The Seduction of Alex Parker(58)

“Maybe I am.” I looked down.

He placed his hands on his hips and turned his back to me. “We hit one bump in the road and you doubt me and everything we’ve been through? Do you know how bad that hurts?”

“Not as bad as finding you in the arms of another woman when you supposedly are in love with me.”

He whipped himself around and the anger consumed him. “Supposedly? Fuck, Emerson. How can you say that?”

“All I wanted was for you to tell me why she was there.”

“And I was going to tell you today. But now, since you believe I don’t love you and all of this has meant nothing, there’s no need to discuss it because, apparently, you don’t believe anything I say. If that’s how you feel, then maybe you should leave.”

Oh boy, now he really had me fired up. My eyes burned into his. My heart pounded out of my chest and a wave of nausea overtook me as he walked out of the room.

“Hey, Parker!” I yelled.

He turned and looked at me from the hallway. I held both my middle fingers up at him. “Bye, Felicia. By the way, I didn’t start my period. I. LIED. TO. YOU!”

He shook his head and walked down the stairs as I went to our bedroom and slammed the door. So much for things being perfect. If it’s too good to be true, then it probably is. Isn’t that how the quote goes?

I wanted to scream at the top of my lungs. I wanted to throw everything I could get my hands on, but I didn’t. I refused to let him break me. I was a fighter and a survivor and, apparently, a very jealous person. You see what he did? He turned it around and blamed me. Did I really doubt his love for me? In a way I did only because he was holding another woman and wouldn’t talk about it last night. What else was I supposed to think? I needed to get the f*ck out of here for a while. I needed to clear my head and really think about what had just happened and I couldn’t do that in this house. I was heading down the only road I’d ever known.





Chapter 41


Alex

I went out the back door and down to the beach. I needed just to cool down. For her not to believe that I loved her killed me like nothing ever had. If she never would have seen me and Bella, we wouldn’t be having this argument. I would have told her today why she was there and she would have understood. She was hurt by what she saw, but to doubt that I loved her was crossing the line with me. I had given her everything I had. My heart, my soul, my world, and in one lousy f*cking moment, she doubted me. That right there hurt me to the very core of my existence.

About a mile up the beach was a waterfront restaurant. I needed a drink to calm down and to think, so I walked there. Sitting at the bar for a couple of hours, sipping on the same drink, something hit me. I told her to leave. Panic settled inside me because that was exactly what she’d do. I never should have walked away from her and I shouldn’t have been so stubborn and not tell her the truth. I threw some money on the bar and ran up the beach back to my house. I ran as fast as I could as the wind swept across my face and the ocean roared. I flew in the back door and up the stairs to our bedroom. The door was open and Emerson wasn’t in there. I looked in the closet to see her suitcase gone and empty hangers hanging where her clothes hung. Slamming my hand against the molding of the door, I yelled, “Emerson!”

Jenna came running into the bedroom and looked at me. She knew something. I could see it in her sad eyes.

“Where is she?” I asked through gritted teeth.

“I don’t know, Alex. She just said that she needed to think and clear her head.”

“She can’t f*cking do that here in California?”

“Calm down. You don’t know if she left the state. Maybe she went to Adam’s house.”

“Maybe she did. I’ll give him a call.”

I pulled out my phone and dialed Adam.

“Hey, Alex, what’s up?”

“Adam, have you talked to Emerson by chance?”

“No. I was going to call her later to find out how she was feeling. Why?”

“Are you home?”

“Yeah. What’s going on, man?”

“We got into a huge fight and her suitcase is gone and so are some of her clothes.”

“Shit, Alex. What the hell happened?”

“It’s a long story and I’d rather not get into it right now. Could you do me a favor and give her a call? If I call her, she won’t answer.”

“Sure thing. I’ll call you back.” Click.

Suddenly, I heard her phone go off. I looked at Jenna and she looked at me. It sounded like it was coming from the nightstand. I walked over, opened the drawer, and saw her phone sitting there. I answered the call from Adam.

“It’s me. She left her phone here.”

“Ah, f*ck! Find her, Alex. Do whatever you have to and find her. I don’t trust that she’ll come back, especially if she’s hurting.”

“I will. I’ll keep you posted.”

Looking over at Jenna, who was shooting me a nasty look, I walked over to the closet and took the map down she had stored up on the shelf. Laying it on the bed, I spoke, “Let’s see if we can figure out where she went off to.”

As we looked over the map, nothing was looking right. I sighed as I sat down on the bed. Suddenly, the song she sang at karaoke last night crept into my mind.