Fated: An Alpha Male Romance (18 page)

Then, the worst part was that I’d still pursued her even though she’d been committed to someone else. Even if that night had happened, the Ethan Stewart that I’d always been would have put the brakes on everything that happened afterward. Unless she agreed to be with me, I wouldn’t have taken things further. I was never the man to share and never had to share in my entire dating history. Yet, virtually willingly, I’d fallen for her, somehow convincing myself that I could make do with just her heart instead of all of her. For God sakes, not but a few moments ago, her father hadn’t even known who I was. Wasn’t it then logical to think that she would never leave Roderick for me? Wasn’t that what men told women all the time? Why didn’t I think it applied to me?

Alexandra was a sheltered woman who wasn’t introduced to passion until I dipped my tongue between her legs. However, passion didn’t transfer to a lifetime. Roderick was stable to the point of predictability and straighter than a steel pole. He was loaded with old money. To add to that, she still hadn’t left him.

Growing up in Louisiana, it wasn’t a far cry for me to actually believe that Evelyn could have somehow done something to facilitate what had happened, and what was
happening between Alexandra and I. I wished that I had enough willpower not to believe it, but my actions had been far too left field for something else not to be going on. I hadn’t succumbed to whatever bug constantly bit Kellen whenever he found someone who genuinely sparked his interest. I’d been forced in love, which meant that Alexandra probably had been too. She didn’t choose me of her own free will, and that was if she would eventually choose me at all.

“Is it sinking in?” Roderick’s scathing voice cut in. “Look, I know all about your trysts with Alexandra.”

I didn’t turn to look at him but instead focused on the finish line which was now only about a mile away.

“She had her fun,” he went on. “Just like when she was a girl and would visit those pig farms with her grandparents, she had her moment of rebellion.”

I still didn’t respond, determined not to waste my breath on this man. We were coming up on the end of a ten kilometer run and of course, this arrogant son of a bitch wanted to pick a time like now to start some shit.

“But, she was never going to leave me for you and she never will. Evelyn’s concoction or not, you were an experiment. I’m the goal.”

I wanted to lay this man out and have no remorse afterward, but we were still within sight of some of my students. I constantly preached to them about being the bigger man, so it was safe to assume that planting a fist in Roderick’s face would negate all of that.

“Yo, E,” Eli called, glancing over.

I nodded and we put our last burst of energy into our legs to push towards the finish line. Roderick caught on at the last minute and tried to catch up, but Eli and I were already through the banner before he had a chance to catch his breath.

I ignored the loud cheering and chattering over the megaphone. Instead, I searched the sea of people for Alexandra’s face. If she ran to me, then I could forget everything else. I could chalk it all up to being a coincidence and an unsubstantiated belief in folklore. What I had with her, I wouldn’t know with anyone else. Somehow, I was
certain
of that. It wasn’t fatalism; it was something that I could literally feel.

I saw her navigating through the sea of people towards me. She had a face towel and water bottle, ready to cool her man off. The smile on her face lifted me from the ground. She was
it
for me. I wanted no one else.

An eerie hush suddenly fell around us, stopping her in her tracks. We turned off to the side and Roderick was standing in the middle of the venue, lights and cameras flashing all around him. I didn’t like the look on his face and something told me that I wasn’t going to like what happened next.

“Alexandra,” he called, waving her over. “Come over here, sweetheart.”

She glanced at me and I shook my head although I knew it was futile. She wouldn’t embarrass him on camera, and especially not on national news.

Reluctantly, she walked over and a pit began to burn in my stomach.

“Everyone, you all know Alexandra, my beautiful girlfriend and the woman who made this all possible,” Roderick announced. “Fellas, if you find a woman like this, a
love
like this, never let it go. There’s a modern misconception that women no longer bend over backwards for their men. Alexandra is a testament to how false that is. This woman will do virtually anything to keep me happy, and I want to prove to her here tonight that I’m willing to do the same.”

He bent to his knee and my jaw tightened hard enough to crack walnuts.

“Alexandra Jacqueline Miller,” he began. Then, he fished out the same velvety box that he’d waved around my office. When he opened it, I was almost certain that the glare from the jewel inside blinded several of the people in attendance.

“Will you do me the honor of being my wife?”

