Forever After All(5)

Vaughn laughs. “Since when are you into sweet girls?”

I bite down on my lip, unable to shake the thought of Diana. I can’t even pinpoint what it was about her. I didn’t even kiss her. All I know is that I want to see her again. I want to see her again and find out why she called me Alec . “She was different. I don’t know.”

Vaughn and I have been friends since we were children. He knows as well as I do that girls like Diana are far from my type. I usually go for alluring, sexy, and confident women. Not that Diana wasn’t sexy… she was hot as fuck. But she didn’t exude sexuality, almost like she didn’t even realize how beautiful she is.

“I’ll try, man. I’ll have my bouncers keep an eye out for her, but damn. Long brown hair and unique green-brown eyes? You’re not exactly giving me much here. I’ll have my men go through the security footage.”

I groan. “I can’t believe I didn’t get her number. She knew me, though. She called me Alec. It can’t be that hard to find her if she’s someone from our circle. There’ll be someone that knows someone that knows her.”

Vaughn clears his throat, falling silent. “Talking about the type of girls you usually go for,” he says carefully. “There’s something I’ve been meaning to tell you. I’d rather you hear it from me instead of the press.”

My heart drops. There’s only one topic he’d be this careful with. There’s only one person he’d never mention to me under normal circumstances. My heart twists painfully at the mere thought of her, the feeling quickly replaced by rage.

“Jennifer got engaged,” he says, sounding pained. “To Matthew Rousseau. They picked a wedding date already. They’re doing a low-key secret wedding in the Bahamas next year… on June 20th.”

June 20th. The day she was supposed to marry me. It can’t be a coincidence. She clearly picked that day intentionally; another way to stab me in the heart and twist the knife like the vicious bitch she is.

Jennifer is the one I thought was different. The first girl that didn’t seem to be after my money, that saw me for who I am, and not what my name is.

I was wrong.

Oh, so wrong.

I still don’t know if anything we had was ever real, or if it was all a game to her. I know she’s the one that stole corporate secrets, making me lose a multi-million-dollar deal that I’d been working on for years to Matthew Rousseau —but she’s clever. Or so she thinks. She hid her tracks well, but not well enough. Over and over again, I’m tempted to turn her in, but I can’t submit illegally obtained evidence. Even if I could, I wouldn’t. I would never do that to her. Despite everything she’s done, I don’t want to see her behind bars.

“I’m sorry, man,” Vaughn says. “I knew you’d find out one way or another. Pretty much everyone in our social circle knows already, so I knew the news would get to you eventually. Knowing her, there’s probably going to be a media spectacle from the second they announce their engagement to the press, right up to the wedding day. She’ll want every second of the limelight.”

She would. Life is one big show for her. It always has been—I just didn’t realize it until it was too late.

“Look, I gotta go,” I tell Vaughn.

“Alexander—“

I hang up, my veins thrumming with barely restrained anger. I’d probably be able to get over everything she did to me. Hell, I might even have forgiven her. I couldn’t care less about the money she lost me. I was ready to make her my damn wife .

But no. She just had to cheat on me with Matthew Rousseau. That asshole has been attacking my company for years now. Every decision I make, every project I pursue, he’s always right behind me. This time it wasn’t an acquisition he was after, though. No. This time, it was the love of my life, and she went willingly.

Would it have made a difference if she left me for someone else? I’m not sure. I don’t think the pain would be any less, the betrayal wouldn’t sting any less. I pick up the photo I keep on my nightstand. It’s a photo of Jennifer and me, both of us smiling—a reminder of what happens when I allow myself to fall in love, when I allow myself to be weak. I keep this photo here for moments like these—moments where I temporarily find myself fascinated by someone, tempted by girls like Diana.

I put the photo frame back on my nightstand, my heart twisting painfully. What Jennifer and I had… was any of it even real?

I’ll never know.





Chapter 5





A lexander



I stare at the photos of my father in my inbox and tighten my grip on the phone in my hand. This time, he’s in Tijuana with two blondes half his age.

“You know the deal,” I say, my jaw clenching involuntarily. “Make sure these photos never see the light of the day.”

“Of course,” Elliot says, rattling on about the costs to make these photos disappear. “I don’t care,” I tell him. Elliot is one of my closest friends and he might well be the best hacker alive. Thanks to that, he has no qualms about extorting me in return for keeping shit like this off the internet. “Just make sure my mother never sees this. No one can ever see this.”

I end the call, annoyed. My father is no longer even trying to be sly about his affairs. There are no excuses anymore, no more made-up business trips, no more lies. Now he just disappears for months on end, leaving my mother heartbroken, over and over again.