by Vivian Wood
Cam knew better in his heart of hearts, but the stubborn asshole inside him thought that a little whiskey sounded just about right. So he followed Cam, ignoring Luke and Gavin’s head shaking, and found a spot at the busy bar. In a couple of minutes, a pretty brunette was pouring them shots.
“Another!” Wyatt said after the first. And the second, and the third. When he went to call for a fourth, Cam shook his head.
“I’m not getting shitfaced. Ma will kill me,” Cam said. “Continue at your own risk, brother.”
“All right. Let’s talk, then. What are you going to do about your girl?” Wyatt asked, giving Alex a salacious glance.
“Quit looking at her like that. And I don’t know what I did in the first place, so I’m not going to do anything,” Cam groused.
“There’s only one classic move in this scenario. If woman’s being stubborn, there’s one surefire way to make her change her tune,” Wyatt said, ordering them a round of beers.
“I’m listening,” Cam said. He wasn’t, really. He was thinking of how the whiskey was warming his stomach and softening his brain at the same time, making him feel really loosey-goosey. His brain tripped over that phrase a couple of times, and he smiled to himself.
“Make her jealous, obviously,” Wyatt told him. He shoved an elbow in Cam’s side, making Cam wince. “Hey, pay attention, dummy. You gotta flirt with another girl, show Anna—”
“Alex,” Cam corrected.
“Whatever. Show her that you have a higher value than she does by attracting and flirting with a lot of hot bitches. Then she’ll get jealous and come running back to you. It’s science,” Wyatt stated.
Cam squinted at his brother.
“What the hell are you talking about? Where did you get that idea?” he asked.
“I read it online somewhere,” Wyatt said, cutting his gaze away.
“And you say it will make Alex be nice to me?” Cam wondered aloud. In his sloshy, bourbon-fueled brain, he could see it. A little harmless flirting, and then when Alex got jealous, he’d be able to talk some sense into her.
“Yep,” Wyatt affirmed.
“I have to wait until the whiskey wears off,” Cam sighed.
“Nah. Better if you don’t,” Wyatt said. He reached out and grabbed a passing blonde, giving her an alluring smile. “What’s your last name, sweetheart?”
“Uh… Kirk?” the girl gulped, giving Wyatt big, chocolate-colored eyes.
“Are you related to the Berans?” Wyatt pressed on.
“No, I’m here as Jace Tripp’s date,” she said.
“Great,” Wyatt said, shoving the girl into Cam’s arms. “Meet my brother Cameron. He’s super single.”
“Umf,” Cam managed.
“H-hi,” the girl said, giving Cam an uncertain smile. “I’m Melody.”
“Another round, bartender!” Wyatt called. “Make it three this time! Or maybe four?”
Wyatt inclined his head, prompting Cam to swivel in his seat. He frowned as he disentangled himself from the girl, whose name he’d already half forgotten. Only then did he look up, like a deer in headlights, and find Alex standing in front of him, arms crossed. Her expression was nothing short of murderous.
“This is how you show me your loyalty, is it?” she demanded, giving the pouty blonde at Cam’s side a pointed glance.
“What?” Cam feigned surprise. “We’re just partners entering a business relationship. Got a contract and everything, right?”
Alex blinked, some of her anger bleeding away.
“Is that what this is about?” she asked, cocking her head to the side.
“It’s not about anything. You’re the one who gave me leeway, with discretion of course,” Cam said. He could feel the smirk on his lips, but he couldn’t seem to stop it from happening, or to rein in his tongue.
“What’s this about discretion and contracts?” Wyatt asked, butting in. Cam gave him a brief glare, but Wyatt wasn’t one to take a hint. He reveled in chaos, lived for it.
“Nothing to do with you,” Alex snapped, scowling at Wyatt. She’d sized Cam’s brother up in a heartbeat, and Cam could tell she didn’t approve of Wyatt’s sleazy bad-boy swagger.
