His Personal Assistant

Chapter 28

Well, let the games begin.

I just hoped Edward wouldn't mind being blindfolded.

EPOV.

My hangover felt like there was an army of tiny people inside my brain, jabbing their itty bitty little swords into my brain.

Before I even attempted to crack open my sticky eyes, I spent a good ten minutes analyzing why my brain-army would have swords instead of guns. I finally settled on the

conclusion that they were some old fashioned, loin-clothed Spartan army, so they hadn't discovered gunpowder and shit.

The ten minutes after that was spent in defense of my sexuality, when a part of my brain wondered why the first thing I thought about when waking up was a bunch of guys in

skirts all...inside me and stuff. My opening argument was that besides the previous ten minutes, I spent all my waking hours thinking about Bella breasts. Or lips. Or nether

regions. My closing argument was that I spent all my sleeping time thinking about her, too.

Once I had ruled in my own favor, I picked myself up off the floor (I'm pretty certain I had passed out on the couch, but apparently I'd rolled off at some point) and shuffled

my way to a shower, all the while contemplating how I was going to keep my Bella as, well, my Bella.

The clarity brought on by time, copious amounts of malt liquor, and Bella's anger on the phone last night, made me realize I may have overreacted the teensiest bit yesterday.

Or under reacted; however you wanted to look at it.

What I should have done was give Bella a fake, cheery smile, congratulated her and then give her one of those cliché, pick-her-up-and-spin-her-in-a-circle hugs. Then I could

have spent the next 28 days convincing her how much she couldn't live without me.

Instead, I got her all hot and bothered (which was getting me all hot and bothered just remembering it) and then left her to go brood in my office like a bad guy in his lair. All that

was missing was a comically villainous mustache and a nefarious, snooty laugh.

I stumbled out of my boiling hot shower, and took a long, good look at myself in the fogged up mirror. The man staring back at me looked like he'd gone through Hell and back.

There was a five' o clock shadow along the edge of my clenched jaw, my skin was pale and clammy, besides the dark purple bruise-like shadows under my eyes, which were

blood shot.

This was insane. I had loved Bella, from afar, for months, but had always managed to keep myself from despairing so grandly. I finally understood what Emmett meant when he

talk about my "epically dramatic gross overreactions" to things. When I got home yesterday, after Bella had left work without me, I fell immediately into the library (my comfort

place) with a bottle of single malt whiskey and a trembling bottom lip.

Seriously. A twenty-four year old man, worth billions of dollars, sitting in his fancy penthouse overlooking Central Park, chugging a $600 bottle of whiskey, with a fucking

trembling lip. I hadn't cried since I was seven, when mom and Carlisle had gone on a weekend trip and Emmett had somehow managed to convince me they weren't coming

home. The jerk.

But just the thought of Bella leaving in one month had made drinking myself into a miserable stupor a fucking necessity. Then, when she had called, it was like someone giving