Cancel?
He frowned. Have I been stood up?
For dinner with Omar Freed. His frown deepened.
The politician was canvassing for donations and support for his senate campaign, but when both he and Alessandra met him last week at a fund-raiser it was clear his interest in her was personal. He envisioned her sitting across from the tall, handsome man with a smile in her eyes that he thought only he could give her.
His expression darkened and his entire body felt angry with hurt and disappointment that she had so easily forgotten their plans. Needing air, even if it was frigid, he stepped out of the sunroom and onto the spacious terrace running down the entire length of his apartment. He looked out at the industrial-age architecture, converted warehouses and cobblestoned streets that gave the trendy neighborhood its character and charm. As the cold night air whipped around him, he looked over the low-rise buildings at the waterfront of the Hudson River.
Usually the view gave him peace. It was the reason he’d purchased the apartment, but now the sight offered him no respite at all.
With his supple lips still turned downward, he walked back inside, passing the elevator as he strode across the space and down the stairs. “Huntsman,” he called out.
His manservant came down the short hall leading from the eat-in chef’s kitchen wiping his hands on a cloth. “Sir,” he said, wearing a black apron over his signature black shirt and pants.
“You can serve dinner,” he said, taking a seat at the dining room table flanked by a black slate focal fireplace wall that was lit, adding warmth and ambience to the room.
“Alone?” Huntsman asked.
“Yes,” he stressed. “Unless a man can no longer have dinner at his table like a civilized human being, Huntsman.”
Huntsman removed one of the place settings and used a matte black candle snuffer to put out the lit candles. “When dinner for two was planned?”
Alek stared at him when he saw humor in his eyes. “On second thought I’m not hungry,” he said, tossing his black cotton napkin atop the table as he slumped down in the chair.
He wiped his bearded chin with his hand as he looked across the table into the fireplace. His stomach was lit with a flame that even it couldn’t match. Jealousy had a way of burning the gut of the man it plagued.
Alek couldn’t remember the last time a woman brought out the “green-eyed monster” in him. He could barely think straight.
I love her. I love Alessandra.
He swore, sitting up to press his elbows into the wood as he rubbed his hands together before placing them against his face.
This wasn’t how things were supposed to go. Love was a complication he never expected, but as he sat there envisioning tossing whatever dinner Omar had ordered at him, Alek knew he had to face the truth. What did he do with his love when Alessandra made it clear that she wanted nothing more than sex?
Maybe she’s moving on to Omar?
He shook his head. He didn’t believe that. That was irrational.
Alessandra cared for him. That he knew. But love? That he didn’t believe at all.
She was as driven about her career as he was and had never expressed a desire for love and family—things he always wanted in a wife. Things he was not willing to compromise on.
What do I do now?
He had played with fire and now he was getting burned.
Three days later
It was her first weekend alone in months.
When she got to Passion Grove last night she had thought Alek was there waiting on her and when that didn’t happen, she waited up all night thinking he would make an appearance eventually. It took several glasses of wine to relax herself enough to fall asleep on the sofa while the television watched her.
Somewhere in the middle of the night she had awakened with a start, drool dried on her chin as she looked around at the darkness and it set in that Alek had never arrived. She picked up her iPhone to call him, but decided against it.
She had no right to question him or expect anything from him.
The next morning, she was lounging on her window seat swiping through news articles on her iPad when she spotted a photo of Alek and his date at a charity event from the night before. “What the what,” she exclaimed softly, her heart pounding and her gut clenched as she enlarged the picture.
Her eyes missed not one detail.
The smile on his handsome face. His hand on her hip. Her beauty. How good they looked together.
Is she the reason he didn’t come to Passion Grove?
An image of their bodies coupled in passion flashed and she shook her head as she pressed her eyes closed. She seethed with jealousy at the thought of Alek sharing his body with another woman. She knew she had no right. The rules had been clear. No strings. Just sex.
At the idea of Alek loving another woman, tears filled her eyes and a sadness swelled deep in her soul. She shifted the photo and zoomed in on his face. He really is handsome.
Her emotions were all over the place and she felt so confused by it all.
What’s wrong with me?
She sat the tablet down beside her and pulled her knees to her chest, setting her chin in the groove between them. Memories of the lovemaking in the shower just last weekend stuck uppermost in her mind. The passion and emotion had been on overload. Far more than they should have been for a fling.
You deserve love, my beautiful niece.
Is that what this is? she wondered as a tear raced down her cheek. Have I fallen for Alek Ansah?
The kind of love your parents had for each other.
She snorted in derision. It definitely wasn’t that. Her father had adored her mother and even after her death he never remarried or had another committed relationship.
I want that for you. A lifetime without love—real love—is not easy.
But it wasn’t safe and the idea of loving Alek scared her more than anything.
Tap-tap.
Alessandra jumped in surprise at her aunt Leonora standing at the window in a chinchilla fur coat with matching hat. She sat her tablet down and rushed over to open the door. “Aunt Leonora, what are you doing out there?” she asked, grabbing her arm and pulling her inside before she closed the door and blocked the November chill.
