Anyone but Alex (The English Brothers Book 3) (6 page)

“It could look like lunch…on Tuesday, if you’re free. I know it’s Thanksgiving week, but
—”

“I’m free,” he answered. “
We’ll be discreet.”

“Alex, it wouldn’t bother me to be seen with you.”

Those eyes again. Those trusting eyes that looked into his face like she had some secret knowledge of his heart, like she had some guarantee that he wouldn’t hurt her.

Well, she was right. He wouldn’t.

He thought about Weston stalking away because his weekly nooners with Hope had ruined Wes’s chances with Constance. He thought of Cameron’s hard eyes as he warned Alex away from his sister. He couldn’t bear for Jessie to be the topic of rumors and speculation—for their mutual acquaintances, and her brothers, to assume she was just another conquest.

“It would bother
me
. We’ll be discreet, or we can’t be friends.”

She leaned back, a small smile playing at the corners of her mouth. “Okay.”

“Shall I have a car pick you up at Cam’s or at Westerly on Tuesday?”

“Westerly. I’m just in the city for tonight.”

The music faded gently, and Alex heard his mother’s voice over the microphone, asking for people to take their seats before her presentation. She was about to make a speech about Save the Children of Philadelphia, and it was the perfect time for Alex to slip back inside unnoticed.

He let go of Jessie regretfully
, and she shrugged out of his jacket, holding it out to him. He put it back on quickly, savoring the warmth from her body, the faint smell of her perfume. Just before he turned away from her, he couldn’t resist taking her hand and raising it to his lips, resting them against the soft warmth of her skin for a single moment before slipping back inside.

***

Jessie put her hand to her chest after he was gone. Her heart thumped wildly, and her mind was in riot as she tried to process what had just happened between her and Alex.

She could tell—as she finished her list of qualities that she wanted in a man—that he’d taken himself out of the running, and she understood why. Cam had enlightened her earlier
. “
He doesn’t do commitment, Jess. Never has, never will.”
Carried away with his encouragement, she’d ended up describing someone quite different from Alex English. But as she watched him withdraw, something sharp and painful in the vicinity of her heart made her panic.

It had been forward and impulsive to ask Alex to dance, but desperation had muddled her senses, making her cross a line. If he was going to walk away from her, if she wasn’t going to see him again while she was in Philly, she wanted one perfect moment in his arms before she lost him to a sea of eager women.

As they danced, he’d changed his mind about a friendship.

So had she.

Despite the fact that she had agreed to be friends, it was a lie. It was utterly impossible for her to be his friend now. She wanted him like a heroine wants a hero, like a lover wants her beloved, like a woman wants a man—she wanted his heart and his soul and his body.

She picked up her drink and finished it, mewling softly with
longing as she felt the imprint of his warm lips brushing against her cold hand. Jessie clenched her eyes shut, unable to forget his warm breath against her ear, the strong muscles of his back under her fingers, the burn of his eyes as they looked into hers, the touch of his lips to the back of her hand. If they hadn’t danced, she could have just gone on
imagining
what it would be like to be with Alex, but now she had a taste, and that taste had unleashed a terrible hunger inside of her.

She turned to enter the ballroom, but still deeply lost in thoughts of Alex, s
he didn’t see Cameron waiting for her just inside. When his hand reached out for her wrist, she almost dropped her martini glass.

“Cam!” she hissed, giving him a surprised look and grasping the thin glass stem in her fingers.

Several people turned around and one person shushed them.

“I think it’s time for us to go,” he growled softly.

Jessie looked just beyond Cameron to Alex, who stood about ten feet away, his eyes focused with fury on Cam’s back. She was certain that Cam and Alex had just exchanged angry words, and it didn’t take her more than a minute to figure out if Cam didn’t let go of her wrist, Alex was going to get involved. She didn’t want that. Wrenching herself away from her brother, she frowned at him.

“
You’re making a scene. Stop treating me like a child.”

He bent his head to her ear, speaking through clenched teeth. “We’re leaving. Now.”

As Cam started for the nearest exit, Jessie found Alex’s eyes still focused on her, his lips tight and angry.

“
Are you okay?” he mouthed, and she nodded, giving him a slight, reassuring smile and mouthing “I’m fine” before following her brother out the door.

Five minutes later
, Jessie sat beside a seething Cam in a taxi.

“I can’t believe you were alone with him. Did he touch you, Jess?”

“I’m not answering that.”

“
Damn it. He is
trouble,
Jessica. Your reputation will be—”

“Mine! My reputation
will be and is mine!” She shifted in her seat to look at her brother with fury. “And you can’t tell me what I can and canno—”

“I’m your older brother
who loves you. Don’t pursue it!”

She tried a different tact, making herself calm down and speak in a level, gentle voice.

“It was nothing, Cam. Nothing,” she said, tapping her fingers on the windowsill as they stopped at a red light. “The ballroom was warm so I went outside and Alex joined me. It was just a conversation with an old family friend.”

“
An old fam—Damn it, is that how he spun it? Don’t be naïve, Jess. You’re a girl. And you’re pretty. That’s all Alex requires to seduce someone, and I’ve even seen him drop his standards on
pretty
now and then. Not to mention, in his eyes, you’re fresh meat, and there’s nothing Alex likes more than to be first in line.”

“
You’re overreacting.”

“
He will
screw
you and
leave
you. If you have any feelings for him, your heart will be left
broken
. What don’t you understand about that scenario?”

“How it’s any of your business.”

Cam whipped his head to her. “If I hear he touches you? It won’t just be me who gets involved in your business, Jess.”

