Frenemies With Benefits (Geek To Chic Book 2) (4 page)

BOOK: Frenemies With Benefits (Geek To Chic Book 2)
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Chapter Four

6
months later…

Dancing around her house
with excitement, Izzy put snacks on the coffee table and put the beer in the
fridge.
 
She loved playing hostess to her
friends.
 
She had done so, a few times
while Roni had been away.
 
She was so
excited Roni was coming back from her vacation paradise.
 
The guys and the girls were coming over to
surprise Derek and Roni with a welcome home/gaming party.
 
Her new groups of friends had become like
family over the last six months.
 

She loved all of them,
save one annoyingly handsome Viking god, who set her blood on fire from both
the lustful and murderous thoughts he provoked.
 
She snorted a small laugh at her own inner drama queen.
 
She had been able to keep her lustful
feelings for Alex from bubbling over into action for the last six months and
she planned to keep that record going.
 
Any physical contact that had occurred between the two of them over the
past few months, had always been initiated by the Super Asshole and was always
met with swift punishment.
 
Obviously
Alex was either a little slow or didn’t value his balls like most men because
he continued to show Izzy affection.
 

Over the last six months,
she had come to terms with the fact that Alex was going to be in her life as
long as Derek was in Roni’s.
 
Every time
he was near her, her personality flipped from the loving, shy, nice person she
normally was, to a personality she didn’t quite trust.
 
Her second personality couldn’t decide if she
wanted to rip Alex’s clothes off or run him over, repeatedly, with her
car.
 
How could she simultaneously hate
him and want him with every cell in her body? She figured the best approach,
for his safety, was to stay clear of him.
 

Part of her was
desperate to give into him.
 
Have him in
her bed just one more time.
 
That part of
her personality was the weak willed naïve part.
 
The part that had ruled her in Cabo, the part that had fallen for his
nice guy act.
 
She sighed, she wanted to
believe it was all an act in Cabo, that he was the Super Asshole she had deemed
him.
 
However, she had watched him over
the past few months.
 
Watched him when he
wasn’t aware of her.
 
Instead of seeing
the dickhead she desperately wanted him to be, she saw a kind, funny, and loyal
man.
 

Alex really was everything
she wanted in a man.
 
He was the type of
man her parents would have been happy to see her marry had they still been
alive.
 
Too bad, he had ruined any future
they could have had when he walked out that hotel room door.
 
Even with her mixed up feelings for him, he
was still the man she compared all others too.
 
And wasn’t that just a sad clue into her fragile psyche.
 

Shaking off the sad
thought of what could have been, she bustled around the house getting ready for
everyone to arrive.
 
When the doorbell
rang, she practically skipped to the front of the house to answer it, she was
so filled with excitement.
 
Her
excitement bubble was popped the minute she opened her front door, only to see
Alex standing on her doorstep.
 

“Hey there, am I
early?”
 
He smirked at her.
 
He knew damn well he was thirty minutes
early.
 

Super bitch shield in
place, she answered him, “Yes, you are early.
 
So you can wait on curb or lay in the middle of traffic.”
 
She gave him an evil smile and strutted away.
 

Of course Alex, again
not one to catch on to the fact she wanted nothing to do with him, followed her
inside.
 
Closing the door behind him, Izzy
was suddenly very aware that they were alone, in her house.
 
No friends to create a buffer.
 
Not willing to chance her resolve to not give
into temptation, she put as much distance between herself and him by going into
the kitchen.
 

“Don’t you want to know
why I came early?”
 
Alex called after
her.
 
His footsteps were closing in on
the kitchen.

“Don’t care.”

“Sure you do.”

“Nope, now shoo fly go
away.”
 
She waved her hand dismissively at
him and began to put more appetizers on a tray.
 
A failed attempt of ignoring him.
 

Laughing at her little
pun, he proceeded to ignore her call for him to leave. Grabbing a beer from her
fridge, he leaned a hip against her kitchen island.
 