I released my jaw and held my breath. It was as though I could feel Alexandra’s heartbeat thudding against her ribcage. She looked around at all of the lights and cameras focused on them, capturing the proposal live. Then, her eyes went to the crowd that had formed around them. Finally, her gaze found me.

I knew that I was failing miserably at hiding how fast my chest was rising and falling. My fists were clenched at my sides and my eyes were pleading. As discreetly as I could, I shook my head, but dread was already beginning to wash over me. She couldn’t do it. She wouldn’t say no to him in front of all these people.

“…Yes.”

The minute the answer left her lips, something inside of me died. All of the light left my body and took the air from my lungs with it. I was completely numb.

I turned and made my way into the center, needing a moment not to be around what everyone else was mistaking for happy news. Nothing about this was happy. There was no coming back from this. Any fight that I’d had left inside of me was now defeated. I couldn’t and wouldn’t do this anymore.

I was done.

-----

Alexandra

“Why would you do this?” I asked Roderick in between teeth that I’d stretched into yet another fake grin.

“Do what, my love?”

“In front of all these people, Rick. Why would you do this?”

He looked down. “What, you don’t want to marry me? You thought that you and the good doctor would end up riding off into the sunset like some fairy tale?”

I wanted to pull away from his grasp, but there were still dozens of lenses pointed in our direction.

“You knew?” I asked.

“I know everything, Alexandra.” He touched a kiss to the top of my head. “I don’t know what made you think that you were just going to cheat on me and then let it be.”

I looked around for Ethan but couldn’t find him anywhere.

“Isn’t that what you are, Alexandra?” Roderick asked, leaning down as though whispering something romantic in my ear. “You’re a cheater. In two years, I’ve never stepped outside of our relationship and this entire time, you were screwing your coworker.”

I held my breath to avoid groaning and found Gia in the midst of the crowd. She shook her head to indicate that Ethan was also nowhere to be found. On the other side, Eli did the same.

“Look, Rick, what do you want?” I asked.

He turned me to face him, his expression a mixture of smug and sorrow. “An apology, Alexandra. Contrary to what you might believe, or have been led to believe, I care about you. It hurt me when I found out what you did, but I didn’t put two years into this relationship just to watch it go up in flames. So, I did the honorable thing. I asked you to be my wife. It wasn’t fair for me to ask so much of you but fail to offer a covenant.”

I hated how much sense he was making and how much clearer it was to me now that I’d been the worst person in all of this. I’d climbed on shoulders, using people just to get what I wanted.

“Rick,” I began, but then I spotted Ethan disappearing into the center. “I will give you all of that and more if you just give me a few.”

“You don’t need to talk to him Alexandra,” he chastised. “His feelings warrant no coddling, nor does he deserve an explanation. How many women have you met who were considered to be ‘on the side’ that ended up with their partners? This is no different.”

I ignored him and gently pushed away, quickly running away from the cameras as I trailed Ethan into the building. Although it was just as packed inside with vendors and sponsors, the meeting rooms down the hall had been locked, accessible only to those who used them on a regular basis. As expected, I found Ethan sitting on the front table in the room that he used to teach his science classes.

“E, let me explain,” I began, slipping through the door.

“Actually, Alexandra, you don’t need to.”

Although he was calm, I could feel his anger and hurt. Also, he’d called me Alexandra, something that was never a good sign.

“I think, I do.”

“Nope.” He eased off of the desk. “I don’t think that there’s anything else that we need to say to each other. Actually, I
know
that there’s nothing else that we need to say to each other.”

“E, I’m sorry—”

“Alexandra, you don’t need to explain. You don’t need to apologize. You don’t need to do anything. As far as I’m concerned, you made your choice.”

“And what does that mean?” I wanted to move closer to him, but everything about his stance told me to remain where I was.

“It means that I’m done with this. I’m done, Alexandra. We’re done.”

My heart resonated. “Ethan, you can’t do this.”

“
I
can’t do this?” His eyes flashed. “You can accept a proposal right in front of my face, but I can’t make the choice not to live on the sideline anymore? Alexandra, I don’t wait for
anyone
and I waited for you. Months. All I ever wanted was for you to be mine, but apparently it was too much to ask. I even tried to leverage in my mind that it would cause you a great deal of stress to choose me over your family’s wants, but I was never going to be it for you Alexandra. I was probably just fucking experimental.”

