Zoe's POV
I imagined someone yelling: "Wake up Zoe!" Followed by a bucket of ice-cold water over my head or at least hearing the sound of my alarm clock. But this wasn't a dream, this was real, and it was happening.
I pulled away from Alex breathing heavily.
"I should probably sue you for sexual harassment," I whispered trying to catch my breath.
"In that case, I should probably do it again," He answered.
He leaned in and claimed my lips with his. This time the kiss was more intense and demanding than the last. Every bit of this was real, the taste of his soft lips and the hint of a fruity conditioner from his hair. It was all too real to have been a dream.
"Come on," He whispered pulling away, taking me by surprise.
He raised to his feet, holding out his hand to help me up.
I happily obliged, following him as he held my hand.
We ended up at the lake.
We sat on the edge of the dock, putting our feet in the water.
I took a moment to take in my environment.
Everything felt so magical but then there was the reality of it, I didn't know what to talk about with Alex, most of our conversations ended up in an argument. I'd ask him what his favourite movie was but then again, he didn't watch those, he preferred 'living his life rather than watching others live theirs' and he also wasn't very big on reading. Those were the two topics I could passionately talk about all day.
"Let's play a game," I suggested. "I'll ask you ten questions to get to know you better since there clearly is so much that I need to know about you."
"Why do you want to talk about me. I'd rather I talk about you all day," He answered.
I turned my face away from him while blushing.
"I'm serious," I said. "I need to know of any food allergies you might have. In case you do something wrong I need to know of the fastest you kill and make it look like an accident." I joked.
"You could break my heart," He answered with a serious expression.
Was he joking? I couldn't tell right now. I looked at him trying to maintain a serious expression.
"Fine, I'll play your game." He agreed.
"How did you and Justin first meet?" I asked.
Alex smiled to himself for a moment as if recalling a wonderful memory, which made me more curious.
"In detention," He answered briefly. "We went to the same boarding school."
Something told me there was more to that story, he just wasn't willing to share it yet.
"On a scale of one to ten how much would you say that your employees hate you?" I asked.
"Ten," He answered without any hesitance.
"You can't be that bad.
"Well, I made them work on holidays, including Christmas and Thanksgiving. Plus, I fired my last assistant because my coffee was too cold. I drank ten minutes after she had given it to me." He explained.
I looked at him not knowing how to react. I've heard a lot of ridiculous stories of people getting fired but, this was by far the worst. I thought that I had experienced the worst side of him, but it turns out he could be worse.
"I was having a difficult day," He tried to justify himself.
"That doesn't make it okay, I'm glad you are not my boss then," I finally managed to say.
"Well, I find that instilling fear in your employees is the most effective. You should try." He spoke.
"I doubt that is good business advice, I prefer a positive work environment," I said.
"That's hilarious," he chuckled.
"What is your fondest memory?" I changed the subject.
"The first time I saw you." He answered.
"What's your favourite place on earth?" I asked.
"That's a difficult one, but I'd probably go with Dubai." He answered.
From there onwards he went on to talk about his sports car collection. I lost count as to what question I was on when we continued talking.
"I'll be right back," he said getting back.
He then rushed off in the direction we come from.
I sat there smiling to myself, kicking my feet against the water.
Minutes later he was back with a few equipment: a cooler box, and fishing rods among a few other things. I immediately know what he was planning.
"I'm not fishing with you. I've never done it," I protested.
"I'll show you how." He insisted.
He sat next to me, setting up the equipment.
He took the lead, giving out the instructions.
He handled everything with so much ease, it was like he had done this too many times. It's almost as if he chose to go fishing to make himself look good.
I was barely holding up and could hardly catch any fish, I blamed it on the hook most of the time.
"Relax," Alex reminded me, his hand on mine, helping me navigate the fishing rod.
"There you go," Alex said as I draw the hook out of the water.
"I caught a fish!" I exclaimed looking at the fish trying to wiggle off the hook.
"Yes, you did," Alex said replicating my excitement.
Within the three hours that we were there, Alex must have caught nearly twenty while I had managed to catch one. This was still a pretty big achievement for me.
He placed the fish into the cooler box with the rest.
I felt bad that my poor fish was going to end up in someone's stomach.
"We should probably get going, it's going to get late," Alex said.
It was already noon; I hadn't noticed that the time had gone by that quickly. Nevertheless, I wanted to stay here longer, I just started getting good at this.
We returned to the car, Alex said he'd someone pack away our picnic.
I guess we were going back now, to pretending that Alex was in a relationship with Cindy. Would he ever want to be with me in front of everybody else?
I brushed the thought away.
But the truth is that Alex and I were too different, we can from different worlds and that would always be hanging over our shoulders.
"Are you okay?" Alex asked taking his eyes off the road.
"Yes," I answered softly.
As we were driving, I noticed that the car was gradually beginning to slow down, it took a few minutes before it came to a complete stop.
We were already in the town, and probably not too far away from the hotel.
