Irrefutable

by K. A. Berg

  “Because they used to bang, and from the way he sounded a little hesitant on calling, it didn’t end well. He didn’t want to have to call in that favor unless we had to.”

  This situation just keeps getting better and better. As soon as she gets a break, it’s like taking twelve steps back. Even though it goes against everything inside me as a man I hope like hell Jordan can pull this off for her. Regardless of how much I hate him being the one saving her, I still need her saved. She can’t keep going on like this. We can’t keep going on like this. How the hell are we supposed to start working on a life together when we’re constantly fighting her father instead of fighting for us? Everything is on the back burner right now and I have a feeling one day soon everything just might boil over.

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Quinn

  “Can you be out of the office by seven tonight?” Alex asks just before I’m about to say goodbye.

  It’s freezing today, and I have another block until I get to my building. If I hadn’t needed to get out of the office so bad, I would’ve ordered lunch in and avoided dealing with this bitter cold wind. “I’ll probably be done at my office by then, but I have to meet Jordan after,” I tell him as I pull my coat tighter around me.

  Sitting inside my office after everything that happened this weekend was getting to be too much for me. I needed to get away. Dr. Stein wasn’t in today, so I called Alex instead. Lucky for me he was already heading into the city.

  “Meet me outside your building at seven,” Alex instructs me. “We’re going out.”

  His timing is terrible. “We can’t go out tonight. Jordan and I are meeting regarding the merger.” We’ve decided to use talking about the merger as a cover for the plan. Alex knows we’ve been waiting to hear from Jordan’s friend. It took Jordan three days to get her to even meet with him about the file. Usually the Feds are jumping to get a tip for a big player. Jordan must have really fucked this woman over. But now we’ve the meeting, and I’m not missing it.

  “We have a date,” Alex says sternly.

  Talking in code sucks because we have no set code. Just guessing at riddles. Anyone listening in would think we’re high on something. “What the hell are you talking about?”

  Chuckling at me in irritation, Alex calmly says, “Seven o’clock. Just trust me, Quinn.”

  Because that’s not ominous or anything.

  “Start explaining now, please,” I demand as soon as I get close enough to Alex to not have to yell.

  “Well, hello to you too,” he says with a bright smile as he turns to hail a cab.

  Guess you can smile when you’re the one who knows what the hell is going on. “Answers, Alex. You’ve had me a freaking wreck since this afternoon.”

  Shaking his head, he argues “No way. This is all on Jordan. I’m just the messenger. You want to blame someone, blame him.”

  “What the hell are you talking about?” I ask as Alex ushers me into the cab waiting at the curb.

  “Jordan called me after he finished speaking to you,” he begins. “Apparently, he really screwed this FBI chick over, and she told him no way was she doing him a favor no matter how big of a catch it was. Somehow, he worked her down and got her to agree to meet with him, but he had to take her to dinner.”

  Are you shitting me? “Has he lost his mind? He pulled a morning-after-sneak-out on the girl and now he thinks it’s a good idea to take her on a date when he needs a favor from her? He’s going to fuck this up!”

  “Chill out,” he says sliding flush against me and tossing his arm over my shoulder. “Jordan’s going out to a nice dinner and hopefully will smooth talk his way into getting help, and we’ll get to have a nice night too.”

  “I’m more worried about him smooth talking his way into her pants and fucking this up for us,” I pout. Jordan’s been starting to come out of the box he forced himself in when he thought he had feelings for me. I’m worried he’s going to try adding this chick to his party.

  “Oh stop,” he chides. “Put a smile on your face and pretend like you’re a little excited to spend the night on a date with me.”

  Picking my head up, I tilt it toward him and smirk, “A date, huh?”

  “Yes, a date,” he nods. “A night where we’ll finally be free to be ourselves. No one following us taking pictures. We have some reconnecting to do. I want to hear more about all the non-blackmail shit you’ve been up to the last few years.”

