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“I hope so. I think I’ve put Campbell and Arianna through the grinder with putting tonight together.”
Derek laughed. “I’m sure they loved helping you put this together. I can’t believe that Dino or Diego never caught on.”
“The women of this team have their own sneaky skills.
“That they do.”
“You know, I have to admit, hiding this from Alex has been killing me. I could tell she knew something was up, but she just couldn’t quite put her finger on it.”
“Ace, you know as well as I do that it’s almost impossible to keep anything from that woman.”
“She’s amazing. I wish we could’ve met sooner than we did.”
“She’s one of a kind. I can tell you that.” Derek looked away for a moment, and Ace could sense something that Derek wasn’t saying.
“I know that look, Commander. What’s on your mind?”
Derek offered him a wry smirk. “I’m glad this is happening.”
Ace cocked his head sideways, not understanding. “What do you mean?”
“The wedding.” Derek sighed. “I ran into Alex earlier today at the cemetery. I felt a bit bad for eavesdropping while she was talking to her dad.”
Ace started to feel concerned. “What was she talking about?”
“Pretty much everything. But what bothered me was when she said she felt that you and she weren’t aligned.”
“What?”
“She went on about you both living hectic lives and how she’s been under a lot of stress with the Foundation and the possible expansion out west.”
Ace ran his hand through his hair. It was something he had been doing a lot lately.
“I get the stress part, but I really thought that having Charlie at the office would help ease some of it.”
“I think it has. But you know how anxious she’s been since that group from Coronado called. That’s a lot. But I’m damn proud of her.”
“I am too. She’s doing amazing things, that’s for sure.”
Derek slapped him on the back and smiled. “Listen, don’t sweat it. I think after tonight, you’ll see a huge positive shift in her.”
“I hope so.”
Chapter THREE
“Alex had just started to pack up her things for the night when her office phone rang.” She sighed. She wanted to get out of there and go meet Ace for dinner. The call earlier that she had been expecting took a little longer than she had anticipated. But she couldn’t complain, considering the organization had pledged a twelve thousand dollar donation. She reached across the desk and answered.
She looked at the phone number on the screen, and her gut did a little flip flop when she saw it was a San Diego area code.
“This is Alex.”
“Alex. This Admiral Dietrich from Coronado.”
She smiled. “Hello, Admiral. How are you?”
“Oh, you know. Doing just fine for a soon to be retired Admiral.”
“Well, from what I’ve heard, you deserve that retirement.”
