Fated: An Alpha Male Romance (15 page)

Yet, something told me that even if I didn’t want to wait forever, it was inevitable. I wouldn’t ever find this again.

I gently released her grasp and left the room.

-----

Alexandra

Ethan’s pain and disappointment resonated inside of me. I could feel every ounce of the hurt visible in his eyes, but I’d still been weak and stupid. Fucking stupid. All this talk about being free and finding myself was complete bullshit. I was still the same scared, meek, and controlled Alexandra that I’d always been.

My feelings for Ethan were clear as polished glass, and yet I couldn’t even open my mouth to tell him that I loved him simply because it was a step I was too afraid to take. I yearned for this man and felt a connection to him that terrified the hell out of me. He was it for me. Point blank. It was something that I just knew, although I didn’t know how.

He made a good job of saving face over breakfast with Kellen and Tayler, who happened to be an excellent cook. For breakfast, she made us fried eggs over white rice with a side of plantains and café con leche. I followed Ethan’s lead, laughing and smiling as though nothing had gone down in the bedroom, but he was solemn again by the time we were on the road. We didn’t speak during the entire ride to his grandfather’s assisted living facility.

The facility was more upscale than some of the other facilities that I’d seen around the state. The entrance reminded me of walking into a ranch-style home with its dormer windows, quaint porch, and stone accents. It certainly looked to be a step up from how Ethan had described his grandfather’s old home.

We parked in the front lot and Ethan hopped out, walking ahead of me without tossing a glance over his shoulder. I didn’t blame him for being upset; I knew that he was hurting. I was hurting too. I would have given anything to make the situation easier. I wanted to be with Ethan, but I’d tricked myself into thinking that I was strong enough to withstand the same treatment from my family that Gia received. I loved my sister, but I was not entirely sure that I could handle not having their support.

Inside, the facility was just as beautiful. I’d envisioned living facilities to be mundane institutions with white walls that smelled of bleach, and imagined the sound of squeaky wheels moving down never-ending, linoleum hallways. This place was carpeted and had a modern, urban feel to it. Everything was painted in soft colors, and there were signs directing residents to a fitness center, theatre room, and banquet hall. I could only imagine how much it cost to live there, but with the way Ethan credited his grandfather with “saving his life,” I got the feeling that he would still willingly pay the fee even if it meant that he’d have to go penniless.

“Hi Dr. Stewart,” a bubbly, auburn-haired woman at the front desk greeted. She wrapped chubby arms around Ethan’s shoulders and her green eyes looked over him like a mother checking to make sure that her child was eating while away at college.

“Hi Maureen,” he replied. “How have things been with you?”

“Wonderful.” Two deep dimples appeared in her cheeks. “Bryce just got accepted into the LSU School of Medicine, so we’re happy that he doesn’t have to go too far from home. Thank you so much again for your letter of recommendation.”

She finally noticed me standing behind Ethan and her smile grew even wider.

“Oh, who do we have here? Is this her? Is this Alexandra?”

I suddenly felt both miserable and giddy at the same time. There I was, ready to do cartwheels because I found out that Ethan had been talking about me, but the moment was squashed by our earlier argument. The one that I’d caused.

“Hi,” I greeted, extending for a handshake. “Alexandra Miller.”

She bypassed my hand and pulled me in for a hug. Her embrace reminded me of eating warm chocolate chip cookies underneath a fleece blanket.

“So good to finally meet you,” she said. “Even though he tries not to, you should hear Ethan go on and on about you. You put light into those misty grey eyes of his. We were wondering when he would finally bring you by. For as long as I’ve known Ethan, he’s never introduced a woman to his grandfather—”

“Who we’d be glad to see right now,” Ethan jumped in. “At least, now that you’ve thoroughly embarrassed me.”

Maureen swatted at him and walked from behind the desk. “Nonsense. Women love to hear that the men in their lives have been talking about them to others. It means that even when you’re not together, he still has you on the brain.”

We followed her out double glass doors and through a courtyard before we entered what I presumed to be the living quarters. The front entrance reminded me of a chic hotel lobby with its recessed lighting, decorative plants, and lounge area. There was even a very large, completely filled bookcase along one wall. A man in a wheelchair sat reading in the lounge with a checkered blanket strewn over his legs.

“He’s been reading all morning,” Maureen said, gesturing to the man.

“So, today is a good day then?” Ethan asked.

“It has been so far.”

He thanked her and, for the first time that day, took my hand as we walked over to where the elderly man sat. The man was reading Nathaniel Hawthorne’s
The House of the Seven Gables
, and the corners and cover were tattered and worn as though he’d read it several times over the years.

“Pick up your feet son,” a voice rumbled. Although now feeble, it had a resonance that suggested that it could once carry across long distances. “You can start fires with the way you drag your shoes across carpet.”

Ethan laughed and reached in for a long hug while I stood off to the side to watch the moment unfold. I also wasn’t sure what would be the appropriate way to greet the man. Technically, I was meeting the family. With an unknown father and incarcerated mother, this was it for Ethan.

“I don’t drag my feet,” Ethan protested.

“I should’ve nicknamed you matchbook.” The man glanced up at me, his eyes like two robin’s eggs. “And who might you be, gorgeous?”

“Hold your horses, old man,” Ethan warned. “She’s mine.”

A flurry was set off in my stomach, traveling outward and down the lengths of my limbs. Possessiveness was usually a turn-off for me as it had been used to control my life from my father, who’d sure-handedly extended the baton over to Roderick. Yet, the way that Ethan had automatically asserted his claim over me in an “I’ll do anything to keep her in my life” way rather than an “I own her” way, left me in a temporary state of paralysis.

“Joseph Stewart, Alexandra Miller.”

The old man’s eyes rounded and he waved me over for a gentle hug. When I leaned back, there were tears in his eyes.

