Disclaimer: I do not own anything.

Chapter 1

EPOV

I was awoken by the sound of pounding on my door. I tried to ignore it; all I really wanted to do was get some more sleep. I have been working nonstop for the last 48 hours and I had to get up early again in the morning. In two weeks my 7 year old daughter was coming to live with me. My ex-wife Jessica just got re-married and she didn't want to be tied down with a child anymore.

Right after the divorce which was 7 years ago Jessica who didn't bother to tell me she was pregnant at the time had moved back home with her family out of state. I really only got to see my daughter for about 2 weeks during the summer up until last year. Jessica met Mike and he wanted to move back to the city so they got a house nearby. I was extremely happy when I found out my role of dad got moved up to every other weekend.

Now I get to have her full time or at least I will soon. I have never been a full time dad before and to be honest I don't have a lot of structure in my life and I am more of a take it as it comes type of guy. I'm not much of a planner and I work pretty much all the time. I haven't had time for a girlfriend but I have gone out on dates whenever I can squeeze them in. And I'm a little scared about the whole thing. I just don't want to screw her up. Both my parents died a few years back and my only other living family is my sister Rosalie.

My life was about to change drastically, of course it is a welcome change but I am not really too sure of what I am doing. I work as a reporter for the Seattle Times and this week I have a big story and a fast approaching deadline. I had just moved into a bigger place to accommodate Holly. Boxes were everywhere since I really didn't have time to unpack yet.

Knock Knock Knock "Edward" I heard Jessica bellow. Great I pulled myself out of bed and stumbled into the hallway. "Edward". I pulled open the door. "Daddy! Guess what? Mommy says I don't have to stay with gramma this week after all and I get to move in with you 2 weeks early.

What?

"That's great sweetheart, hey why don't you go on inside and watch some TV, I need to talk to your mom for a minute." Holly ran inside and I stepped outside the door and pulled it closed.

"What's going on Jessica?" What is she up to? We had agreed that I would take Holly starting in 2 weeks because I will be working nonstop getting this story done. It was a big one that was going to make or break my career. I had to beg my boss to give me this chance and not pass it on to that idiot Tyler.

"Edward, I'm sorry I know we had planned for Holly to move in in 2 weeks but my mom broke her hip and can't take care of her right now, and I leave for my honeymoon in the morning."

"Jess, we discussed this, I will not be available until then how am I suppose to take care of her when I will be running around doing research and interviews. You know how big of a deal this is for me and I already took it on because you said you would have everything taken care of. I can't back out now. What do you expect me to do?"

"Edward this is my honeymoon and you are taking her soon anyways. Besides she will be in school for most of the day and can't you get Rosalie to help out?"

I sighed deeply. I can't turn my back on my daughter of course but I was going to be in a real bind. I guess I could call Rosalie but based on past experience she will do me absolutely no good. Mike honked the horn just then.

"Fine, it's not like are going to give me a choice is it?" I was furious and this wasn't fair to Holly either. It's bad enough that her mom is pretty much cutting her out of her life but the fact that I am going to be busy for this next week and a half has was going to be hard on her.

"Thanks Edward" Jessica yelled as she was already running back to her car. "Oh by the way Holly has a field trip for tomorrow and I already asked my neighbor to take her to school. Her name is Bella Swan she lives 2 houses down from me. Here is her phone number. Please if you don't need her to take Holly in the morning, you have to call her and let her know, Okay?"

"Yeah, fine" I took the number and went back inside. "Hey there sweetie, I am so glad you are here!" I pulled her in for a hug. "Me too daddy."

"Listen, I am sorry but I haven't had time to set everything up yet, I wasn't expecting you to be here so soon but how about we have a camp out in the living room tonight? I will set up the tent and we will get out our sleeping bags and everything."

"Cool, can we roast marshmallows in the fire place?" she looked so excited. "Sure sweetie, let's get ready." After I got the tent up and we finished our last marshmallow we climbed into our sleeping bags.

Beep Beep Beep Beep

I heard the faint sounds of my alarm. It took me a minute to realize where I was. Oh crap. I got up ran into my bedroom to turn off the alarm and noticed the time. Shit we're late.

"Holly, wake up honey we're late for school." We both got up and got ready as quickly as possible. Traffic was horrible this is not going to go well I thought. We pulled up to the school to find her classroom door locked. There was a note on the door.

Sorry we missed you, class field trip today. If you are late we are leaving from the pier at exactly 9:15. Hope to see you there.

Son of a bitch. I looked down at Holly "Can we make it daddy?" I looked at my watch we had 20 minutes. "Let's give it a try darling" we ran back to the car as fast as possible and headed to the pier.

BPOV

"Okay Masen, time to get ready for bed." "But mom" "No buts" you know what time it is, besides you have a big day tomorrow the field trip remember?" Masen had been looking forward to this for weeks. The class was going to be going on one of the sternwheeler boats on the harbor.

"Oh yeah" he ran into his bedroom to change into his pajamas. Just then the phone rang.

"Hello?"

