King of Slaves (Jenna's Story) (The Slave Series Book 5) (32 page)

CHAPTER 30

First Date

Alex

Sometimes, a girl just has to admit that she has been dreaming of the wrong man, for far too long, and that it’s time to give that nice guy in your building a chance.

Especially, if the nice guy has asked you out five times, while your one-night stand with Mr. Wrong is six months in the past and you haven’t heard a single word from him.

For Alex that time had come!

After procrastinating the entire day she now had a measly twenty minutes to find an outfit and transform her freckled face and wild crazy red hair into something that signaled; “I’m so excited to go on this date.”

She blew a strand of hair away and gave a where-do-I-even-begin look to her reflection in the bathroom mirror.

Hair up or loose?
She tugged a bit here and there, but with her wild mane it would take at least ten minutes to tame it into something remotely sophisticated, and she didn’t have time for that.
All right, the natural look it is
.

Her father would most likely make a comment about her hair; he liked his daughters to shine a good light on him at events like the one he was co-hosting tonight. Alex would just have to do what she always did; brush off her dad’s comments and go with the flow.

She took time to put on a bit of makeup that made her blue eyes pop out more prominently, and her lips look fuller. No one could accuse her of using a lot of makeup, but Alex had always preferred the subtle look.

With only five minutes left to pick out her outfit for the night, she scanned her closet.
Dress or skirt?
Alex made a quick decision and picked a green dress that she had only worn once. It had been the evening Kalen had played his first concert at the royal palace, back when she had visited Jenna in Spirima. 

As she reached for the hanger, her hand hesitated for a second as memories of Zurry came rushing back to her.

Enough, don’t go there!

She tightened her jaw and pulled the dress off the hanger.
So what if it reminds me of Zurry… this night is about breaking free and starting to live again.

She had only just put on the long forest-green dress when her doorbell rang. Alex took a second to look herself over in the mirror, giving herself a hard talking to. “Now listen to me, Alex Jacqueline Davis, you are going to get out there, open your door, and invite happiness in. You
will
keep your mind and heart open for Darren and you
will
have fun with him. He is a good man and you deserve to find a good man, so there you have it… now go.”

The doorbell rang again. She still didn’t move.

When it rang a third time, she pulled herself together and went to open it.

Darren stood there, smiling at her, in what she assumed was his nicest suit and with a bouquet of red roses in his hands.

“You look beautiful,” he said with a smile and handed her the roses. “These are for you.”

“Thank you, let me just put them in water before we go.”

“Okay… should I come in?” he asked nervously.

“Sure, it’ll only take a minute.”

Darren reminded her of an insecure schoolboy and for a moment she couldn’t help comparing him to her mysterious warlord with the sexy scar across his eyebrow. There had been nothing but male confidence in Zurry.
Stop comparing them.

“How was work today?” she asked while pouring water into a vase.

“Nothing unusual. Just a few routine consultations and a patient needing a crown.” 

“Okay.”

“How about you, how was your day?”

“Good, thanks. I got a lot of writing done.”
Bullshit, you played Angry Birds and avoided the world.

“Oh you mean on your dissertation?”

“Yes.”

“How is it coming along?”

“Good; I’m almost done.”

“What was the subject again?”

“I’m writing about Scottish history.”

Darren looked around her apartment as he spoke. “In general or a time period in specific?”

Alex arranged the roses, and gave him a sweet smile. “The title of my report is ‘Historical Study of Customs and Influences in the Scottish Highlands c. 1500 to c. 1800.’”

“Nice…” His politeness gave away that he, like most people, couldn’t begin to understand how she would find that interesting.

“So what are you going to do with your fine title once you’re done?” he asked.

“You know, if I had a dollar for every time someone has asked me that…” she laughed, but even she could hear how halfhearted it sounded. “Who knows, maybe I’ll just end up writing the most historically accurate novels about the Scottish Highlands.”

He leaned against her dinner table and folded his arms with a bit of a frown. “Is there any money in that sort of thing?”

She attempted a flirty wink, “I heard romantic time travel novels are a big genre.”

“You mean like… fiction stories?”

“Yes… you know, stories about modern women being sent back in time to the Scottish Highlands.”
Did he just wrinkle his nose?

“Sounds… interesting… I mean it’s not exactly the kind of thing I prefer to read, but I suppose there are people who are into that sort of thing.”

Alex placed the vase with the roses on her small dining table. She didn’t tell him that she was already teaching classes in Scottish history and making a decent living out of it. With the interest from the Outlander books, her classes at two different online Universities had a high attendance. Scottish history was in fashion.

Darren followed her out of the apartment. “Do we have time for dinner?” he asked.

“Yes, the concert doesn’t start until eight.”

“Great, then where would you like to go?”

Alex resisted telling him that if he hadn’t already made a reservation there wasn’t much of a chance of getting a table in a nice restaurant on a Friday night.

“I don’t know. Where would you like to go?”

He rubbed his ear, thinking for a minute. Darren wasn’t a beautiful man in a traditional way, but he had kind brown eyes, was average in height, and looked to be in fair shape; plus he seemed to have a pleasant easy-going personality.

“We could go down to Mag’s Pizza on the corner of Eighth Street; they have fast service and good salads.”

“Sure.” Alex held her tongue. Mag’s Pizza was a family restaurant with a noise level that didn’t leave much room for talking. It was not a restaurant she would have ever considered going to with a date.
Clearly Darren is anything but a snob, which is good, right?

