him across the wide hallway to the entrance of the huge room, slowing as they neared the spectacle. The lushly carpeted space was lined with round linen-covered tables and chairs, lit by faux candles and adorned with fresh-cut flowers and platters of hors d’oeuvres. Taller, standing-room-only tables filled the center, with a large area carved out for dancing. A retro-style band was in full swing near the entryway, cranking out classics their grandparents had danced to interspersed with more modern songs the college kids would recognize. The eclectic mix had managed to jam the dance floor with grooving bodies. The scenic backdrop to the entire soirée was comprised of glass walls overlooking the moonlit waters of Puget Sound and Elliot Bay in the distance.
Mike felt Bella’s fingers grip his arm once more. Her eyes were wide as she spoke. “There are so many people here.”
“Well, there are almost four-thousand U-Dub students in the Greek system,” he reminded her, closing his fingers protectively over hers. “If only half of them showed up tonight, the place would still be packed. That’s why they rented two rooms, and tons of hotel rooms besides. It’s a huge bash. Kind of the event of the season. That’s why I didn’t want to miss it. Or you, either.”
She gave him a nod and a tiny smile, but she still looked uneasy.
“You want to dance?” he asked, thinking that blending into the crowd on the dance floor might be to her liking.
Instead, she looked even more panicked. “I’m not much of a dancer, remember?”
“Oh, yeah. That’s right,” he conceded. “I thought maybe you’d changed attitude about that. You never know.”
“No, I still have two left feet, for the most part,” she claimed, though he didn’t believe her. He really did want to get a glass of wine into her so she’d relax. Maybe he should have borrowed some of Riley’s stash so they could get lit before they came inside.
He scanned the room and gratefully spotted a few of his Delt brothers holding down a table on one side of the dance floor. He pointed them out to Bella, and she looked relieved to have a place to sit. As luck would have it, a few chairs were empty, their occupants currently on the dance floor. Mike pulled out a seat for Bella and introduced her to his buddies and their dates. They all sat and talked for a bit, commenting on the party and confirming which rooms they’d reserved upstairs for later, after the ballroom closed down.
Mike watched Bella closely. He was pleased to see her unwind a little and participate in the conversation. She seemed like she was enjoying herself well enough. He hoped so. He wanted to show her a good time, especially if that boyfriend of hers couldn’t. Maybe she would get tired of Suit Guy’s occupation keeping him busy on the weekends; maybe she would turn to Mike again to pass the time. And then maybe, just maybe, eventually she’d turn to him for more than that.
The band’s first set ended to sound of clapping and cheering. Soon the room was filled with the buzz of conversation and laughter instead, growing louder as more drinks were consumed. Mike leaned over to talk to the older frat brother on his left, enlisting his help in procuring some grown-up cocktails. The brother readily agreed to buy the drinks; Mike just needed to tag along and help carry them back to the table. He excused himself from Bella and followed his buddy to the bar at the back of the ballroom.
The line was long during the interim between music sets. Mike shifted his weight from one foot to the other, impatient to get back to Bella. He hoped she was doing all right, and that some of the girls at the table would talk to her. He hated to think of her sitting alone, feeling like a misfit. He never could understand why she always saw herself that way. She was smart, pretty and kind-hearted. Sure, she was shy and kind of clumsy, but in a cute way. Her awkwardness only endeared her to him. He longed to bring her out of her shell and give her some of his confidence; to make her see that she wasn’t the square peg she made herself out to be.
He sighed in frustration as the line shuffled along. Piano music began to waft back to him over the crowd. Shit, was the band starting up again already? How long had he been back at the bar, anyway?
His Delt brother finally gave his order to the bartender and paid the bill. Mike shoved his telltale orange bracelet under his suit jacket sleeve and picked up the drinks for him and Bella, thanking his buddy before hurrying back to the table. When he arrived, she was nowhere to be found. He looked around frantically for her blue dress and long, dark hair, trying to calm himself. She probably just went to the ladies room. He turned to one of his friends’ dates for information.
