By the Book (Meant to Be #2)(24)
She sighed, looked at the road ahead of her, and kept walking. At first she hoped this would be a quick thunderstorm, and the rain would stop, but it just rained harder and harder. She trudged up the hill, half in the road, half on people’s front lawns. She didn’t step back fast enough as one car drove straight through a puddle, splashing water all over her. She wanted to cry, but she was too exhausted.
Finally, she saw the house up ahead. Oh, thank God. She couldn’t wait to get inside, pull off her wet clothes, take a hot shower, and heat up whatever delicious meal Michaela had left her for dinner. It was early, but she didn’t care; she was cold and wet and starving. And then, after she ate, she would take a very long, hot bath, with some of the fancy bath salts she’d found in that shop next to the bookstore.
She went around to the side door to pull it open. It didn’t move.
The side door was locked? She’d gone in and out that door at least twice a day all week, and it had never been locked. She didn’t have a key to the house—Michaela hadn’t given her one, but it hadn’t seemed necessary since she hadn’t left it until today.
What was she supposed to do now? Tears of frustration pricked her eyes, but she forced them away.
She could call or text Michaela. But Michaela was probably home with her son, enjoying her two days off from dealing with Beau Towers. And, even if Izzy did text her, she’d have to sit out here in the rain for how long before Michaela arrived?
She sighed and closed her eyes for a long moment. Finally, she walked around to the front door and lifted her finger to the doorbell. As soon as she’d realized the side door was locked, she’d known what she would have to do. But she’d stood there in the rain for five extra minutes, putting off the inevitable, trying to think of something, anything else to do, because she didn’t want Beau Towers to let her in, and know she’d gotten stuck outside in the rain, and see her all wet and bedraggled and shivering and still out of breath. But there was no way around it. She pressed her finger against the doorbell.
For a while, nothing happened. Should she ring the bell again? Or bang on the door? She couldn’t do it. She just couldn’t. She’d reached the limit of her abilities today. All she could do was stand here and hope that at some point he’d—
The door swung open with a jerk. Beau Towers stood there and stared at her, a blank look on his face. And then he slowly started to smile. And then he did something that made Izzy feel like she really was inside a nightmare.
He laughed.
At her.
If Izzy really could have shot laser beams from her eyes at that moment, she cheerfully would have at least severely maimed him. Lacking that skill, she just pushed past him into the house.
“What did you do, try to escape?” he said as she walked toward the stairs.
She swung around. “Escape? Am I a prisoner here? I went for a walk, am I not allowed to do that?”
He was still laughing as she stood there and dripped water all over the floor. “Of course you’re not a prisoner, but where did you go? You look like you fell into the ocean.”
Izzy took a deep breath so she wouldn’t scream at him. “I walked to the bookstore. And, in case you hadn’t noticed, it’s raining outside. When rain falls from the sky, and you’re outside, you get wet. So, if you’ll excuse me—”
“You walked all the way down there? Why would you do that?”
All Izzy wanted to do was go upstairs and get out of her wet clothes and into a hot shower, but this jerk was still standing here laughing at her and asking her questions.
“Do I have to get permission from you to walk somewhere?”
He laughed at that, too. Great. “Of course not, but that’s pretty far down the hill. That’s why we have cars in California. We have umbrellas here, too, you know,” he said, gesturing to the umbrella stand by the front door.
And that’s when she lost it.
“Yes, I realize that things like ‘cars’ and ‘umbrellas’ exist, thanks for that. But I don’t have a car here, remember? I also don’t have a key to this house with no books in it, where I’ve been stuck all week with you, a person torturing me for sport, who mocks me and rolls his eyes at me when I try my fucking best to do my job, and is now laughing at me when I’m cold and wet and miserable. I’ve done a lot of weird things for this job so far, but babysitting a rich dude who has never had to work hard a day in his life is really high up there. I’ve spent almost a week trying to get through to you, a person in the midst of throwing away a multi-million-dollar book deal that landed in your lap without the slightest effort on your part. And I’ve been happy to give you your fucking pep talks, but I refuse to let a privileged, spoiled brat who doesn’t give a damn about other people stand there and make fun of me because he has nothing else better to do. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’d like to take a hot shower and put some dry clothes on, since—as you so astutely observed—I look like I fell into the ocean.”
She turned around and ran up the stairs before he could say anything else.
Izzy proceeded to take the best shower she’d ever taken in her entire life. It was long and hot and steam was coming off her body by the end. When she stepped out of the shower, she apologized to it for not embracing it as she’d embraced the bathtub.
God, it had felt great to yell at Beau Towers like that. She’d snapped back at him sort of that first day, and then again some when he’d made fun of her job, but this time she’d just lost it on him, and it had felt…incredible.