Temptation(45)

“Hello little man.” I caught an exchange of eye contact between Nic and Lucy.

“You must be feeling a lot better after this morning then Alexis?” Lucy sat on the lounge and put her arm around Nic. At first I had no idea what she was talking about, then it dawned on me, the accident but how did she know? Bryce probably spoke to her whilst I was asleep.

“I am, I was a bit groggy at first but after a sleep I’ve recouped.” ‘Hhhmmm’, she muttered.

“And you dear brother, that was some display of heroics.” What, I’m totally confused now. Bryce looked at her with a piercing glare but it didn’t deter her.

“When we saw the accident on the news this morning and my dear brother running up the ramp and whisking you up into his arms, we thought you’d been seriously hurt, either that and you have made a miraculous recovery or Bryce went just a tad overboard.” Shit, it was on the news? Oh No. I glared at him, I was morbidly horrified, how was I going to explain this? I handed baby Alexander to Bryce.

“I’ll leave you guys to it, I’ve got a lot of work to do.” That’s it Alexis, run for the hills. That won’t make it look any more obvious. I turned and headed for my desk, Lucy caught up to me as I walked through Bryce’s office.

“Alexis, please wait. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to embarrass you, I was just playing.”

“No, its fine, I just have work to do.” I didn’t really, nothing that couldn’t wait anyway.

“Alexis, it’s ok, I know.” Know what?

“Bryce doesn’t just talk to Jessica you know, he confides in me also, we both do. After I withdrew and closed myself off from the world, I promised him I would always talk to him no matter what and vice versa. So I know he is falling for you, falling for you very deeply.” I fell down onto the lounge in his office and started to cry, Lucy came round and rubbed my back.

“Alexis I’m sorry. Let it out, it’s better that way.” She handed me a tissue, I did the whole disgustingly loud nose blowing thing.

“I don’t know what to do? I’m falling for him too but I can’t, I shouldn’t, it’s wrong.”

“Why is it wrong?” She handed me another tissue.

“Because I’m married.”

“That doesn’t mean it’s wrong, trust me I know from experience, you can’t help who you fall for and it’s best not to fight it.”

“I’m losing, I can’t fight it anymore. The thing is I can’t lose either, I can’t destroy my family, that is not an option.” She got up and helped me up also.

“I can’t tell you what to do but what I can tell you is my brother isn’t playing. I have never seen him like this before and when I saw him running to you on the news footage with that look of terror on his face, it told me one thing. He is absolutely and undoubtedly in love with you.”

Those last few words stuck in my mind for the rest of the day, He is absolutely and undoubtedly in love with you. What the hell was I going to do? I knew without a shadow of a doubt that we had very strong feelings for each other and the more time we spent together the stronger they became. I also believed him when he said that if I spend one week with him I would discover that I could possibly be falling in love with him too. The issue was, what the fuck do I do with all these revelations? My head started spinning, I really need to get away, I grabbed my phone and texted Tash.



Hey Hun, Are we on for the weekend? -Alexis

Yep, just waiting on Jade but it’s definitely a goer! - Tash

Yay, I’m counting down the minutes, thanks lovely you’re an angel xo - Alexis

xoxo ☺ xoxo - Tash



Just the thought of sitting in ‘our barrel’ with a glass of bubbles sent waves of relief right through me. That moment soon faded, when Gareth stepped into the foyer.

“Good afternoon Gareth, Bryce is not in, he’s out with Dale going over some security checks.”

“Oh bugger, I needed to have a quick word to him about a new proposal, never mind.” He came over to my desk and sat on the corner. Ok, you’re encroaching on my personal space, this is slightly awkward. I rolled my chair in the opposite direction just enough to give me some distance, he swivelled around and closed the newly created gap.

“So how are you feeling Alexis? That was some bump you took this morning by the looks of your car and the fact Bryce had to carry you off the road.” Shit, has everyone seen it? What is this prick insinuating?

“I’m fine thanks, it looked worse than it actually was, Bryce was good enough to come down and see if I was ok, it was very kind of him.”