Naughty Knickers

Seven

Bella

"Good to know you're still alive," Alice grumbled at me as I hobbled into the kitchen the next morning. I glared at her and stumbled to the fridge, trying to ignore the bright lights and the loud sound of her chewing her cereal with her mouth open. I’d gotten home at the crack of dawn and I  had a hangover, but not the regular kind. I had an Edward hangover and I was in dire need of orange juice but, of course, Alice had stashed the emptied carton back in the fridge. I threw it across the room at her, wincing when her shriek hit my achey ears.

"Why do you always do that? You know I hate it," I griped at her, finding a bottle of water instead. I swallowed half of it before she spoke.

"How's suspender boy?" She grinned around her spoon.

"Don't call him that." Only I was allowed to call him that. And only in my head.

"You're walking funny. He must have a really great dick for a sadist." She was still crunching her cereal louder than a hail of brimstone and gunfire and I was feeling woozy enough to throw up all over her mushy breakfast.

"He does."

"You should be careful. I hear girls like you can get addicted to that kind of thing."

---

"Tell me everything."

Jane flopped into my chair and stared at me, waiting for a response. I shrugged, not prepared to make something up on the spot. Besides, I glowing a little too much to deny it. "Edward has a magical dick and I don't ever want to let it go. I just gotta figure out what to do about that mouth of his."

"And the old lady?"

"She's a bitch but, damn, does she look good for her age. You would not believe how old she really is."

We spent the next three hours decking Jane out for Edward's next project and googling Esme. Apparently she was an elbow rubber in an elitist group of art afficionados. She had been a coordinator at museums that even Jane knew the name of and had 'discovered' more than a few big name artists, Edward included amongst them. She oversaw charitable foundations and facilitated cross country art loans. She had been married three times, had six homes in five different countries, and made regular appearances at children's hospitals with art supplies. They called her Mrs. Santa Claus.

Basically, it was impossible to hate her, but she gave me an out when she showed up in my office with a rack of plastic wrapped ball gowns, acting as snot-faced as ever.

"Well, don't you look precious!" she exclaimed and sauntered right into the room to inspect Jane's hair and makeup, fawning over her. Jane shot me a wary glance over Esme’s head.

"Can I ask what you're doing here?" I eyed the door pointedly, hoping Esme would take a hint but she just smiled at me. The same kind of smile a rattlesnake gives a rat right before it poisons it.

"Oh, Edward called in a favor. I answered."

"What sort of favor?"

"He needed ballgowns and he knew who to ask.”

“Edward asked you to bring those here today?” I pointed at the rack of dresses, sounding just as full of disbelief as I actually was. I thought he’d told me it was over. That the heartbreak was mutual and that he only wanted me. I thought he said that he was done with her, but apparently, he’d called and literally requested her presence here today.

Edward

I met the girls in the Impressionist paintings, a room full of art that was all up for interpretation. I’d always been drawn to these paintings over any of the others. The cut and dried reality of the standard still life left me wanting more and I could get lost for hours in front of a Monet. The blurred brush of color. The spots of light and dark. The out of focus fuzz that sharpened only when you stepped away. Paintings that made sense from far off, but were even more beautiful with your nose a bare inch away from the canvas.

The moment Bella stepped into the room, the air changed. Or vanished entirely. I wasn’t sure which, but one or the other left me panting. She shot me a glance from across the room and I could tell instantly that something was wrong. She didn’t smile at me, or even give me a halfway version of it. Instead, she reverted back to the icy death glare she’d given me at the start and I had no idea what had flipped her switch so suddenly.

Jane looked perfect, decked out like a princess in too much makeup and a dress that was trying to swallow her. I gulped when I recognized the outfit. It was the same dress Esme had worn to some fancy black tie party the night before we broke up. Red satin. Indecently low cut neck line. Tight to the knees and flared below that, a swish of fabric around the ankles. I’d been so in love with Esme that night, convinced that I would live out the rest of my life with her, that I’d followed her around the party like an ignored puppy, letting her swat my hands away when I tried to touch her.

The devil in question sashayed into the room with an expectant smile on her face and I knew instantly what Bella’s frozen glare had been about.

“Edward!” Her voice jumped twenty octaves and dropped twenty years, immaturity propelling her across the room toward me as though she was only the projectile in some giant sling shot. She wrapped her arms around me before I could stop her and whispered in my ear. “That little bitch of yours has got to go. I don’t like her at all.”

“Then it’s a good thing that I don’t care what you like or not.” I shoved her aside and tried to make my way to Bella and Jane, who were in a far corner, adjusting the dress. Esme grabbed my hand and batted her eyes at me.

“Come to my hotel tonight. We can talk. I’d like to make this work,” she pleaded.

“No way. I wanted to make it work too, but you weren’t interested in talking then. I’m not interested in talking about it now. You need to leave.”

“I can’t stay to watch? Those are my dresses after all.”

My first mistake had been thinking that Esme would loan me something without expecting anything in return. My second mistake had been to make the phone call to ask her, but I wasn’t about to make the third mistake of letting her ruin my life all over again. I yanked out of her grip and stormed across the gallery, fuming.

“Take that off,” I commanded, waving at the red dress as I came to a standstill.

“You just want me naked all the time,” Jane giggled and started stripping immediately, which seemed to be her style. Completely unabashed, even as Bella was studiously eyeing the floor. She had her teeth buried in her lip. On most girls, that meant that they didn’t know what to say. In this case, I was pretty sure she was biting the shit out of her lip in order to keep everything she wanted to say inside. I picked the dress up off the floor and stormed back toward Esme with my arms full of red silk and rage. I shoved it at her, the force making her totter backward on her heels.

“Take them and go,” I commanded.

“Darling, don’t be like this. I only want you to remember how it was between us. I want you, and I know that you want me.”

"I don't want you!" I yelled, my bellow blowing the hair off her neck. "I did, but I don't anymore. Nothing will change the way I feel about you. Stop. Trying."

“I love you, Edward.”

“No, you used me as arm candy because you liked my thirty year old cock. ”

She slapped me.

Hard and fast and stingingly sharp, right across my cheek.

“You insolent little brat!” she hissed. “You always were just a child. I can’t believe how much time I wasted on you.”

“Goodbye, Esme,” I barked and turned away, rubbing my cheek to the faint sounds of her pushing her ballgown disaster out of the room. I was so fucking angry, livid and on edge, and when I saw Bella trying to rush out of the room, it just pissed me off even more. Calling Esme had been a mistake, but letting this girl escape before I had a chance to right things would be the biggest mistake of all. I grabbed her by the arm as she tried to fly by me.

"Don't you dare leave," I growled at her, but she scowled right back at me, matching me one for one.

"I'm not going anywhere,” she hissed. “I just need to go hit something so that I can calm down. I'll be right back." She pulled out of my grip and stormed off down the hallway. I hoped she made back down to the basement level before she found something to lay her fist into. Shit around here was expensive.  

Next

AN: She's still giggling. I'm still blushing. One more chapter and I'm putting both of us out of our misery.