Page 90 of The Bet
“Hi,” she said, arriving at his door, looking a little timid, he thought. The snarkiness was gone. She seemed milder. Softer.
“You didn’t have to drop it off, in person,” he said. “You could have just emailed it,” he said, closing the door. “You didn’t have to make a special trip.” On an ordinary day, if he didn’t have Hennessy’s meeting weighing him down, he might have been able to make good use of this unexpected appearance of hers, but today was not a good day.
“I lost my laptop.”
His frown deepened. “What laptop?”
“I mean, your MacBook.”
“What?” He angled his head, in case he’d misheard.
“Your MacBook. Somebody stole it from me.” She looked shocked, now that he looked at her face for longer.
“Stole it from you?”
She nodded, and bit her lip. “It happened as I was leaving a coffee shop.”
“What? How?” He closed his eyes, forced his breath to still, even though the anger had sparked. He’d been counting on her work so that he could finish up his report.
“I came out of a coffee shop, and some guy on a scooter grabbed it and rode off with it before I’d even realized. It happened so fast, I didn’t even know.”
“And my data? My report?”
She looked down. “I was going to email it to you before I left the coffee—”
“You don’t have it?”
“It’s gone.”
“You have the USB, don’t you? And you made a copy of my report?” The meeting with Chad was tomorrow.
“The USB was connected.”
“You lost that, too?”
“I didn’t lose it. Somebodystoleit from me.” She fell silent. With her face pale, and her dark eyes looking at him with an uncharacteristically sad expression, he realized he was behaving like a heartless douchebag.
He gave her the once over, trying to see if she’d been hurt, but she appeared to be fine. She was as hard as nails. “Fuck,” he said, understanding the implications of this.
“I’m sorry, Xavier. I really am, and I could kick myself. I wish I’d saved a version but I didn’t.” Her lower lip trembled, just a little. Or maybe not. This was Laronde, after all, and he didn’t think her lip was capable of trembling.
“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” he said, running his hands through his hair as he paced around.
“I didn’tintendto get robbed.”
“Tell me you saved a copy of your changes?” The muscle in his jaw spasmed again.
She shook her head. “I’d just finished making changes. I’d worked on it all morning, adding in more charts. I know how important this meeting was for you and I wanted it to be perfect. I was going to email it to you but I got distracted. I’m sorry. I really am. It was a big mistake.”
“Why didn’t you email me a copy before you left?”
“Believe me, I’ve asked myself the same question a million times, but I was going to check it one more time and make sure it was perfect.”
He inhaled sharply, closing his eyes, running through the clusterfuck scenario in front of him. He needed this deal otherwise it would be months before he had another opportunity as good as this one.
She looked awful, and he did his best not to get mad. It was just as well he’d jerked off now, otherwise he would have been frustrated beyond belief.
“Have you reported it to the police?”