“You know, guys,” Wyatt said, throwing an arm around Cameron and the blonde trapped between them, angling his body purposely to exclude Alex. “I have a bottle of something special in the car. Let’s get out of here. Feels a little crowded, doesn’t it?”
“Is it vodka? I like vodka” the blonde girl said, seeming clueless as to the drama unfolding around her. When Wyatt gave her a disgusted glance, she shrugged and shut up.
Cam looked at Alex, then at Wyatt. Part of him wanted to pull Alex aside, talk to her about what he wanted. Part of him wanted to push her a little further, make her see that he was a catch, that she should be glad for his attentions. In the end, Cam let Wyatt pull him toward the parking lot, giving Alex a helpless shrug.
“You can come too, you know,” Cam told Alex. Her responding frown did nothing to lighten his heart, but he wasn’t going to back down. Backing down wasn’t a trait the Beran men had in them; Alex would figure that out soon enough.
So he left Alex there, her eyes burning holes in the back of his shirt as he followed Wyatt and their new blonde companion toward Wyatt’s car.
80
Ten
It only took fifteen minutes for Cam to realize that he was in real trouble. Wyatt had ushered Cam and the blonde into the front seat of his black SUV.
“No, no. You guys take the front, I like to stretch out,” Wyatt said when Cam protested. Cam shook his head, figuring that at least there was a little separation between the driver and passenger seats, but Wyatt ruined that immediately. His brother reached between the front seats and flipped over the center console, turning the front into a padded bench seat.
Cam’s stomach dropped even more a few seconds later.
“Well, damn if I didn’t leave my best bottle in the house,” Wyatt told them, shaking his head. “I’m gonna go grab it. Don’t leave, okay?”
And then Wyatt vanished, leaving Cam and the girl in the car together in silence.
“What’s your name again?” he asked her.
“Melody,” she said, giving him big, flirtatious eyes.
“I wish he’d left the keys so we could listen to some music,” Cam said, leaning forward to peer out the windshield. He couldn’t decide now if he wanted Alex to see him, or wanted her nowhere near the car. He wasn’t doing anything, of course, but it seemed like Alex was a little dramatic and tended to jump to conclusions where he was concerned.
“So which Beran are you?” Melody asked, scooting a little closer on the bench. “You boys all look alike to me. All handsome, of course.”
Melody walked two fingers across the seat until she reached his denim-clad thigh, then she used her fingertip to trace circles over his kneecap, then higher, higher… Her flirting was so obvious and over-the-top that at first Cam laughed, thinking she was joking. After she spread her hand out over his bulge, Cam quickly reconsidered.
“Hey, now…” he said.
“Melody. You’re gonna remember my name, cowboy,” she told him with a wicked grin.
In a flash, Melody made her move. She shoved herself into Cam’s lap, her ass brushing the steering wheel as her tits pressed into his face.
“Wait, wait—” he said, bringing his hands up to push her away.
Melody wasn’t interested in waiting, it seemed. She captured Cam’s hands with her own, lacing their fingers tightly. Then she leaned down as if to kiss him. This close, Cameron could smell the liquor on her breath. She hadn’t seemed that drunk before, but now he realized that she was barely in control of her actions. She shifted, trying to get the right angle, and her ass hit the steering wheel. The car’s horn blared, startling them, making Melody giggle.
Cam jerked his head to the left, avoiding her seeking lips, and found Alex only inches away. Alex stared at him through the thin glass of the car’s window, he
r mouth agape, arms hanging limp at her side. Gone was her anger, her fighting spirit. Cam watched in horror, pushing the blonde off his lap, but it was too late.
Alex’s eyes glistened, twin tears breaking free and tracking down her face, ruining the dark perfection of her makeup.
“Alex!” Cam said, fumbling to unlock the car door. He only looked down for a second, but when he looked back up, she was running full-speed across the parking lot.
“Shit, shit,” he said as he slid out of the car.
He followed her, bumping past numerous party guests in his hurry to catch up. He passed his parents, both giving him dark looks, but he just kept going. It wasn’t until he reached the door of his bedroom that he finally caught up to her. He stopped in the doorway, unsure what to say as she shoved a few items into her suitcase and slammed it closed.
