Not About Love (This Love Book 2)

by Hilaria Alexander

  A smile stretched across my face, and I was overcome by a feeling of hope and happiness. “A quarter of my closet space,” I countered.

  “Deal,” he said with a smile.

  We shook hands and kissed and then celebrated our domestic partnership the best way we knew how.

  LEAVE IT TO MY BROTHER to make the rest of us look bad.

  Well, actually, there was just one person he was making look bad.

  Me.

  Maybe I shouldn’t have felt like that, but I did. My circumstances were different…but still. In my heart I felt I should do more, be more.

  It was even more awkward because Ally had been the one helping him organize one heck of a proposal. Flowers, pretty lights, music—everything was on point.

  Lou’s words were poignant and beautiful.

  There wasn’t a dry eye in sight, and when Ella erupted into a loud “Yes!”, everyone’s sniffles turned into cheers. I was glad to be there to witness it, but I still felt uncomfortable.

  I kept wondering if I’d ever come to a point where I felt confident enough to give my heart to a woman again. I had sworn I would never tie myself to anyone else after Portia, but now I wasn’t sure.

  Ally was having my child; I knew she deserved more from me.

  I liked her and I cared for her. I wanted to give her everything, but there was a part of me that still wasn’t ready for it. No matter how much I enjoyed her company or how compatible we were, there was always a latent fear holding me back.

  After I had told her about my past and Portia, she’d offered to have a paternity test, thinking it might ease my mind. She understood it wasn’t an easy situation for me, and I was thankful for that, but I didn’t need a paternity test; I knew this baby was mine.

  After seeing my baby’s heartbeat on the ultrasound screen, I was both amazed and bewildered. I still couldn’t believe it was happening. It was exciting and frightening at the same time. I started thinking about love and life, about how fate operates. I started thinking that maybe sometimes no matter how much you think you’re in control of your life, fate is determined to show you the opposite—for better, and sometimes for worse.

  I started believing that being a father was my fate. I had never been a fatalist, but I was starting to see things differently.

  Maybe I was meant to move there, where my own brother had found love, so I would have a chance at building a family.

  Part of me knew this child was a blessing. The other part worried the situation wasn’t really ideal, the timing wasn’t right. The selfish part of me missed New York, missed the life I had there, but soon I’d be someone’s father, and just the thought of it made my heart swell with joy and a certain kind of pride. When I had been younger, I’d always hoped I’d become a husband and a father—but that had been before I’d gotten disenchanted about love and women. As my mind kept rambling, all of a sudden, I remembered.

  Out of the blue, I remembered what had happened the last night Ally and I had been together.

  Both of us were piss drunk, stumbling through every action, every movement. I remembered my need for her, my chest aching at the thought of not seeing her again. I remembered her warm, soft skin, her gorgeous breasts, her flesh calling my name, the sudden impulse to be inside her, right then.

  It had happened—I hadn’t used protection. I thought it had just happened once, but I wasn’t completely sure. I remembered how good she felt around me, skin to skin. It was even better than any other time. I could really feel her, but now that I knew the truth, I hated myself even more, because I was the cause of all this.

  I could barely look at her without feeling uneasy, the sense of guilt taking over.

  The knot in my throat appeared any time I was around her, and now with the proposal, it was even worse. I felt even more ashamed.

  “Are you okay?” she asked me later that night, brows furrowed, her lips curved in a small pout.

  I let out a sigh.

  “Sweetheart, I have something to confess.”

  * * *

  “Boyd, I can’t fucking believe you!” Ally yelled. “How could you be so careless?” she asked in disbelief.

  “I was drunk!” I said, trying to excuse myself. I knew it wasn’t a good enough excuse. I was guilty. She had every right to yell at me.

  “That’s no excuse! I was drunk, too, but if you had told me you weren’t wrapping it up, I would have done it myself!”

  “Oh, please! You didn’t even realize I didn’t have one on. That’s how far gone you were, too!” She scowled, and I shrugged as she let out an exasperated growl. The fact that I was trying to downplay it made her even more mad.

