Alex lifted her shoulders, dropped them and released a long-suffering sigh. “I’m tired of the lectures, the disapproving looks from Gus. I’m tired of sneaking around. I need more sleep and I have a couple of personal decisions I need to make. You’re a...complication.”
A complication, huh? “It’s just sex, Alex.”
Was that reminder directed at her or himself?
Annoyance glimmered in Lexi’s gorgeous blue eyes. “Of course it is, but since it’s sapping my time and energy, it needs to stop.” She looked away from him, shrugged before dragging her eyes back to his. “Maybe once the auction is over, after the holidays, if I’m around, we could maybe pick things up again.”
So many maybes, Daniel thought, pulling on his boot. Wait, what did she say? “You said, if you’re around? Are you thinking of leaving?”
Another thought to cool his head. He definitely wasn’t getting enough sleep!
“I’ve had a job offer that might take me back to Houston,” Alex said. “I’ve stayed in Royal longer than I thought I would. My plan was always to return there.”
“What’s the offer?” Daniel asked, standing up and tucking his shirt into his jeans.
“Managing partner in a social media strategy firm. It’s a good offer. I’ve always wanted to be my own boss.”
He quirked a brow. “Isn’t that what you are here on the ranch?”
“Gus is still the boss, Dan,” she reminded him. “And while I can run the finances, I’m not a rancher. In Royal, everything has a memory associated with it. My parents, Sarah...”
He heard her unsaid you and could almost taste the emotion in her voice. They’d both had hard childhoods, had been knocked around by life, but he knew that losing her parents as a little girl had rocked her world. And then to lose Sarah, on top of all that, had truly devastated her. “I am sorry, Lex. Sorry for you, for Gus.”
Alex managed a wobbly smile. “Thanks, I appreciate it.” Standing up, she placed her hand on his chest, and Daniel felt his heart rate kick up, his throat tightening. Alex just had to touch him and the thoughts of stripping their clothes off and taking her again were front and center. He forcibly held himself still as Alex stood up on her pretty painted toes to kiss the side of his mouth. “Thanks for this, Dan. It was fun. And maybe it exorcised some ghosts.”
Yeah, but maybe it also, Daniel couldn’t help thinking, created a whole bunch more.
* * *
She’d said goodbye to him as a teenager but watching him walk away as an adult was surprisingly a great deal harder than she’d imagined it would be. She’d been madly in love with him then, but she wasn’t in love with him now, so... Why on earth was she so upset?
You have to let him go. There is no other option. This is not a situation where you can have the cowboy and ride him, as well.
But she still couldn’t keep her eyes off him as he strode toward his dirt bike. Sighing appreciatively, she watched as he threw a long, muscular leg over the saddle and gripped the handlebars, dark curls shining in the early-morning light. Man, he was gorgeous, a perfect combination of Anglo and Hispanic. Olive skin, black hair, those smoldering brown eyes and that lean, powerful physique.
Alex leaned her forearms on the railing of the deck and watched her lover—no, her ex-lover—ride away, ignoring her wildly beating heart. There was no denying that this man had the ability to liquefy her insides, to shut down her thought processes, to invade her thoughts. But he’d also broken her heart, and she’d never give him the power to do that again.
She’d noticed that Daniel was starting to sneak under her skin, that her thoughts went to him at inopportune times—like every ten seconds—and this morning, while making coffee, she’d thought about asking him whether he wanted to attend a country music concert in Joplin with her the following week. They could stay in a bed-and-breakfast, try out that new restaurant she’d heard was fabulous...
Shocked at her thoughts, she’d given herself a mental slap. Daniel wasn’t someone to make plans around, to date, to spend time with. If she was starting to think of him as a potential partner and not just as a fun, sexy hookup, then it was time to cut him loose.
So she did.
When the sound of Dan’s bike faded away, Alex walked back into the bedroom and sat on the edge of the bed, staring at the expensive Persian carpet beneath her feet. Only in Texas would you find an exquisite Persian carpet on the floor of a very upscale tree house, Alex thought. Only her grandmother Sarah would put it there. Damn, she still missed her. But Sarah, like her parents, was gone, and Alex couldn’t help feeling that the people who loved her the most tended to leave her...
Intellectually, Alex understood that death was a part of life, that people died and hearts got broken. Tough times came along to make one stronger, that everything was a lesson...blah, blah, blah.
But losing her parents and her beloved grandmother long before they were supposed to go was just damn unfair. It was like some bored god was using her heart as a football.
Daniel had left her, too, but his desertion had strangely hurt the most. It was his choice to leave her and it was obvious, even so many years later, that she’d loved Daniel so much more than he loved her...
Alex flopped back onto the bed and placed her arm over her eyes. And that was why she’d cut him loose today: she couldn’t—wouldn’t—put herself in the position of being left brokenhearted again.
Wanting to stop wallowing, she started to make a mental list of everything she had to do today. Getting together with Rachel to plan Tessa’s makeover was high on her list. As the only bachelorette up for auction, they were going to make her the star of the show. Not that Tess needed much help—the girl was stunningly beautiful, both inside and out.
And as the master of the ceremonies, she had to plan her introductions, find some funny jokes to keep the audience entertained. She also had to psych herself into selling Daniel, the only man she’d seen naked in the longest time, to some woman with a healthy bank account. That was going to be so much fun.
Not.
Alex felt nausea climb up her throat. Really, she was being ridiculous, having a physical reaction to auctioning off Daniel. Yes, sure, the idea of sending her former flame off on a date with another woman wasn’t a pleasant prospect, but they’d just shared their bodies, not their hearts and souls. She had no hold on him—she didn’t want a damned hold on him, and that was why she’d severed their connection! She was being utterly asinine by allowing her emotions to rule her head, and this behavior was unworthy of a Slade.
But still, the nausea wouldn’t subside and Alex cursed herself as she bolted for the bathroom and made her acquaintance with the toilet bowl.
Late November
Alex stared down at the long list attached to her clipboard, wondering if she would survive this crazy day. And what had she been thinking, agreeing to be the emcee for The Great Royal Bachelor Auction? It was one thing being the master—mistress?—of ceremonies at friends’ weddings and birthday parties, but this auction was a major social event.
What she’d thought would be a small local fund-raiser had morphed into something a great deal bigger and was attracting press attention from media outlets in both Austin and Dallas. The tickets to the function had sold out within a day or two, but the loud demands from wealthy single women from the two cities and the neighboring town of Joplin forced her and Rachel to upscale the event, adding another five tables