“You’re acting differently, though.”
He rubbed a trail over my knuckles. “It’s like I was saying, Alexandra, I don’t want to lose you and these past few weeks, it became a real possibility. I’ve been neglecting you and I’ve been acting even more uptight than usual. I wanted to show you that I can let loose too.”
I froze. “What do you mean by too?”
“You’ve been spending a lot of time with Gia,” he clarified. “I know it’s because she’s more interesting and fun. It made me jealous, so I wanted to show you that I can be fun too. Cut loose a little bit. Alexandra,” he squeezed my fingers, “I cannot lose you right now.”
I was officially lower than that last ladder rung. Was there anything lower than complete selfishness? Did my deceit know no bounds?
He touched my chin and brought my lips down to his. Nausea created a disturbance in the pits of my stomach, and I lost all of the will that I’d built to tell him about Ethan. It wouldn’t be right to drop that on him when he was so vulnerable, especially when I’d assumed that I couldn’t hurt him or that he’d never cared about me enough for my leaving him to have an effect. Now, I wasn’t as sure.
He touched my thigh. “Come on. Let’s go take a shower.”
“Together?” My heart began leaping in my chest. He had a look in his eyes that suggested that he’d be expecting sex, and I hadn’t touched him since the first time Ethan touched me. It was a crazy and absurd notion, but at this point, sleeping with Roderick would feel like cheating on Ethan. Sex with Roderick would be betrayal of epic proportions.
“Of course,” he replied, chuckling. “I’ll wash your back if you—”
His phone vibrated on the coffee table, cutting him off. He stared at the number, wrinkled his brows, and then glanced at me. He turned the phone towards me and I recognized the area code from Bristol, Maine, where his parents had retired. They’d bought a quaint, waterfront cape cod on Biscay Pond and spent three hundred days out of the year on the water.
“Hello?” he answered, his frown softening to concern. I listened to snatches of the conversation and from his deep, “what happened,” I could tell that something was wrong. Although extremely healthy people for their ages, a few years ago, Roderick’s father had occasional problems with his heart due to plaque buildup in his arteries.
“Okay Mom,” he said. “I’ll fly out tonight. Okay. I love you too.” He ended the call and gripped the phone in his palm. “I have to fly out to Bristol tonight, Buttercup.”
“Is everything okay?”
“Dad had a heart attack.”
My nausea swirled even faster as I imagined what would have happened if I’d dropped my bomb on Roderick earlier.
“Oh my God, I’m so sorry.” I wrapped my arm around his shoulders. “Do you want me to look up our tickets?”
He glanced up at me. “Our?”
“Yes…or do you not want me to come with you?”
“I just didn’t think you would.”
“Why not?”
He shrugged. “No reason, but it’s okay, Alexandra. My mother said that it was mild and that the hospital’s keeping him overnight for observation, so I want to go up there and be with her.”
I searched his face. “Are you sure?”
“I’m sure.” He pressed a quick kiss against my lips and patted my thigh.
“I’ll still book the ticket for you,” I said, sliding off his lap. “You go upstairs, take a shower, and pack.”
He started off but then stopped, turned, and looked at me. “Were you really going to come?”
“I still can.”
“It’s okay. Like I said, I just didn’t expect you to offer. Thank you, Buttercup.”
I smiled. “You’re welcome, Rick.”
“Keep your phone on, though. If things take a turn for the worse, I might still need to send for you.”
I nodded and he hopped up the stairs.
I booked him a first-class ticket and a couple of hours later, we were saying goodbye at the airport. The warmth and mirth from earlier hadn’t disappeared, and he hugged me so genuinely that I felt as though, while he was gone, he would miss me. I had absolutely no idea what was happening.
I crept back into the car and waited until he was out of sight before reaching for my phone to call Gia to tell her about Roderick’s sudden one-eighty. As I went to dial, Ethan called. My hand trembled as my finger extended to press the accept button. “Hey, E,” I greeted.
The person on the other line giggled. “Oh hi. This isn’t Ethan. It’s his friend, Tayler. I just used his phone to call you.”
I quickly recalled that Ethan had mentioned that he was having dinner with his two good friends, Tayler and Kellen, also physicians.
“Oh, hi,” I answered. “Is everything okay?”
“Well, I was wondering if you were busy.”
I paused. “Not really. What did Ethan do?”
She broke out in laughter. “I like you already. But, we had dinner and a couple of rounds at Chophouse, and he and Kellen got into some kind of drinking match. They’re both a bit wasted, but I can only handle one at a time. I’ve managed to get them back to Ethan’s place, but I need some help.”
I checked my mirror, thanked the car behind me, and pulled into the terminal’s exiting lane. “I’ll be there in a bit. Thanks for calling Tayler.”
“You’re welcome, Alexandra. I look forward to meeting you.”
I used the key that Ethan gave me shortly after our Colorado trip to open the front door, and found who I presumed to be Kellen lying on his side next to the coffee table in the living room. The woman kneeling over him had a beautiful head of wavy dreadlocks that hung down her back. When she turned to look at me, I was caught off-guard by how stunning she was. Her complexion, eye color, and the way her hair streamed around her face were a lethal combination.