  “If it makes you feel any better, it felt wonderful. You felt wonderful. If I could go back…I’d probably do it again.” She raised her eyebrows, and her eyes widened in disbelief.

  “How I felt? So you go from having total amnesia to remembering details of that night? Do you want to know how I’ve really felt in the last few weeks? This whole time I thought it had been my fault! I thought I had done something wrong.” She raised her hands up in the air and gave me a pointed look. The woman did know how to be dramatic, but I had to hand it to her…she wore it well. I didn’t hate the scowl on her face, especially if it meant I’d have to work my way back in. I loved to chase her. I’d chase her to a bedroom for the rest of my life.

  “You thought it was your fault? And, enlighten me…what could you have possibly done wrong? Made my condom disappear with one of those magic moves of yours?”

  “Haha, very funny. I should be even more pissed at you now, especially after all those weeks of not hearing from you at all. You just signed your death sentence, buddy,” she said with a sly smile, her index finger pressed to my chest.

  “Come on, sweetheart. Let’s kiss and make up. That’s all behind us. I’m here, with you. Let’s hug it out. I’ll make it worth your while.” I opened my arms to embrace her, but she shoved me away. She was about to slap me, but I raised both my hands to cover myself. I did it to tease her more than for self-defense, and it worked. She tried to keep a straight face, but the tight line of her lips turned into a smile, and she started laughing.

  I laughed with her, thinking this was the first time in a long time I’d felt truly happy. Our eyes locked. This time, when I went in for a hug, she let me embrace her.

  I kissed her on the lips.

  “It was meant to be, Red. It only happened once, and you and I both know we had sex dozens of times. Just once, and yet, my little sperm made it all the way to your egg and scored a big, fat touchdown. What are the odds, huh?” She closed her eyes and shook her head. I tipped her chin up with my finger.

  “Look at me,” I told her. She did as I asked. Our eyes locked, and after a few seconds, the angry glare changed into a softer look.

  “Meant to be, you say.”

  I smiled. “Mmm.” I nuzzled her neck, trailing kisses on her skin, and she sighed.

  “You think I have magic moves?” she asked in a low, breathy voice. I stopped and looked at her. I smiled, the fire in her eyes rendering me powerless. Was I ever going to stop wanting this woman? Seal the deal, a voice inside me said. I pushed the thought away and focused on her lips, then my eyes traveled to her gorgeous breasts. They had gotten even bigger since she’d gotten pregnant, and I couldn’t say I didn’t love that. Now that she was a few months in, her curves were even softer, her belly slowly shaping up as our son or daughter kept growing. She was beautiful, all around.

  “You do have magic moves. Those hips of yours don’t lie.” My hands grabbed her hips, and I rocked myself against her. She let out a sigh.

  “One thing is for sure,” she murmured. “We’re really, really good at this.”

  * * *

  I felt much lighter after getting my confession off my chest.

  I felt relieved. Now that we were both past the initial shock, we were just trying to make things work. We were both looking forward to meeting our kid.

  We liv
ed together, hung out together, had sex—often—but we never put a label on our relationship, despite everyone around us dropping hints.

  My brother and Ella had gotten engaged, but they were both busy and informed us all the wedding wouldn’t take place for another year at least, so we should stop asking. They had talked it out and agreed there was no rush. I knew this to be true. My brother said he was sure about his feelings, but he also knew marrying young hadn’t worked out for him, and he didn’t want to rush Ella into anything.

  She was recording her second album with this weird guy who was her producer. She was about to have a busy year ahead of her, and so was my brother. I knew he had lots of new material, so it was only a matter of time before he headed back into the studio. Their wedding wouldn’t be happening for a while, and although everyone was okay with that, there was one person who was itching for her kids to settle down.

  My mother.

  Whenever I talked to her, she never missed the opportunity to ask me about my intentions with Ally.