"Hey Bella it's me Jake." Great this couldn't be good.

"You better not be canceling" but I knew better he always did this. This wasn't the first time he had gotten Masen's hopes up just to cancel on him again.

"It's not like that Bella; I swear it's just that I am postponing it." I sighed "Again Jake, really? How can you possibly keep doing this to him?"

"I'm sorry Bella but I got the chance of a lifetime and I can't pass it up. Look I will make it up to him I swear."

"Don't bother, I don't want to hear your excuses anymore and I don't want you making anymore promises that you won't keep." I was yelling now. Again.

"Calm down, look I will call him later on okay, I gotta go." The phone went dead. I didn't want to tell my son that his father was once again abandoning him. I sat there with my head in my hands and tried to breathe deeply.

"Mommy, are you okay?" I heard Masen ask. Damn it. "Yes sweetie I'm fine. Let's get you off to bed; did you brush your teeth yet?"

"Yep" he smiled to show me. "Okay let me tuck you in." I pulled up the covers around his neck and kissed him goodnight. "Mommy, do you still love daddy?" He must have heard me on the phone. Shit. How am I going to answer this? I couldn't tell him the truth which was absolutely not, so I went with the usual.

"I will always love your daddy because he gave me you." I kissed his nose and turned out the light. I had a huge presentation at work the next day. I am an architect and had one of the biggest clients my firm has seen in months working with me. I had worked for weeks on the scale model to get it to perfection. I just put the finishing touches on it tonight and got my notes ready.

I just got into bed at 12:30am. If I fall asleep now I can get 6 and a half hours of sleep. I laid there forever just thinking about work and Jake. How could he keep doing this to his son? I will never understand. I looked at the clock again. 3:37am. Are you kidding me? I must have fallen asleep at some point because I was woken up by my alarm clock blaring at me.

I got ready for work, put my model in the car and woke up Masen. "Come on Masen, get dressed, Holly will be here any minute. Jessica and her boyfriend Mike moved in about a year ago. Jessica's daughter was in the same class as Masen so we became friends. She and Mike just got married and were leaving for their honeymoon this morning. I told them I would take Holly to school.

I looked at the clock it was already time to leave and no sign of them yet. Had they forgotten? Come on Masen, let's go to Jessica's and see if they are running late.

We ran over to their house and the car was there. I knocked on the door. No answer. I looked at my watch. We should have left 5 minutes ago. I knocked again "Jess? Mike?"

Fantastic still no answer, I tried to peek in their windows. No one was there. "Come on sweetie, lets go, they must have forgotten or something." We ran to the car of course traffic was horrible. We got to school and ran to the classroom only to find the door locked and a note. Sorry we missed you, class field trip today. If you are late we are leaving from the pier at exactly 9:15. Hope to see you there.

Oh no. Masen looked up at me worried. "Come on buddy lets see if we can make it." I was already going to be late for work as it was but I couldn't disappoint Masen any more than he had been already. We had 20 minutes.

I drove as fast as I could without breaking too many laws. We pulled up to the dock and there were 4 boats. We parked and made a run for it. I couldn't tell which one it was.

"Wait" I heard someone yelling from behind us. I turned around to see an extremely handsome man running this way. No, handsome didn't do him justice. He was quite possibly the most gorgeous man I have ever seen. Then I noticed that Holly was with him.

Ah this is the ex-husband then. We all ran together getting to the boat just in time for it to pull away. "Great" I heard him say. The kids just stared after the boat, disappointment clear on their faces. We all just stood there for a minute.

"You must be Jessica's ex." I finally said. As we started to walk back to the parking lot. "Yeah, I am." He held out his hand to me. "Edward Cullen." I shook his hand. "Bella Swan" a look of recognition on his face. "Oh no" he pulled out a piece of paper from his wallet. "I am so sorry, I was suppose to call you, Jessica's mom cancelled on her and they dropped Holly off late last night. I didn't hear the alarm this morning, we were running late and I completely forgot. I really am sorry"

He did look sorry and I suppose it wasn't all his fault if Jessica dropped Holly off without much warning. I was about to tell him that it was okay and not entirely his fault when Holly said "Daddy I'm hungry."

Edward looked apologetic again. "We didn't have time for breakfast this morning" I reached in my purse and took out a muffin I had put in there earlier. "Here you go sweetie" I said as I handed it to her.

"Thanks, Bella." When I looked up again I noticed Lauren had just pulled up with her son. She was smiling at Edward. "Looks like we all missed it." She batted her eyelashes and twirled her hair around her finger. He was just staring at her. "I guess we did." He said. I wished I could have seen his face but his back was to me.

I don't know why that enraged me so much but it did. Was he interested in her? Or was he just being polite. Either way I was really late for work now and didn't have time to figure it out. "Come on Masen, we have to go." I opened the car door for him and walked around to my side.

"Bye Holly, nice meeting you Edward." He turned around to look at me and it looked like he was going to say something but I had already shut my door and had started the car.

"Where are we going now mommy?" Masen asked. "Looks like you're coming to work with me."