"So you"re my future cousin-in-law."I pulled my gaze away from the ocean to find who had spoken to me. A man stood not far away, his elbows leaned on the railing that separated the deck from the beach. He had his back to the ocean and the breeze messed up his brown hair. He wasn"t as handsome as Julian, but he was attractive in his own way.
"I"m sorry, I don"t think we"ve met..." I gave him a hesitant smile. When Julian had invited me on this vacation, I had been ecstatic until I learned it wasn"t just us, but a family vacation. Thankfully, it didn"t seem like many of his extended relatives had come.
"Oh right, I"m Eric." He returned my smile with twice the brightness. He crossed the distance between us and stuck out his hand.
I took his outstretched hand, letting myself relax a bit. "I"m Alice."
"It"s nice to meet ya. Julian is a lucky guy." He let go of my hand and leaned back against the fence. His gaze drifted down from my face before returning to my eyes. I felt my face heating with a blush.
"I"m the lucky one." Julian was the man most women dreamed of marrying and he was my fiance. Sometimes I almost couldn"t believe I was going to be the wife of someone so incredible.
Eric chuckled, "No need to act so modest. From what I hear, you"re an amazing woman. Not to mention, you"re super gorgeous."
Eric reached out and tucked a stray piece of my hair behind my ear. I was a little surprised from the familiarity, but I did my best not to pull away from his hand. We were going to be family members in the future. Eric was definitely not the same as the other Leonharts I had met, but maybe that was because he came from a branch family.
"What are you doing here?"
Before I could process what was happening, Julian had yanked me from Eric"s side. He placed his large frame between my line of sight and Eric.
"I was just introducing myself." I could hear the smile in Eric"s voice.
Julian"s grip on me tightened. He didn"t respond to Eric, just turned away. He grabbed my hand and dragged me behind him towards the hotel. I looked up at my fiance"s face. I was about to ask him why we were leaving the beach when I saw the expression on his face. He looked furious. I swallowed my words. He wasn"t mad at me, right?
I followed obediently behind him until we reached my hotel room.
"What did he say to you?"
"He said... he said you were a lucky guy," I answered honestly. I wasn"t sure where Julian"s anger was coming from. A small part of me hoped he was jealous.
I saw Julian"s jaw clench. "Why did you let him touch you?"
"I didn"t want him to, but I didn"t want to be rude."
"Don"t let him touch you again." Julian smoothed my hair away from my face, as if to erase Eric"s touch from earlier.
I nodded. I knew my face was turning pink, but I didn"t care. Julian had been jealous! My heart was soaring. I could barely contain my happiness. My fiance was always kind to me, but I worried if he liked me in a romantic way. If he was even just the tiniest bit jealous, that was all I needed to know he liked me at least a little bit.
The next morning at breakfast, Eric tried to sit near me, but I asked Mia to take the place between us. If Julian didn"t want him close to me, then I"d make sure he didn"t come near! I did the same at the beach during the afternoon. When he asked me to play some volleyball, I invited Mia. I explained to her what was going on and she readily agreed to help me out.
We averted Eric"s attentions all day like that until dinner. Mia said her stomach was hurting, so she wouldn"t come down to eat. I ended up between Julian and Eric. All dinner long Eric kept finding excuses to touch me. He dropped his napkin, so he ended up leaning into my lap to reach it. He wanted the salt and when I pa.s.sed it to him, he purposefully brushed his fingers against mine. With every touch, I could see Julian getting more and more frustrated.
Though I was happy at his jealousy, I also didn"t want Julian to be mad. I kept leaning away from Eric as the meal went on. Before I knew it, my nervousness had led me to continuously down gla.s.s after gla.s.s of wine. Everything was fuzzy.
"Let me take you back to your room."