  “I don’t get it,” she would say. “If you’re living together and you’re having a child, isn’t that the logical next step?” She didn’t like it when I laughed it off and changed the subject.

  If there was one thing I struggled with, it was being able to monitor all of my businesses. The gym there in Amsterdam was coming together, but it was still a long way away. The old building we had chosen was proving to be a challenge, but once finished, it was going to look beautiful. Plus, it was right in the heart of the city.

  There was no better advertising, really.

  It was also not that far away from the place I shared with my “roommate”.

  I kept a close eye on the gyms in New York, but the six-hour time difference didn’t help. I was copied on every email, and I talked to the managers I hired, but from time to time, I struggled to let go. I knew I needed to go back soon to see things for myself and make sure everything was working smoothly. I’d have hated for something I’d worked so hard at to go to ruin.

  I was struggling to adjust to my new reality and reassess my responsibilities.

  Ally was also having a hard couple weeks. The case she was working on had turned out to be a real pain in the ass.

  The victim’s mother wasn’t giving up, and the attorney she had hired was a real shark.

  I hadn’t seen her most of the week since she had been out working on the case with Nars, the criminal attorney Shane had hired. When she was home, she was always working late, spending hours on research, looking for loopholes and ways to prove Grant’s innocence.

  I knew she was exhausted, even if she tried not to talk about it.

  She could feel I didn’t like or approve of any of it.

  I had nothing against Grant—I had only met the kid in passing—but Shane rubbed me the wrong way. I didn’t like the way he acted, so full of himself, a pretentious look of confidence always plastered on his face. He looked like a money-hungry, shady-ass attorney. I hated the way he interacted with Ally, and I loathed how he looked at her, like she was the one who got away, when in reality, he was the fool who had let her go. I guess we all tend to make really dumb decisions when we’re young.

  What I hated the most was that even after all these years, there was an air of complicity between them. It wasn’t that Ally was leading him on by any means, but I could see she enjoyed the attention. I understood…sort of. I did understand why she wanted to help him out; she felt vindicated.

  I understood, but that didn’t mean I liked it. In fact, I had to come to the conclusion that I was jealous. I had to admit to myself that I was jealous of Shane, of the time he was taking away from her, and that I was mad because it was stressing her out.

  “Sweetheart, it’s time to go to bed. You need to rest.” I couldn’t even believe the words were coming out of my mouth. Look at me, playing the role of the dutiful boyfriend…but am I just playing? Or is this my role now?

  “Just a moment. I need to go through the stuff we got from the private investigator. I think we’re close, we’re really close. I think we might have finally found someone who’s going to come forward and say to the judge that Ilse was a drug addict and the one who got the drugs, and we have people willing to testify that their witnesses were not at the club where it all went down.” Her eyes lit up as she updated me on the case, and even though she had dark circles under her eyes, she was lively and animated as she gave me more details. I sat on her desk and cupped her cheek, determined to make her shut down her laptop, but something else distracted me—a very strong, foul odor.

  “What stinks so bad?” I asked, puzzled.

  “Um, probably me…I haven’t taken a shower since yesterday. I overslept this morning, and I just didn’t have time,” she answered, red in the face.

  I shook my head and laughed.

  “No, it couldn’t possibly be you. Don’t you smell it? It smells like…death. Do you have trash in your trash bin?”

  “Can’t smell anything. I’ve been stuffed up all week—thanks, allergies. It’s even worse now that I have a tiny human growing inside me. Let me check…nope, no trash, not even today’s. Hedwig must have cleaned it up. She’s so good.”

  I stood up and looked around the office. “It has to be coming from somewhere.”

  I found a stash of mail with several packages and letters.

  “Uh, Ally…you might want to open your mail.”

  “Yeah, I know, I know. I should just tell Hedwig to do it for me. It’s getting to be too much. So much junk mail.”