“Have you seen Bella?” he questioned her.
She pointed toward the dance floor. “I think she’s watching that guy playing the piano.”
Mike turned his head toward the front of the room, then began walking in that direction. Sure enough, there she was, standing at the edge of a small crowd that had gathered not far from the platform where the band’s instruments were set up. He could see her rigid posture as he approached, her back ramrod straight as she stood eerily still.
His eyes shifted to the baby grand that sat next to the platform. A man was seated there, playing an intricate, haunting melody - just the type of music to make chicks swoon, he thought with a grimace. He couldn’t see the man’s face clearly, as he was seated in profile, his back to their side of the room. But he soon recognized the girl in the hot-pink dress standing next to the piano. She was leaning on the instrument with a possessive assurance that earmarked her as the piano-player’s date.
He stared at her a moment, then chuckled to himself. Jessica Stanley did say she’d be bringing a guy who would “blow everyone out of the water.” Judging by the group of girls - Bella included - swarming the piano, she hadn’t been wrong.
When the impromptu concert came to an end, everyone applauded and hooted in appreciation.
“Edward Cullen, ladies and gentlemen!” Jessica exclaimed, clapping in loud exaggeration. Mike’s mouth dropped open in shock at her proclamation. His head whipped back to scrutinize the pianist. Sure enough, it was Suit Guy.
Bella’s Suit Guy.
Mike gaped at Jessica in horror as understanding dawned. She stared back at him, eyes wild with triumphant delight. Then she trained her sights on Bella, and her expression grew positively evil.
Mike watched helplessly, still holding a drink in each hand, as Jessica strode over to the piano bench, grabbed Suit Guy by the face and gave him a huge, wet kiss.
Seated in the Four Seasons Grand Ballroom at a table overlooking Elliot Bay, she was surrounded by her best girlfriends and their suited-up dates, with a not-so-virgin cocktail in one hand and the arm of a drop-dead gorgeous guy in the other.
This was the life.
She smiled at her date and gave his forearm a squeeze. “Thanks for the vodka and cranberry,” she said. “It certainly wouldn’t have been the same with just the cranberry.” She raised her glass, then grimaced at the ugly neon-orange bracelet that dangled from her wrist. The paper eyesore marking her as a minor was more than a minor irritant to her. Not only did she have to beg her date to get real drinks for her, the bracelet was tacky and clashed horribly with her dress.
“It’s called a Cape Cod. And you’re welcome,” he replied in a low, velveteen voice. Very seductive, that tone. He lifted his gin and tonic in a matching toast and said, “I could get arrested for buying you drinks, you know.”
“That’s what you’re afraid of getting arrested for?” she retorted in amusement. “I would think that’s the least of your worries.”
His smirk faded. He looked like he was about to speak, but then pressed his lips together as if he thought better of it.
That’s right - hold your tongue, Edward Cullen, she thought, with a smirk of her own. You know which legality you should really worry about.
She appraised him for a moment, wondering if she would sleep with him at the end of the night. She must concede that Bella Swan had good taste. Ridiculously handsome, well-mannered, glibly charming - the man sitting next to her would be difficult to resist, especially after a few more vodkas. But when she thought about all the places his gabardine-concealed dick had been, a slight shudder went down her spine. Not to mention, she wasn’t about to settle for Bella’s sloppy seconds.
She still couldn’t believe that the mousy girl she’d known in high school actually had the balls to hire a male prostitute. She’d assumed Bella’s drunken admission at the dorm party last month had merely been a joke, or a substance-induced hallucination. Bella tried to play it off as such at her birthday celebration last week. But as soon as Jessica heard Mike and Riley talking about the “Edward” who’d showed up in a suit that Friday night to walk Bella’s drunk ass home, she knew it was no joke, and no coincidence. How many young guys by the old-fashioned name of Edward were walking around the city? It had to be the same guy Bella claimed had taken her V-card.
