Page 152 of Heart of Stone

“You were really great with my mother and Allyson tonight. Thank you for that,” I appreciated. “Those two can be tough. The fact that you got them laughing within twenty minutes was no small feat.”

“Piece of cake, angel,” he told me with a wink. “Besides, Allyson made it easy when she spilled her drink all over your stepfathers lap.”

“That was funny,” I agreed. I was grateful for Alexander’s ability to diffuse the precarious situation with my mother. He even managed to put Allyson’s watchful eye at ease.

However, none of it negated the fact that my head was still reeling from what I had discovered earlier in the day, and I contemplated how or if I should bring up what I had learned of his mother. I had hoped to figure out a way to approach Alexander about it when I got home, but in all the chaos with my mother I never had the chance.

Alexander opened the passenger door for the Tesla. Once I was securely buckled, he went around to the driver’s side and got in.

“Do you have any preference in music?” he asked, navigating expertly through the elaborate touch screen of the car.

“No, you pick,” I told him absently.

“Uh-oh,” he said shaking his head. He stopped tapping on the screen to look at me. His face appeared troubled. “You’ve got that tone.”

“What tone?” I asked defensively.

“The tone that says you’re thinking seriously about something.”

“No, not really,” I lied, but only because I hadn’t had a minute to process my thoughts.

“Is it the club?” he pushed. “I thought that you wanted to go, but if you’re having second thoughts then we can always do something else.”

“No, I want to go. But I have to ask – what made you change your mind about taking me?”

“A couple of reasons actually,” he admitted. “For one, you seemed like you could use a distraction. I’m not sure what was going on before I arrived, but it didn’t look pretty.”

“It was just my mother being…well, my mother. I don’t feel like rehashing it.”

“That’s okay. I’d rather you didn’t, at least not tonight anyways. I don’t want to see you get all worked up again.”

“So what’s the other reason?”

He sat back in his seat and stared thoughtfully out the windshield.

“You gave me a lot to think about last night. Your opening up made me realize that I needed to give you something in return. And while I can’t give you the truth that you’re after, I can give you this. You were right, Krystina – there is a lot that we don’t know about each other. If going to my club gives you better insight into my life, then we’ll be better off for it.”

I sat there quietly and contemplated his words. My instinct was to confront him about what I heard his sister talking about at the Mandarin, but what he had to say made me think twice about doing it. In his own way, Alexander was trying. It may not have been in ways that I envisioned, but it was something at the very least.

Respect his limits. Let him be the one to tell you.

However, there was another thing that left me wondering as a result of my eavesdropping.

“Who is Suzanne Jacobs?” I asked.

Alexander turned to look at me peculiarly.

“She’s a friend of my sister’s. Why do you ask?”

“I stumbled upon an article about you and the redhead online,” I told him, deliberately evading the whole truth.

“Oh, yes. That’s right. I remember you bringing this up once before,” he recalled with a frown. “I can’t imagine that the article was very lengthy. There isn’t much to tell. She accompanied me to a couple of political functions a while back. Long story short, she read too much into it and wanted things that I couldn’t give her.”

Alexander turned his attention back to the car and started the ignition. The car hummed quietly to life.

“So that’s it?” I pushed.

He pursed his lips in mild annoyance.

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