When she turned, dashing tears from her cheeks, her hurt and fury was evident.
“Alex, wait. Let me explain,” Cam said, stepping forward and reaching out for her.
Alex snatched her wrist from his grasp.
“No explanation needed. This isn’t going work. I should have realized it earlier,” she said, turning and grabbing her suitcase.
“I was just trying to show you—” he tried.
“You showed me plenty, Cameron. Leave me alone,” she said. When Cam moved toward her, she growled at him. “I mean it. I’m taking the rental car back to the airport.”
“Let me come with you,” Cam suggested.
Alex laughed in his face.
“No way. Now get out of my way,” she snarled. She grabbed her purse off the bed and hauled her suitcase along, shoving Cam aside. She stormed out of the house, leaving Cam to follow her, unsure what to say.
“Stop right there, mister.” His mother appeared at the front door, barring him from leaving.
“Ma, I have to go,” he insisted.
“You’re not going anywhere. I saw the last bit of that scene you two played out. In front of all my guests, I might add. You’re lucky you’re too old to be grounded and too big for your father to whoop you.”
Cam took one look at his mother’s set jaw and let her pull him into the living room without so much as a last glance at Alex’s retreating form.
“I should catch her before she leaves,” Cam said, but his heart wasn’t in it. His mother gave him a sharp glance, her words echoing Cam’s thoughts exactly.
“That woman doesn’t want to be followed. If you have any sense, you’ll wait for her to cool off. And when you apologize, you’d better do it on your knees, with flowers and jewelery. Now sit your butt down while I go get you a glass of water. I can smell the whiskey on you from here,” Ma scolded.
Cam slumped onto the couch, burying his face in his hands. His head spun, his chest ached, his stomach rolled. But worse than all that was the heavy knowledge that settled in his heart. He’d screwed things up royally with Alex, and there was every chance that she might not be willing to listen to any apologies he might make.
Ever since Alexandra Hansard had stepped into that restaurant, Cam had lost all sense of right, wrong, up, and down. His perfectly starched, tightly controlled existence, all his planning and waiting for the perfect mate and life and home… It all might be a dead end because of one incredibly stupid action.
Cam moaned to himself, knowing that might have just made the biggest mistake of his life.
81
Eleven
Alex stood barefoot in her apartment’s tiny white-tiled bathroom, staring at the sink. The sink’s drain was an old-fashioned design, shaped like a haphazard smiley face, something she’d always found sort of adorable. At the moment, however, the bleary smiley face seemed to mock her.
Alex wasn’t much for self-pity, but just this second she wasn’t sure how she was ever going to be happy again. It wasn’t her breakup with Cam that was the issue, if you could even call the end of their month-long relationship a breakup. No, it was the result of her own stubbornness and thoughtlessness that would be her downfall.
Alex sat on the side of the bathtub with a heavy sigh, dropping her head in her hands. This had truly been the week from hell, worse than anything she’d experienced in the wilderness of her 20s. The month since she’d called things off with Cam had been nothing but trouble and worry, problems atop problems until she thought she would scream.
First she’d gotten a call from her landlord, politely informing her that the building she lived in had been sold. Forget her cushy rent-controlled situation; the new owners were going to renovate and turn the building into pricey condos, and there was no room for Alex or her neighbors in the equation. She had thirty days to vacate, and that was that.
Next Alex had made a major mistake at work, let a big client slip through the cracks, and it looked like she was going to lose half a fortune. Her business partners and the couple of people she employed were all horrified with her, seemingly baffled by the fact that she’d made such a career-killing error.
In between all her other life dramas, Cam kept popping up. He called. He sent flowers to her house, her office. He was incredibly persistent for the first two weeks after their blow-out fight, but Alex was just too busy to deal with him. She had other things to worry about and iron out before she could make any decisions about Cam. Part of her, the part he’d managed to wound surprisingly deeply, thought that maybe it would be best if she just let things between them dry up, blow away with the wind.