She grimaced at the thought of paying a stranger to be her first, even though she could see the logic in it. A professional would undoubtedly know what he was doing, unlike the moronic frat boy she’d given it up to last year. And Edward Cullen certainly had a dreamy, Prince-Charming allure. But it was sad - no, pathetic - that Bella had bought the fantasy literally as well as figuratively. It was one thing to hire some gigolo for sex, but quite another to go around telling people he was her boyfriend. She knew that was the line Bella was feeding to Mike in order to put him off. He deserved better than that. He’d always deserved better than oblivious Bella, who never seemed to appreciate what she had. Apparently normal, good-hearted guys like Mike and Jacob Black weren’t enough for her. She had to go trolling the internet for stud service instead. Mike deserved to know the unvarnished truth about her.
And tonight, if luck was on her side, Jessica would deliver it to him in spades.
She gave a sly smile to the good-luck charm sitting next to her. He gave her a careful smile in return. His wary expression made her wonder if he could somehow sense her plans for him this evening. Maybe Bella was one of his regular customers, and he’d told her what he was doing tonight. That would definitely put a monkey wrench in the works. But Jessica had a hard time believing that was the case. She doubted he discussed his clientele with one another. He’d have to be a complete idiot to do that. And regardless of whatever else he was, she could see that Edward Cullen was no dummy.
“So, have you come up with a cover story yet?” she asked him. During the ride to the hotel, Edward had inquired if she had any preferences for who she’d like him to pretend to be this evening. She didn’t. He could claim he was an astronaut or a deep-sea diver for all she cared. By the end of the evening, the choice would be moot.
“I’m a professional pianist,” he announced.
“Professional penis?” she exclaimed, a split-second before she realized what he’d actually said.
He gave her a patronizing look. “Pi-an-ist,” he repeated, enunciating each syllable. “I’m a musician. A piano-player for a jazz group that plays in the area.”
“Oh, right. Cool,” she said with a shrug. “That’ll work. Very classy.”
“I’m glad you approve,” he said with a curt smile.
Jessica’s eyes strayed to the front of the ballroom, where a band was setting up. The musicians were dressed like 1950s Rat Packers to fit the retro theme of All-Greek Cocktail.
“Too bad your profession is lie - there’s a baby grand piano up there,” she noted. “You could impress the hell out of everyone if you actually played.”
“Is that what you’re after this evening? Impressing everyone?”
She was sure she detected a condescending tone in his voice, though his face was the picture of congeniality.
“Why else would I hire you for a big bash like this? I wanted to make an impact. And I’m pretty sure you’ll do exactly that.”
His eyes hardened with a quick flash of distaste, or maybe distrust. But his affable grin was immovable.
“Maybe I can slip a quick concerto in between sets from the band if you think that will annoy your ex-boyfriend, or whoever it is you’re looking to make jealous. Assuming, of course, that you have a specific target in mind for this big impression you want to make.”
Jessica should have known she wouldn’t get much past this guy. He’d obviously been around the block a time or three. She put one elbow on the table and leaned toward him, debating. It was so tempting to spill the beans. But that would spoil all the fun. Patience, she reminded herself. Once Mike and Bella showed up, this whole web of deception would unravel all on its own.
All she had to do was sit back and wait for the precise moment to pull the thread.
“You assume correctly,” she said, giving Edward a coy smile. “I do have a specific target in mind. But you don’t need to worry about that. You just be your charming self and leave the rest up to me. But in the meantime, could you get me another drink? These martini glasses don’t hold much.” She waved the empty vessel before setting it back on the table.
