Page 42 of In Love and War

I was backin my room by 9:00 p.m.; a lot later than I’d originally planned. Exhausted, the first thing I did was get into the bathtub.

Finally.

I was barely able to get a full one minute of peace before my phone started to buzz on the counter beside me. I looked at the screen: El Diablo.

Instead of letting it ring until it went to voicemail like I’d done earlier, I hit Ignore.

It took twenty seconds for the buzzing to come back. Once again, I hit Ignore.

And then, it rang a third time.

“What?” I snarled into the speaker.

“Watch your tone with me, Amelia. Why the fuck are you ignoring my calls? We obviously need to talk.”

He didn’t sound happy, but that didn’t stop my heart from leaping inside my chest at the sound of his voice.

“I’m busy,” I lied.

“Withwhat, exactly?” he asked, more cautiously than I would have expected. He for sure knew I wasn’t at the bar anymore purely based on the lack of background noise.

It was dead quiet in the bathroom, and my voice was probably echoing a little as well.

“Don’t you mean withwho?”I hung up on him, still livid over the whole argument. The kiss hadn’t changed that.

It had just made things more complicated.

El Diablo

You’re still with him?

I should have just ignored the message or told him that it wasn’t any of his business who I was with or what I was doing.

Instead, in the heat of the moment, I did something stupid.

Me

Someone needed to finish what you started.

And then I turned off my phone.

15

We heard back from Emerson early the next morning, giving us the green light to go ahead with everything as is. Which meant we were in a meeting with Yuval all day going over the execution strategy, in addition to the timeline and responsibilities of each team.

Zac had resorted to pretending like I fully did not exist and wasn’t in the room with them, for the whole day. Not a single word to me or glance my way.

It was the best reaction I could have possibly asked for.

Afraid of pushing my luck in case he changed his mind and wanted to talk, I took advantage of his late-afternoon discussion with David once the group meeting was over and left without him. Any work left over I could do from the safe confinements of my hotel room.

I had just walked through the lobby doors when my phone rang.

Shit,I thought as I read his name on the screen. I hesitated for a few rings before picking up, afraid to ignore it in case it was work related.

“Hello?”

“Where the fuck did you go?” he barked.