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“None of your business.”
“Miss Benson?—”
“Oh, is that tone supposed to frighten me?Try again, Savage.Or no, actually, don’t try again.Give it up.Or I will make good on my promise.”
She stabbed the end button and sucked in a breath.Striding over to the sofa, she collapsed beside Bethany and looked over at her with a slightly stunned understanding.
“I’m getting why you’ve been avoiding him.He can get kinda intense when he doesn’t get his way, huh?”
A shiver went down Bethany’s spine as she recalled just how intense Zach could be.He’d pursued her with a single-minded focus from the moment he’d seen her.Giving in had been an exhilarating experience, and a crash course in diving in off the deep end.“Yeah.A little.”
Keely blew out a breath.“So, what now?”
Bethany took her friend’s hand and squeezed it tight.“I really want to high-five you right now for having my back.But I’m terrified you’ve just made things worse.”
3
Bethany, talk to me.Pick up the phone.
Bethany shoved her feet into her black pumps and attempted to ignore her phone and the messages that were starting to pile up.
She wasn’t due back to work yet—Keely had taken one look at her when she’d picked her up from The Indigo Lounge VIP area last week and emailed Sheena to tell her Bethany wouldn’t be in for another couple of weeks.
Leaving Marrakech the morning after Zach’s atomic revelation, she’d thought she’d never be in the frame of mind to function properly again.But reality had a way of forcing you to face it, even when you were an emotional wreck who wanted nothing more than to stay in bed forever with the curtains drawn.
And reality had come in the form of a Friday morning email from The SMC Group, asking if she was available for an interview at ten.She’d wanted to ignore the email, to pull the covers over her head and drown in the misery she was wading neck-deep in.
Then the anger had started to build.She’d done nothing wrong, except fall in love with a man who’d been ultimately unattainable.It made her a whole lot stupid, yes, but it didn’t mean she had to crawl away and die.Even if every single cell in her body craved to do just that.
And, seriously, there was a bright side to all of this.She’d had, hands down, the best sex of her life.Something memoir-worthy should she be so inclined to memorialize her very brief experience at some distant date in the future…
Jesus.She stopped and sucked in a breath.She was losing it.Perfectly understandable, but if she was to have even a hope of making any form of impression at her interview, she needed to get her head out of Marrakech and back into New York mode asap!
She picked up her phone just as another message came through.
I can’t stop thinking about you.I’m in agony, baby.Please, pick up the phone.
She turned her phone to silent before the inevitable ringing started, and she tried to get her thoughts into professional work mode.She had time on the ride to SMC’s Midtown office to brush up on what she’d said in her resume.She just needed to stop her brain from deciphering every single nuance of Zachary’s message.The man had a way with words.And he was particularly ruthless when it came to getting his way.
Well, she was done rolling over for Zach Savage.And if the thought immediately caused another shattering of the fragile pieces of her heart, it was just something else she would have to suck up today.
The interview passed in a blur of polished questions and equally polished answers, accompanied by a mildly out-of-body feel during the hour she spent in the CEO’s office.
Before she left, Bethany was certain she wouldn’t take the job even if it was offered to her.Her potential new boss was a carbon copy of Sheena, and taking anything they had to offer would be making a bad situation worse.
She’d made enough of a mess of that in her private life.Feeling another vibration in her purse, she tried to tell herself she wasn’t really interested in what else Zach had to say.Her hand reached for the phone anyway.
Fuck.Stop this.I miss you.Z.
But as she read the latest text, her heart started to pound.
You made promises too, Bethany.You promised I wouldn’t lose you no matter what.You promised you wouldn’t hold yourself back from me.You’re reneging on both promises.
She stopped in the middle of the sidewalk.Someone bumped into her and followed through with the classic New York response of “Watch it, bitch.”
Her fingers shook as she pressed the button.
He answered immediately.“Bethany?”