“Hi Alexandra.” She walked over and gave me a tight squeeze. “I’m Tayler.”
“Oh hi,” I replied. “It’s finally nice to put a face to the name.”
She pointed to the man by the coffee table. “Same here. By the way, that lump on the floor is Kellen. One-half of the hazardous duo.”
An attractive, yet flushed face looked up at me. His hazel eyes looked nearly lime green due to his drunken state, along with the last bit of evening light filtering through the picture windows that opened to the backyard.
“Ah, I remember you,” I said with a slight laugh.
“And I remember you,” he mimicked, pointing. “You broke my heart…‘cause I couldn’t dance —”
“Who needs kids when you have these two?” Taylor asked, shaking her head and covering her face.
I pointed between her and Kellen. “Are you two…?”
“Oh no.” She frantically shook her head to cement her point. “I see him more as a little brother even though we’re only a couple of months apart.”
“Oh, okay. So, where’s my little one?”
She caught her locs in a ponytail and her eyes roamed over Kellen on the floor in a motherly fashion. “Ethan’s upstairs. I actually got him to go up there because I promised him that you were coming. He’s pretty vulnerable so if you have any personal questions, I’d ask them now.”
I laughed. “Got it.”
I rushed up the stairs and found Ethan lying on the bed face down with his hands extended over his head. His bedroom was masculine with dark colors, floor to ceiling window dressings, a seating area beneath the window, a king-sized bed, and a padded leather headboard. It had taken me a while to notice any of the furnishings as each time we’d ended up in the room, we’d been completely preoccupied with each other.
I set my things down, climbed onto the bed next to him, and he rolled onto his back when he felt my impression.
“Hey you,” I greeted, kissing his temple.
“I don’t know what made me think that I could do that many shots,” he groaned. “I’m never drinking again.”
“You’ll drink again
, baby,” I assured. “Trust me.”
“Nope.” He made a twisting key motion over his lips. “Never. Never again.” He then tossed away his imaginary key.
I stifled a laugh. “Okay. Let me help you get out of your clothes.”
I stripped him, bit back the urge to kiss every ridge and valley outlining his abs, helped him into a pair of shorts and black tee, and then pressed my back against the headboard. I pulled his head into my lap and kissed his forehead while playing in his hair. I’d learned in Colorado that it was a foolproof way to set him to sleep.
“I missed you, baby,” he said, eyes closed. “Today, when I was at the restaurant, I missed you.”
“I missed you too, sweetie,” I replied.
“I told my friends about you.”
“Did you, now?”
“Yep.”
“And what did you tell them about me?”
“That you’re beautiful. And amazing. And awesome.”
I chuckled. “Wow? All of that?”
“And that I’m in love with you.”
Dynamite had nothing on the explosion that blasted in my chest. I was pretty sure that pieces of my heart were now stuck to my rib cage. “Come again?”
“I’m in love with you, Alle,” he repeated. “I love you to Neptune. I would say the moon, but Neptune’s further and Pluto got jacked of its planetary status, which is pretty fucked up if you ask me.”
I laughed and pressed kisses all over his handsome, intoxicated face. But, as I tried for the words to respond to his declaration, they never came. Literally, as I opened my mouth to say “I love you too”…because I, in fact, did love him, my throat seized like I was having an allergic reaction to my own feelings. How could I tell him that I loved him if I didn’t even have the courage to leave Roderick?
“I want to have your babies,” he went on.
“We can talk about that in the morning,” I replied, clearing my throat and thankful he was too far gone to catch my faux pas. “How about you get some sleep?”
“Will you still be here in the morning?”
“I’ll be here. Always. Go to sleep.”
That seemed to satisfy him, and he quieted while I continued to stroke his hair until he fell asleep.
-----
Roderick Q. Hamilton
The person that James had contacted to follow Alexandra had actually been a retired private investigator that owed the older man a favor. Although the investigator never gave me his name, I’d dubbed him “Stubbs” due to his short stature and overall puffiness. His complexion was extremely pale, even more so when you added in his white hair, and he wasn’t dressed in the traditional khaki trench coat with a pipe and detective hat like I’d been expecting. Instead, he wore a washed out baseball T-shirt and faded jeans that had hit their peak in the nineties.
“What have you got for me today on the Ethan and Alexandra story?” I asked, running frustrated fingers through my hair. On top of my campaign, I now had to deal with my girlfriend’s infidelity. It was the very last thing that I would have expected to see coming.
He pulled up the file on his tablet and swiped through dozens of pictures of Alexandra with Dr. Stewart holding hands, gazing into each other’s eyes, kissing, leaning towards each other in deep conversation, and many more. They’d even had the nerve to look extremely happy when they were together. She looked at him in a way that she’d never looked at me, not even when we’d first met.
“Have you found out if they’re sleeping together?” I forced out.
“I haven’t been able to get inside the house,” he answered. “But, I suspect that they are.”
“And why’s that?”
“Their level of intimacy. It just speaks to them sleeping together. But if they have, I can assure you that it hasn’t been in the house you two share.”
That reassurance offered no relief. Although Alexandra and I didn’t have what one would call an “active” sex life, for us to have gone this long without it meant that she had to be sleeping with him and that she’d been enjoying it.