  Hearing about all the ways the two of us spent our time away from each other is not high up on my list of fun. I’m not stupid to think Alex hasn’t been with a slew of girls, I mean look at him. I just don’t want to think about them or how one of them is probably better for him.

  “Relax,” Alex whispers softly into my ear. A chill runs through me as the warmth of his breath hits the sensitive skin below my ear. “Nothing to be worried about, Quinn. But it is something we need to discuss.”

  “Doesn’t mean I have to like it,” I sigh nestling into his side as we make our way to where Alex has picked to have dinner.

  The air around our table is full of uncertainty it’s stifling. Now that we’ve placed our orders and there’s nothing to distract me, I feel stuck in this awkward stare-off with Alex. He picked one of my favorite seafood restaurants on the water near my house. At least I’m not far from home in case this doesn’t end well. We’re about to rip open old wounds, and I don’t really agree with it, but I know Alex seems to need it.

  “We can’t avoid it forever,” Alex breaks the silence. “You need a distraction for the night and we’re not using sex this time. I know you don’t want to do this, but I need the truth, Quinn. I need to know why you just cut me off. I’ve been avoiding asking for the last two weeks, but I told you you’d hear about my needs and this is one of them. I need to know why. How could you do that? I get being scared and angry, but you were as cold as fucking ice to me.”

  Despite the slight sliver of sadness in his eyes, his demeanor never changes. Alex just sits there calm and casual. His blue and green plaid shirt stretches nicely across his perfect chest as he leans an arm over the back of his chair. His jeans tightening around his muscular thighs. His gorgeous untamed hair tucked perfectly behind one ear.

  Now why did he have to go and mention sex? Sex seems like a much more fun way to avoid dealing with my problems at the moment.

  But the way Alex never raises his voice or lets his tone become harsh tells me he has no intention of arguing. He just wants to talk. At least, I hope that’s what his body language is saying.

  “It wasn’t easy,” I begin. And it sure as hell wasn’t. When I cut Alex out of my life, it felt like I lost a piece of me. Nothing ever felt the same without him, so I made myself forget all about it. And I became a freaking shell of myself. “I was scared. I thought you were just like the rest of them, and I didn’t want to be that woman. I didn’t want to be my mother.”

  “But you never gave me the chance to explain,” he says with a sad look marring his features.

  Lowering my head, I nod knowing that’s exactly how I wanted it. “I would’ve caved,” I say, fiddling with my napkin to have a reason to avoid eye contact. “I didn’t want to hear your explanation, or have you give me a reason to stay. I didn’t want to see the truth then. I just wanted to find even the slightest reason to bail. If you had asked me to stay, I would have. And then resented myself and probably you because at that point in time I wouldn’t have been able to see things the way I’m starting to now.”

  Forcing myself to look Alex in the eye as I say those last words is hard. The longing in his eyes as I tell him I would’ve stayed breaks my heart. It’s like he’s watching something in his head right now and if he feels anything like I do, it’s probably a reel of all the missed time we’ve had.

  “Angel,” he sighs as he leans forward and rests his arms on the end of the table. “All this time. It could’ve been prevented if you just told me it was too fast for you or whatever the issue was.”


  “I didn’t see it that way then. You need to understand all I’d ever really seen before was guys walking all over their girlfriends and wives. It was what I thought was normal. I thought it was how it was supposed to be,” I counter. Alex needs to understand no matter what he would’ve said at the time, the doubt had been placed. “Even if you told me how wrong I was, I hadn’t seen enough real love to actually believe in it.”

  “And now you do?” he asks, his voice sounding very skeptical. With what I just told him, I wouldn’t jump to believing me either.

  “I’m starting to,” I nod. “I’m not tripping over myself to label things or run to the nearest courthouse, but I do know it’s possible to have the best kind of love. I’ve seen it. And I believe enough to know what we had was real love. On your part, at least.”

  An offended look takes over his face as Alex straightens in his seat and opens his mouth to say something.