“I’ve been watching you moping in this window seat all morning,” she said, removing her coat and hat to reveal she wore hot-pink satin pajamas.
Alessandra glanced at the seat and her eyes fell on the tablet. Pain radiated across her chest.
“No houseguest this weekend?” Aunt Leonora asked lightly.
Alessandra shook her head.
Leonora wrapped her arms around her and Alessandra was grateful to be held tightly.
“It’s over,” she decided, biting her bottom lip as tears welled in her eyes, because she knew it was time to end her physical relationship with Alek before she set herself up for even bigger heartache.
Chapter 10
Two weeks later
As Alessandra rode up in the elevator to LuLu’s apartment on the Upper East Side, she pulled her compact from her clutch and checked her makeup. She had called in her glam squad. Shiva had delivered an off-the-shoulder brocade fit-and-flare dress by B Michael. Her hairstylist had pulled her hair back in a sleek ponytail that highlighted her diamond chandelier earrings, and her makeup artists had hopefully camouflaged the darkness and puffiness under her eyes from the tears she cried at night.
For the last two weeks Alek had been traveling overseas, personally checking up on some of their subsidiaries, and outside of business they rarely spoke. She’d put up her guard to protect her heart, but it was still broken. The time had long since passed for her to avoid loving Alek.
The elevator doors opened and she was stepping inside the foyer to LuLu’s vibrant and colorful apartment filled with tastef
ully dressed people there for the surprise birthday party she was throwing Alek. As she handed her topper to the uniformed butler and picked up a flute of champagne from those on the table in the foyer, she wondered if she’d made the right choice to attend.
Alessandra greeted those she knew with a cheerful grin and press of her lips to their cheeks, recognizing ADG executives and board members in the mix. She spotted LuLu across the room and made her way toward her. She was hard to miss in a towering head wrap and flowing bejeweled caftan.
“You came, and look how beautiful you look, Alessandra,” LuLu said with a stunning red-lipped smile.
They shared a warm hug.
“I didn’t bring a gift,” Alessandra said. “What do you get the man who has everything?”
LuLu waved her hand dismissively. “He won’t mind. Let me tell you a little something about my sweet eldest son,” she said, wrapping her arm around Alessandra’s as they moved through the mingling crowd with ease. “Every year on his birthday he buys me a gift to thank me for bringing him into the world.”
Alessandra took a sip of her champagne, imagining a showy expensive gift.
LuLu extended her arm. A delicate charm bracelet dangled around her wrist. “It arrived this morning. And every little charm has meaning. It was a very thoughtful gift,” she said, stroking it with her fingertips.
Yes, it is.
LuLu came to a stop and faced Alessandra. “He appears hard and unreachable, Alessandra, but my son is a good man with a great heart and integrity,” she said. “I’ll admit he won’t show it easily, but once he does he holds nothing back.”
Alessandra tried in vain to pull from the tricks of the trade she’d relied on the last five years to present the right image, to be stoic, even cold. In that moment, she failed and knew she had to flee before her tears rose and fell. “You’re very lucky, Ms. Ansah, to have such a good son,” she said before walking away quickly, pressing her nails into the flesh of her palm to shock herself out of her feelings.
She stopped before a wall of Ghanaian artwork and artifacts that were vibrant against the stark white of the wall. She leaned in to study a picture of a beautiful little girl of about ten who was wet with her hair plastered to her scalp by the water. She didn’t know whether to be drawn into figuring out the emotions in her brown eyes or deciding whether it was a digital photo or a painting. Wow.
“It’s a painting by Ghanaian artist Jeremiah Quarshie.”
Alessandra stepped back and smiled at Samira standing beside her looking radiant in a bright red strapless dress that glowed against her chocolate skin. “Hello, Samira,” she said. “How have you been?”
Samira smiled at her. “Patiently waiting to hear from you,” she said, her eyes twinkling with humor but still determined.
Alessandra flushed with guilt. The Jubilee celebration seemed so long ago. She had gotten so lost in Alek that she hadn’t given Samira’s request for help any further thought. “I did speak to Alek about it, but I admit I got distracted. Forgive me,” she said, reaching out to squeeze the woman’s hand.
Samira clasped hers back. “The birthday boy is a handful, right?” she said, nodding in understanding.
Alessandra’s heart swelled with sadness. Even with her conflicting feelings on her relationship with Alek, she had missed him during the last two weeks. “Yes, he is.”
Samira eyed her oddly.
“What?” Alessandra asked, looking down at herself.
Samira’s eyes brightened with awareness before she smiled. “Alek, Alek, Alek,” she said. “Good luck, love.”
She turned and walked away.
Alessandra didn’t stop her or bother to convince her otherwise of whatever she revealed in her face about her feelings for Alek. I should go.
LuLu clapped her hands. “Alek is on his way up,” she said, motioning for the music playing softly in the background to end as Samira and Naim joined her by the elevator.
