Vane and Alex: Alex's Surprise Ch. 02

I really don't like talking much about Monica, but you have to understand, it wasn't her that was the problem, it was me. I got with her too soon after Alexis and after marriage, commenced to make her pay for every one of Alexis's sins. Though we have two beautiful daughters together, I treated he badly while we were married. I never trusted her, though she never gave me reason not to. I was unfaithful because I thought that at any moment she would come to me with a confession like the one I got from Alexis. In short, I never gave her all of me as she did with me.

Finally when Vanni was 5 and Alecia was 3, she took them and left. Later we agreed to meet and talk about things. She brought me divorce papers and told me there wasn't a snowball's chance in hell of reconciliation. I signed them, knowing she was right, but only with the stipulation that I would be an active part of my girls' lives. She told me that she didn't hate me, but if I ever wanted to be happy, I was going to have to give as much as I expected to receive and that love was all or nothing. You are either willing to lay it all on the line or you need to get out of the game altogether.

After the divorce, I felt that my time to marry and settle had come and gone. I resigned myself to being a bachelor for the rest of my days. I guess my choice was to get out of the game altogether.

For years, I dated casually and kept women at arm's length for the longest time. Then I met you and Darius.

From the time I first met you, I watched you give everything you had and everything you were to Darius. When I was out with him, whenever he called you, there was always an answer. You were devoted to him, honored him, and for the first time since I left home, I saw what it meant to have complete and total love. True, he didn't appreciate it, but I realized I was starved for it. I wanted all those things my cousin had described.

The more I watched you, the more enthralled I became. I even waited for you to mess up in some kind of way while you were still with him, but you were consistent to a fault. I found myself wanting to share who I was with you even before you were mine, but I knew I couldn't. I never imagined having the kind of love and trust you lavish on me every day.

So if you're wondering why I was willing to do my damnedest to fulfill your fantasy, this is why: I love you enough to move heaven and earth to make you smile, I want whatever makes you happy to the extent that I would sacrifice for you. I don't think less of you because you're passionate. You have my whole heart and I have yours. You never gave me room to doubt that.

He wipes the tears from my eyes.

"I love you so much, Alex...now who was the stranger?"