Power, Seduction & Scandal by Angela Winters

Author:Angela Winters [Winters, Angela]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Kensington
Published: 2014-10-16T04:00:00+00:00

10

Even though she was in the living room and Corey was all the way down the hallway in the bedroom behind a closed door, Erica made sure to keep her voice low so he couldn’t hear.

“It’s been a while,” said Alex Gonzales on the other end of the phone.

“I know,” she responded. “I’m sorry. How long?”

“Almost seven months.” His voice held a hint of his hesitation. “I was thinking of calling you when . . . well, you know.”

“I was thinking the same.” Erica curled her feet underneath her legs on the sofa. “But I assumed you didn’t want to talk about him any more than I did.”

“He doesn’t exist to me,” Alex said. “So in my opinion, no one I knew died.”

“I feel the same.” Erica felt envious of Alex’s clarity.

“I thought you’d be more affected,” he said. “You know. You were closer to him. You had an actual relationship with him.”

“I wasn’t close to him,” she insisted. “I mean, I gave him more chances than I should have, but after what he did to you, he was dead to me.”

“But he still tried to contact you,” Alex said. “Never once even called me.”

“When Jonah does something wrong to someone, he blames them for feeling wronged. In his fucked-up head, he probably thought you and your mother owed him an apology.”

Alex laughed somberly. “I would tell him not to hold his breath, but I guess he’s not.”

Erica laughed. “God, you’re really not upset at all, are you?”

“No,” he said. “Honestly, my life here in Miami is great. I have a great job as a teaching assistant in the political science department of the university. I got my own place. I have a girlfriend.”

“You have a girlfriend?” she asked. “What’s she like?”

“She’s nice,” he said. “She’s Cuban and she works in administration on campus.”

A moment passed before Erica congratulated him. This was still a little awkward, but they both pushed through it. Erica had stopped having feelings for Alex the second she found out he was her half brother. She was sickened to the point of throwing up whenever she thought of the time they kissed.

There wasn’t much chance to deal with it. Once the news hit, Alex left town and didn’t look back. After a couple of months, they would text each other and then talk on the phone. Both of them knew this wasn’t their fault, that they’d done nothing wrong. This was all Jonah’s fault.

“I’d like you to meet her if you ever came to visit,” Alex said after that short silence.

“That goes both ways,” Erica said.

“No.” His tone was less open now. “I’ll never go back to D.C. Now that Mother has moved down here, there’s nothing that can get me back in that city.”

“I can understand that,” she said. “So maybe I’ll come down. It’s starting to get cold up here anyway.”

Erica wondered if he really wanted to see her. She wondered if she really wanted to see him. It seemed safe, these emails, texts, and infrequent phone conversations.

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