Alessandra felt so anxious she was light-headed.
“Where is Chance?” LuLu asked, turning to look about the crowd until she spotted him and waved urgently. “Come on.”
Over the rim of her glass Alessandra eyed the tall, handsome man making his way through the crowd in a navy blazer, shirt and slacks. She’d never met Chance Castillo but she knew he was Alek’s best friend. He reached LuLu and her children just a moment before the elevator doors opened.
Alek’s eyes widened as he stood there in all black.
“Surprise!”
Alek playfully stepped back onto the elevator, but Naim and Chance rushed behind him to pull him into the foyer before they each hugged him close and patted his back.
Alessandra felt left out as she stood there in the background watching his family and friends greet him. For months, they had created a world with no one but them. Being there in the crowd felt so achingly different from the intimate moments they shared.
When Alek began to look about the crowd she wondered for whom he was searching, until his eyes landed on hers. They locked. She couldn’t hold back her smile when his face lit at the sight of her. As he made his way through the crowd, she was unable to resist doing the same. In that moment, she was willing to risk it all just to feel his lips on hers. Be damned who saw.
Alessandra’s steps faltered before she came to a stop at the sight of a beautiful woman in a crimson-red strapless jumpsuit stepping in front of Alek, pressing her hands to the lapels of his blazer before she eased them up around his neck.
He lightly grabbed her wrists and lowered her arms to keep her from wrapping them around his neck as he cast Alessandra an apologetic look. She was thankful no one was aware of the little drama that just unfolded as she gave him a tight smile and raised her flute to him in a toast before she turned and walked away.
I knew I shouldn’t have come.
Stiffening her back, she moved away from the crowd. “Restroom, please?” she asked a passing waiter.
“Last door at the end of this hall,” he directed her.
Alessandra nodded and hurried down the hall, quickly entering and closing the door behind herself. She licked her lips and sat her flute on the marble counter as she studied her reflection. Her regret was palpable.
I never should have started this with Alek.
I never should have let him in my heart.
I never should have come here.
She swore in a harsh whisper, closing her eyes and tilting her head back as she fought so hard to maintain her composure.
She opened her eyes and was startled to see the woman in the red jumpsuit in the reflection behind her. What the...
“So, you’re Alessandra,” she said.
Alessandra turned, her eyes shifting to the door she forgot to lock and back to the woman. “And you are?” she asked.
“I’m Kenzay Ansah, Alek’s wife.”
“Ex-wife,” Alessandra countered, feeling the woman’s animosity radiate toward her. “And?”
Am I going to have to hurt her?
Kenzay smiled before she shifted her eyes past Alessandra to study her reflection and play with her hair. “And... I wanted to meet the little sucker Alek was so desperate to get rid of that he was willing to seduce her into submission...if his attempts to sway the board to vote you out failed,” she taunted, locking her cold eyes on her again.
For a moment, Alessandra felt taken back to her time as Alex, the girl who was afraid of her own shadow, lacked confidence and just wanted to be forgotten.
But just for a moment.
That wasn’t her any longer.
“Kenzay, I don’t know you and you don’t know me, but if you think coming in here brimming with insecurity and immaturity, hoping that I will dwell with you there, is a good look then you are not only desperate and attention-seeking but dead-ass wrong,” she said, her voice stone-cold and her eyes brimming with
her disdain. “Let me introduce you, little girl, to what you hope to be one day, which is a grown-ass woman. Go find someone else to play with.”
Alessandra picked up her flute of champagne and her clutch before leaving the woman standing there with her mouth open in shock.
* * *
Where did she go? Where is Alessandra?
After he bypassed Kenzay, Alessandra turned away from him. He followed behind her but the party guests kept stopping him to wish him well and he lost sight of her.
Although he knew nothing of the party and hadn’t invited his ex-wife, he felt an urgency to explain himself to Alessandra. Things were already so off between them.
He never reminded her that she’d stood him up but quietly clung to his anger and jealousy, pulling a deliberate stunt by taking another woman to an event he initially had no plans on attending to avoid going to Passion Grove. It was an irrational move and childish act that he regretted.
And so he fled under the premise of work out of the country, needing space to grapple with his feelings for her—his want of her.
Over the last couple of weeks, Alek had also noticed a shift in Alessandra. The warmth in her voice disappeared and their conversations outside of business were brief. He wondered if their time together was over. He hoped not.
He missed her.
He loved her.
And he decided that he loved her enough to lay it all on the line and risk disappointment and hurt so that he would never wonder “what if.”
When he entered his mother’s apartment he was surprised by the birthday party, but not pleased. His intention had been to spend a little time with his family, collect his gift, blow out candles and then head out to find Alessandra. His anxiousness about working the room for a little while before taking his leave evaporated when he spotted Alessandra standing out among the crowd with her eyes locked on him.
Nothing had mattered to him more than getting to her.
And then Kenzay swooped in.
Did she leave?
A Billionaire Affair Page 14