  I sorted the mail that looked like junk and the stuff that seemed to be important—I could hardly understand any Dutch, but junk mail was easy to spot in any language—and I did the same for the packages. Baby stuff, Amazon purchases, a package from my mom—I wondered what she sent. At last, I found the culprit. The smell was so strong I wanted to gag.

  It was a small brown box, carefully packaged. It had Ally’s address on it, didn’t have anything for the sender’s address.

  I brought it back to Ally’s desk. “You really can’t smell this?” She shook her head. “Do you have a letter opener?” She fished a silver letter opener out of her desk drawer and handed it to me, a curious look on her face.

  “May I?” I asked.

  “By all means, be my guest,” she replied with a gesture of her hand.

  I cut across the package and then on the sides. The hideous smell erupted from the box and filled the whole room. The stench was so strong I had to focus really hard to not start gagging. I covered my nose and my mouth with my hand and moved the lid to the side to peek inside.

  “What the fuck is this?” I asked, horrified.

  A large dead rat sat inside the box. A small card was placed on top of it, with just two words scribbled on it.

  Sterf, bitch.

  I didn’t know much Dutch, but it didn’t take a genius to understand what the card said.

  Die, bitch.

  Ally looked at me curiously. She stood up from her chair and cradled her small bump. She peeked inside the box, slowly. I waited for her reaction, but she surprised me.

  A small smile stretched across her face.

  “Well, look at that. My first hate mail.”

  “WE NEED TO GO TO the police,” Boyd suggested. He had been a grumpy bear ever since opening the damn box. I wished I had been the one to open the darn thing; I wouldn’t have made such a big deal out of it.

  “Boyd, they aren’t going to do anything. They’ll laugh in our face, you’ll see. It’s just a dead rat. You know what this means? She’s scared. She probably knows her castle of lies is about to come down any minute.”

  We fought for an hour about what to do with it. I wanted to get rid of it, and he said we should keep it as evidence.

  Where could we possibly store an ugly, likely disease-carrying dead rat?

  After considering buying a freezer just to store the damn thing, I remembered that Johan and Helga’s pancake house had a freezer room in the back.


  We took pictures (Boyd’s suggestion) and then wrapped the damn thing in a dozen plastic bags.

  Johan didn’t bat an eye when I asked him if he could keep the box stored in the coldest corner of the room. When he saw the frazzled expressions on our faces, he asked what the box contained. When I told him what was inside, he raised his eyebrows and let out a deep breath.

  “Will I go to jail if I…keep this?” he asked, hesitating with his English, looking between Boyd and me.

  “No, but it is evidence of some sort.” He looked perplexed. “Bewijsmateriaal. Afpersing…no, that’s not the word I’m looking for…bedreiging,” I corrected myself.

  “Threats? You? Are you okay?” he asked in a worried tone.

  “Ik ben ok…I’ll be fine. There’s nothing to worry about. It’s just a precaution.”

  “Geen problem. I’ll keep the rat for you.” He raised his arm and walked away, rattling the box and laughing. I flinched. I didn’t want to see that thing ever again. I couldn’t wait to get rid of it, but I had to downplay it because I had an anxious bodyguard at my side. His arms circled my ever-growing waist, startling me.

  “You’re so damn sexy when you speak Dutch. Honestly, I don’t even understand why it turns me on so much. Woman, you could say anything and I’d love it. Will you talk to me dirty in Dutch tonight?” I turned to look at him, and he had the most mischievous of smiles on his face, his lips tilted at the corner, his eyes bright and playful. When he smiled at me like that, I was ready to throw all good sense out the window.

  You’re already pregnant with his child, idiot. Right. He raised his eyebrows and gave me a subtle nod, still waiting for a response.

  “Is this a play to get me to go to the police?” I asked, narrowing my eyes at him.

  “It’s a play to get you in bed, Red,” he whispered. “I miss you.”

  I narrowed my eyes at him. “What are you getting at? Have we not…done it enough lately?” Sure, I’d had a busy couple weeks and had stayed up late working, but we had been together most nights.