Filed to story: Watch Me Win Alpha (Olivia & Ethan)
“Come on,” Ava said and raised her eyebrows. “Alexander was totally undressing you with his eyes back in the elevator. You guys have undeniable chemistry. It would be a shame to waste it because you’re afraid of getting your heart broken.”
I slumped against the front door and sighed. “Ava, you don’t-“
But I paused when I heard shuffling outside the door. My stomach swooped. That noise sounded like footsteps. Was Alexander still outside the door? Or was it someone else?
“What were you saying?” Ava asked and looked at me with confusion since I’d paused in the middle of a sentence.
I put a finger to my lips and made a shushing motion and widening my eyes at my friend. Ava got the hint and immediately stopped speaking. With my heart slamming against my chest, I put my ear to the door and listened closely. The footsteps sounded like they were growing fainter until they were completely gone. The leftover silence seemed almost too loud to me.
I scrubbed a hand down my face and sighed. After the day I had, I wouldn’t be surprised if I had hallucinated the footsteps.
“You okay?” Ava asked and tilted her head as she took in my defeated expression.
“Just a long day,” I said.
“I know just what will cheer you up.” She turned and headed to the kitchen.
I sat on the couch and tried to calm my racing heart. Ava came back with two ice-cold beers and handed me one. It wouldn’t be my first choice for a drink to unwind after a hard day, but it would have to do. I took a long drink from the cool glass and tried not to wince at the slight bitterness. After two sips of the bubbly drink, my shoulders loosened slightly, so at least that was something.
Ava folded her legs under her to get more comfortable. “Why won’t you give Alexander a chance?” she asked and took a sip of her beer. “I think you would make a great couple.”
“It’s not about giving him a chance.” I ran a hand through my hair and tried to organize the swirling thoughts in my head so that I could get my point across. “If things were different, of course I would want to be with him. He’s handsome, smart, successful, and most importantly, a good, honest man. But Alexander will always be a part of the Green family. He can’t escape his duty. Ultimately, he has to marry someone of high status. Not his assistant. I’m the one whose job it is to plan his dates. Not go on them with him.”
I winced at how bitter my voice sounded even to my own ears.
“Do you still think that Alexander could be gay?” she asked. “Maybe his family wouldn’t be accepting, and he has to hide who he truly is from them.”
A shiver ran down my spine as I remembered Alexander’s warm body pressed against mine earlier today. I swear I had seen lust explode in those dark eyes of his.
I bit my lip and shifted in my seat. My pulse quickened from just thinking about how close his lips had been inches away from mine and his warm breath in my ear.
“Honestly, I think that whole situation had been a misunderstanding,” I told her. “But who knows.” I shrugged. “Alexander might be bisexual. I don’t think he’s gay. Especially because of the way he looks at… women.”
My cheeks heated. I had been about to say that because of the way he looked at me, but that sounded too arrogant. But I had noticed the way his eyes darkened when he studied my face, thighs, or any of my exposed skin. Alexander definitely wasn’t unaffected by my presence. I knew that to be true.
“Oh, I’ve seen the way that man looks at you. He definitely isn’t fully gay,” Ava said and winked suggestively at me.
That made us burst into laughter, and I enjoyed the moment of lightness thanks to my beer and just being in the moment with my friend.
When we finished our drinks, Ava’s expression turned serious. She put her empty bottle on the table, and her grim expression made my stomach stiffen.
“I have another recording to show you that I captured from Chloe’s necklace,” she said. “It’s very…strange.”
I nodded cautiously. “Let’s hear it.”
Ava picked up her phone and tapped a few buttons. She put it on speaker, and it began to play.
Chloe’s loud voice blared through the speakers, making my hands tighten into fists.
“Come on, let’s just make out a little while your mom is overseeing dinner,” Chloe said on the recording.
“No. get off of me.” Ethan replied, his voice filled with repulsion
1 locked eyes with Ava, and her surprise mirrored mine.
The recording ended abruptly with the sound of stomping feet.
“Is that Ethan storming away from Chloe?” I asked.
“I assume so. Isn’t it strange how rude and disgusted he seems towards his former mistress and future bride?”
I nodded in agreement.
“There’s something else the device caught too,” Ava said as her thumbs moved over her phone screen. “It’s from a conversation that Chloe had with her future mother-in-law, Amelia.”
“Ethan’s mother,” I said in a low voice. “My former mother-in-law.”
Ava squeezed my shoulder. “Yes. It’s from after a dinner at the Hawthorne estate. Amelia and Chloe seem to be having a conversation in the garden.”
I nodded for her to play the recording.
“Please, can you just speak to your son,” Chloe’s voice said through the phone speakers. Her tone was full of anguish. “He’s been so cruel to me lately. I just love him so much. Why can’t he be kind to me?”
“I will not speak to him,” Amelia replied. Her cold voice sent a shiver through my body. It was an indifferent tone I knew all too well. “You don’t have to marry my son if you don’t like the way he treats you.”
“I’ll tell people what I know if you push me too far, Amelia,” Chloe
Thanum 155 said. Her voice had changed from one of sadness to threatening. It made me gasp. How could her mood change so fast? “I know about all the shady things that go on in the Hawthorne family. I know that your husband has a mistress overseas and that he has an illegitimate nineteen-year-old child who will jump at the chance to move here and compete with Ethan to inherit the Hawthorne fortune. If that happens, your place in this family will be jeopardized. Your luxurious life will go down the drain with just one phone call. Are you willing to risk that?”
My mouth dropped open in shock.
On the recording, Amelia is sputtering in indignation. “You nasty girl! How dare you threaten me like that! I knew that you were an evil bitch when you stole my son away from Olivia. You will be the downfall of my son. I just know it!””
Woah. I couldn’t believe that Amelia was sticking up for me. I always thought she had disliked me.
“No, you will be the downfall of your son if you don’t help me!” Chloe countered.
“If you continue with these threats, I will have no choice but to expose that your pregnancy is fake! I know that you are only using it to trap my son so that he will marry you!” Amelia’s loud voice shouted through the phone and seemed to echo through the room.
*Olivia*
“You don’t scare me,” Chloe’s voice said from the recording. Her tone was full of malice and made the hair on the back of my neck raise. “You can’t expose my secrets, especially since I know certain things about you.”
“Yeah? What other things do you think you know about me, little girl?” Ameila asked.
I could tell that she was trying to be tough, but I could hear a slight tremor in her voice. Ethan’s mom was terrified of what else Chloe knew about the Hawthrone family.
“I have some pictures of you that are…unflattering to say the least,” Chloe said, and even though I couldn’t see her face, I knew that she was smirking.
Amelia gasped. “What kind of pictures?”
But Chloe wouldn’t answer the older woman’s question. She simply laughed.
“Chloe, what kind of pictures! Answer me right this instant!”
But she refused. All Chloe did was let out another cruel chuckle. “You should be careful with who you threaten. You might have a little… accident.”
Then, the recording abruptly ended.
Ava and I were silent for a long time, our thoughts occupied with what we had just heard.
“Woah, that was a lot,” I finally said and crossed my legs, turning toward her.
New Book: Veiled Desires of the Alpha King Novel
Dayson was the alpha of the largest pack in North America. Powerful figures from other packs sought to offer gorgeous girls as potential mates for Dayson. He steadfastly rejected these advances, he was not a pawn to be manipulated. But eventually there came a mysterious girl he could hardly say No. Who was she?