Disclaimer: I do not own anything mentioned in this story except for the character of Alexandra H.

Chapter Three: A pizza and a sorry can do wonders

"Please tell me you're joking"

"No Riley, me and Ben have a gala to go to tonight, we need you to stay"

"With her?"

"Yes Riley, with her"

"Do I have to?"

"Riley!" Ben barked, walking into the kitchen where Abigail and Riley had been discussing what was going on for the past couple of minutes.

"I thought you said you were going to trust her" Ben said as he walked over to Abigail, holding the black tie in his hands hopelessly. She laughed and then swung it around his collar, knotting it professionally.

"Trust is one thing…liking is an entire different thing. Total different sub-topic to trusting" Riley mumbled as he grabbed a water bottle from the fridge and twisted the cap off, taking a long sip of water.

"Don't worry Riley, I'm not too fond of you either" he heard a voice call as a figure appeared from the stairway, a pair of long legs making their way towards the kitchen. He choked on his water and spat a bit out, a trail of the liquid falling down the front of his shirt. As if on cue, Alex entered the kitchen and gave him a sarcastic grin, before going over to Abigail and Ben.

"Your driver is outside. I have everything ready in the den like you asked to bring Riley up to speed on your research" she said pleasantly, smiling at both of them before adjusting the strap on Abigail's pretty floor length black ball gown. The blonde smiled warmly back at Alex before heading towards the front door, Ben at her tail as he checked his pockets for all essentials.

"We'll be back late…these things always go on for hours. Don't wait up if you guys finish early!" He called before they both heard a door close, a gentle fumble of keys, and then the switch of the lock. Cue awkward silence.

"Have you had supper yet?" she asked a couple of excruciating seconds later, walking over to the island in the middle of the kitchen and picking up the phone that was laying on the marble counter. He hopped up onto kitchen table across the room and shook his head, forwarding all his attention towards the oddly shaped hole in the top of his sock.

There were a couple of minutes of silence. He could feel that she was watching him, trying to get his attention, but he didn't budge. Every time he looked at her, he felt betrayal. The last attempt on his life by Ian that involved being left in a god-forsaken room a bout a quarter of a mile beneath a church still gave him chills. He couldn't get over it.

"I'm not anything like him, you know" she said finally, putting down the phone a little too violently. She walked over to him and stood against the island and faced him. He stopped moving suddenly and then robotically turned his head to look at her.

"Call me Sir Isaac Newton but the laws of physics tell me that the apple does not fall far from the tree. And usually, when apples grow on the same branch, they tend to fall together" Riley rationalized, giving a rather sarcastic shrug at the end of his sentence. Alex just peered at him, a look of confusion playing on her delicate features. After another couple seconds of awkward silence, Riley sighed and then adjusted his position on the table.

"Let me try and put it into terms you'll understand—"

"I'm not a complete idiot Riley, I knew what you meant. I'm just trying to figure out how someone so supposedly brilliant could also be so narrow minded at the same time" she said, cutting him off and snapping back at him rather rudely.

He sat there. His face looked at is he had just been slapped, which he pretty much had been, only verbally. She pushed herself off the island and then walked around it towards the sink, turning on the water and then running her hands underneath it. She proceeded to wash her hands and only spoke again when she was drying them. It was his turn to look at her and try to get her attention. When he finally got her eyes, he tried to spit out what he wanted to say.

"I'm sorry but Ian—"

"Ian's in jail, as you probably know. Look Riley, I'm not going to waste my time trying to convince you to like me. You don't even have to like me, but you do have to be able to at least be civil with me. This isn't going to work if you keep bringing up my estranged brother every time I do or say something" she said, almost sounding tired. She threw away the paper towel she had used to dry her hands and then rubbed at her eyes.

He slowly started to begin to feel guilty. He'd assumed that they were close and therefore alike. But just because they weren't talking didn't mean they weren't alike, he rationalized in his head. Genetically they will have similarities, and maybe one of those similarities would be backstabbing those you worked with. He slowly felt his faith in that theory started to fade.

"Estranged?" he asked her quietly.

She rested a hand on the island and the sink and stood in the space between them. Nodding, she scuffed the tiled floor with her bare foot. She looked up a couple of seconds later, a few tendrils of her wavy brown hair falling infront of her face. She brushed them away before speaking.

"He left home when I was 11. I'm 26 now. Haven't seen or heard from him since he left" she said before letting go of the counters and walking towards the kitchen exit. She stopped in the doorway and then turned around, hesitant to say something. She turned around, looked at him for a few seconds before saying what he wanted to say.

"I came here hoping to somewhat rectify what my brother did. Loyalty was never his strong suit. But I grew up believing that my brother was brilliant…I looked up to him. Even when he was gone, I still believed that he was doing something noble like working with orphans in Africa or doing relief work for the United Nations. So when I found out what he did…trust me Riley, it hurt me just as much as it hurt you"

Maybe he had been wrong about her. He jumped off the table in the kitchen and went out onto the deck right outside, sitting himself down in one of their muskoka chairs before looking out onto the vast property of land infront of him. With Ian, Riley always felt that he was never being upfront about everything. He always thought that the brit was hiding something. There was a certain coldness that Ian had always had but with Alex…Riley couldn't help but begin to believe that maybe she was different. The vulnerability she had just showed him seemed to prove that. Ian had never talked about his family. Hell, Riley didn't even know that Ian had had a sister to begin with.

He sighed, knowing that he had made a mistake. He hated making mistakes. He was usually so meticulous about his work that he always caught them before they could screw anything up. But he couldn't help but feel as if this mistake had managed to screw something up permanently. What if she never forgave him for judging her so badly? He knew he wouldn't. As he thought about it, if someone had done to him what he had done to her, he wouldn't even give that person the time of day again. He drummed his fingers on the armrests of the chairs and stared into the forest ahead of him for a couple of minutes more.

Suddenly, he thought back to the initial question she had asked him that sparked the entire conversation. Dinner. She hadn't eaten yet, and it gave him a good opportunity to try and salvage whatever professional relationship he could with her.

Because what woman could turn down an apology and a pepperoni pizza?

((Author's Note: Hey!!! Sorry for the long gap between chapters. I was waiting for a few more reviews and then life got in the way of writing. But I'm back!! This one is kind of short, but I hope you see how much it reveals about Alex's character. Reviews make my life : Thanks a lot!! ))