“He hasn’t even tried,” Alexis yells, her voice warbling like she’s about to burst into tears.
I fight back the pity which tries to rise up inside of me, remembering all the stress she’s caused Conrad, unfair and unearned.
“Has he ever given you any indication he wants to be with you?”
She folds her arms, reminding me of the girls in high school who’d always look down on me and Simone, acting like we were inferior because we didn’t have dyed hair and tanned skin and weren’t on the cheer squad. “He doesn’t need to. We’re meant to be together. It’s only a matter of time before he sees that.”
Conrad chuckles from beside me, as though he can’t believe that a minute ago we were embracing and now we’re dealing with this, with her.
“That’s just not true. And you know it’s not. I’m sorry, Alexis. I really am. I can see you’re a troubled woman. But I’m going to have to call the police and enforce the restraining order. I can’t have you following me, fucking tracking me. It’s simply unacceptable,” Conrad says completely fed up.
“Why couldn’t you just screw me?” she snaps, with a crazed note in her voice, causing me to take a step backward.
It’s like she’s going to produce a knife from somewhere and lunge at us any second. Even if this doesn’t make sense – she has nowhere she could even pull a weapon from – I can’t stop the fear from pounding in my chest.
I just want her gone, out of our lives.
“Because I was waiting for the one, my Callie,” he snarls, as he takes out his cell phone. “I’ve been waiting for her my whole damn life.”
“For her?” Alexis waves a hand at me.
For a second all the old feelings come rushing back, the insecurity I tried to suppress when the high school girls would make their cruel comments, the horrible self-hate which would hiss through me every time they aimed their cruel eyes at me.
But then Conrad steps forward and wraps his arm around me, hugging me close to him, letting Alexis see that he’s chosen me over her. Warmth replaces the coldness that had begun to seep into me, sparks igniting in my chest, telling me he picked me, he chose me, not her, despite her body and her hair and her everything.
My man wants me, and that’s all that matters.
“For her,” Conrad snarls firmly. “I do not want you, Alexis. I don’t want anything to do with you. It’s time you accepted that. I’ve found my woman and we’re going to start a family together.”
“But, but…” Alexis trails off, and then frantically waves a hand at me and then down herself. “You could have this. Do you know how fucking hard I work at the gym? Do you have any idea how little I eat? And all to keep myself fit for you, skinny for you, and instead you want this, this…”
She shakes her head, staring at me wide-eyed.
“I don’t understand.”
“My woman is a hundred times more attractive than you,” Conrad snaps, his hand squeezing supportively onto my shoulder. “She’s all I want, all I need, so fuck off for all I care but I’m calling the police.”
I glare at her, bolstered by Conrad’s words. I’ve never had anyone stand up for me like that before, and now Conrad has done it twice in the span of a few days, first with Todd and now with Alexis.
She lets out a jagged shaking breath and then spins away, stalking toward the exit, muttering under her breath. Except her muttering is louder than most yells. “I don’t get it. He wants her over me? I just don’t get it…”
Conrad gestures at me with the cell phone, eyebrow raised.
“Let me get this call over with. And then I’ll take you home.”
“Thank you,” I murmur, squeezing closer to him, resting my head against his chest. “For what you said, about wanting me more. It means a lot.”
“Of course,” he growls. “She needs to get it into her thick goddamn skull. I’ve never been interested in her.”
“It seems like she has a problem with being rejected. Like she can’t believe it. It’s like what you said – maybe no other man has ever rejected her before.”
“Well, she can ask me a hundred times and I’ll say no every damn time. You’re the only woman I want.”
Forever, I whisper in my mind, but we can’t reclaim the moment she shattered, the word love hovering in the air.
Chapter Nineteen
Conrad
I stand in the bedroom, my whole body pounding in time with my heartbeat. My woman said she wanted to take a shower before we made love for the first time, before we have sex, fuck, screw, turn into animals and ravish each other.
Goddamn, I can’t think, can’t even sit still. All I can do is let my mind flood with images of my woman, with thoughts of her curvy body and her plump juicy ass and her perfect tits.