Star of His Heart - Brenda Jackson [57]
Christy nodded, and she looked at him, held tight to his gaze. “That’s right. Now do you remember what you told me that day? What you promised?”
Alex frowned when he remembered. “Yes, I gave you the ring and told you that you didn’t have to worry about your brothers scaring any of the guys away because I would be the one to marry you when you got older, and that I would wait for you…” The words trailed off when what he’d actually said to her that day almost eight years ago hit him in the face.
“To grow up,” Christy finished for him.
Alex leaned back against the door as he studied her intently. Surely she didn’t expect for the two of them…He shook his head. “Christy, you know I was just kidding with you that day, don’t you?”
An angry glint appeared in her eyes. “I don’t know anything of the sort. I assumed you were telling me the truth.”
Alex narrowed his eyes at her. It had been no secret to anyone who lived in their old neighborhood that Christy Madaris had always had a crush on him that started when she turned eleven and had lasted until she’d gone off to college at seventeen. Although he’d been flattered by it, he’d been careful not to do anything to take advantage of, or encourage, her tender feelings. Except—maybe for that one time on the day she had turned thirteen and had been crying. But what he’d done had been perfectly innocent on his part. He had a weakness when it came to females and tears.
“And you want me to believe since all that time, from the time you were thirteen, you thought I would marry you?” he finally asked her.
“Yes! Why wouldn’t I believe it? You said it.”
“I just told you that to stop you from crying. How could you have believed what I said?”
“Because you said it, and I’ve been wearing this ring for eight years to prove it. That’s why I’ve never let my brothers’ attitude toward other guys bother me and why I never got serious about anyone. I was promised to you. Everyone in my family knows that I plan to marry you, Alex.”
He thought about Justin, Dex and Clayton and found that hard to believe.
“Even your brothers?”
Christy glared at him. “Yes. I told everyone that day. They probably have forgotten about it just like you’ve forgotten about it.”
Alex sighed deeply. He remembered the Madaris brothers teasing him about it years ago because they knew he hadn’t meant anything by it other than a way to soothe Christy’s tears. Over the years either he or one of her brothers would bring it up and joke about it occasionally. He was more than sure that, like him, they assumed Christy had grown out of that crush. However, from the look on Christy’s face, it appeared she had not.
He knew a quick and easy way to resolve the matter before it led to trouble and a whole lot of unnecessary pain. “If you thought I actually promised myself to you eight years ago, then it should be easy enough to get unpromised.”
Christy lifted a brow. “What are you saying?”
“I’m setting the record straight. Now. Tonight. What I said to you eight years ago should not have been taken seriously.”
His words hit Christy like a ton of bricks. She shook her head, confusion evident in her gaze. “But I’ve made plans,” she said quietly. The hurt was evident in her voice.
A part of Alex felt his insides get ripped in two with the hurt he saw in her features. He felt even worse knowing he’d put it there. “What sort of plans?”
Christy lowered her head. She didn’t know if she could find the words to explain.
“Christy? What plans?”
She lifted her gaze to his. He took a sharp intake of breath when he saw the lone tear in her eye. “You were to be my husband, the man I was saving myself for, the man whose babies I would have, the man I would love for the rest of my life.”
Alex’s anger flared. She’d had no right to make those sorts of plans that involved him, especially since her feelings weren’t the result of adult emotions but of an infatuation that had started when she’d been a kid—which she wasn