  “Now, wait a minute,” I interrupt him, putting my hand up and not letting him get a word out. “I know what you’re about to say, and I’m not saying I didn’t love you, just I wouldn’t let myself really love you, so I can’t say it was real love from me.”

  “You realize that’s insulting, right?” he asks, raising his eyebrows and crossing his arms across his chest.

  “Don’t hold back,” I mutter under my breath, but Alex still hears me.

  “I’m not holding back,” he smirks. “I did before, and it didn’t work in my favor. There’s no sugarcoating now. Lack of communication killed us before. When you say something insulting, I’m going to be upset about it.”

  Even when he’s upset, Alex has such an even tone about him. You’d never know he was angry right now. I think it’s one of the things I really took for granted before. Alex never does anything to hurt me.

  “I don’t mean it to be insulting, Alex. I’m being honest. I want to try to love you. That’s what I meant when I said I needed to work on me. There’s a lot of shit that’s so fucked up about me. So much to learn. It’s a huge thing for me to even admit what we have can be real.”

  Reaching across the table, Alex grabs my hand and interlocks his fingers with mine. “I’ve got all the time in the world for you, angel. You just can’t pull the same shit on me again. I need you to promise me you’ll always give me the benefit of the doubt and be honest with me.”

  Giving his hand a squeeze, I nod, “Okay.”

  “Good, now tell me about the life of Quinn outside of work since I left town,” Alex says just as our dinner arrives.

  So, that’s what I do. I tell him all about the nothing but working I’ve done since he left while enjoying the most delicious crab cakes I’ve ever had.

  Alex on the other hand has tons of great stories all about Arizona. Pride radiates all over his face as he talks about how much he loved being head trainer and achieving his goals. I’m truly happy for him.

  “If anything good came from this mess, it’s this,” I smile. “Seeing how happy you are reaching this new high is worth it.”

  Confusion sets in Alex’s forehead as he asks, “What do you mean?”

  “The timing of the offer to go to Arizona and my shutting you out, it gave you the motivation to go. Who knows what would’ve happened if you had gotten the offer at a different time. There was nothing standing in your way.”

  Alex shakes his head disagreeing with me. “You were never in my way. We would’ve found a way to make it work.”

  I don’t think it would’ve been as easy as he thinks, but it’s nothing worth arguing over because there’s no way for either of us to know how things might’ve played out. It’s best if we just agree to disagree. “Regardless, I’m just really glad to see you happy and reaching new goals. It looks good on you. Just like your long hair.”

  A huge genuine smile graces Alex’s full luscious lips. His perfectly straight white teeth glimmer as he laughs. “I was wondering how long it was going to take you to say something about it. Guess it’s safe to say you like it, huh?”

  Giving him a sly smile, I say, “You know I do. I’m sure all the girls over there liked it too. The long hair and man bun thing doesn’t work on everyone, but you definitely pull it off well.”

  Images of my fingers wrapped up in his beautiful hair flitter into my mind just as the waiter comes back to ask about dessert. Alex has to nudge me under the table to grab my attention as the kid stands there waiting for my answer on wanting to see a dessert menu.

  “While we’re talking about girls on the West Coast, I need to tell you something kind of important,” Alex informs me as soon as the waiter is out of earshot.

  My eyebrows rise, and I look at him suspiciously. Everything has been going pretty well tonight and I really don’t want to have it go south now.

  “The last thing I want to talk about is the things we’ve done and the people we’ve done them with, but there’s something I think you should know,” he says giving me his full undivided attention.

  A nervous fluttering takes over in my stomach. Please don’t tell me you knocked up some chick on the other side of the country. I don’t think I can handle something like that. “What?”

  “Tiff and I have slept together,” he says, shocking for me a minute because I swear Ashley told me she said she was into girls.

  “Isn’t she a lesbian?” I stupidly ask since it’s the only thing that crosses my mind.

  A chuckle escapes past his lips as they move into a cocky little smile. “For the most part. She’s not a full-blown lesbian.”

