CHAPTER 31
Alex sat there on the bed, still staring at Valerie’s sexy little frame in his T-shirt. She put the phone down, but she didn’t turn back to him. He got the distinct feeling she purposely left the bed to be away from him when she told him about the seminar.
“When is it?” He tried not to sound annoyed. But he was. Incredibly. The idiot had called at the worst moment imaginable.
“Two weeks from this Saturday.”
She still had her back to him. “What’s wrong?”
Finally, she turned to face him. “Nothing.”
“Then what are you doing over there?” He reached his hand out to her. He just had her under him moments ago and already he wanted her near him again. Annoyed or not.
Something about the way she smiled made him uncomfortable, but she did walk back to him. She was going to sit on the bed next to him but he pulled her onto his lap lacing his fingers through hers. Leaning his forehead against hers, he tried again. “What’s wrong?”
She shook her head slowly. “Nothing I just…” She bit her lip, and then frowned.
“What is it?”
“The night I spent at his house-”
“Stop.” Alex straightened up, feeling every muscle in his body go taut. “I don’t need to hear about it.”
Whether she slept with him or not, he’d never be comfortable with her around him so it really didn’t make a difference.
“I want you to know.”
“I don’t want to hear about it, Z.” If she thought he was going to sit here and listen to her tell him about her night with another man she was insane.
Valerie cradled his face with her hands. “I have to tell you, baby. It’s killing me that you think I had sex with him. I didn’t.”
Alex preferred not to know than for her to lie to him. He swallowed hard, staring in her beautiful eyes. Her touch alone was enough to soften his tensed body but what she was saying made no sense. “So, what? You just fell asleep at his place and he didn’t wake you?”
That made a little more sense. She shook her head, making him squeeze his hand into a fist. He didn’t want to blow up at her. “I don’t understand, Z, either you did or you didn’t. There’s no in between here.”
The deep breath she took made him nervous. “I was going to. I won’t lie to you. I went there that night prepared to. I still wasn’t feeling anything for him-”
“So, you decided to sleep with him when you didn’t feel anything for him? Bullshit.” He remembered Romero saying she’d told Bruce she was in love with him.
Her eyes darkened and eyebrows pinched. “It’s true. I was trying so hard to make it work.”
“Why, if you didn’t care about him?” Alex was aware he was raising his voice but what she was trying to feed him didn’t add up.
She stood up and off his lap. Alex held her hand so she wouldn’t walk away. “I wanted to get over you. Okay?”
Alex opened his mouth, but when he didn’t say anything, she continued.
“All I could do was think of you and that kiss at the shower when I was with him. I compared everything about him to you, and he didn’t even come close. I truly believed that if I could just move on, I’d get over you. Since I hadn’t slept with anyone else the entire time I was away from you I thought maybe that’s what I needed to finally get some closure. But-”
“You spent the night.” A fact Alex wouldn’t soon forget. What she was saying only made it worse. In spite of the fact that she’d just told him she hadn’t slept with anyone else while they were apart, she’d spent the night at Luke’s and now he knew she’d gone there to sleep with him.
“Only because I felt terrible about what happened.”
Alex searched her eyes unable to even imagine what she meant by that. “What happened?
Valerie took another deep breath that only furthered Alex’s anxiety. “We were…making out…” She paused.
Alex’s patience was running out. He told her he didn’t want to hear about this and now she was going to drag it out? The visual alone made his blood boil. “Damn it, Z-”
“I called him Alex.”
Alex blinked. Valerie looked mortified, her cheeks crimsoned. He pulled her to him, making her sit back down on his lap, still not sure what to say. The fact that she’d been in another mans arms still felt like a kick in the gut. But the thought that she’d been thinking of him the whole time, so much so she’d actually called Luke Alex. He couldn’t even begin to imagine what Luke must’ve felt at that moment.
Without warning, he laughed. Valerie buried her face in his chest covering the exposed part with her small hand.
“Don’t laugh.” Her words were muffled. “You’ve no idea how incredibly awkward that moment was. It was horrible.”
That only made Alex laugh even more. He kissed her head, caressing her damp hair. Valerie lifted her head slowly and met his eyes. “So, you see. You’ve never had anything to worry about.”
She went on to tell him about how she spent the rest of the evening telling Luke about her relationship with Alex. And how’d she really believed she was over him until she’d seen him at the shower and found out she wasn’t even close.
“The very next time I saw Luke I broke things off. I owed him at least that much. I knew I’d never get over you. It was stupid to think that by going out with him I would.”
Alex couldn’t take his eyes off her. He loved hearing her say she’d never get over him. He lifted her chin. “Know what I don’t understand?”
She tilted her head. She looked so adorable he had to kiss her. “If you know you’ll never get over me, why don’t you just marry me already?”
This time she was the one that opened her mouth without any words that followed. She closed it and bit her lip. She tried again and still nothing.
Feeling the annoyance start to build again, Alex spoke first. “Stop trying to come up with an excuse, Z.”
The corners of her lips lifted ever so slowly. His heart thumped and he smiled with her.
“Okay. Let’s do it. Let’s get married.” She smiled big.
Alex knew his eyes must have been as big as saucers. He swallowed hard, barely able to put it all in perspective. Valerie was going to be his wife, entirely his, forever. He leaned in to kiss her but stopped. “That phone better be off.”
“It is.” She giggled.
With that, he leaned back in bed and brought her down with him.
“Mrs. Moreno,” he whispered before kissing her deeply.
When he finally let her breathe, she smiled. “I like it,” she whispered back. “I can hardly wait now.”
Alex kissed her, knowing full well she wouldn’t have to wait long. He’d make sure of it. First things first—with one yank he pulled off her shorts.