Anyone but Alex (The English Brothers Book 3) (4 page)

“Don’t be an asshole. She’s a nice girl”

“So’s Hope Atwell, but everyone knows about your Thursday nooners at the Four Seasons with her.”

This was actually news to Alex. He didn’t realize his standing date with Hope was common knowledge among his peers and
while Alex didn’t exactly live his life with much modesty or privacy, he found himself feeling strangely annoyed.

“Hope’s not
that
nice,” said Alex, his back flexing from where her fingernails had broken the skin on Thursday afternoon.

“It’s bad enough that Barrett threw over her sister, Felicity.
Now you’re treating Hope like a common slut. The Atwell girls have every right to hate us.”

“
Neither of us took anything they didn’t offer.”

Alex tracked Jessie as she shook hands with some friends of Cam’s, and his fingers f
isted as he watched J.C. Rousseau look down at her breasts then widen his smile.

Meanwhile, Wes was acting like a dog with a bone.
“I’m just saying… you don’t have a lot of room to be defending nice girls, Alex. You’re my brother, but you’re an asshole to women and everyone here knows it.”

That got
Alex’s back up. English brothers might give each other a hard time now and then, but loyalty was still the code they adhered to among each other, and Weston’s words sounded suspiciously disloyal in Alex’s ears. His eyes cut to Weston’s, but before he could take a swing to teach the brat a lesson, Stratton stepped forward, placing his body between his brothers. “Enough, Wes.”

“Screw you,
Strat. You don’t know. You don’t—” Weston cringed, shaking his head, then turned on his heel and walked away angrily, disappearing into the crowd.

“What the
hell
was that all about?”

“Christ, you’re thick,” said Stratton, finishing his dr
ink and shaking his head ‘no’ when the bartender caught his eyes quickly to see if he wanted another. “He’s been in love with Constance Atwell since the beginning of time.”

“Shoot,” said Alex. “I didn’t know.”

“Obviously. But between you and Barrett, you’ve probably screwed his chances with her.”

“I’ll break things off with Hope.”

“Yeah,” deadpanned Stratton. “Dump her. That’ll help.”

“Damn it
.” Alex sighed. He’d need to figure out how to let Hope down easy so he didn’t ruin things further for Wes. He shook his head before searching for Jessie in the crowd. And when he found her, his heart dropped just a little, scattering his thoughts, only one breaking through the surface to forcefully assert itself through his haze of lust and longing.

“God, s
he’s beautiful, isn’t she?”

Stratton
glanced at her and shrugged. “I don’t know her.”

Alex’s eyes cut to his younger brother.
“What the hell does that have to do with how beautiful she is?”

Stratton flinched
and shook his head. “Nothing. I think I’ll head home. See you Sunday?”

“Sure,” answered Alex,
running a hand through his hair as he watched Stratton stalk away and hating that he now felt at odds with two brothers.

He’d inadvertently hurt Weston, and he wished he understood Stratton better.

Stratton was arguably the best looking of the English brothers—he was the tallest, the most ripped. Hell, add to that, he was the only English brother with dimples like craters. Lots of women checked out Strat, but Strat only seemed to see the ones that
didn’t
check out him.

Alex had seen it
dozens of times: Stratton would spend a party talking to some girl in the stairwell about how much she missed her ex-boyfriend. She’d cry all over him, he’d listen sympathetically, and at the end of the night, he’d put her in a cab as she waved “goodbye” and called him a “total sweetie.” And Stratton didn’t even seem especially bothered. He’d ignore all the other women drooling over him, catch another cab for himself, go home, open up his Kindle, and spend his evening quietly alone, oblivious to the wide world of pussy that was his for the taking.

Alex didn’t get it. Never had. Never would.

He watched as Stratton made his way through the crowd, pausing to stop and talk to someone for a moment. Only after Stratton continued moving forward toward the exit did the crowd clear, and Alex realized it was Jessie.

***

She grinned at him as she made her way to the bar. She hadn’t seen Alex when she first entered the ballroom, but she’d seen Weston, then Stratton, come from the direction of the bar, and hedged her bets that where there were two English brothers there might be a third. She was glad she’d been right.

Alex straightened up as she approached, smile widening across his face as he held her eyes with his.

“Hi, again,” she said, a way-more-than-just-friends happiness making her belly flutter to be near him again so soon.

“Hi,” he said staring at her. He laughed softly, shaking his head with a look of amused amazement as he raised his glass for a sip. “That was some entrance.”

“Oh, yeah?”

“
Mmm. You got the attention of every Y chromosome in the room.”

“Including yours?”

“You’ve had mine for”—Alex twisted his wrist and looked at his watch—“about seventeen years.”

Jessie had expected him to say
an hour
, but she was delighted by his reference to their shared childhood and chuckled lightly before looking around for his date.

“Where’s Margaret?”

“She decided she was better off attending stag tonight.”

The fluttering in Jessie’s tummy doubled, but she kept her face placid, tilting her head to the side. “Am I sorry to hear that?”

“Nope. You’re not.” His full, delicious lips curved into a grin, and he shrugged, which only made him more adorable.

Her
cheeks warmed from his teasing grin. “So, what are we drinking?”

“Scotch. But, the last time I saw you, you were nine. I feel like
you should be drinking milk. Or a juice box.”

“And yet, your eyes seem to have realized that I’m all grown up.”

It was much too bold an observation for one friend to make to another, but the way he looked at her was making all thoughts of friendship fly out the window. Jessie deliberately took a deep breath so that her breasts would swell and hold against the already-daring neckline of her dress. Alex dropped his eyes to her cleavage, and she heard his sharp intake of breath before he dragged his eyes back up to her face. He clenched his jaw, his eyes dark and laser-focused on hers.

