Chapter 110: Chapter 110

Chapter 110 Shock

At eight o'clock the next day, the early morning sun shone through the beige curtains and woke Bella from a restful sleep. She opened her eyes and noticed that Edward's side of the bed had not been occupied. 'Edward hasn't come to bed all night? Maybe he fell asleep on the couch?' Bella wondered. She perked up her ears to listen to the slightest noise he might make but the whole house was silent. She guessed that Edward might not be up yet.

Bella jumped out of bed and went to the closet. She picked out a gray T-shirt and skinny jeans and opted for a pair of white sneakers instead of heels. She had a date with Jenny to go to the mall to buy gifts for Edward's aunt, so she deliberately chose to dress in comfortable casual clothes. She had originally thought to buy the gifts in London but was unsure if she would have the time to shop there. Maybe the branch would have a lot of work for her to handle. As a precaution, she decided to buy the gifts here in Los Angeles itself.

She went to the bathroom to wash up and put on light makeup. She applied a thin layer of foundation, briefly filled her eyebrows with an eyebrow pencil and finished off the look with a layer of light pink lip gloss. The final result was very pleasing to the eye; a very natural, very light makeup look enhancing her soft features.

She went downstairs and decide to wake Edward up to ask him about possible gifts for his aunt. As she passed by the cloakroom, it suddenly occurred to her that she had forgotten to pack her bags the previous night.

'Oh my God! How could I forget such a thing! I'm going to be so late!' she was annoyed at herself for having forgotten. She dashed to the cloakroom, afraid that she might be running late. She glanced at her wristwatch; she and Jenny had agreed to meet at 10:00. It would take her forty minutes to drive to the shopping mall. But it was 8:30 right now. She let out a big sigh of relief, happy that she had plenty of time ahead of her and it was useless to stress out.

She opened the door to the cloakroom and jumped in fright when she saw Edward squatting on the ground, wiping Bella's boots, with an open suitcase beside him.

"Oh, Edward! I didn't expect you to be here, I thought you were still sleeping!" Bella said with a surprised look, a hand on her chest as if to calm her racing heart.

"You're already up? I thought you were still sleeping," Edward said while placing the boots in a shoebox before putting them in the suitcase. "You should rest a little longer. You're leaving soon and won't be in London until tomorrow night. Believe me when I say this, you're going to be exhausted from the long journey ahead of you. Also, I'm packing your boots because it's cooler in London this time of year, not to mention there's a lot of rain there. Don't worry, I've got you covered. I've prepared two pairs of boots and a few trench coats for you. Sounds good?"

"Yeah! Oh, thank you so much, honey!" Bella's heart was filled with warmth. She was moved to tears by his kind gesture. Trying to hold back the tears, she flashed Edward a warm smile.

"Bella, that's what I'm supposed to do as your husband, am I not?" Edward looked up, his gentle gray-blue eyes looking deep into her eyes but his expression suddenly changed. He peered at her and asked suspiciously, "You've got makeup on, are you heading out right now?"

Bella was about to open her mouth to tell him about her plans when she suddenly remembered Edward's inexplicable bout of anger the previous night. Worried that he might not like the idea of her going out with Jenny, she proceeded to tell a white lie. "No, I'm not going out. I didn't sleep well last night. You see, I woke up this morning looking very pale, so I put on a little makeup to make my face look livelier and healthier. Because I don't want to give the appearance of being sick!" she said with a nervous chuckle.

Edward's expression softened and he breathed a sigh of relief, "Okay, don't go out alone today. I have to head out too as I have some urgent things to deal with today but I will try to come back early to take you to the airport." He stuffed all the folded clothes into the suitcase, and after closing it shut, he glanced at his watch, "It's done. Oh, shoot! It looks like I'm already running late, I have to head out immediately! Sorry darling, I can't have breakfast with you today."

"Oh, no, that's totally fine," Bella leaned against the door frame and smiled at him.

Taking Edward's hand, she walked him to the door, and before parting ways, she placed a kiss on his lips. After watching Edward's car drive away from her sight, Bella walked to the open space behind the house and got into the car.

"Honey, I'm on my way to the mall, I'll be there in about forty minutes. Meet me at the Starbucks gate. Love you," she sent Jenny a text.

"Great. I'm on my way right now. See you soon!" was Jenny's reply.

Bella started the car and drove to the city center. It took her a little over half an hour to arrive at the Starbucks in the city center. She parked the car on the side of the road and got out. Jenny hadn't arrived yet. Bella went into the coffee shop and placed an order, "One black coffee, one latte to go, please. Thank you."

"Got it." Five minutes later, the cashier handed her the order with a big smile, "There you go. Enjoy!"

"Thank you!" Bella left the coffee shop with two steaming cups of fragrant coffee and sat in the car while waiting for Jenny. As she sat in the car, waiting, someone caught her attention. It was a jogger dressed in an athletic attire, a black cap on his head which concealed his eyes and a pair of big headphones covering his ears. His appearance was nothing out of the ordinary but what Bella thought was strange was his running route. This was the place with the most traffic in the entire commercial street. The average jogger would choose a less dense area instead of here. But even more puzzling was that in just five minutes, the man had already passed Bella's car eight times.

'That man looks suspicious. He doesn't look like he's jogging for the sake of doing exercise. He looks more like a fly circling constantly around a piece of food,' she muttered inwardly.

The man was running down the street to the right of Bella's car at this time, and she was staring out the window, her eyes fixed on him to see how far he would turn. 50 meters away, a group of teenagers walked in Bella's direction, thus blocking her view, and the man vanished into the crowd. Bella was a little disappointed, but the next moment, the window on the other side of the car was smashed. The sudden movement temporarily paralyzed Bella with fear and her heart almost jumped out of her chest.

"Who the fuck is this?!" she cursed.