Eventually, he stopped calling. Alex hadn’t heard from him in a week and a half. That answered that, at least.
On top of all that, Alex could hardly get any work done because of the serious case of the flu she’d picked up on her plane ride home. Or at least she’d thought it was the flu. She was exhausted and run down, generally feeling like crap. And then she’d been unable to keep food down for four days straight.
Alex had gone to the pharmacy, intending to get some ginger tea and some personal items. She saw a tall, dark haired guy from the back and froze, thinking it was Cameron. He turned, and of course it wasn’t him. Why would he be in her slummy neighborhood, after all?
Still, seeing the guy made her realize that she was still single. She needed to get herself out there again, try to meet some compatible Berserkers. Her life wasn’t over just because of one little breakup, after all. So Alex squared her shoulders and headed over to find a box of condoms.
There, beside the condoms and lubes and other sex necessities, Alex spotted row after row of home pregnancy tests. Shiny, happy-looking boxes all waiting for hopeful mothers-to-be, some even showing pictures of happy couples hugging.
And that’s when Alex knew. She knew, without a shadow of a doubt, with sudden and painful clarity, that she didn’t need condoms at all. Wouldn’t, not for almost a year. Her hand flew to her mouth and she gagged, tears forming in her eyes.
You always wanted a family of your own, didn’t you, she thought.
And now that was coming true… just not in the way she’d ever expected or wanted.
Alex grabbed half a dozen pregnancy tests, adding a box of condoms as an afterthought, a sad joke. Then she threw a bunch of other random items, hair products and soda and saltines and light bulbs. Covering her tracks, in a weird way. The dorky teenage boy at the checkout counter couldn’t have cared less about her purchases. He was too busy staring at Alex’s chest the whole time to even notice her oddball collection of items.
That’s how Alex had ended up in her bathroom, all six pregnancy tests done at once. They sat on the sides of the sink in two neat rows. Every single one positive, every single one glaring at her, reminding her just how fucked she was right now.
“No apartment, maybe no job in a few months. And now this,” she muttered into her hands. “Can’t even have a glass of wine to take the edge off.”
She shifted and sighed, getting to her feet. Sweeping all the tests into the trash, she ambled to the living room, trying desperately to think of what she needed to do. Her currently lifestyle,
snatching meals between long days at work, her only male companionship the occasional hookup here and there, no regular schedule to stick to…
She had no roots, nothing holding her down. How could she possibly bring a baby into that kind of life? What kind of mother would that make her?
Sitting on her couch, Alex decided that she’d give herself one good, long cry before she kicked into planning mode. A sob escaped her lips and she let it come, let herself mourn the end of her life as she’d always known it.
82
Twelve
“Okay. Get out of bed,” came a familiar voice.
Alex nearly jumped out of her skin, ripping the comforter off her face and scrambling to sit up in bed.
“Gregor!” she gasped, surprised to find her impeccably-dressed brother leaning against the doorway of her bedroom, arms crossed.
“And me!” Bette said, peeking out from behind him.
“How did you get into my apartment?” Alex asked, suddenly conscious of the fact that she hadn’t showered in two days and wore nothing but an oversized t-shirt.
“We told the super that you might have hanged yourself. He was more than happy to hand over the keys. Guess he’s squeamish,” Gregor said, cocking his head and giving her an assessing glance. “Now I see that my little lie was closer to the truth than I realized.”
“I’m not going to commit suicide,” Alex grumbled.
“I heard about what happened at the Berans’ party. Are you really hiding in here because of one little tiff with Cameron Beran?” Gregor challenged.
“No. Maybe.” Alex sighed. “I don’t know. It’s been a bad week.”
Alex heard a strangled-sounding cry from the hallway.
“Alex, what the hell!” Bette shouted, pushing her way into the bedroom. “I went to pee, and there are like a hundred pregnancy tests in your trash.”
Gregor made a startled gurgle, and Alex just wanted to pull the comforter back over her head, go back to sleep, and never get up again.