He definitely looked a bit suspicious now, his perma-grin crumbling on one side. But he gave her a conciliatory nod, got up from the table and headed back to the bar. She took the opportunity to scour the ballroom for Mike’s telltale spiky blond hair or Bella’s pallid complexion in the throng. There were so many people here, they could be anywhere. To complicate matters, the Sycamore room across the foyer was rented for this shindig as well. It was decorated in a casino theme with card games being held at every table. Knowing Mike, he easily could be sidetracked with a round of poker and take his sweet time coming to the main ballroom.
She sighed and turned back to the table, reaching for the platter of crudités for something to munch on. The sorority sister to her right leaned in, heavily-lined eyes round with curiosity.
“Where the hell did you find that gorgeous guy sitting next to you?” she demanded. “He is hot and a half. I know I haven’t seen him walking around campus.”
“You wouldn’t. He’s not a student - he’s a little older. He’s a professional,” Jessica said, trying not to snigger.
“Professional what?” the girl pressed. She eyed Edward up and down as he walked back toward their table.
“You really don’t want to know,” Jessica replied, not bothering to hold back a snort this time. “Don’t worry, you’ll find out soon enough.”
Edward glanced at Jessica’s smug countenance, then the baffled one of her friend, as he approached the table with two more drinks. The girls quickly parted and leaned back in their chairs, giving him matching grins of faux innocence.
“Should my ears be burning?” he wondered aloud, handing his date her second cranberry martini before sitting down.
“My friend here was just admiring your good looks and wondering what you did for a living,” Jessica explained, nodding to the blonde on her right. The girl’s cheeks turned scarlet.
“Ah. Thank you,” he said to the blonde. And then to Jessica, “What did you tell her?”
“I hadn’t gotten to that part yet. I was just about to tell her you’re a professional . . .” she paused, enjoying the resulting alarm that flitted through Edward’s eyes before she continued. “. . . pi-an-ist. If we’re lucky, you’ll wow us all later with your chops at the baby grand up there.”
He gave her the same plastic half-grin he’d worn all evening. “I’ll do my best not to disappoint you.”
Jessica grinned back, but her eyes were cutting. “I’m counting on it, Edward.”
.
.
“Wow.”
That was all Bella said as she and Mike strolled down the modern but elegant foyer on the second floor of the Four Seasons hotel. Her fingers tightened around his elbow, sending a little surge of excitement through him. He glanced over at her face, watching her big, brown eyes take in the splendor. They hadn’t even reached the ballroom yet, and she was already impressed.
“Nice, isn’t it?” he commented. “Have you ever been here before?”
“No. It’s pretty amazing.”
“This is my first time here, too. I guess the party is in a couple of rooms - the Sycamore, up here on the right, and the ballroom on the left.”
Bella nodded, peering to her right as they neared the entrance. The room had been turned into a makeshift casino, complete with a blackjack, roulette and poker tables. Dressed-up college kids milled around the room, gambling and ordering drinks from the bar at the back.
“Nice,” Mike enthused, pausing at the door next to Bella. “Reminds me of our prom, but a hell of a lot swankier.”
“No kidding,” she agreed with a laugh.
“Want to check it out?” he asked.
“Sure.” She looked agreeable enough, so he escorted her in. He searched the room for one of his fraternity brothers, hoping to find someone of age to get them real drinks. The matching orange bracelets he and Bella wore guaranteed an evening of kiddie cocktails if he didn’t find someone to hook them up with the good stuff.
“See anyone you know?” she asked.
“Not yet. But I know a couple of Delt brothers who rented rooms upstairs so we can have a beer or something to take the edge off.”
Bella shrugged. “I don’t have to drink this evening,” she said. “But if you want to, that’s fine. I can drive us back to the dorms later.”
“You don’t need to do that,” he protested. “I can get us a cab or we can crash in one of the rooms. I want you to have a good time, too.”
She looked slightly offended. “I don’t need to drink to have a good time.”
“Oh, I know. I wasn’t suggesting you did.” He bit his tongue as he ambled along side her toward the bar. She dropped his elbow and crossed her arms instead.
