She read for twenty more minutes. If you could call it reading when she watched Beau swim the length of the pool and back and looked down whenever she thought he might catch her. She didn’t absorb a single word of the manuscript.
Finally, she checked her phone. It was after noon! That meant she should go inside, get lunch. Excellent, great, that’s what she would do. And then she’d go back to her room and watch something very G-rated on her laptop. Peaceful, relaxing, with no attractive men in it that would make her think…things.
She got up to leave just as Beau reached the shallow end of the pool again.
“Going inside?” he asked.
She slid her flats back on. “Yeah. I, um, I think I’m going to get lunch. More of that lasagna, I think. I didn’t really eat breakfast, so I’m starving now.”
He grinned at her. “Leave some for me.”
Damn it, why did he have to smile at her like that? Now she understood why he’d been such a heartthrob as a teenager. And probably in his twenties, too. Even with that scraggly beard, his smile made him seem so alluring.
She turned toward the house.
“Can I ask you a question?”
She looked back at him. He wasn’t smiling like that anymore. Now he almost looked nervous.
“Okay.”
“I’ve been wondering something. That first night…after you left the dining room, I sort of expected you to leave right away, go back to New York. Why didn’t you?”
She sat back down. “I’ll answer that if you answer something for me. When you say you ‘sort of expected’ me to leave right away—is that what you intended?”
A week ago, she wouldn’t have asked him that. But then, a lot had changed this week.
He looked embarrassed. “I don’t think my thought process was particularly intentional. I was pretty angry. I kind of assumed that you were just here because you wanted to see the asshole Beau Towers in real life. And I was also kind of…ashamed, I guess, that I’d been ignoring your emails for so long. So yeah, on some level I was probably trying to drive you away.” He reached for his water bottle but didn’t take a sip. “Wow, does that sound shitty when I put it that way.” He looked up at her. “I’m sorry.”
She looked back at him. She could see, now that she knew him better, how much he really meant his apology.
“It’s okay,” she said. And then she bit her lip. “I’m afraid you’re going to be disappointed with my answer now, about why I stayed.”
He smiled at her. “Now I can’t wait to hear this,” he said.
She sighed. “I had too much wine! When I went back to my room, I did intend to grab my stuff and leave right away, but then I realized the wine had gone straight to my head. And then you brought the food, and then it felt too late to drive back to LA. And then Marta called in the morning, and, well…”
The smile on his face had widened as she talked, but it disappeared when she mentioned Marta. “Did she make you stay? That wasn’t—When I emailed her, I was just trying to make it up to you, say something nice to your boss about you, so she wouldn’t be mad at you because of me. I didn’t mean to back you into a corner.”
“No, you didn’t at all,” Izzy said. “Honestly, I really needed the break from the office, so when Marta called, and I was looking out my bedroom window at the bright blue sky, it felt like a gift to get to stay longer.”
The furrow on his brow cleared. “Well, then.” He put down his water bottle. “Thanks. For answering my question.”
“No problem.” She stood up. “I should…um, get lunch. See you in the library?”
He nodded. “Yeah. See you there.”
As she walked back to the house, she thought she heard something else.
“I’m glad you stayed.”
She turned around, but Beau was swimming. She must be hearing things again.
Monday midmorning, Izzy walked into the kitchen to refresh her coffee.
“Morning, Izzy,” Michaela said.
Izzy reached for the knife to slice herself a piece of lemon pound cake. “Morning. I hope you had a good weekend.”
Michaela dropped a tea bag into her mug. “I did, thank you. Oh, by the way, Izzy, it was so nice of you, but you don’t have to wash the dishes here. You know there’s a housekeeper who does all the cleaning, right?”
Izzy grinned at her. “Oh, I didn’t wash the dishes. Beau did that.”
Michaela stared. “Beau? Washed the dishes? Beau Towers?”