Page 8 of Rejected By My Stepbrother Alpha
I sighed as I looked at the bubbles floating to the top of my drink.
All night, people had been offering me drinks. A few of them were business rivals of my father’s—Silas Shepard, Ginger Howard, and Connor Maxwell. All the others were my father’s employees, business associates, and my fellow pack members. But I had managed to politely decline them all.
I was afraid to even have one drink. I needed to keep an eye on Evelyn and I didn't dare lose control around Ivy. I couldn't allow her to seduce me and distract me from my mission. I toasted the ballroom, not knowing who had been the one to go out of their way to order me the champagne.
I held the glass in my hand without taking a sip as I walked around the room, trying to network while keeping my eye on my father and Evelyn. My gaze kept straying to Ivy, who was talking to the vice president of a finance company. I didn’t remember the guy's name, but I wanted to break his nose.
Remember, she’s playing you.
I turned toward the bar, planning to leave my full glass of champagne there, but then I heard a burst of loud laughter coming from across the room. It hadcome from Ivy.
As I watched her throw back her head and giggle at something the vice president said, jealousy tore through me.
One drink wouldn’t hurt.
I drained the glass of champagne, finishing it off in one go.
Part of me wished Ivy hadn't attended the gala tonight. The rage boiling in my blood as I watched her flirt with man after man confused the hell out of me. Why did I have to feel this strongly toward my stepsister? Why did I feel like this about someone who I was certain was working with her gold-digging mother?
My hands clenched with anger when the vice president, whose name I couldn't remember, laid a flirty hand on her arm.
Don’t touch her.
I couldn't think straight, and I was dizzy with rage.
But after a moment, the dizziness didn't fade.
I swayed slightly on my feet and experienced an intense head rush. I sat down at a nearby table and gripped the edge of the table.
Then, the room around me began to spin.
My pulse quickened, and sweat dripped down my neck.
What the hell was happening to me?
Chapter 3
The Wrong Key Card
Ivy
My feet were killing me, this random businessman wouldn't let me get a word in edgewise, and all I wanted to do was lie down in my comfortable-looking hotel bed and fall asleep. But I was determined to impress Russell by charming all of his colleagues. I blinked and tried to focus on what the man in front of me was saying.
“That's when I told Jefferson…you know Jefferson, right? He's the one in charge of risk management at my company. I think he's here tonight…”
The man looked around the almost empty ballroom, pieces of his carefully arranged blonde hair falling onto his forehead. I didn't know Jefferson. In fact, I didn't even know the man's name who was standing in front of me. He must have told me at some point, but his name got lost amidst the handful of others that I had learned tonight.
I was thankful that I had stopped drinking after those two glasses of champagne in my hotel room. I needed to keep a clear head after my encounter with Asher in the hallway. There had been a moment when I had leaned in for a kiss. Before I had shut my eyes, I thought Asher had leaned in too, but I knew that was just wishful thinking onmy part. What the hell had I been thinking? What if someone were to stumble across me leaning in to kiss him?
I tried to forget about Asher during the gala and focus on charming the important business people around me. But the speech that he had made about his father at the beginning hit me like an arrow to the heart. Asher talked about his dad with such respect and love that anyone listening would know how much Russell meant to him. Hearing Asher speak so eloquently about his dad—who I also admired—made my infatuation with my stepbrother grow.
I spent the rest of the night talking to anyone who came up to me—mostly men. All of them offered me more sparkling water when my glass was empty. I tried my best to be charming and friendly to everyone because I didn't want to embarrass Russell, and I didn't want to deal with my mother's wrath if I accidentally made a social blunder.
But it was hard to focus on anything else when the entire night, I only felt Asher's presence. It was the same way that I was always aware of him when he was in my general vicinity, but there was something different about tonight. The energy zipping between us during the gala was electric, and I was terrified that I was the only one experiencing it. But there were times when our eyes would meet across the ballroom when Asher's gaze would hold the lust I had seen in his eyes when we had met in the hallway after his shower, and he'd been half naked. During these times, Asher would always look quickly away. Was I being delusional in thinking that there was any lust in his eyes? Were my fantasies obscuring my reality? Was my mind bringing my daydreams to life and making me imagine things?
Even now, my skin was still tingling from Asher’s presence, even though he had left the ballroom already. He must have been drinking because he had stumbled out. The gala had officially ended thirty minutes ago, but this guy just kept talking to me. I hadn't found a polite way to exit the conversation yet. My mother had left twenty minutes ago, giving me a rare kiss on the cheek that I knew was only because we were in public. Russell had given me a hug, and his face had grown red when I told him I was proud of everything he had accomplished so far in his life.
When the band stopped playing, I knew it was time to call it anight. I made an excuse to the man who was still blabbering about Jefferson. I left the ballroom, making sure to smile and nod at the few people who were still milling about.
