Page 70 of With Wine Comes War

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ALEX

I needed to calm down. He’s right. He’s not my parents or my ex. But this is still scary as hell for me. What am I doing moving in? He said it’s the next step. The next step to what, marriage? I’m going to hyperventilate. Oh God, now every time he does something nice or surprising I’m going to think he’s going to propose. I can’t handle this. I need to sleep this off.

I said, “Roman, that’s probably all the relationship talk I can handle tonight, so I’m going to go to bed and hopefully have a fresh perspective in the morning. Sound good?”

He smiled and said, “I totally agree. We both have a long day ahead of us. Aren’t you going back to work tomorrow?”

I shook my head, realizing I’d almost forgotten about that because of this conversation. I had a lot of things I had to get done at work tomorrow and this was really distracting. We got into bed, and I fell asleep almost instantly.

Chapter 18

ALEX

Oh, what’s this, two alarms going off?

I reached over and hit the stop button then rolled onto my back. I stretched my body all the way…

“Oh,” I said, surprised when a hand touched my stomach.

“Good morning roomie,” he said and I swallowed the lump in my throat feeling a little anxious about agreeing to this.

“Good morning.”

“Time to get up and go to the gym. I don’t want you to think I’m hindering your routine.”

“Thank you for waking up with me and going to the gym.”I wonder when the enthusiasm is going to wear off and he starts trying to get me to stay in bed.

“Well, as much as I like the gym, you motivate me to go more. So, thank you for that. I’m trying to focus on the things you do that I can benefit from. Is that okay with you?”

“Of course. If I didn’t think I was so perfect and had everything under control, I would feel the same way.”

He started laughing and rolled on top of me, kissed me quickly before he got off the bed, pulling me up with him. “Go get dressed and I’ll make us a pre-workout drink and get a bottle of water together for you.”

This isn’t bad, but it could just be the move in ‘starter package’. The complacent package comes next. Getting out of my head and going with the flow is what I should really be doing. He’s always sweet like this, I just hope I don’t make him crazy. The little plan I have in my head could really screw all of this up.

I put on some workout clothes and grabbed a swimsuit as I headed out to the kitchen. We went to the gym, and I got in a really good workout with some laps in the pool, a good stretch in the yoga room, and about fifteen minutes of relaxation in the sauna. I was surprised that Roman didn’t meet me in the sauna. He seemed a little preoccupied, so I let him do what he needed to do. Maybe he’s having second thoughts about moving in together.Good.

He barely said a word to me on the ride back up to the penthouse, so I had to break the silence.

“Roman, are you alright? Whathappened?”

He shook his head. “Oh, sorry, nothing. Just going through my meetings for this morning and some emails on my mind. I may have to go to Texas again this week, but I’m going to try and get out of it and send Harrison instead.”

“You know you can go if you need to? I’ll be fine.” He gave me a weak smile.

“Yeah, I know, but it’s a little too soon for me to leave you.”

I didn’t know what was going on, but I didn’t think it was as simple as meetings and emails. He was entirely too distressed.

***

ROMAN

I had a lot of texts this morning from Grant. He wanted a meeting, as did Harrison and The Santoros. I only met the Santoros once at the hospital when Alex was there. I wasn’t sure what this was going to be about except they were very much interested in helping me keep an eye on Alex as well. I checked my emails and saw several from Amelia with meetings set up that were new this week. There was one in Texas that was tentative until she could find out if I was going to be able to reschedule the other meetings. There was no information in any of these meetings. For some reason that had me worried. What the heck could be so urgent that all these people are trying to get in touch with me so early. It’s not a normal occurrence and with all this vendetta bullshit it’s starting to freak me out.

I barely even saw or talked to Alex when we got to the gym. I concentrated on my workout and let her concentrate on hers. She seemed like she was doing fine and not bothered by anything. Sheclearly wasn’t attached to any of these meetings or else she would’ve been asking me if I knew something.

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