"Shit," Alexander muttered.
Maybe luck didn't want us to get back to the hotel, after all, this was fate.
"We should just get a cab," he spoke getting out of the car frustrated. "I don't know how this could have happened."
"This is a sign, why don't we just take a walk from the town first and look at some places. The hotel is less than thirty minutes away," I said getting out of the car.
I grabbed his hand and pulled him to the nearest gift shop.
I might as well buy something for Reina and Abby, they will never forgive me if they find out that I went to Italy and didn't get them anything.
"You are going to buy books?" He asked over my shoulder.
"I don't know what to get them," I answered truthfully, examining the books they had in the aisle.
"Come on," he said.
He grabbed my hand taking me to the gift shop across the street.
"Wine?" I questioned looking at the store.
"Italy has some of the best wine in the world," He answered.
I got a nearly half an hour lecture on wine, with all its texture, taste and small. I never really cared about any of that, as long as it tasted great and got me drunk fast enough.
If he kept talking about wine, I was going to end up in alcoholics anonymous soon after my pregnancy.
We needed up buying four bottles of wine and chocolates.
We stopped by an ice cream store after that.
We walked hand in hand, talking about how the Italian food here tasted slightly different from the Italian food back home.
Alex leaned in to kiss me.
"Don't you have a meeting?" I whispered to him, recalling his previous plans.
So much time had gone by, we were barely keeping track.
"It can wait," He answered.
I stepped back, squashing my ice cream on Alexander's cheek.
I laughed at the results.
"That's not fair," he said wiping his cheek.
"We should get going," I giggled.
We must have been five minutes away from the hotel when suddenly it began to drizzle, it quickly accelerated into a heavy downpour of rain.
Usually, my first instinct is to rain away from the rain, I've only ever liked watching it and not actually being in it. But not today, I didn't run or move. Instead, I found myself smiling which caused Alex to look at me with a questioning look.
"Come on," Alex said grabbing a hold of my hand.
Instead, I held him back and pulled him towards me.
I stepped on my toes to kiss him. Our bodies pressed against one another, as I got a taste of his warm, soft lips. I could feel his heart beating faster as his hand moved to hold my face in place. All of those butterflies in my stomach started to reappear as I lost control of all my senses.
I was the first to pull away from the kiss.
"We should go before you catch a cold." He whispered, I managed to hear it despite the drumming rain.
We walked underneath the sheds to the hotel.
"You should go on without me, I'll meet you there in a second. I just need to give the hotel staff a piece of my mind." He spoke.
By the sound of things, somebody was probably getting fired. There must have been a problem with that car.
"Be nice," I said to him.
"I'll try," he answered walking away.
I walked into the hotel with a smile on my face, not to mention, sulking wet.
"Zoe!" I heard my name just as I approached the stairs.
My smile immediately dropped.
I turned around to find Lisha who seemed a little angrier than usual.
She grabbed my wrist and pulled me to a corner in the hotel.
"How could you!" She yelled at me.
I looked at her confused, I hadn't done anything to her. I wasn't even at the hotel today.
"What did I do?" I asked.
"So, you are really going to pretend to be innocent. You surely are shameless!" She exclaimed.
Now I was even more so confused about what I had done.
"I knew you couldn't be trusted with that goody two-shoe face of yours. Cindy is nice to you while you are going behind her back trying to steal her fiancé. I saw you kiss him!" Lisha exclaimed.
Oh, this whole drama was about Alexander and Cindy's fake relationship. I had completely forgotten about that for a moment.
From upstairs at the balcony, you could probably see as much as three blocks away which is how I suspect Lisha could have seen us. My red dress was pretty easy to spot.
"It's not what it looks like," I tried to explain. What was I going to tell? There was no way of getting out of this except by telling the truth.
"It's not? So, you weren't just making out with her fiancé. You have no shame at all." She continued.
As 'luck' would have, Cindy approached us. Logan and Steven soon followed.
Lisha had brought more attention to us than I'd wanted.
"Lisha, what are you doing to the poor girl?" Steven interjected.
"You should have seen what this shameless girl did, I told you she wasn't as innocent as she looked." She uttered. "I saw her kissing Alex,"
"Lisha can you just stop overreacting, there is a clear explanation to this whole situation," Cindy interjected.
Alex stepped in, causing everyone to remain silent.
"Firstly, what any of us do is none of your business. Besides, Cindy and I are not even in a real relationship, so we are both free to do whatever we want." Alex said.
That sounded like the end of Cindy and Alexander's fake relationship, I'm quite sure that soon, the whole world will find out the truth.
Alex grabbed my hand leading me to the hotel suite. Lisha was left speechless as Cindy tried to explain the situation to her.
The truth is, I was afraid of love, that's why I fought so hard to get him out of my mind. He made me feel vulnerable. Maybe I didn't need to be afraid of love anymore and just accept that I was in love with Alexander, and I think he loves me too.