never asked you to marry me.”
PAIGE STARED AT HIM, wondering if the collision with the floor had affected his brain. “That’s not true. I still have the proposal you e-mailed me.” She looked at the gray ashes scattered on the messy floor. “At least I had it until a few minutes ago.”
“I agree you received a proposal,” Alex said slowly, “but it wasn’t from me.”
Paige reached blindly behind her for a chair and sat down. Maybe it was the champagne or the shock of seeing Alex again or the fact that he wasn’t wearing a shirt, but for some reason her knees felt a little wobbly.
“Are you just trying to torture me?” she asked. “I’m finally over you, Alex. The last thing I need is for you to come barging back into my life, causing more chaos. So I suggest you leave. Now. For both our sakes.”
A muscle flexed in his jaw. “Just hear me out first.”
Nobody could say she hadn’t warned him. “Okay, fine. Tell your story.”
Alex pulled up another chair beside her, straddling the back of it in one easy motion. She couldn’t help but notice the ripple of taut muscle over his chest and belly. He was slimmer than he’d been a year ago. Fitter. Maybe the time away from her had been good for him. Maybe Franco had a shirt he could borrow.
When Paige met his gaze again, she couldn’t help but feel that Alex was a virtual stranger. Those wonderful few weeks of their whirlwind courtship almost seemed like a blur now. A crazy dream. Had she really agreed to marry this man?
“Promise me you’ll hear me out,” Alex said. “No matter what I say, you won’t leave or try to kick me out until I’m done.”
Her stomach twisted. It must really be bad. Was there another woman? Was he married? Was he an alien? Paige shook those unsettling thoughts from her head. She’d been spending too much time with her mother. “Okay, I promise.”
He hesitated, as if not sure how to begin. “Our first meeting was a setup, Paige. I was supposed to bump into you that day on the wharf. I was supposed to make you fall in love with me.”
Her mind flashed back to that fateful day on Fisherman’s Wharf, a place she loved despite all the tourist trappings. She spent almost every Sunday there if the weather was decent. It had been sunny the day she’d met Alex, if a little cool. She’d worn a khaki jacket. Alex had spilled raspberry iced tea on it when he’d bumped into her.
Now he was here telling her that had all been staged. All part of some scheme. Which left her with one simple question. “Why?”
“Because I was assigned to find information about your missing stepfather. We didn’t buy the story about his abduction by a UFO. We thought you and your mother were hiding the truth. So if I got close to you…”
“You could find out what really happened,” Paige breathed. It was all starting to make horrible sense to her now. The police had been called after her stepfather’s disappearance but they’d been highly skeptical of Margo’s UFO explanation. Even speculating that her mother might have something do with Stanley’s disappearance.
They’d obviously decided to send in one of their own to determine if there had been foul play. And what better way to get to the mother than through the daughter?
It also explained why Alex had never shared much about himself or his family. The fact that she’d never been to his home—or even knew his address. The way he’d listen so patiently when she talked on and on. The fact that he never complained about spending time with her kooky mother. She’d watched enough shows about undercover cops to know that’s how they operated.
No wonder she’d thought of him as a stranger just now. He was a stranger. And she’d been ready to marry him!
The impact of her own stupidity made her slump back in her chair. Alex had just been doing his job. He’d never cared about her. Never loved her. Never even been attracted to her.
Her cheeks flamed when she thought about the reason he’d given her for not wanting to make love. How he’d wanted to wait until their wedding night. She’d thought him an old-fashioned romantic at the time. What a fool.
One tiny, rational part of her brain told her she’d be even more upset if he’d slept with her under false pretenses, but Paige was in no mood to be rational.
“I think you’d better leave,” she said with an odd calmness she was far from feeling.
“I’m not done.”
She looked at him in disbelief. “There’s more?”
He gave a brisk nod. “I never meant our relationship to go that far. The engagement, I mean. That e-mail proposal was sent by someone else. Someone who thought an engagement between us might make you open up to me.”
She was going to be sick. Or else she was going to shoot him. The latter sounded more enjoyable than the former. If only she had a gun…and knew how to operate one. Maybe Alex would give her a few lessons. It was the least he could do after lying to her.
“I meant to call off the wedding before it was too late, Paige,” he continued. “But everything just spun out of control. I’m sorry.”
He was sorry. As if that made everything all right. Alex sat there shirtless in front of her, patiently letting her absorb everything in silence. Looking so sexy that she wanted to scream. It wasn’t fair. She’d been wild about him and he’d been…faking it.
She met his gaze and the expression on her face made him scoot his chair back a notch.
“Are you done?” she asked.
“For now.” He leaned forward. “I know this isn’t easy to hear, Paige, but I thought you deserved to know the truth.”
In her opinion, truth was highly overrated. She would have preferred to keep believing he’d dumped her, just like every other man in her life.
It was pathetic, really. During the past year, Paige had come to the depressing realization that every relationship she’d ever had, beginning when she was fifteen years old, had been ended by her male counterpart. Not once had she been the dumper instead of the dumpee. Not once had she broken someone’s heart.
She wouldn’t mind breaking Alex’s heart right now. Along with other assorted appendages. Most of which she’d never seen before. She wasn’t sure which was worse. The fact that he’d been playing her or that it had been so easy for him to do.
Talk about insulting. She mentally cringed at the thought of that night on the balcony. She’d brought him here to show him the apartment, blabbering endlessly about their future life together. Then she’d kissed him, practically throwing herself at him. But he’d nobly resisted her advances.
Saint Alex.
Now he was back, confessing all, looking for redemption. Fat chance. She’d rather push him off the balcony.
“Are you all right?” he asked at last, his face searching her own.
“It’s a little stuffy in here.” She fanned her warm cheeks, then looked toward the open balcony doors. “I could use some fresh
