Alana
Alejandroand I walked into the bar at his hotel. He had his hand on my lower back, dangerously close to my ass. I looked up at him and smiled and he responded with a cheeky wink. We had finished our dinner with the mayor and had decided to have a quick nightcap before heading up to our suite, because Alejandro had someone he needed to speak with.
I liked the mayor and his wife, Bree, and we’d had a lovely evening together. They knew that I volunteered at a women’s shelter, and they’d been keen to hear about the plans the manager, Kristen, and I had for the place in the future. But, all I wanted to do now was have some time alone with my incredibly sexy husband, and thank him again for agreeing to let Lucia stay with us for a while. Sometimes, I could hardly believe that I was married to him, and given the unusual and tense start to our marriage, that we were both so happy.
We approached the bar and the bartender smiled a greeting to us. ‘Good evening Mr and Mrs Montoya. Your usual, sir?’
‘Yes, two,’ Alejandro replied as he guided me to a bar stool.
I was about to sit down when I heard a familiar voice behind me. ‘Alana Carmichael! Is that really you?’
I turned around instead of sitting down. ‘Bobby Conroy!’ I said with a huge smile on my face. ‘What the hell are you doing here?’
‘I’m here for the convention,’ he said as he took a step towards me. The hotel hosted dozens of conventions every year and I knew that the current one was something to do with tech giants and app development.
Alejandro slipped an arm around my waist possessively before Bobby could pull me into the hug he was clearly gunning for, and I felt a thrill of unexpected pleasure shoot through me. I was used to constantly bumping into Alejandro’s insanely beautiful ex-girlfriends. It was about time we ran into one of my exes. ‘Bobby, this is my husband, Alejandro,’ I said as I leaned into him, full of pride and contentment.
‘Wow! You’re married?’ he asked with a flash of his eyebrows, and then he extended his hand to Alejandro, who shook it firmly.
‘And Bobby is?’ Alejandro growled.
I bit my lower lip. Who was Bobby? My first crush. My first kiss. The boy who I’d thought would be my first everything. I decided not to lead with any of those things though.
‘Bobby was my high school boyfriend,’ I said quietly.
Bobby’s eyes darted to mine as if to remind me that we had been so much more than that. I took a second to drink him in. I hadn’t seen him for almost seven years, not since the time he’d come home for his first Christmas break after he’d left for college. He’d been a major jock in high school and the girls had always loved him. But, for some reason, he had chosen me. He’d always been good looking as a boy, but as a man, he was swoon-worthy. His sandy blonde hair was short on the sides and longer at the top. His blue eyes still twinkled like the ocean. He was tall and his muscular frame filled out his suit perfectly.
He wasn’t a patch on the sex god standing beside me, but still, he was fine. And given my numerous brushes with Alejandro’s ex-girlfriends, who were all beyond gorgeous, I was secretly pleased that he had turned up here looking so good. Maybe, Alejandro would learn how it felt to stand there with a hundred questions buzzing through his head. Not that he had anything at all to be jealous about.
I sensed that Bobby was about to say something when another man walked up and stood beside him. ‘There you are, buddy,’ he said with a lop-sided smile. He was dressed in a suit too, but looked like he’d enjoyed one too many drinks.
‘Hey, Justin,’ Bobby turned to him. ‘This is my old friend, Alana, and her husband, Alejandro.’
‘Alana?’ Justin said with his eyes wide and his mouth hanging open. ‘You mean the one that got away, Alana?’
Bobby sucked in a breath before laughing softly and I felt Alejandro tense beside me, his grip on me tightening.
‘The one that got away, huh?’ I laughed too. ‘I think you must be mistaking me for someone else, Justin.’
‘Just how long did you two date?’ Alejandro said. His voice was calm and controlled, but I could feel the rumble of anger coursing through his body.
‘Not that long,’ I replied.
‘A little over two years,’ Bobby said immediately after.
Just then, the bartender placed our drinks onto the bar. At the same time, one of Alejandro’s security guards walked up beside him and spoke quietly in his ear.
‘Joder!’ he cursed before turning to me. ‘I have to deal with something. I won’t be long.’ He looked at Bobby and then back at me and I saw the vein bulging in his neck. Then he leaned down and kissed me softly. ‘Behave,’ he murmured against my skin and then he walked away with his employee.
Alejandro had been gone for over twenty minutes and I was already onto my second glass of Scotch. Alejandro’s expensive tastes in whisky had rubbed off on me, and I had come to enjoy the taste of the expensive liquor and the way it warmed my throat when I sipped it. I sat between Bobby and Justin and learned that they had become overnight millionaires after developing a piece of security tech. They were the keynote speakers at the convention in the hotel.
After ordering another round of drinks, Justin excused himself to use the restroom, leaving Bobby and I alone.
‘I’m really glad I bumped into you, Alana,’ he said softly as he looked into my eyes. ‘I’ve always regretted the way things ended between us.’
‘It was a long time ago, Bobby,’ I said, recalling the Christmas he had come home from college and told me had slept with someone else. I supposed I couldn’t blame him. I had made him wait for two years, and when he’d gone off to college in another state, halfway across the country, I could hardly blame him for giving into temptation. How ironic, that the night he told me, was the night I was planning to have sex with him and lose my virginity. It had hurt more than anything at the time though, but it wasn’t something that bothered me any longer. ‘We were just kids. Besides, everything has turned out for the best.’
‘Are you happy?’ he asked me, his eyes full of concern.