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Jonas followed Alex into the bedroom. “What are you doing? Where are you going?” he questioned as she pulled her bag from the closet, and placed her few things into it. This was supposed to be a short visit, and Alex hadn’t anticipated the drama that she’d found herself in. However, she should have known better.
Jonas was a walking drama. Wherever Jonas went, heartache, pain and tragedy followed, and there was Alex always in the middle of it. She didn’t want this, she’d married into it. Shouldn’t Max have known this and forgiven whatever had happened. Where was his understanding, for fuck’s sake? Wasn’t this his problem with himself, and his brother that he’d handed off to her?
She’d hoped that this would be different. How could it be different, because it was Jonas Blackstone after all, and when had her life been without drama after she’d met the two of them?
Alex couldn’t remember.
Perhaps it was the time when she’d given birth and could get some rest being away from her wickedly handsome husband, Maximillian Blackstone, and his tragically handsome brother—Jonas?
Not even then did she get her peace when he’d insisted that he and his twin brother be inside the room when she gave birth. Max wanted Jonas to know that he was a part of his family, and nothing would destroy that bond. Nothing but Max himself, Alex thought.
After tossing into the suitcase the few clothes she’d brought with her, she turned to see Jonas leave. She had a black dress, a black pantsuit, white blouse, two pairs of black shoes, and a light-colored blue dress for the wedding, there was nothing else. Maybe if she’d packed her whip and crop, used it on Max she would have gotten a better response out of him.
It took that and more to get him to sleep when she first met him. That was where she’d made a mistake. If she’d done that he’d be sleeping by now, and she’d be cooking him breakfast, and telling him how much she loved him, and he’d be doing the same over coffee and breakfast.
When Jonas left after she was packing, he finally strolled back into the bedroom after she’d hurriedly showered and dressed, and was ready to leave.
Alex glanced into the mirror to see Jonas towering over her. With sad eyes, she made the announcement, “I’m leaving here, Jonas, and if you’re smart you should leave too. Get out of Florida. The policemen said you weren’t a suspect, but they suggested that you should get out of the area now, because they didn’t want you here.”
“But where are you going?” Jonas said, his voice low, tears pooling in his eyes like a lost child that’d been searching around for their mother and couldn’t find her.
“Maybe home. I started out in New York and I’m going back. Maybe not Manhattan, but I’m going home.”
After looking into Jonas’s eyes and seeing how lost he was without Max, she decided it was only right that they stay together, if to do nothing else, but to give each other comfort.
Without Maximillian Blackstone they were lost. Well, one of them. Alex was sure that she’d be alright. She’d fought Max once for her son, and this time she wouldn’t capitulate. She’d made up her mind she’d had enough. She hadn’t chosen to be saddled with two outrageously dangerous men.
Dangerous in their own right. Max was dangerous because of his power and money. Jonas was dangerous because he was a loose cannon who attracted trouble, odd, sexy, beautiful women, like iron to a magnet.
Yet Alex felt responsible for Jonas in a sick possessive way. “You can come with me, and we can sort this out, or you can stay here, let your pain and memories catch up with you or the police, because sooner rather than later, they will be back, and asking questions about New York. In New York we can fade into the woodwork like so many people do.
“That’s up to you because we don’t have Max to depend on. We only have each other, and as much as I want to be rid of a Blackstone now, all I have is you, Jonas.”
Alex placed her hands along his stubble jawline, and he closed his eyes and leaned into her palm.
“I know why Max left early and that was to get a head start to take my children and whatever else he planned. I really don’t want to talk about it now. If you’re coming, Jonas, pack a few things and leave the rest here for the next tenants to clean out. Don’t leave any papers leading back to you.”
****
They were out of Jonas’s rental in an hour, and waiting for a flight at the airport to New York. And then Alex realized that Jonas had a car. “What did you do with your car?”
“I told my friend that he could use it, but he had to get it out of the garage within an hour.”
“How do you know he’ll do that?”
“He just texted me and said he had it.” Jonas sucked in a hard breath and walked on the plane with Alex. After relaxing in their seats, Jonas said, “What do we do now?”
“Get that car out of your name and into your friend’s and give it to him. Get a hotel until we can lease an apartment.”
“I mean what about Max? What are we going to do?”
“We’re going to take Max on.”
“Do you think that’s a good idea, Alex?” Jonas questioned.
“Do you have a better one? Well, let’s hear it. He accused you of falling in love with me, and that I was complicit in that too, and now he’s out to take my children from me, what do you want me to do? I don’t want to fight him, but he left me no choice. He thinks that he doesn’t need me anymore, and he certainly doesn’t need you. You did all his dirty work by posing as him for years, so he could grow an empire. I wouldn’t be surprised if that cold-hearted bastard takes our money too.”
“Do you think he’d do that? Max isn’t like that,” Jonas added, as if he’d been surprised at that statement by Alex.
“Yes. He’d do anything to dominate me and you. But I have money that he can’t touch. It’s my mother’s inheritance, and if he were smart, which I know he is, he’d put a hold on the money I have in my bank account that he gave me when we were married. But I want to know just how far he’d go, that’s why when I take him to court and ruin him, he won’t have a penny left.”
“You wouldn’t do that, would you, Alex?”
Alex glanced over at Jonas and raised an eyebrow.
She was planning on much more than just taking his empire from him, she had other plans for Max because she knew his weakness, and she would exploit them to the fullest. What she had in mind would be hard limits.
When Alex lay back in her seat, she closed her eyes as Jonas glanced over at her. He’d never seen such a beautiful woman. When he’d first met her, she was naïve and young, and had never met men like him and his brother.
Just out of college and in love, Alex fought Max every inch to be with him, and for him to know that she was in love with only him, and she would never hurt him.
It was a tall task to bring him around, and for Max to ask her to marry him, but she did and then she made the mistake of trying to help his brother Jonas out, to save their marriage, and bring the peace they both craved, and that was when their marriage took a turn for the worse. Instead of creating a bond between Max, Alex, and Jonas, it tore them apart, with Max believing that Alex loved Jonas more than him.
That was what had triggered Max’s anger—to think that his beautiful loving wife, Alexander Blackstone, desired another man over him, even if they were twins and Jonas was his devoted brother, and no one could tell them apart except maybe Alex.
In Max’s mind that idea of deceit had been solidified, and he thought he knew the truth about his brother and Alex by the spectacle at Jonas’s home on his wedding night. Instead of finding Jonas in bed with his wife, Max found Jonas in bed with his wife—Alex.
Jealousy overtook him and he couldn’t see or understand anything that Alex had said. His only answer was to fuck her, take her hard, dominate her, and that’s what he did. When he looked over at Alex sleeping naked, peacefully next to him, and he thought that another man, his brother had taken what belonged to him, Max stepped to the floor, took one last look at the woman who had controlled his mind and body, whom he’d loved above all others, he dressed, and in his mind he walked out of her life, and his brother’s for good.