I was not the one for lewd sex. At least, not with my future wife. Wives were there for companionship, to be the mothers of our children, to ensure the succession of our lineage, and to have at our sides when out in public. A bachelor represented an immature man that could not be trusted to commit; marriage dispelled that image. Though I’d never stepped outside of our relationship, mistresses were those deemed for enjoyment. A silent partner of sorts. So, with Alexandra, it was always going to be missionary, chaste, and quick until we got married and I stepped into the world of extramarital sex. That was just how it worked. Even Alexandra’s own father had reinforced that notion. My relationship with her had nothing to do with love.
But it would make no sense for her to step outside of our relationship for sex if this man was giving her more of the same. Whatever he was offering, she was lapping up like a thirsty dog.
I glanced up at the monitor displaying the departing flights, none of which I would be on. I’d led Alexandra to believe that I was going out of town merely to see how it would escalate her relationship with Dr. Stewart and eventually lead to a major slip-up. My father was fine; my mother’s message had simply been to tell me that a great uncle of mine, one that I had no particular attachment to, was on his death bed. I’d assumed that Alexandra would have jumped at the chance to have me leave, but instead, she’d offered to come. Looking at the pictures and the way she eyed Dr. Stewart, it made no sense why she would still offer to be by my side. On the other hand, it also meant that I hadn’t yet lost to the doctor.
“Does her father know?” I asked.
“I haven’t reported it back to him yet.”
“Hold off on that,” I requested.
“Do you want me to keep following her?”
“Yes.” I nodded to confirm. “This man, as low as his actions might be, is still very pivotal to the success of the juvenile diabetes fundraiser that’s coming up in a few weeks. I don’t want to do anything to jeopardize that opportunity.”
Stubbs cocked his head to the side. “Really? You’d sacrifice your relationship for the sake of your career?”
I stilled. “Do you really think she could leave me for him?”
“Well, from what I’ve seen, this is a woman enamored. It’s very possible.”
I shook my head. There was no way that Alexandra would even consider leaving me for a man like this. Dr. Stewart, in his own right, deserved credit for the ability to pull himself up by his bootstraps to get to his level of success. As a man, I could respect him for that. However, he and Alexandra were from two completely different societal backgrounds. They were grossly mismatched and unsuited for each other. The fact that this affair even began in the first place felt unusual and out of place.
“I need you to do something for me,” I said, taking another glance at the flight monitor. “I need you to find out how this started.”
“And how do you expect me to do that?” he asked.
“I don’t know. Use your skills. Look, here’s what I can tell you. Alexandra had the utmost perfect behavior up until the days leading up to Christmas Eve. The night before the Christmas Eve banquet was the first time I’d called her and couldn’t reach her, and she’d had her sister call me back. Do you think that you could start there to find out how this happened?”
“What you’re asking me is next to impossible,” Stubbs replied.
“I’ll increase your retainer.”
“I can’t make any promises.”
“I’m not asking you to. Just look into it and see what you can find. My gut is telling me that there’s a story here. You’ve done all this already. I’m pretty sure you can find it.”
He sighed. His pale cheeks tinted by rosacea reminded me of a cherub.
“I’ll see what I can do.”
“Thank you.” I shook his hand. “Call me if anything pops up.”
He agreed and I walked off, a mixture of anger, confusion, and even jea
lousy powering each step. There was no way that I was going to allow Alexandra to leave me, and I didn’t care what the circumstances were between her and the doctor. I hadn’t wasted two years vetting her to be my wife to lose her to some pompous asshole just because he’d been able to navigate his way around her clitoris. If sweet and considerate was what she wanted, then that was what she was going to keep getting. There was no way that I was going to allow Ethan Stewart to commandeer what I’d taken two years to cultivate.
Chapter Nine
* * *
Ethan
I wasn’t as hungover as I’d assumed that I would be, which was perfect because when my eyes opened, Alexandra was in bed next to me. The sunlight was hitting her skin in just the right way and she was sleeping peacefully. Comfortably. In my bed.
I spooned her into my body and kissed the back of her head. Then, I pressed a kiss behind her ear. I was being powered by a faint recollection of a conversation that we’d had the night before. If my memory served me correctly, the woman now tucked into my body had said that she would always be there for me, which could only mean that she was finally mine, and mine alone. Now, her love for me was the only missing piece of the puzzle.
I ran my hands up her shirt and over her back, then moved lower and kissed the sensitive spot on her neck. She moaned and rubbed her legs together, which she always did whenever she was beginning to get aroused. I’d even started calling it “the cricket.”
“No, babe, you have a hangover,” she said, although she arched her neck to give me better access.
“I really don’t.” I kissed the spot again and slid my hand around to the front of her body. I vaguely remembered her in a pair of jeans, but now she was wearing one of my t-shirts with only a pair of panties underneath. No bra. A woman in her man’s t-shirt was more of a turn-on than some of the raunchiest lingerie.
“Besides, you want me,” I teased. “You’re doing the cricket.”
She laughed and I flitted my fingers over her nipple while placing another series of kisses against her neck.
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