“It would be impossible to miss.”

Her skin tingled with awareness, and she finally exhaled, dropping his gaze, only to notice Cameron making his way around the ballroom. The delightful rush she felt from talking to Alex slipped away, and she tensed immediately. Her brother hadn’t spotted her yet, but if he saw her talking to Alex, it was entirely possible he’d make a scene.

She cut her eyes to Alex, offering him a nervous grin. “It’s so warm in here. Grab me a martini and meet me on the balcony?”

“How do you want it?” he asked.

Biting her bottom lip, she leaned toward him,
placing her hand on his arm and whispering low in his ear, “Dirty.”

She caught the brief widening of his eyes as she drew back, but before he could say anything else, she tur
ned, weaving through the crowd until she reached the French doors that led outside to an intimate balcony. She was greeted by a blast of chilly air, like a smack in the face, reminding her that she was supposed to be forging a path to friendship, not acting like a first-class flirt.

“
Dirty
?” she demanded aloud. “
Really, Jess
?”

Her cheeks were still flushed from her exchange with Alex
, and she pressed her palms against them as she stepped up to the cement balustrade that looked out over Broad Street. When she’d exchanged hellos with his brother, she’d peeked around Stratton to check him out, debonair and bored, leaning up against the bar. But the instant he’d seen her, his body language had changed completely. The awed expression on his face had been like a shot to her heart, and he’d straightened, lowering his glass to his side. But it was his eyes that had so affected her—they were openly and nakedly delighted, wide with admiration. There was no smarmy artifice in his gaze, only the sort happiness that spreads across the face of someone genuinely enchanted. Jessie sensed that it wasn’t a typical smile for Alex. As soon as he raised his glass and took a sip he’d slipped back into his Alex English persona.

What would it be like, she wondered, if the two pa
rts of Alex could be reversed—if the genuine, open-hearted man she’d glimpsed for a moment could gradually overcome the player? Was it even possible?

Hearing the click of the door opening, she turned around to face him, resting her hands
on the cold concrete behind her.

“A dirty martini for Mademoiselle?” he said, holding out an elegant, frosted glass with cloudy liquid as he pushed the door closed with his foot.

She stepped forward, accepting the glass and touching it lightly to his.

“You drink scotch,” she said,
determined to stop flirting and offer some friendly conversation.

“Mm-hm.”

“What’s your favorite kind? I’ve been dragged all over Scotland by school chums. I’m a veritable expert.”

“Is that right?”

“Mmm,” she said, taking a sip of her drink before putting it gently on the wide concrete surface behind her. “Try me.”

“
Speyside single malt,” he said, raising his eyebrows in challenge.

“Very specific,” she answered.
Speyside, an area of north-eastern Scotland located around the Spey River valley, was home to over thirty different distilleries, almost all of which Jessie had visited more than once. She couldn’t help trying to impress him. “I’m guessing
Glenfiddich
? Or
Macallan
?”

His grin was a mix of surprise and admiration. “
Aberlour
fifteen-year, when I can get it.”

She lowered her lashes, looking at his glass incredulously. “They have
Aberlour
here?”

Alex nodded, and Jessie understood. They kept a bottle on hand for him.

“The perks of being an English,” she said lightly.

“This from a Winslow,” he teased.

He held her eyes, and the shiver that made her tremble had nothing to do with the chilly November weather.

The entire space of the balcony wasn’t more than the size of a double closet, but he stepped closer to her, setting his drink beside hers and shrugging out of his jacket. Without asking
permission, he circled it around her shoulders, pulling the lapels together at the base of her throat until his knuckles touched, the backs of his fingers brushing against her skin.

Jessie’s breath caught as she looked up at him. All he’d have to do is drop his head and his lips would touch hers
. And though they’d only been re-acquainted for a handful of minutes, and though she knew that if he kissed her, any chance of rekindling a childhood friendship would be tossed out the window… there was nothing she wanted more in that moment than for Alex to kiss her.

“You shouldn’t be out here with me,” he said softly, searching her eyes and frowning.

“Why not?”

“Your brother would kill you. And me. Me first.”

He still hadn’t moved his hands from where they rested against her skin. Jessie took a step toward him, still looking into his eyes.

“I’m an adult. My brothers aren’t in charge of me.”

He drew his hands away, stepping back until he leaned against one of the two French doors that led back inside the ballroom.

“Jess. You haven’t lived here for a long time. You don’t know who I am. You don’t know what people think
of me, what they say about me.”

“We have Facebook in London, Alex,” she said, pushing her arms through his warm jacket before reaching for her glass again.

“Oh.” He winced. “So you know. You already know who I am.”

“I know who you are. You held my hand and let me be your partner for flashlight tag when I was six and so lonesome for my father I thought I’d go crazy from it. You’re the person who told me that
‘No Girls Allowed’ didn’t apply to me when I was seven. You gave me my first kiss, on the forehead, when I was nine, and my mother announced we were moving to England to be closer to her family. You’re Alex English, the person who was kind to me when I was scared, when I was left out, when my heart was breaking.” Her voice was thready with emotion, so she stopped speaking for a moment, offering him the bravest smile she could manage before finishing her little speech. “I know exactly who you are.”

Alex’s heart, which had been unaffected by any woman for more years than he could count, was so gripped in the vise of Jessie’s words he realized at some point that he was speechless. His drink held suspended in his hand, his breath trapped in his chest, his eyes glued to hers. It was possible that the world had stopped spinning, because he was fairly certain they were the only two people who existed.