Fated: An Alpha Male Romance (17 page)

“Rick is fine,” he corrected. Then, as though he’d suddenly grown uncomfortable with my standing over him, he got to his feet. “But, I just wanted to stop by and see if there was anything else that you needed help with for the race tomorrow.”

Somehow, that explanation seemed false, but I didn’t push it. “No, Alexandra’s actually got everything covered.”

“Oh, does she?” Another smirk skittered across his face. “I would hope so. With all this extra overtime that she’s been putting in, you’d think that she was working on a political campaign.”

“In a way, she is,” I reminded. “This is for you, isn’t it?”

He grinned.

“I didn’t really come down here to talk politics,” he confessed, kicking an imaginary pebble with the toe of his shoe. The gesture seemed awkward and out of place for him. “I came down here to get your opinion on something.”

Anita breezed by the office door and I sent her a slight nod to let her know that everything was still okay.

“Well, you have my attention,” I said.

He took a deep breath and then pulled a small box from his pocket. I commanded every muscle in my body to remain in place instead of violently contracting like they wanted to.

“I’m planning to ask Alexandra to marry me,” he replied. “I just wanted to know when you think would be the best time to do that. I mean, we’ve always planned to get married right away, but I didn’t want to take her away from the practice during any time that might be considered busier than others. I’m shooting for an extended honeymoon so that it gives us more time for family planning.”

I wanted to punch this smug fucker in the face. Part of me knew that it was irrational because he was just going through the normal motions of a man that had given his time to a long relationship — albeit with the wrong woman — but there was something about the look in his eyes. It was almost as though he’d known about me and Alexandra and was using this precise moment to gloat. My gut was practically yelling that at me, but I knew that if I gave into that line of thinking, my anger would be unleashed. The primal instinct was thriving in my blood and my tacit ultimatum for Alexandra dropped to under forty-eight hours. If she wouldn’t tell him after that, then I simply would.

“I didn’t know you guys were discussing marriage,” I replied, sidestepping his question. “She never mentioned it.”

“Alexandra’s not very open,” he replied in a taunting “
I know Alexandra better than you do,”
tone. “She probably hasn’t even mentioned it to the people she’s close to like her sister and parents. Have you met them? Her parents, I mean.”

“Not formally,” I answered. As far as I knew, they thought of me as the physician Alexandra worked with.

“I was just having lunch with them,” he went on. “Had to get the old man’s permission, you know. I’ve never seen the man so happy. You know he almost never smiles, right?”

“So I’ve heard.”

The smirk damn near did a tap dance on his face. “Well, he was all smiles when I told him. He even said that I was always his only pick for the man who would be his daughter’s husband, and that I’d done him proud.”

His tone was now covered in slime, his face a full blown sneer. He knew. Either Alexandra had told him — finally — and she’d yet to relay that information to me, or he’d found out on his own. It wouldn’t surprise me in the slightest if it was by way of private investigator.

“And what about Alexandra’s choice?” I challenged. “Did you two discuss that when you were planning her future?”

He bit into his lip violently enough to draw blood. “Why wouldn’t she choose me?”

“I don’t know.” I shrugged. “I was just asking a question.”

“There are no more eligible men on her roster. I was her first and I will always be her only.”

A derisive scoff snuck its way out, but it wasn’t as though I’d tried very hard to contain it.

“What was that?” he asked.

At that point, I was done. “Nothing.”

“Fine.” He tugged on the lapels of his jacket. “Well, you still haven’t given me an answer on my proposal.”

“I don’t see you as the type of man needing my input.”

He cocked his head slightly to the side. “Do you believe in coincidences?”

I didn’t respond.

“I see that we’re finished here, but I wanted to leave you with this. Some of us mistakenly think that the circumstances that happen in our life, especially the sudden ones, are predestined or ordained. And while some things do happen by chance or fate, if you will, most of the time, it’s just a failure on our part to see exactly where something as simple as human error had an input.” He gave his jacket another tug. “I’ll bid you a good day on that note.”