A second squeeze went off in my chest. “Experimental? Ethan, how could you have ever been experimental if you helped to mold me into the woman that I always wanted to be? You think that this was just some temporary shell that I stepped out of, just to step back into when it was all said and done? Ethan, I love you.”

“I love you too,” he replied without even the slightest twitch on his face. “But, it’s not enough. It will never be enough. Hell, if we followed your grandmother’s theory, maybe this,” he gestured between our bodies, “isn’t even real. Maybe all it’ll take is time and we won’t even have feelings for each other any—”

“That won’t happen,” I blurted out. “Ethan, a life without you isn’t a life that I want.”

He pointed to the ring on my finger. “Call me crazy, but that doesn’t seem to be the choice you made.”

I started to say more, but he brushed past me to the door.

“Oh, and you should contact the consulting agency about assigning someone else to your position,” he added.

Then, he left me with that. With those words. He left me standing in the middle of the room feeling weak and undone. Inside, I felt totally destroyed, my organs eviscerated. At that point, I couldn’t even find where my heart was, or rather yet, used to be.

“Alle?”

I turned around and for the first time, felt the hot tears on my cheeks. Gia was shaking her head at me. I knew that she’d come back here to scold me and tell me to throw Roderick’s ring back into his face, but he didn’t deserve that either. Like I said, he was obnoxious, but not malicious. I was the only person wrong in all of this. I’d shucked my responsibilities due to fear. In truth, I never really grew. I was like Midas, except everything I touched turned into “fucked up.”

“I’m not here to yell at you,” she said, crossing the room. I fell to my knees before she could catch me, my abs clenching as I convulsed in agony. She knelt with me, tilted my face up to hers, and swiped her hands across my cheeks.

“Alexandra, for the first time in my life, I don’t know what to say,” she offered. “I don’t know what to tell you, and I don’t know how to make it better. So, I won’t say anything. I’ll just hold you. Is that okay?”

I barely got out a nod and she pulled me into her arms. My tears saturated her shirt and I locked a grip onto her body.

Ethan

I was crumbling. Pieces of my sanity tumbled from me every day. I did what I could to hold on for my patients and students, but being at home alone would always eventually prove itself to be an unyielding type of torture. It was as though someone had ripped my soul from my body, blanketed it in lighter fluid, and then carelessly tossed a match on top. This was the feeling that I’d spent years trying to avoid, but I’d willingly walked right into its fiery pit. None of the textbooks on my shelf knew a damn thing about dealing with it, so I went to my other shelf every evening: the one that held the good bourbon.

Alexandra’s replacement had come swiftly and I’d assumed that seeing her empty office would offer some sort of closure, but it just brought with it another granule of pain.

I ignored her calls, texts, and emails. I’d thought about blocking her number altogether, but then was somehow able to convince myself that it would be a bitch move. In reality, I still held out a modicum of hope that I would get the call or text that would pull me out of my depression. The one that said that she’d called everything off.

Tayler and Kellen had already called and offered to come “spend some time” with me, but I declined. I wanted to wallow alone.

To add insult to injury, their entire wedding escapade had been turned into a reality TV mini-series. Thankfully, however, no one that I knew seemed to be watching it and if they did, they didn’t mention it to me. Once the entire fiasco was over, I planned to bury myself between the legs of someone that would never rise above the level of baseless. Then, I wanted to get on with my fucking life. Yet, every time I thought about the day I’d wake up and not be drenched beneath this perpetual cloud of agony, something inside of me still insisted that Alexandra was it. No matter what, anyone who came after her would fail to subsume her shadow.

At the office, although I tried to hide it, everyone could sense that something wasn’t quite right with me. Then, I would randomly feel a reassuring hand on the shoulder from one of the nurses or overhear them talking about my change in attitude before I rounded the corner and they scattered like roaches.

Even my grandfather had sensed it and although he didn’t ask me outright, he’d still said, “If it was meant to be, it will be.” He was more optimistic than I ever could have been as nowadays, whenever I even thought about Alexandra, everything was in the past tense.

I also had a tendency to randomly zone out, as I was doing now while my grandfather eyed me and waited for my next move in our third game of checkers. Truth be told, I had more mastery in the game, but I played with him simply because of how happy it made him to continuously “beat” me.