“Is everything okay, Mr. Stewart?” I asked.

He nodded. “Yes. Everything is okay. I am losing more and more of my days as time goes by, so I was afraid that when the day came for me to meet the woman that will make it easier for me to leave my Ethan alone in this world, I would already be a complete vegetable.”

I noticed that one side of his face drooped slightly when he spoke and recalled Ethan mentioning that he’d suffered a stroke at some point and time in his life.

“You will never be a complete vegetable,” Ethan reassured, sitting next to him.

“This will only get worse, Ethan,” he replied. “You are a doctor, so you already know that. One day, I won’t remember who you are, ever again.”

Ethan’s expression hardened and fell. I made small circles on his shoulder in an effort to comfort him. Although my mother’s father had developed Alzheimer’s, Gia and I were never really made aware of the severity of his condition. The worse he got, the more we were told to stay away from him. Therefore, we would simply watch him sitting on the porch staring out onto the front lawn. At times he would mumble to himself, laughing out loud as though someone had told a joke, while other times he would remain so still that I’d often glance down at his stomach to make sure that it still rose and fell. After a while, he was taken away. Months later, we attended his funeral.

“So, any embarrassing stories about Ethan when he was a wild child?” I asked, hoping to inject some levity into the atmosphere.

“Every waking moment in Ethan’s childhood was an embarrassing one,” Joseph replied. “Always in trouble at school. He had one teacher, Miss Boatwright, and she was always calling me at work. ‘Mr. Stewart, I can’t handle Ethan,’ ‘Mr. Stewart, please consider switching him out my class.’ He gave that woman such a headache. Never good with women, though. Ethan. He was never good with women. One could say ‘hi’ to him and the boy would turn red as an apple.”

I looked down expecting to find a smile on Ethan’s face, but his focus on his grandfather was keen and fixed. His right knee bounced anxiously and he seemed to be growing increasingly unsettled.

“Never had a girlfriend, my grandson. Just girls. ‘Make sure you are putting a hat on your jimmy,’ I always told him. No babies, so he must have listened. Good kid.”

Ethan’s face fell into his hands and I looked between him and his grandfather, then crouched next to him. “Ethan, what’s going on?” I asked.

He looked at me with cloudy eyes. “Is it me?”

“Is it you, what?”

“I come here and they tell me that he’s having a good day, but then when I sit down to talk to him, I get less and less time with him every single visit. What was that, twenty minutes?”

He pushed himself up and retreated to a corner of the lobby area. Tufts of hair were clamped between his fingers. I soaked up his despair, sharing in the unrelenting sorrow weaving through his veins. Then, everything suddenly came full circle as I realized that Ethan’s grandfather was the only person that had chosen him.

Ethan still wouldn’t share the reason that his mother was in jail, but in his head, whatever she’d done was ultimately her decision to choose not to be his mother. He’d had other family, but his grandfather had chosen to take him in. Now, although he had his grandfather’s physical form, life was still taking him away in a different aspect. It was as cruel as it was unfortunate to be able to touch and hold someone that eventually would no longer know who you were.

Then I, foolish Alexandra, had added insult to injury by telling him that I was making the choice to shuck my family’s antiquated ideologies about men, women, and the “supposed to,” in order to be with him. I’d made such an emotional statement about it in bed in California and in front of the fireplace in Colorado. But, what did I do? Nothing. I reneged on the only promise I’d really ever made to the man I claimed to love — yet still couldn’t say a simple three words to — and it turned out to be the most important promise that I should have kept. I hated myself more now than the static version of Alexandra that I’d been for virtually my entire life.

“E, this has nothing to do with you,” I said, walking towards him.

“Rationally, I know that, Alexandra,” he groaned. “But still…”

“Son?” Mr. Stewart called. “Are you okay, son?”

Ethan turned around, the grey in his irises nearly washed out by the moisture clinging to the whites of his eyes. He walked to something that looked like an iPad in a slender kiosk and entered in a few numbers which brought names onto the screen. After touching a name on the kiosk, a message popped up that said someone would be there shortly.

“We’ll leave after the nurse gets here,” he said, walking back over. “I don’t like to stress him out when he gets like this. Stress isn’t good for the brain or his circulatory system. I don’t want to throw him into another stroke, which isn’t uncommon with vascu—”

I wrapped my arms around him to help curb his nervous rambling and he hardened before returning the hug. I’d already disappointed him enough that day and wasn’t going to add to it by standing across the room watching him nearly ramble himself into hysterics.

A male nurse entered and walked directly over to Mr. Stewart without words as though the situation was a common occurrence. Ethan released me to give his grandfather one last hug, but as he moved to let him go, the old man grabbed his arm.

“You have to give this to my grandson,” he pleaded, extending the book. “It has a secret message inside.”

“Gramps, I’ve told you over and over—”

“No, look.” Mr. Stewart opened the book to reveal a small white envelope. “It is for my grandson Ethan, see? Can you make sure he gets it?”

“He’s been talking about the secret message for a few weeks now,” the nurse said, shrugging. “We didn’t think anything of it because...you know.”

“Can you make sure he gets it?” Mr. Stewart repeated.

“I will,” Ethan replied, taking the crumpled envelope between his fingers. “I promise.”

The old man smiled. “Thank you. You’re a good man. You remind me a lot of my grandson.”

More anguish drew tight lines across Ethan’s face and he waved until his grandfather was out of sight. He then looked down at the envelope and for the first time, I could see what was written on the front:
For Ethan.
The curly penmanship didn’t look like something his grandfather would have crafted, and my gut told me that a woman had written it. A woman like his mother.

“This is my mother’s handwriting,” he confirmed, trailing his finger over the sealed flap.

“Are you going to open it?” I asked.