Page 10 of Vicious Rule
“Alex!”
The brunette turns her head and looks at me in utter horror, but he merely looks over at me for a brief moment, the entire time never missing a beat or a stroke, as the case may be. In fact, if anything, he looks barely irritated by the intrusion.
The woman squirms out from underneath him and runs past me, leaving her expensive dress behind in a ball on the floor near his desk. I don’t know why, but a mixture of jealousy and disgust churns inside me, and before he can ask me what I want, I turn on my heel and storm out.
On my way back to my room, I think about calling Gideon. In all the months I’ve worked for his brother, I’ve never thought to call him. He has his life with Aria now. They’re expecting a baby soon, and life couldn’t be better for him.
“They do not need to hear from you,” I mumble as I collapse onto my bed.
Memories of my time at the hotel with the only sane Rule float through my mind as I close my eyes to replay some of the best ones. I loved working there for Gideon. I knew what his family did, but he was different.
Civilized. So unlike his brother.
A knock at my door interrupts a wonderful time walking down memory lane, and I swing my legs off the bed in anger that I have to deal with anything at the moment. It’s probably one of Alex’s guards sent to tell me I need to see him immediately.
If he thinks he’s going to reprimand me for walking in on him with that woman…
I fling open the door to find Alex standing there glaring at me. He’s shirtless, so I can’t help but notice his incredible body. I don’t want to focus on that, so I drop my gaze a few inches and see he hasn’t even zipped up his damn pants before intruding on my peace and quiet!
He marches past me into my room and orders me to close the door. “We need to have a conversation.”
The last thing I want to do is talk to him right now, but it seems I have no choice. Spinning around to face him, I snap, “I’m not really into chatting right now, Alex. Maybe tomorrow.”
“No. Now!”
Fed up with everything about this night, I stomp over to where he’s standing next to my bed in my room thinking he can come in here and order me around. He wants to have a conversation? Then fine. We’ll have a conversation.
I get right up into his face and poke his chest with my finger. “You do not come into my private room and act like this. I’ll take a lot of shit from you, Alex, but this is it.”
For a second, he looks terrified, but that quickly disappears and is replaced by confusion, the look he always seems to have around me lately. “What does that mean? This is it? This is what?”
As much as I hate to admit it, I know what’s making me so upset. I hate feeling this way, but I know what it is.
Jealousy. I’m jealous because I walked in on Alex with that woman. It makes no sense. He’s not mine, and I’m certainly not his. I made that perfectly clear the day I agreed to work with him. I never wanted to be with him that way.
And yet, here I stand looking into his dark eyes and knowing I feel that way.
“I need some time off, Alex. Just a little while. I need to get away from the villa here,” I say, knowing if I can just have even a few days to myself not here that I might be able to stop feeling this way about him.
But he won’t hear anything about it.
“No. Now let’s get to talking about what I came here to talk about.”
Pushing against his chest, I shove him away from me. “I don’t want to talk to you about anything. Don’t you understand? I just told you I need some time off. What about that didn’t you get?”
“Fine. Where are you going?”
“We live in Italy. I can go anywhere and be happy.”
He narrows his eyes at me. “Then why won’t you tell me where you’re going?”
I hesitate to tell him what I’m thinking of doing, but I finally answer, “I need to go back to my old office at the hotel. I left some things there.”
His face twists into an expression of pure rage, and he shakes his head. “No, you can’t go. I’ll send one of the guys to get whatever you left. Just give me a list.”
This conversation is quickly spiraling down into something I don’t want to be involved in, so I give in. “Fine. I’ll give you a list.”
Sure he’s won this argument, Alex smiles. “Great! Bring it to my office, and I’ll see it all gets back to you.”