I Bet You'll Be Mine

“Brian? Wait, has Brian been hitting on you?”

She scoffs out a laugh and folds her arms over her chest. “Don’t play stupid and act like you don’t know.”

“I don’t.”

Mel laughs. “Come on, Zander. We know Brian and you are old pals.”

“Yeah, so? What’s that have to do with anything?”

“Everything! You and Brian are friends, so when he was hitting on Ali and wouldn’t stop, you just fired her instead of telling your old buddy to back off!”

Now I get it. Where all of this is coming from.

I turn my eyes away from Mel, look past her, and focus on Ali with every ounce of truth and honesty in me.

“Ali, listen to me,” I say. “None of that could be further from the truth.”

Her expression remains stoic, but I see a hint of something shift behind her eyes. I can tell she’s been crying, and that pains me. What could have been something incredible and sweet for her today ended up hurting her, and I feel awful about that.

All I can do now is try and speak my truth and hope she accepts it.

“Y-you mean that?” she asks.

“Of course I do,” I reply. “Ali, I didn’t want you working somewhere you would constantly be uncomfortable at, so I got you a job at my buddy’s IT company with a much bigger staff and a much bigger HR department. You’d have more to do, get more experience, and wouldn’t have to deal with…guys like the guys who work for me.”

Ali looks back at me, still hesitant.

“So what happened?”

“I was going to surprise you,” I begin to explain, taking a cautious step forward. “Kind of silly really, but you’d come into work and think you’d been fired, and then I’d surprise you with this bigger and better job. But I had this catastrophe at the dig sit I had to personally attend to, and my phone—”

“You dropped your phone in concrete?”

I shrug, drop my arms to my sides. “Yeah. Exactly.”

I can’t help but laugh at just how ridiculous it all sounds, and if I was anybody else, I wouldn’t blame Ali for not believing me. All I can do is hope that because I’m me, she trusts me enough to know that I would never lie to her.

She’s mine.

I need her.

I can’t leave here without knowing I’ve fixed this. From the moment she walked into my office that first day, I knew I had to have her, and that feeling hasn’t changed. All it’s done is amplify.

We need to put this craziness behind us so we can focus on how we’re going to spend the rest of our lives together.

“Emergency at the dig site,” Ali repeats, nodding slowly. “I bet that’s what you told Kendall, isn’t it?”

“Kendall?” A pain stabs me in the chest. I’m going to have a heart attack. “Ali, no. I told you nothing happened between me and her—”

Ali steps quickly forward and throws her arms over my shoulders, gazes deeply into my eyes, and smiles.

“Relax, tiger,” she coos, her voice warm, soft and feminine. “I’m just messing with you. I believe you.”

The deepest feeling of relief flows through me like golden warmth, relaxing every one of my muscles. Smiling, I wrap my arms around her slim little waist and pull her to me.

“This is why I’ll always love you.” I smile.

“Always?” She smiles back.

“Always,” I reply, pulling her in for a kiss.