He made his way through the door, taking his overpriced cologne with him. I knew that his comment had to do with Alexandra, confirming what I already knew, and that he was implying that our relationship was not a coincidence. But, there was virtually no way that anything outside of Alexandra and I had a hand in the way things had blossomed between us.

I pushed his crazy rant, as well as my mother’s envelope, to the back of my desk drawer and went out to greet my next patient.

Alexandra

I couldn’t believe the amazing turnout. The juvenile diabetes fundraiser was actually being carried off without a hitch and in the next half an hour, the race would begin. My entire family was in attendance, my parents no doubt for a photo op, and Eli was already near the starting line warming up while Gia dubiously looked down the length of the street.

Our venue was the community center where Ethan taught as it had more than enough space, inside and out, for the different participating companies to set up. Runners could choose to do either the short run which was a little over three miles, or the long run which was twice as long. Walkers had the option of doing three miles or less. Bottled water and resting stations lined the entire path to the finish line, but something told me that Eli would not need them. I wouldn’t even be surprised if he finished in first place.

“Hello beautiful,” Roderick’s voice sang from behind me. I turned around and he pulled me into his body, planting a kiss on my cheek at the same time. I secretly glanced around to see if Ethan had been watching us, but I couldn’t pick him out of the throng of participants.

“You’re in a good mood today,” I greeted.

He pointed to his name on the headlining banner, a grin frozen to his face. Last minute, he’d wanted to add a “minor” detail to the banner: his political headshot. It hadn’t been enough that every single thing that we’d bought to associate with the walk — towels, buttons, plastic water bottles, wristbands, you name it — all had his name on them. He wanted to add his face so that no one forgot who was behind the project.

“Because I love you so much,” he answered. “Look at what you did for me, Alexandra.”

I eyed him carefully. Ever since the calculated and well-placed “I love you” during a banquet when he announced that he would be eyeing a senate position, Roderick had never again uttered the words.

“I just can’t believe that you did this for me,” he added. “I don’t really know how to repay you, but just know that I will try.”

He glanced behind my head, grinned, and then leaned down to press his lips against mine. I figured that he was putting on for some wayward cameraman behind us, so I got as “into it” as I possibly could, wrapping my arms around his neck and even popping my back leg.

“Congratulations…Alle.”

I immediately broke the kiss when I heard Ethan’s voice and turned around expecting to find an angry wave over his brow. Instead, his eyes were smiling and he was looking at me in a way that only he could. It was a way that left me feeling as though I could seep through a storm drain.

“Thank you, Ethan,” I replied. “I mean, uh, Dr. Stewart.”

My grandmother’s elbow was hooked with his.

“Ethan’s fine,” he teased. “Some people even call me E.”

A thousand flames lit up my face.

“Hi Grandma,” I said.

“Yes, hi Evelyn,” Roderick cut in. “You’re looking awfully beautiful today. Now, don’t take this the wrong way, but I didn’t know they made such excellent exercise tights for women your age.”

She tilted her head to the side, studied him, and then straightened it. “They’re not elderly exercise tights, sweetheart. They’re simply tights. There’s no tag on them that says ‘must be seventy or older’ to wear.”

To my and everyone else’s surprise, Roderick laughed. Heartily. The only other times I’d heard him laughing this loud were the fake riffs he would give to donors and sponsors.

“I love how colorful you are,” he went on. “It gives me peace to know that Alexandra will most likely have this much lilt when we’ve been married for forty years or so.”

Somehow, I felt Ethan flinch even though not a muscle on his body visibly tweaked.

Then, Roderick snapped his fingers. “By the way, Evelyn,” he began, “that thing that you dropped off at Alexandra’s office back during Christmas time, it might make a nice wedding present for us.”

Another subtle shift in the air alerted me to Ethan’s uneasiness although nothing on his body suggested his discomfort.

“What thing?” Grandma Evelyn asked.

