You're Going To Be The Death Of Me
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Esme found me puddled in the sand just outside my bungalow, next to naked and baking in the last fading rays of sun. The giant golden orb dipping its bottom into the ocean, dusk creeping languidly across the water, and I knew I was due for dinner soon.
“Bella, darling, you haven’t been wearing enough sunscreen.” Esme pinched my arm gently, a white spot appearing amongst the pink.
“I look like a ghost. I think the locals are scared of me.” That, or Jacob had a crush. I couldn’t tell which.
Esme dropped her shoes beside me and flopped onto the corner of my sarong, tucking her feet underneath her and shielding her face as she scanned the water. She was still in a cream colored travel suit, airy linen with a slim golden trim and she looked like presidential royalty trying not to get white sand on her white pants.
“What took you so long? I thought you’d be here before me?” I rolled over, clutching my top to my tits and attempting to retie myself. It must have looked as awkward as it felt because Esme’s fingers took over as she spoke, knotting the strings efficiently.
“I had to help Vicky deal with that Lawson Park fiasco. I swear, how that woman got hired . . . I will never understand.”
We both ate up our spare time with charity work, landing two of the coveted spots on a board that had successfully revamped several parks in the inner city last year, replacing playground equipment and planting trees. I’d donated a fair chunk of Jasper’s money to the cause and I knew for certain that Esme had probably outdone me fourfold with Carlisle’s, so watching Victoria fuck things up was hard for both of us.
“What happened this time?”
“She ordered a slide that was made of metal. Metal. I mean, I didn’t even think they made slides like that anymore, but apparently they do and she found the only one. Has the woman never used one of those things before? Sliding down a burning hot piece of playground equipment sounds like a lawsuit to me.” Esme huffed and shook her head. “Also, the board would like us to both be back for the Mirabell dinner. I told them I couldn’t promise anything and now that I’m here, I’m glad that I didn’t.”
“It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” I sighed, still slogging through the buzz I got off the lavender-water-drug thing.
“Quite,” Esme mused. “You haven’t gone exploring yet, have you?”
“Of course not. I’m too scared of you.” Esme was downright dangerous when she didn’t get her way and I did not want her on my bad side.
“Good girl. I was worried you’d get so bored waiting for me that you’d do naughty things.”
Naughtier than fantasizing about your son? “Alice has been keeping me company,” I said with the straightest face possible.
“Alice is here? Oh, I’m glad she was able to come.” Esme stood and delicately wiped herself off, adjusting her sunglasses. “I’m sure the two of you will get along famously. Come along, we’re going to be late for dinner.”
“Have you known her long?” I asked, fishing and feeling a little guilty about it, but there was something different about her that I couldn’t quite put my finger on. I lifted myself reluctantly off the sand and shook out my sarong, a wave of pearly white spewing into the air.
“They were undergrads together in med school. She wasn’t quite so colorful, but then, neither was he,” Esme laughed delicately.
“And then they went to Africa together?” It made me feel somewhat better that Alice had been accepted by the Cullens before she ended up covered in ink, though I didn’t understand why. Esme laughed as she headed up the beach, low in her throat as if I’d just made a joke.
“Heavens, no. Edward followed her there.”
“You’re going to be the death of me.” Jasper startled me from the doorway, leaning up against the frame with his arms across his chest and his lips parted. He was eyeing the dress Rose found for me a few months ago, pale pink silk that shimmered in the light and made me feel a bit too much like a cupcake. “I was wondering why Rose tucked this little gem into my suitcase.”
He sauntered toward me with a scrap of rosy satin between his fingers that exactly matched my dress and a sly smirk on his face. I watched as he carefully folded it up and tucked it into his breast pocket, winking at me when he got close enough to take my hand. “Stunning, as ever Bella.”
The dress was quite pretty, even if I was a little nervous about wearing it. It was cut slim around my waist and fell in a rather ridiculous mermaid bottom that frothed around my ankles with the slightest movement, but it was the top that had me worried. The silk tended to shift and slip along my skin, the low cut of it tantalizingly near to exposing me were it not for the mass of translucent chiffon flowers, petals velvety soft, obstructing the view. A few blossoms skittered up the thin straps and more tumbled clear to my knees but most were caught in a rash explosion somewhere near my right armpit, giving me just a little bit of modesty. It was almost long enough that I could go without shoes, but the scar knotted across the sole of Alice’s foot kept me from going there.