  I quirk an eyebrow at him and say, “It sounds like your bragging to me about banging the girl who’s mostly into chicks.”

  Alex gets a momentary pass as the waiter comes back with the biggest slice of cheesecake topped with chocolate and strawberries I’ve ever seen. I almost forget about Alex’s revelation thinking about how good it’s going to taste. It doesn’t last long though. I want to know the point of him telling me this.

  As the waiter leaves, I sit back in my seat and wait for him to say something.

  “I wasn’t bragging,” he replies. “I just didn’t want any secrets. I figured it would be better to tell you myself and now. This way nothing can come to bite me in the ass later. I mean, I know you’ve been with Jordan, and I’m glad I know up front. That’s not something I’d rather find out later on, as if you were keeping it from me.”

  What a dumbass! “I haven’t slept with Jordan. Why would you think that?”

  “Because you’ve been engaged to the guy,” he says as though it’s a given.

  “It wasn’t a real engagement, Alex,” I scoff at him. I’m a little offended he just assumed we were having sex because we were faking a relationship. “I haven’t slept with Jordan or any…”

  I stop myself from finishing my sentence even though I already know it’s too late. Alex didn’t miss the fact I was able to say something more. He proves me right as he asks, “What were you going to say?”

  “God dammit,” I murmur to myself. I just couldn’t shut myself up, could I? “I haven’t slept with anyone other than you in over a year.”

  Alex’s face drops and looks stunned. “What?”

  It’s like Ashley all over again. “What is with the people in my life finding it surprising I can keep my fucking legs shut?” I ask with some venom in my voice.

  “Whoa, relax. Take a bite of cheesecake,” he says gesturing toward my untouched dessert. “I didn’t mean anything bad by it, I’m just surprised that’s all. You’re gorgeous, angel. But not only that, you’re the complete package. I just assumed you went back to what was working for you before.”

  Taking a huge bite of my cheesecake, I just glare at Alex. I know he isn’t saying this to be mean or pick a fight, but it still sounds like an insult.

  “Why?” he presses on. He’s obviously not going to let this go.

  “Why what?”

  His hazel eyes which look more green than brown tonight roll as he answers, knowing I’m stalling. I know exactly what h
e’s asking. “Why haven’t you been with anyone in so long? And why didn’t you tell me before we took that step again?”

  “Because it wasn’t the same after you,” I huff. “Is that what you wanted to hear?”

  “That’s something any man wants to hear from the woman he’s been in love with for close to five years,” he says. “But only if it’s the truth. I’m not trying to embarrass you or give you a hard time, but this is the shit we need to talk about, Quinn. Did you enjoy life without me?”

  What the fuck?

  “Why the hell would you ask that?” I question, not sure I like where this is headed.

  Scooching his chair around the round table we’re seated at, Alex gets as close to me as he can and reaches out, grabbing my hands. “Because life without you really fucking sucked, and I don’t want to live without you. We need to get everything out now. This way we don’t have any kind of misunderstanding again. You are a sex goddess and I want to know why you couldn’t find anything with anyone else. I know why I couldn’t. Want to know why?”

  As soon as I nod, Alex continues his speech. “Because no one else out there is you. I spent two years of my life looking for the next Quinn, and guess what? There’s no one who could replace you.”

  Alex’s uncanny ability to make me feel comfortable enough to talk to him is another thing I’d taken for granted. He sets me at ease, which is a major part of why I iced him out after breaking up. The way he understands me has always scared the shit out of me and after not having it in my life, I realize just how special it is.

  “It just wasn’t the same. I used to love the anonymity in meaningless sex, but after a while it was empty. After having you know exactly what I like and what I need, it was hard to find anything that compared, so I stopped trying.”

  A self-satisfied smile splays across his face.

  “You don’t have to be so smug about it, you know?” I point out. “You didn’t see me getting high and mighty when you just admitted to having the same issue.”