“Did you contact her, Ethan?” he asked, moving his piece around on the board.

“Who?” I watched his move. “Alexandra? No, I told you that I’m done with that.”

He snickered. “Interesting use of the word ‘that,’ son. I raised you better than to talk about women like they’re objects.”

“I’m sorry,” I offered.

He stroked his chin. “But I wasn’t talking about Alexandra. I was talking about your mother.”

My mother’s envelope was still burning a hole in my desk at work and I’d forgotten about it in the midst of my drama with Alexandra. “No,” I replied.

He moved another piece. “I think you should. I believe I’ve had that letter for some time now.”

“What could she possibly have to say to me?”

I pretended to be strategizing about my next move, but in reality had no idea what I was doing. I could barely concentrate.

“Plenty,” he answered. “She’s your mother, Ethan. Don’t you think she’s entitled to have her say? You were very young when everything happened so maybe you don’t remember things in exactly the right way.”

“So, why don’t you enlighten me?” I finally moved my piece and he shook his head.

“It’s not my place. Want to know what I think?”

I didn’t answer as that question was always rhetorical in my grandfather’s case. He asked it constantly and never expected a response. The other person, however, had to be completely prepared to hear his opinion.

“I think that part of the problem you’re having with Alexandra has to do with your mother.”

“Hardly,” I shot back. “My situation with Alexandra was completely different from my situation with my mother. I messed up by even entering into a ‘relationship’ with Alexandra without first waiting for her to end her previous one.”

“But what if she was just trying to protect you?”

I cackled a laugh. “Protect me? I’m a grown man, Gramps. I don’t need to be protected from anything.”

His lips wrinkled, revealing the weaker side of his face. “Most grown men have boy’s hearts.”

“And what does that mean?”

“Maybe she was trying to protect you from her uncertainty. Or maybe she wasn’t completely sure that you’d offer her the security that her family has given her for the past twenty-some odd years.”

He hopped a couple of spaces on the board and picked up one of my pieces.

“I could have taken care of us both,” I grumbled. “I would have taken care of us both. I would have been there for her no matter what her family tried to throw her way.”

He leaned back, folded his arms, and smiled. When he didn’t add anything further, I decided to break the silence.

“What?”

“Nothing.” He continued to smile. “I just like the way you said that, is all.”

I returned my attention to the checkboard. He’d taken a few more of my pieces in what I was almost certain were illegal moves.

My grandfather’s penchant for breaking the rules was one of the main reasons I’d yet to win a game against him. That and the fact that I never played to win.

“Read the letter, Ethan,” he insisted.

“And then what?”

“And then, maybe go see her. She’s your mother.”

I leaned back, mimicking his folded arms and heavy perusal. “Go to the women’s prison?”

“Nope. Your mother got out some years ago. You should go see her where she lives now.”

A nurse passing by caught my attention, and I nodded slightly to let her know that everything was going well and that my grandfather was still lucid. Games usually kept him with me much longer than casual conversation did, and I attributed it to the need to use more of the strategizing aspects of his brain.

“She’s out of prison?” I asked.

“That’s what I said.”

“So, why hasn’t she tried to contact me?”

He chuckled. “She has, son. That’s what the letter is for. She sent it to me to give to you, but I figured that it would take a while for you to be ready.”

“Gramps—”

“You have nothing to lose, Ethan. Just read the damn letter and don’t argue with me about it. Now, I want to go for a walk since I’m about to beat your butt for the hundredth time in this game and by George, it’s not as gratifying as it used to be.”

I stood, pulled his wheelchair from the table, and turned toward one of the facility’s designated walking paths. “That’s because you cheat. You know that right?”

“Who are you?” he suddenly asked. “Where am I?”

My heart sank and I crouched in front of him. Then, he broke out into a round of raucous laughter, slapping his thigh in merriment.

“Are you serious right now?” I asked with a half-smile. “A dementia fake-out?”

He shrugged as I continued to push the chair. “When you get to be my age son, sometimes being colorful is all you have.”