Shit. Why did he always screw things up? He didn’t want her to think he was trying to get her drunk. But the truth was, he did hope she’d have a couple of drinks so she’d loosen up and enjoy herself. He knew she wasn’t as naturally social as he was, but he also knew she could have a lot of fun if she’d only let herself - if she’d just forget to be so shy and self-conscious. A little liquor might accomplish that and put her at ease.
He took a deep breath as they approached the bar. “Virgin cocktails it is. Any preferences?” he queried.
“No, not really. I don’t really know drinks that well. Surprise me.”
“Okay.” He thought for a few seconds, then asked the bartender for suggestions. Moments later he walked away with two matching amber-colored drinks and handed one to Bella.
“Here you go - the alcohol-free version of a Surfer on Acid. I have no idea what they use instead of Jägermeister,” he said with a laugh.
“Surfer on Acid?” Bella giggled and raised her glass. “Cool. I’ll drink to that.”
Mike took a swig of the pineapple concoction and sorely wished for the missing rum and Jäger to cut the sweetness.
“How about a game?” he suggested. “Maybe some roulette?”
She readily agreed, and they headed to the gaming tables. When their turn came at the roulette wheel, Mike asked Bella to pick her lucky number.
She paused for a moment, and then quietly said, “Twenty-four.”
He thought he detected a certain softness, even tenderness, in her voice. He wondered what the hell that number signified to her. He wondered even more when the spinning marble miraculously plopped right into the twenty-four slot and Bella’s face lit up like a Christmas tree. She grinned and fingered her charm bracelet, staring at it like it was some kind of oracle.
“Well, that was some nice beginner’s luck,” Mike commented. “Too bad we’re only playing for chips instead of money.”
“That’s okay,” said, still grinning. “Money isn’t everything.”
“True, that. I’d trade it for your company any day.”
Bella rolled her eyes slightly and laughed. “Sure you would.”
“I would!” he insisted. He took her arm again, and she didn’t pull away. “How about we check out the ballroom?” he suggested, steering her toward the foyer.
She gamely followed him across the wide hallway to the entrance of the huge room, slowing as they neared the spectacle. The lushly carpeted space was lined with round linen-covered tables and chairs, lit by faux candles and adorned with fresh-cut flowers and platters of hors d’oeuvres. Taller, standing-room-only tables filled the center, with a large area carved out for dancing. A retro-style band was in full swing near the entryway, cranking out classics their grandparents had danced to interspersed with more modern songs the college kids would recognize. The eclectic mix had managed to jam the dance floor with grooving bodies. The scenic backdrop to the entire soirée was comprised of glass walls overlooking the moonlit waters of Puget Sound and Elliot Bay in the distance.
Mike felt Bella’s fingers grip his arm once more. Her eyes were wide as she spoke. “There are so many people here.”
“Well, there are almost four-thousand U-Dub students in the Greek system,” he reminded her, closing his fingers protectively over hers. “If only half of them showed up tonight, the place would still be packed. That’s why they rented two rooms, and tons of hotel rooms besides. It’s a huge bash. Kind of the event of the season. That’s why I didn’t want to miss it. Or you, either.”
She gave him a nod and a tiny smile, but she still looked uneasy.
“You want to dance?” he asked, thinking that blending into the crowd on the dance floor might be to her liking.
Instead, she looked even more panicked. “I’m not much of a dancer, remember?”
“Oh, yeah. That’s right,” he conceded. “I thought maybe you’d changed attitude about that. You never know.”
“No, I still have two left feet, for the most part,” she claimed, though he didn’t believe her. He really did want to get a glass of wine into her so she’d relax. Maybe he should have borrowed some of Riley’s stash so they could get lit before they came inside.
