Fated An Alpha Male Romance - K. Alex Walker Page 0,41
of the harlot that lived within.
“For God sakes, woman, just put Alexandra on the phone.”
“Alexandra isn’t here.”
I paused. “What?”
“I’m sorry, my liege, but her highness is not here.”
“Then, where is she?”
“If I knew, I would have already covered that in one of my earlier sentences.”
My insides suddenly filled with smoke. I’d thought for sure that if six of my calls had gone unanswered, Alexandra would be with her sister. It was completely out of character for her to not immediately call me back, and trying to talk to her about her disappearances had been futile. She had simply graciously apologized, appealing to the natural bureaucrat in me, and I’d warned her to never let it happen again. Then, the subject had been squashed.
In the past, whenever I’d put my foot down, her bad behavior usually never happened again. But, it was slowly dawning on me that Alexandra had disobeyed my demands for alterations in her behavior four times already since Christmas Eve.
“You don’t sound worried,” I said to Gia. “That means that you know where she is.”
“She’s not missing, if that’s what you’re hinting at.”
“Think about it,” I went on. “I am your sister’s future husband —”
“— allegedly.”
“Let me speak.” I squeezed the bridge of my nose. “Now, I am your sister’s future husband calling you to say that I can’t get in contact with her. Your initial reaction isn’t fear or concern that something might have happened to her. In fact, you sound calm and collected, which tells me that you know where she is, proof that she is doing this on purpose as some form of passive aggressive ploy for me to beat my chest and run to ensure that she is safe, realize how important she is to me, and ask her to marry me.” All of my fury dissipated. “Thank you, Gianna. Goodnight.”
I hung up even though it sounded as though she had more to say, and James made his way back over. He motioned that we step off to the side to talk and I followed him into a darkened pocket of the room.
“I have a proposition to make,” he said, leaning in. “If you’re interested, I can have someone follow Alexandra to find out what’s been going on with her as of late.”
My eyebrow shot up. “Do you think I should be that worried?”
“It’s always better to be safe than sorry.”
I got the idea that he was trying to hint at something. “Sir, do you know what has been going on with Alexandra?” I asked. “Or maybe you have an opinion on it? Did you go through the same thing with Mrs. Miller?”
He scrunched his face at my audaciousness and I immediately apologized. Of course he hadn’t gone through anything similar with Mrs. Miller. Janice Miller was the epitome of perfection. She was a beautiful woman from a stellar background without as much as a blur on her record. She also never even gave thought to stepping a single foot out of line.
“Never,” he replied. “Mrs. Miller and I have an understanding. It can be the same with you and Alexandra. She’s just being fickle right now and I think that her sister has gotten into her head. But, to answer your question, the slant of her odd behavior suggests a distraction.”
The dent in my brow let him know that I wasn’t following.
“A man, Roderick.”
My laugh came out almost like a cackle. “No offense, sir, but that’s impossible.”
“My Alexandra is weak-willed,” he added. “The world is different from when Janice and I were courting. These days, men will openly covet another man’s property. I can easily see Alexandra falling victim to some lowlife’s chicanery.”
I started thinking about that smug doctor from the Christmas Eve fundraiser. Ethan Stewart. I’d despised the way he’d disappeared with Alexandra without my permission. Her working on my diabetes fundraiser meant that they’d probably increased contact, and he’d seemed more than interested in talking about business that night.
“But you’re also implying that if she did in fact fall victim to a man’s subtle trickery, she might be spending evenings with this man,” I replied. “So, she could possibly be sleeping with him.”
His brows came together. “I wouldn’t go that far. I doubt that my little girl would throw away her virginity on some clown.”
I cleared my throat. His little girl certainly hadn’t thrown her virginity away to a clown as I’d been the lucky catcher. Well, it wasn’t so much as luck as a night with Alexandra was as standard