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"Where's Dylan, anyway?" I asked, acid in my tone.
“Dylan and I broke up a while ago. He took a new job and moved to Riyadh. He's flying planes for one of the princes, if you can believe it."
I shrugged, not caring what her bastard of an ex-boyfriend was doing with his time. I didn't care that the reason she agreed to marry me – the reason she pretended to want to marry me – was because he didn't want to get married. He wasn't rich enough for her mother either. A pilot for a small regional airline after he got out of the service, he was a playboy. She'd apparently been in love with him forever but he was never the right kind of man for her family.
I had been the right kind of man for them, but apparently not her.
Yeah, I was still hurt by her betrayal. I didn't love her anymore – I knew that the moment I saw her. I only felt contempt. But I still had the wound from when my trust and love had been thrown away for a night of sex with her true love before she committed to me.
That was her excuse, anyway. One night of hot sex to say goodbye forever to the man she had loved for years so she could commit fully to being my wife and the mother of my children.
Thing was, I could never trust her again when I knew she'd slept with him. She claimed it was a one-time only thing, to say goodbye forever, and that she hadn't slept with him the entire time we were engaged, but I didn't – I couldn't believe it.
I could never imagine sleeping with her again, as much as I thought she was very beautiful and smart.
She was a cheat.
That was enough to break it off completely.
A clean break with a promise I never wanted to see her in public again. I never wanted to go to any function she was at or want her at any family gathering. Her family was very close to my parents, but I had told them in no uncertain terms that if she or her mother were going to be at a function or at the house or at the beach house, I wouldn't be there and not to invite me or expect me to attend.
I'd spent several months in a funk, drinking myself crazy, smoking too much pot with my old buddies from college. It was only six months after we split, when Dana announced she was pregnant, that I came out of my funk and started to think about re-entering life.
That's when serious work on taking Chatter to the next level happened. That's when I focused all my energy on making it the best app possible. That's when it took off and we saw an exponential growth in its user base.
So, while my heart and pride took a beating when Jenna betrayed me, the rest of my life took off and I would finally have total and complete independence from my adoptive parents and the family money.
I now counted my blessings that I found out about Jenna's cheating ways before the wedding instead of after. It made me think even harder about how I was handling Eric's cheating on Dana.
"Whatever," I said and pulled my arm away from her. "I'm taking Alexa and going back to the city. You stay here. Enjoy your time with your mother. My weekend's been ruined."
I turned and left her, walking out of the great room, and taking the staircase to the second floor family wing. I went to my bedroom and found that it was empty. Alexa wasn't there. I checked for her bag, but it was gone as well, and her things were gone from the ensuite bathroom.
I hadn't seen her walk out to the patio where the family was so I went back down the stairs and checked the great room once more. There was no sign of her. I went out to the patio and checked but she wasn't sitting at the table with everyone. I could see Jenna sitting with her mother. She glanced away when she saw me.
"Has anyone seen Alexa? She's not in our room."
People shook their heads.
"No, dear," my adoptive mother said. "She hasn’t been out here since you got back from seeing the boat. Did she go for a walk on the beach?”
I walked down to the surf and looked in both directions, but didn’t see her. I sighed, and went back to the patio and through the house to the front entrance. I opened the door and checked out the driveway, but there was no sign of her so I took out my cell.
LUKE: Where are you? Did you leave?
There was no answer.
LUKE: Please answer me so I know you haven't been kidnapped or drowned when you snuck out to take a swim without me…
No answer.
FUCK.
Chapter 15
Alexa
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