He scanned the room and gratefully spotted a few of his Delt brothers holding down a table on one side of the dance floor. He pointed them out to Bella, and she looked relieved to have a place to sit. As luck would have it, a few chairs were empty, their occupants currently on the dance floor. Mike pulled out a seat for Bella and introduced her to his buddies and their dates. They all sat and talked for a bit, commenting on the party and confirming which rooms they’d reserved upstairs for later, after the ballroom closed down.
Mike watched Bella closely. He was pleased to see her unwind a little and participate in the conversation. She seemed like she was enjoying herself well enough. He hoped so. He wanted to show her a good time, especially if that boyfriend of hers couldn’t. Maybe she would get tired of Suit Guy’s occupation keeping him busy on the weekends; maybe she would turn to Mike again to pass the time. And then maybe, just maybe, eventually she’d turn to him for more than that.
The band’s first set ended to sound of clapping and cheering. Soon the room was filled with the buzz of conversation and laughter instead, growing louder as more drinks were consumed. Mike leaned over to talk to the older frat brother on his left, enlisting his help in procuring some grown-up cocktails. The brother readily agreed to buy the drinks; Mike just needed to tag along and help carry them back to the table. He excused himself from Bella and followed his buddy to the bar at the back of the ballroom.
The line was long during the interim between music sets. Mike shifted his weight from one foot to the other, impatient to get back to Bella. He hoped she was doing all right, and that some of the girls at the table would talk to her. He hated to think of her sitting alone, feeling like a misfit. He never could understand why she always saw herself that way. She was smart, pretty and kind-hearted. Sure, she was shy and kind of clumsy, but in a cute way. Her awkwardness only endeared her to him. He longed to bring her out of her shell and give her some of his confidence; to make her see that she wasn’t the square peg she made herself out to be.
He sighed in frustration as the line shuffled along. Piano music began to waft back to him over the crowd. Shit, was the band starting up again already? How long had he been back at the bar, anyway?
His Delt brother finally gave his order to the bartender and paid the bill. Mike shoved his telltale orange bracelet under his suit jacket sleeve and picked up the drinks for him and Bella, thanking his buddy before hurrying back to the table. When he arrived, she was nowhere to be found. He looked around frantically for her blue dress and long, dark hair, trying to calm himself. She probably just went to the ladies room. He turned to one of his friends’ dates for information.
“Have you seen Bella?” he questioned her.
She pointed toward the dance floor. “I think she’s watching that guy playing the piano.”
Mike turned his head toward the front of the room, then began walking in that direction. Sure enough, there she was, standing at the edge of a small crowd that had gathered not far from the platform where the band’s instruments were set up. He could see her rigid posture as he approached, her back ramrod straight as she stood eerily still.
His eyes shifted to the baby grand that sat next to the platform. A man was seated there, playing an intricate, haunting melody - just the type of music to make chicks swoon, he thought with a grimace. He couldn’t see the man’s face clearly, as he was seated in profile, his back to their side of the room. But he soon recognized the girl in the hot-pink dress standing next to the piano. She was leaning on the instrument with a possessive assurance that earmarked her as the piano-player’s date.
He stared at her a moment, then chuckled to himself. Jessica Stanley did say she’d be bringing a guy who would “blow everyone out of the water.” Judging by the group of girls - Bella included - swarming the piano, she hadn’t been wrong.
When the impromptu concert came to an end, everyone applauded and hooted in appreciation.
“Edward Cullen, ladies and gentlemen!” Jessica exclaimed, clapping in loud exaggeration. Mike’s mouth dropped open in shock at her proclamation. His head whipped back to scrutinize the pianist. Sure enough, it was Suit Guy.
Bella’s Suit Guy.
Mike gaped at Jessica in horror as understanding dawned. She stared back at him, eyes wild with triumphant delight. Then she trained her sights on Bella, and her expression grew positively evil.
Mike watched helplessly, still holding a drink in each hand, as Jessica strode over to the piano bench, grabbed Suit Guy by the face and gave him a huge, wet kiss.
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