As the youngest daughter of Senator Davis, Alex had sat through her share of stiff dinners in fancy restaurants,
I, of all people, should appreciate a down-to-earth kind of guy.

When they got into Mag’s, Daren found them a table and picked up the menu card already placed there.

“Feel free to order anything on the menu, Alex, please don’t hold back – I’m buying. And if you want dessert, that’s okay too.”

She gave him an incredulous stare, but he was busy looking over the menu items of pizza, pasta, soup, and salad.

“Thank you,” she said in a polite tone and then it hit her.
Maybe Darren is in a tight financial situation.
He had only been a dentist for a year and probably had a large student loan to pay off. “You know, if you prefer, we can split the bill,” she offered.

“No, Alex, I mean it. I’m happy to take you out. I remember being a student and not eating out very often.”

Alex ordered a BLTA sandwich with a side salad, and Darren got a pizza. They sat and talked about this and that, and when she found that Darren did volunteer dental work for veterans, and helped underprivileged kids in Bolivia, she deemed him a really kindhearted guy.

“Do you want children of your own one day?” she asked.
Shit, I did it again, spoke about kids and family… too soon.
Her friends had told her a million times to go slow or she would scare the guys away.

But Darren lit up in a genuine smile. “Yes, I want to be a dad. I have great parents myself, and always pictured myself coaching my kids’ sports teams and being engaged, you know?”

Alex sat up straighter. “You did?”

“Yes… I want that whole American dream. Devoted wife, healthy kids, good friends, and barbecues in the summer.”

“The white picket fence dream,” she said without thinking.

“Definitely! And I’m not afraid to admit it.”

A smile grew on Alex’s lips. “I want that too.”

It was as if Darren’s words had been the magic key to reignite Alex’s love machine – suddenly she felt as if she was coming back to life.

Maybe no man could ever offer her the same wild, untamed passion that she had known for one night with Zurry, but Darren could give her something else.

He wanted the same kind of life she had dreamed of and planned for since she was a little girl. With Darren, Alex could create a closely knitted family and give her future children what she had always wanted the most herself.

After dinner they made their way to the concert hall and found their seats. Alex had insisted that they stop to buy red roses for Kalen.

“Didn’t you say you wanted to go backstage and say hi?” Daren asked.

“We’ll do that after the concert… I’m sure Kalen needs to calm his nerves now, he’s a bit fragile.”

“In what way?”

“Remember, I told you that Kalen is autistic and gets easily overwhelmed.”

“Right… but he can play, right?”

Alex scanned the music hall and all the red seats still unoccupied. The black piano, standing alone on stage, looked minuscule in this large place, and she felt annoyed that her dad couldn’t have been happy with a smaller and more intimate place. So typical of him that he went for the Chicago Orchestra’s hall and used his network to sell almost twenty-five hundred seats.

“Yes, Kalen can play,” she said in answer to Darren’s question. “He’s a musical genius. A savant.”

“A what?”

“A savant. Like
Rain Man
… but with music instead of numbers.”

“Okay,” Daren said distractedly. “These are good tickets, front row and all. Can I ask how much you paid for them?”

“My father is one of the organizers, so he got us the tickets.”

“Wow, so you didn’t even have to pay for them?”

“No, I told you that the artist is a personal friend of my sister.”

“Yes, how was it again? You said that she is his helper, so does that mean she is some kind of nurse?”

It dawned on Jenna that she’d never told Darren much about her family.

“Jenna is an architect. She works in Spirima, where she met her future husband Kioni, and Kalen, the pianist, is Kioni’s brother. That’s how Jenna knows Kalen.”

“Oh, okay, now I get it.”

The rows started filling up and soon the hall was full, and the lights went down.

Jenna’s father Andy entered the stage with a gray-haired woman, and the hall went completely quiet.

Andy spread out his arms in a grand gesture. “Welcome to this spectacular event. I’m so excited to share with you an undiscovered jewel from abroad. Prince Kalen is unique in many ways, but tonight the part that you’ll learn to love about him is his talent for music.

“As Senator from Illinois I’m delighted to work with great people, and one of those would be my good friend Louisa Scottsdale, who is the chairman of the American Autism Society.”

Louisa took over the microphone and talked about the different ways to support their work and once again thanked everyone for their contribution.

Applause broke out as Louisa and Andy left the stage.

Alex leaned closer to Darren, “That was my dad,” she said over the loud applause.

His eyebrows shot to his hairline. “The senator is your dad?”

She nodded and moved back in her seat when an almost comical scene played out in front of them all.

On the stage Prince Kalen came running in with wild gestures because of his jerking movements. He didn’t look at the audience but was solely focused on the piano.

His unorthodox entrance made the audience laugh, but even that didn’t make Kalen look up to acknowledge them.

Alex had been to her share of piano concerts and seen the pianists arrive on stage with grace and take a bit of time to greet the audience and arrange their sheet music, but Kalen did none of that. He simply pulled the stool where he wanted it and then he started playing.

There he sat: alone on stage, with no orchestra to back him up, and no sheet music to help him play the melody.

Alex felt nervous energy in her body on his behalf, but halfway through the first melody she let it go. Kalen was in his bubble and completely unconcerned with how things were normally done. He wouldn’t even know.

He played and played, and his magic spread like pollen in the massive room, leaving a lot of people teary-eyed and sniffling – Alex too. It was a miracle and a very emotional experience to witness a true savant like Prince Kalen share his gift.