I took the tie Jasper offered me and threaded it around his neck, knotting it while he rubbed my arms and fingered the petals strewn across my shoulders. The tie was patterned in geometric squares of grays and blues and blacks, his shirt a faint blue pinstripe and shoes of soft cream suede. He was in one of his favorite jackets, the one that was the dark color of a ripe blueberry with skinny black lapels and a hidden pocket inside that he liked to tuck his flask into. His lips were a little chapped, dry and starting to flake and I licked my own lips, launching to my toes to press them, damp and moist, up against his. He held me to him for a second longer than normal and pulled his bottom lip into his mouth when he released me.
“Come on, beautiful. Let’s be fashionably late.”
Jasper looped his arm around my waist and tugged me to the door, stopping to pluck my shimmery wrap from the bed and draping it around my shoulders. I tried not to let myself get fluttery over all his outward affections, dangerously wondering if it meant that he was starting to overcompensate for something. We took the long way, walking the path that meandered drunkenly along the southern edge of the island rather than our usual shortcut through the jungle. I figured that it couldn’t qualify as exploring since it was too dark to see much except the ragged gash the moon was slicing through the sea.
“I’m going to propose that we retain the island tonight. Keep it as a long term investment.” Jasper spoke through the dark and tugged me closer, our hips together as we sunk through the sand.
“Really?”
“Your face, when you saw the greenhouse . . . it was enough for me. I want it.”
“I do love it here, and we’re going exploring tomorrow. Anything I should know?”
Despite the faint moonlight only just speckling his face, I could see his smile. “Yes. On the far edge of the island, close to Esme and Carlisle’s villa . . . there’s a spot near there I think you’ll really like. If you can find it,” he winked at me.
“Are you challenging me?” I laughed into the dark and he pulled me close just as the faint light from the hotel came into view across the beach.
“Of course, dear. I know that you’re up for it.”
Everyone was already seated at our regular table near the windows when we arrived, the night breeze ushering us through the door. Alice caught a glimpse of me from the corner of her eye and went all spin-head/projectile-vomit in under two seconds.
“Ooooo!” She squealed and launched herself from her seat, suctioned into yet another slinky black dress with her short hair slicked down in pin curls. With her dark lips and dark eyes and beautifully embellished skin she looked like a pinup girl, sumptuous and sinfully tempting. A vixen who sauntered over to tell me that I looked like a fairy princess.
Great.
Jasper pulled out my chair, sitting me across from Alice with Esme between us at the head so that the girls were clustered together and the boys could discuss the plans for the newly improved boat dock at the other end of the table. I was starting to suspect that they were actually kind of excited about this, rather than put out. From the sound of it, the doomed dock was going to end up far more elaborate than the simple planking it was currently masquerading under. I’d never heard of a boatdock with vaulted ceilings and crown molding before, but apparently it was forthcoming.
Esme and Alice immediately launched into their own sort of planning mode, outlining our excursion for the next day while I adjusted my dress, making sure that nothing was peeking out that shouldn’t. Just as I’d deemed everything covered and had taken a sip from the champagne flute that was set down before me, a pretty pale pink with a few bubble-dusted raspberries thrown in, I felt it. A scalding burn like the sharp heat of an overused light bulb leafing across my neck and I wrenched my eyes up, expecting Jasper.
Edward was staring at me.
Not the faraway sort of staring someone does when they’re thinking really hard about something else entirely. Not a hollow daydream stare. This was the look of a lost desert wanderer. Perched on the edge of an endless sand dune, gazing at the tropical oasis/hallucination his withered brain has just tricked him into seeing.
“What?” I mouthed silently and he jerked as though I’d shocked him, dragging his eyes away and flushing red up his neck.
I kept my eyes on Edward for the rest of the meal but he made it nearly through without meeting my gaze again. Instead of watching me, he was now eyeing Jasper. It looked as though he was listening very intently to every word Jasper said, but his eyes roamed all over as though he was searching for something rather than paying attention. When he wasn’t eyeing Jasper, he was focused softly on Alice, draping his arm across the back of her chair and turning away from the enthralling conversation about weather resistant deck materials going on beside him to gaze at her.
She had been turning something over in her lap all night, face cast down in contemplation, and I finally caught a glimpse of what she was holding at just about the same time Edward did.
“What is that?” Edward snatched the seed pod from her hand, one of the brittle horns snapping in half and falling to the table between them. Alice’s cheeks flamed, diamonds glinting as her eyes narrowed, and she jutted her jaw out.
“It’s exactly what you think it is,” she hissed.
Edward’s eyes went wide at her tone and he openly gaped at her for a moment before he remembered that we were all watching their exchange and clamped his mouth shut, grinding his teeth together. I was pretty sure he was about to obliterate that helpless seed.
“Where did you get it?” he asked her slowly, his voice bottoming out and bordering on menace.
“I found it in Bella’s greenhouse.”
“Bella’s?”
That last statement came from three people simultaneously, and Jasper winced as everyone turned to stare at me.
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