Alpha CEO

“Wanting you isn’t the problem, kid.”

She smiled, sitting up. Her toe was still bleeding, and I needed something else to focus my attention on. Taking off my tie, I wrapped it around her foot before looking up at her through the slits of my eyes.

“What am I going to do with you?”

“I have some ideas.”

“I bet you do.”

I just couldn’t believe…

I’d almost made her come.

Chapter FIFTEEN

—Autumn—

Day 5 of Press Tour

We were sitting in Locke’s private jet, and I was in the seat furthest away from him. Between everything that had happened at the photoshoot three days ago and then ending it with us running into the woman he’d brought to my seventeenth birthday party, I needed some serious space. The last two days were jam-packed with press interviews, and there was no time left over to discuss us.

Thank God.

Today was going to be hard enough. It was probably the hardest day we’d confronted on this tour so far. The timing was shit, seeing as I didn’t want to talk about the past, and there we were, going to face it head-on.

Fort Worth, Texas.

Julian Locke was coming home for the first time in over a decade.

A production crew was meeting us there to get footage of him in his old stomping grounds. Beginning with the group home he’d lived at in between his foster placements. I didn’t think it would affect me as much as it was, but something inside of me shifted at that damn shoot.

The outfit he was wearing.

The words he was confessing.

The way he was looking at me.

It was all too much to take in at once. Now, we were flying back home, where our tumultuous past existed, and it was breathing fire down my back. By the way Julian was acting in the last forty-eight hours, I imagined he was feeling the weight of our history on his shoulders like I was. Other than when he was answering questions from the press, he was quiet and distant.

We both knew how heavy the load of Texas would be, and the silence was deafening on his private jet. I swear I could hear his thoughts, and every single one included me and my family.

Particularly my brother.

I still hadn’t explained anything to them. I’d been dodging their calls and texts, trying to figure out what I would say. The flight was only two hours, and it felt as if an eternity was slowly passing us by. Although the anxiousness I was feeling wasn’t only about Texas—we’d be sharing the penthouse floor of the hotel we were staying at while we were in our hometown.

Why did I agree to share a suite with him?

Taking in a deep breath, I counted to three before exhaling on four breath counts. If Locke noticed my unease, he didn’t show it. He wasn’t talking, and he didn’t move from where he was sitting. Aimlessly, he just stared out the window like it had the answers to all the questions that were obviously plaguing him.

I breathed in and out a few more times until I couldn’t take his silence anymore and had to ask, “You really haven’t been back since you left?”

Without looking at me, he simply stated, “There was nothing there for me anymore.”

I winced, narrowing my eyes at him. “You really think that, don’t you?”

“I don’t think, I know.”

“I was there,” I reminded, standing my ground on the truth. “So were my parents and my brother. Despite what you said to me the night of his wedding, I was still waiting for you to come back home, Julian. You wanted to cut ties with me, then you didn’t need to do that with my entire family. They had nothing to do with us.”

“They had everything to do with us.”

“Bullshit. That’s just an excuse you’ve convinced yourself of to excuse your shitty behavior. They didn’t deserve what you did to them.”

“Neither did you.”

“I don’t want to talk about us.”

“Then don’t ask questions you don’t want answers to.”

“I’m talking about my family. They mourned the loss of you as if you died. You didn’t even say goodbye to them.”

“How many times do I have to tell you it was the only way I could leave you?”

“Oh,” I snapped, feeling his response in the pit of my stomach. “So saying goodbye to me made it easy for you to leave?” I nodded. “Good to know.”

“I thought you didn’t want to talk about us?”

“Ugh! You’re the most stubborn man I have ever met! Do you know that?”

“I’ve been called worse, sweetheart.”

“Stop staring out the window and fucking look at me, Julian!”

Reluctantly, he did.

“You could have left town and still had a relationship with them.”

“In one way or another, it still would have included you in it.”

“Who cares?! We were friends once, and after some time, we could have been friends again.”