Page 176 of The Bet
Chapter 50
She buzzed up, and when he asked who it was, she paused before answering. It had been nearly a month since she had seen or heard from him, and now she wondered if it was still too soon.
The palpitations in her chest rocketed sky-high.
“It’s me. Izzy.”
She imagined the look of surprise on his face. “Izzy? Uh—sure. Uh—did you want to come up?” Oh, yes. He was definitely surprised.
“I only came by to return your MacBook.”
“Oh, that,” he said slowly, as if he was still trying to get to grips with the fact that she was here.
“Can you come down?”
“Sure.”
She smoothed down her hair, and waited outside, her heart still beating wildly. A few moments later, the door opened and he strode out, wearing not his lounge pants, but a pair of jeans, and a shirt. It made her wonder if he was busy. Maybe he was entertaining, even though it was late afternoon on a Thursday.
“I didn’t mean to interrupt anything.”
“You haven’t. You didn’t. It’s just me in my office, working away.” That told her how well he knew her, and how well he had anticipated her thinking.
“Here,” she said, pulling his MacBook out of her knapsack. “I’ve been meaning to return this for a long time.” She handed it to him. “I’m sorry it’s taken so long, but the time never seemed right.”
“You could have kept it. I didn’t really need for you to return it.”
“It’s not mine. It belongs to your business.”
“I wouldn’t have minded.”
“I would have.”
“Okay.” He held onto it with both hands, an uneasy silence prickling the air between them. “How have you been?” he asked, finally.
“Great.” She nodded her head, as if to convince herself.Great.
“You look great.” He gave her an appreciative nod.
She looked at him and remembered the man she had started to fall for; the one who had turned her contempt for him into mind-blowing orgasms. She tried not to think about those times, but recently, there had been times when she’d found it harder to push it away to the edges of her mind.
Their conversation was stilted, the silences freighted with something. It was strange because she had expected that he might make more of an effort to talk, and he hadn’t. Now that she had been babysitting Jacob almost every weekend, she had noted that Xavier had never been there during any of these times, and she wondered if he was purposely avoiding being there because of her.
“Jacob says ‘hi’. I told him I was going to see you one day this week,” she said.
“Tell him I said hi back.”
She had braced herself to be strong, and to not give in or fall for his smooth words—but his lack of any words came as a shock.
“You look good, Izzy,” he said, finally, giving her a subdued smile.
“You don’t look so bad yourself.” He didn’t look as if he’d been pining away for her, despite his words at the burger bar, and his pleas for her to hear him out. She wondered if he had moved on, if he had trawled The Oasis and hooked up with someone else already.
“Are you sure you don’t want to come in?” he asked.
She shook her head. “Cara’s dragging me out to another house party.”
“Dragging you out?” A questioning expression spread across his face.
