Page 145 of Learn Your Lesson

I sighed. “We’re not friends, Suter. And this is personal. So, just trust me when I say I’m fine and I’ll work it out.”

“No can do,” he said. “Vince is tied up with wedding shit. Grace is in town, so Jaxson isn’t an option either. That means you get me.”

I flattened my lips, ready to walk out if I could get my legs to work. But then he asked a question that made it impossible to move.

“It’s the nanny, isn’t it?”

Shit.

My face must have answered him where my words couldn’t, because he grinned, shaking his head and arching a brow. “I knew it. Let me guess — you took my advice to get your dick wet butdidn’ttake my advice to set up rules. So now you’ve got your feelings all involved.”

“Fuck you,” I spat, gripping him by the shirt. I pulled his face to mine. Just him talking about her like she was the kind of girl you could fuck and forget made me seethe. “Not all of us are heartless fucking pricks like you are, okay?”

His face went neutral at that, the corner of his lips curling before they fell. I thought I might have struck a nerve. I was about to apologize when he shrugged and laughed.

“Yeah, well, look where having a heart got you.”

I glared at him a moment longer before releasing him and sinking back into my bike seat.

“You knew before you even started hooking up, didn’t you?” Aleks asked. “You knew she was different. You knew you wanted more from her.”

I swallowed.

“Wanna know how I know?” Aleks continued. “Because I think we’re more alike than you want to admit. And I think you know how to scratch your itches when necessary without ever crossing any lines into this territory. You could have easily gone to Boomer’s. You could have fucked a puck bunny and left it at that. But you found a way to fuckher, instead.”

He held up his hands when I snarled at him.

“I’m not saying that disrespectfully,” he said quickly. “I’m just saying, you knew. You liked her then. You wanted her and you didn’t just want sex, even if you did set rules.”

“I did,” I ground out.

“Sure, and how fast did you break them?”

Goddamn it, he was good at this.

He chuckled when I didn’t answer. “How bad is it?”

“Bad,” I croaked.

“Come on, tell me,” he said, waving his hand. “The sooner you get this out, the sooner we can both move on. God knows I don’t want to be here any longer than I have to smelling your stinky ass.”

Maybe I was possessed in that moment, or maybe I was just too exhausted to fight — because for reasons unbeknownst to me… I told Aleks fucking Suter everything that had happened between me and Chloe.

I don’t know what I expected as I laid it all out. I watched his face for signs of judgment, but found none. When I finished and he was all caught up, he was quiet for a long time, nodding and scrubbing the five o’clock shadow on his jaw.

“You want to know what I would do?” he asked. “Or do you want me to tell you what I wouldwantto do, but wouldn’t be strong enough for?”

I frowned. “Both.”

“Well, if it were me, I’d fire her,” he said. “Because you’re in love with her, Perry. Plain and simple. And you’re right. There’s a very real possibility one of you, if not both of you, gets hurt in this. She changes her mind. You change yours. And with Ava in the picture…”

My throat closed in on itself at the thought of letting Chloe go — both as our nanny and as the lifeline I didn’t realize she’d become to me. “And the other option?”

The muscle in his jaw worked for a moment as he looked at me like he wasn’t sure he could voice it. Finally, his voice lower than before, he said, “I’d own my mistake of leaving without a word this morning, I’d chase her down wherever she is, and I’d throw myself at her feet. I’d admit I have no fucking idea what I’m doing but that I want her, consequences be damned. I wouldn’t count all the ways it could go wrong. I wouldn’t let fear hold me back. I’d believe in love.”

I swore, I saw a thousand ghosts dancing in his eyes as he spoke, like he wasn’t just talking about me and Chloe.

“You don’t believe in love?” I asked.