Page 53 of The Bet
Chapter 16
“Be good,” Cara told her as she left to spend the weekend with her boyfriend. “And don’t go getting up to anything with Xavier Stone.”
“As if. I hate the guy. He’s an A-star jerk, a total douchebag, a complete Neanderthal—”
Cara closed the top of her knapsack and threw it onto her shoulder. “That’s a lot of hate you have for the guy, it makes me wonder ...”
“Wonder what?”
Cara threw her a searching look. “Wonder what youreallythink of him.”
“After everything I’ve told you about him, you still don’t get it? I don’t like him, and hopefully he won’t be around this weekend. I don’t think he cares much about getting to know Jacob.”
“Then why do you think he’s spending so much time with him?”
“To get on Tobias’s good side?” she explained, when Cara rolled her eyes. “Don’t worry, it’s complicated. You won’t understand. Jacob doesn’t realize it and I’m not going to tell him.”
“You’re onto a good thing, Iz. Karma works.”
“How’s that?”
“You saved that kid, and now his mom has you babysitting for her. It was a perfect fit—right after Shoemoney. And I was right, wasn’t I? Tell me I’m right, about Tobias being nothing like Shoemoney?”
“You were right.” Tobias Stone was a family man and he was nothing like Shoemoney.
She shivered at the memory of the first time she had experienced Shoemoney’s perversion. That time, she had been on her knees picking up dried pasta shapes from the kitchen floor. She happened to look up to see Shoemoney standing a few feet away, staring at her, and she’d had no idea how long because she hadn’t heard him come in. He’d been gaping down her shirt. She wasn't sure, even then, even as the hairs on the back of her neck stood to attention, warning her, and even as his stare lingered over her like a dirty stench. She had managed to stand up, somehow, but her knees had gone weak.
And still, she gave him the benefit of the doubt.
“What are you two doing today?”
“Watching a Marvel movie.” Jacob couldn’t get enough of his Marvel superheroes.
“Be good.”
“Likewise.”
Cara left and Izzy quickly washed up her lunchtime dishes, then quickly tugged on her leather jacket. She would Uber it over to the Upper East Side and check over Jacob’s homework—Savannah had asked her to look over it. And then, after the movie, they would go and get something to eat.
She picked up her handbag and slipped it over her shoulder, and opened the door just as the doorbell went off.
The air from her lungs stilled.
Gideon Shoemoney stared down at her, his huge hulking frame almost as big as the doorway.
“Isabel.” His smile made her want to retch. She strengthened her hold on the door, using it more like a riot shield to hide part of her body, and her jaw tightened, making speech impossible.
“Aren’t you going to let me in?”
“Fuck. Off.”
“Fuck…” he said slowly, using the word as a weapon. “Off?”
Creep.
She swallowed, and heard the blood pounding in her ears.You are strong, she told herself, willing for her superpower to emerge, wishing, in this moment, that she had some of Jacob’s belief in the power of super-heroes.
“What are you here?