“You know what I’m talking about,” Roderick insisted. “One of your famous concoctions. You’re always brewing something up over at the house like a little witch. A good witch though. Like the white witch from the Wizard of Oz.”

My parents waved and made their way over to us while Gia trailed behind them like a forgotten stepchild. I wanted to go over, wrap my arms around her, and then kick them as far away as I possibly could. She looked as though even if she’d searched the corners of the globe, she’d still be unable to find a reason to care.

“Alexandra, dear, this is wonderful,” my father complimented. “I am so proud of you and the work that you have put in for Roderick’s campaign. Now, you see,” his eyes landed on everyone on the circle, “that is how a true wife works. She’s undeniably supportive in her husband’s endeavors, no matter what they are.”

“What if she disagrees with his cause?”

Instead of Gia, my father’s usual adversary, it was Ethan who asked the question.

“Excuse me, son?” my father asked. “And you are?”

Roderick snickered and pulled me tight to his side. “This is Dr. Stewart, Mr. Miller.”

“Oh yes.” My father extended his hand. “Forgive me. I didn’t recognize you.”

“But back to the topic at hand,” Roderick said. “The thing that you brought to Alexandra say, around Christmas Eve.”

“You mean the punch?” I asked. “What about it?”

“What punch?” My father asked, once again making eye contact with everyone.

Gia finally traipsed up to the circle and stood next to Ethan. He smiled and wrapped his arm around her in a half hug. The exchange made me forget, for just that second, everything that was happening around us.

Then, my father’s eyes rounded.

“Are you talking about that…what does she call it…that velvet punch, concoction?” he asked.

My grandmother’s eyes were already on me before I searched for them, and her face was preeminently apologetic although I still had no clue about what was going on.

Five minutes, runners!

I glanced back at the people collecting at the starting line. “We should go,” I announced. “We can pick this up later.”

“Is that what you did, Mother?” My father went on. “Did you try to use that silly love potion crock on my daughter or try to fill her head with stories about being
rooted
?”

“We should get to the line,” Grandma Evelyn insisted.

“No, Alexandra should hear this.” My father refused to let up on his argument. “A long time ago, before Alexandra and Gia were born, I was in the kitchen with Mother when I found this pitcher in the back of the freezer—”

“I don’t think we need to hear this right now,” Grandma Evelyn interrupted.

Three minutes until starting time!

“When I asked her what it was,” he continued, “she wouldn’t tell me. It wasn’t until I threatened to throw it out that she told me that it was some kind of, I don’t know, ancient love potion that my grandmother and great grandmother had cooked up. It’s infused with some sort of Caribbean herb that’s sworn to be an aphrodisiac.”

I felt my forehead wrinkle with each sentence, but when I looked over at Ethan, he looked as though he was calculating a difficult math problem in his head.

“Hunch punch?” Gia asked. “Wait, does it look like sangria?”

“It looks like sangria,” Ethan confirmed.

“Grandma, didn’t you bring a batch of something that looked like sangria over to my house when I told you that it would be my first time making dinner for Eli?”

One minute!

Grandma Evelyn turned and walked away from the group. Ethan looked up at me, his expression unreadable, but just like before, I had a feeling in my gut that something was very wrong with him.

“We’ll come back to this,” Roderick said, releasing me and walking over to where Eli was stretching and getting ready to race. Ethan turned and followed him, his mind still somewhere other than the venue. Gia and I took our places.

“Hunch punch?” I asked her.

“That’s what I called it,” she whispered. “After Eli and I had a sip of that, it took the heavenly father
and
the holy ghost to stop us from ripping off each other’s clothes that night. I mean, I know that Grandma’s full of hocus pocus, but whatever’s in that thing, it’s strong.”

Ethan glanced back at me, but this time I could feel what was pumping through his veins. Part of it was his readiness to begin the race, but there were also hints of uncertainty and apprehension. He was mulling over what my mother had said and what Gia had pretty much confirmed.

And now, so was I.