-----

Alexandra

Like in an old southern black and white film, we were sitting in my parents’ backyard gazebo “necking” and rocking on the wooden swing. The feeling of Roderick’s lips on the side of my neck did absolutely nothing except turn my stomach. Our hands clasped between our bodies felt like the inside of an oyster shell. It took a considerable amount of effort to stop my face from contorting into a grimace that would match what I was feeling inside, especially since there was a camera directed at my face and had been every day since the engagement. It had been Roderick’s second surprise: he was starring in a reality TV show mini-series that followed his campaign progression and our upcoming nuptials. A similar offer had been made to Gia when it was revealed that she was marrying Eli, but she’d vehemently declined. Of course, I wasn’t as strong-willed.

“Can that be enough for today?” I asked, caressing my stomach. “I’m not feeling too well.”

The producer’s eyes fell to my hand. “Yes, of course. But, just out of curiosity, do you two plan to start a family pretty soon after the wedding?”

My stomach did a full gymnastics routine, backhand springs included.

I hopped off of the swing and made a beeline towards the house without looking back. I was pretty sure that, at any moment, I would have either a complete breakdown or panic attack. The pressure of conformity was weighing even heavier on my shoulders than ever before and now added to that was the fact that I no longer had Ethan in my life. It was like having my heart ripped out by rusty barbed wire, every single day, in a never-ending purgatory-like existence.

The minute I entered the house, my father grabbed me by the elbow and looked over me with concern. “Sweetheart, what’s wrong?” he asked. “Are you sick? Do you need me to call the family doctor?”

“I’m fine,” I lied. “I’m just a bit tired and stressed out with all of this.”

I waited for him to say that he would take care of it, and that it was more important for me to be healthy than to put on a good show — basically, for him to act like my father instead of a dictator — but his eyes only continued to assess me.

“Okay,” he replied. “Go upstairs and get some rest. You will come back to it later.”

I gave him a forced smiled and journeyed upstairs to the room that, once upon a time, had been my sanctuary. It was eerily unchanged so stepping across the threshold felt like a time warp. The walls were painted in neutral colors and held several expensive oil paintings that had been gifted to the family. All of the furniture was made of stained, dark brown wood with antique accents, and the patterns on the sheets reminded me of something that could be found in a more mature woman’s room. Yet, they perfectly matched the etching and styling on the mirror, vanity, and other accessory pieces. Frankly, the room screamed of someone who feared stepping outside of the box.

I felt a presence in the doorway and turned around to find Grandma Evelyn standing across from me, that same solemn, apologetic look from the fundraiser on her face.

“How are you feeling?” she asked.

I sat on the bed and folded a leg underneath my body. “It’ll get better with time.”

She touched the tips of her fingers together in a rhythmic pattern. “Better, yes. I guess.”

“But since you’re here,” I began, “can you explain what Daddy and Gia were talking about at the fundraiser? The sangria-like punch thing that you brought for me and Ethan. What was that about?”

Her shoulders tensed. “Nothing, really. Just some old tales.”

“Will you still tell me?” I moved over on the mattress and she slid into the space next to me.

“Well, I’ve already told you about the concept of being a
sensitive
, haven’t I?” she asked.

I nodded.

“Well, the hardest part about being a sensitive is not being able to steer people in the direction of their match. I feel and witness it every day, people with matched energies, but sometimes they don’t even glance in each other’s direction because of one reason or another. Men are generally more open than women; women often protecting their emotions behind fortified walls. Other times, it’s more trivial. For instance, I overheard a woman complaining about the brand of a man’s jeans once, but the pull between her and that same man was extremely strong. It nearly devastated me to know that if she’d been able to see past something as insignificant as his outfit, she would have experienced a love like none other.”

She caught my confused frown and chuckled. “It sounds like sorcery, doesn’t it?”

“Honestly, yes. A bit,” I replied.

“Well, think about it like this. At some point and time, humans had to communicate without words. We had to make decisions based on instinct and never had the luxury of being able to talk ourselves out of something. What I’m talking about, it has a little bit to do with that.”

I mulled over everything that she’d said up to that point. It wasn’t something that I was likely to believe, but it made for an interesting story.

“So, what you’re saying is, there’s only one match per person?” I asked.

“One true match,” she clarified. “There are couples who are lukewarm and can maintain a pretty basic relationship. Their attraction is more mental. They can find contentment with each other, but they won’t have the yearning passion of a true match.”

As I studied her face, I realized that she believed everything that she was saying. It made me question why I didn’t. People believed in the concept of soulmates every single day, so how was this any different from that?