She knew
exactly what he was saying. In addition to Cam, who was the third of her four older brothers, there was also Brooks, Preston, and Christopher. None would take it lightly to hear that she was spending time with Alex English. She chewed on her bottom lip.

“I think you’re being unfair,” she said, as the car s
tarted moving again. “What if—and I’m only speaking theoretically here—I dated Stratton or Weston English? Would you have a problem with that?”

“
Strat and Wes are not Alex. And to be clear, I like the English brothers. Hell, I consider Alex a good friend. Always have. But he’s not for you, Jess. He’s not good enough for you.”

We’ll be discreet
, or we can’t be friends.

“Maybe he
could
be.” Her voice was meek and miserable when she responded. “People can change.”

“Jessica!” he said, turning to face her as the car stopped in front o
f his apartment building. “What the hell is going on in your head? Let go of any fantasy that involves Alex English right now, because he’s
not
going to change. He. Is. A.
Dog
. A manwhore. Other guys call him ‘the Professor’ because he could school any of us on getting laid. He’s a master at casual, love-‘em-and-leave-‘em style sex. And he is absolutely, positively off-limits to you.” His eyes skewered her. “Are we clear?”

“You’re not my father,” she said softly, looking down at her lap
, her breathing sharp and ragged.

Cam raised his eyebrows at her,
then reached into his pocket and took out his phone.
Hard ball.
“Okay, fine, Jess. Let’s call Brooks. He’s the closest thing you have to a father. Let’s see what he thinks.”

Brooks was their oldest brother,
eleven years older than Jessie, and Cam was right – after their father passed away, Brooks had become the closest thing she had to a father. She knew what Brooks would say about Alex, but more than anything, of all her brothers, she simply couldn’t bear to let him down or disappoint him. Brooks was a demi-god in Jess’s world, and she loved him too much to be at odds with him if there was any other way.

She put her hand on Cam’s wrist.

“We’re just
talking
. You don’t have to call Brooks.”

Cam continued to stare at her,
hard and angry, poised to hit the send button.

“Please, Cam.
Don’t call Brooks. There’s no need. I
hear
you. You don’t approve of Alex English.”

Cam gave a few dollars to the driver and slid out of the cab with Jess following behind.
“You shouldn’t even
want
somebody like that. You should have more respect for yourself. Don’t get taken in, Jess. You’re sweet and young and you haven’t lived here in years… I’ll tell you what: you want to date an English brother? Sure, go for Wes. He’s just about your age, and he’s a nice enough kid. But
not
Alex.”

As adorable as Weston English was, Jess’s heart was already taken and she knew it.
She smiled weakly at her brother as he ushered her into the building. “You worry too much, Cam.”

“You’re my only sister
, Jessica. I love you. And honestly? I like Alex, too. I’d hate to have to kill him.”

As they stood quietly in the elevator together, Jessie
heard Alex’s voice in her head.

Jess,
if the offer’s still open, I’d like to be friends.

She heard the words as clearly as if he was standing beside her instead of Cam, and she sighed. The surrender in his voice? The conflict? The yearning? She’d heard it all. He seemed dead-set on not tarnishing her reputation by association, and she understood that he was fighting a battle within himself even agreeing to spend time with her. Knowing that he was struggling not to want her should have taken the edge off of her own hunger, but it didn’t. If anything, it only made her want him more, because
it proved—on some level—that he cared for her.

It was a very bad idea to see him on Tuesday, even under the
now-laughable guise of friendship. He’d be pitting his natural instincts against some sense of honor he felt for her. And she’d be using all of her strength to keep from reaching for him, knowing that the shame of compromised morals and a broken heart would be her only reward for giving in to her desires.

A
nd yet, her heart thrummed wildly, begging her not to cancel, not to pass up a chance to spend a little more time with him. It urged her to keep her date, to be his friend—if that’s all he could offer and all she could accept—to get to know him again and find out if the sweet boy she’d so cherished as a child was still living and breathing somewhere inside the womanizing playboy he’d become.

When Alex woke up on Saturday morning, the first thing he thought of was Jessie Winslow’s body pressed up against his as they danced to
The Way You Look Tonight
. He’d dreamed of her for most of the night—her sweet smile, her red lips, the bright green eyes that had darkened as he held her in his arms. She affected him like no woman ever had, making him weak and wanting, making him wish for something he shouldn’t have. Jessie was open-hearted and innocent Her words about him—
I know exactly who you are
—touched him in a place he barely knew existed, making him feel like he’d been biding his time with other women just waiting for her to grow up and come home.

And now she was here, and her brothers would beat him to a
bloody pulp if they knew the direction of his thoughts. How much he wanted her in his bed, writhing under him, crying his name as he made her come over and over again.

He grimaced, because although he wanted her, he couldn’t allow her to be another conquest. Not J
essica Winslow. He cared about her too much to allow that tawdry outcome to their reunion. Having her in his bed simply wasn’t possible…because Alex had shied away from commitment since he was seventeen years old, and the only way he’d touch Jessie was if he was somehow able to offer one.

Her words haunted him with sweetness, planted like seeds in the fallow, forgotten earth around his heart:
Kindness. Respect.

T
wo qualities Alex wasn’t exactly known for. He frowned as Johanna Martinson’s face flitted though his mind, her seventeen-year-old cheeks tear-streaked and devastated when she learned that Alex had cheated on her. But it wasn’t just the distressing, disturbing memories of Johanna that bothered him, but of the many women who he’d bedded and discarded since, never calling again after saying he would.