The starting pistol was fired into the air and we took off. Gia and I opted to only do the three mile run, and our shoes thudded in synchrony next to each other. The minute I caught a stride, my mind took over.

Hunch punch.

While I’d considered it a bit strange how my body had reacted in my office that first night with Ethan, I’d just chalked it up to finally no longer being able to resist him. I’d been attracted to him for ages. I was still attracted to him. Although it was out of the ordinary for me to have been that aroused, the man was unbelievably gorgeous. I moistened from his gaze alone.

Yet, there’d been something else. There
was
something else. With Ethan, it felt like reckless abandon. I could barely stop thinking about him long enough to sleep, and I wanted only the feeling of his fingertips on and inside me. Ever since that first time, I never even considered sleeping with Roderick again, and somehow I’d just
known
that my feelings for Ethan would have only increased. I’d chalked it up to my naiveté, but I’d secretly known that I was never going to stop seeing him and craving his touch. When I wasn’t in his arms, everything else felt like Alcatraz. I lived, slept, and breathed this man.

Still, in my naiveté, I’d assumed that this was normal. That this was how everyone fell in love. I’d assumed that love was filled with great things, but it also carried with it the pain of not being completely sure that it was safe to fall into another person. To trust their cliff. I’d “released my grip” the day Ethan and I visited his grandfather because it was then that I understood that he wanted me in his life. And, it wasn’t that he wanted the libidinous version of me…he simply wanted the version of me that brought
me
the most comfort. He didn’t want me, for any reason, to have to go against what I felt inside in order to feel safe around him.

But, why hadn’t it happened yet?

It was my mother’s decree that women never got exactly what they were looking for in a mate, and that compromise was often necessary. She’d said this rather haphazardly once when we were getting mani-pedis and she saw me flipping through a magazine. There’d been an article about “the perfect man for you” that I’d been scrutinizing a bit too intently and she’d caught me. Then, she’d simply said that with men, if I truly wanted to live a comfortable life, I would have to look for a man that was driven. A busy man. An often cold man. Yet, this was the man that was always going to come home at some point. He was always going to provide for his family. There might not be any zing or spark, but women were not made of flint. We were not made for sparks. We were made to be kept and Roderick would do just that for me. I’d believed her up until Ethan.

Although I could see where another woman might find flaws, somehow, he was just perfect for me. He had a tendency to shut down when he was upset, but it was a million times better than being the target of his anger. The only time he was selfish was when it came to wanting me, and that was the kind of selfish that I liked. He also never talked about his mother and I could tell that he was holding back mountains of pain because of it, but never did that reflect on me. My plan had simply been to let him be because I just knew, some-freakin-how, that he would eventually open up. I’d also just known that what I felt for him now wasn’t a fraction of what I would feel for him as time passed.

If I chose to believe in what my father said earlier — and it was growing more and more difficult not to by the minute — then, the only real relationship that I’d been exposed to was his relationship with my mother. From the sound of it, Gia and Eli had consumed the same drink and their passion could burn down rainforests. I was pretty sure that Grandpa Ellis had fallen victim to the same fate. Those relationships had been contrived. Inorganic. Manipulated.

Fake.

If all this was true, then my love for Ethan was nowhere near real.

We rounded a bend and my heart thudded hard in my chest. I tripped a little and Gia glanced over at me, but I shook my head to let her know that nothing was wrong. Yet, something was very wrong.

If my love for Ethan was nowhere near real, then neither was his love for me.

-----

Ethan

My mind was slowly entering a lightless tunnel. My shoes were thudding against the pavement, which was the only sound I could hear as my thoughts drowned out the small group of runners that had been able to keep pace with Eli, Roderick, and I. I didn’t want to believe it, but it was the only thing that made sense. My attraction to Alexandra had escalated to a point after that night that had left me feeling completely helpless. In less than twenty four hours, she’d signed the deed to all of my senses. I had never,
ever
experienced anything like it before but had chalked that up to my lack of real relationships. I’d never even considered letting a woman getting that close to me before her.