“I know you want to know so I will just go
ahead and tell you.
 
I have decided that
it is time we talked. Got it all out and moved on.”

Turning around slowly,
Izzy gaped at him. Seconds later her shock turned to anger.
 
“No, we already talked. Done and done. Plus,
do you really think it is smart for us to talk alone in the kitchen?
 
As in the place we keep the knives.”

His face scrunched a
little in distress.
 
Putting down his
beer, he ran his hands through hair, dropping them on the kitchen island.
 
He leaned closer to her, clearly ignoring her
warning regarding the knives. “You walked away from that conversation and since
then between Derek and Roni breaking up and then running off, and me left to
run the company, we have not had time to finish our discussion. Tonight is the
night we finish talking.”

The need to either slap
him or kiss him or both burned in her veins.
 
Matching his aggressive stance she leaned into his space.
 
“Look, Super Asshole,” she waved her finger
between the two of them; “we are done talking.
 
We have nothing left to talk about.
 
You fucked me and ran out of that hotel room as fast as your legs would
carry you and never looked back.
 
The
only reason you are even sorry about what happened is because now you are stuck
hanging out with me. And believe me there will be no repeat performance of Cabo.”

Frustration rolled off
of Alex in waves.
 
"Did you hear anything
I said to you at the gala? For fuck’s sake, Izzy, I don’t know how else to get
through to you.”

“I heard what you
said.
 
As I said, we talked, it’s
over.
 
Now leave me alone.”

“So that's it, I had
one five minute conversation to make things right? Even you have to agree
that's not fair."
 
His voice was
gaining volume with each word.
 

Leaning into each
other's space, he was too close to her.
 
His scent engulfed her and drew her thinking back to the conversation a
few weeks ago he was referring too. During the one dance they shared at the
gala.
 
The way he spoke to her and held
her almost melted the ice she had built around her heart in regards to
him.
   

He
held her so tenderly, pure anguish displayed on his face.
 
Keeping his voice at a whisper, he revealed,
“I think of those days in Cabo often.”
 
She tried to pull away, but he held her tighter.
 
“Please, let me get this out, and then you
can go on hating me.
 
I deserve that but
you deserve an explanation.”
 

Izzy
lets out a sigh, she leaned her cheek into his chest.
 
“Fine. You have this one song to explain
why.
 
Why the kindest man I had ever met,
used me and walked away.”
 
She felt his
intake of breath.
 

“Izzy,
honey, I never meant to use you, or to walk away.
 
When I figured out, that you had given me
your virginity, something you should have mentioned beforehand but we’ll get to
that. I freaked out.
 
I was a dumb kid,
immature and selfish.
 
I wasn’t ready for
the overwhelming feelings I was starting to have for you after only a few days.
So I ran.
 
I kissed you goodbye and
left.”

“You
make it sound as though I expected you to marry me because we had sex.
 
Why couldn’t you have just said goodbye to me
in the morning?
 
You could have told me,
‘thanks for the good time, see ya around’.
 
Waking to an empty room was awful.
 
And then to learn from the front desk lady you had lied about your name,
I fell apart. I was completely humiliated.”
 
It was taking every ounce of her strength she had not to cry.
 

“The
front desk lady?
 
You went looking for
me?”
 
His voice sounded stunned.
 

“Yes,
of course I did.
 
She told me they only
had an Alex Porter staying there not a Jeremy Porter.
 
At that point I knew I was nothing more than
a notch on your belt.”
 
She looked down,
shaking her head.
 
The tears were threatening
to break free.
 

He
stopped dancing, took a sharp intake of breath and placed a kiss on her
hair.
 
Placing a finger under her chin,
he forced her to look at him.
 
The look
of sincerity gripped her heart tightly.
 
“Izzy
you were never a notch on my belt.
 
You
meant so much more to me. I have thought about you every day since I boarded
that flight in the early hours of the morning.
 
Leaving you is the biggest regret of my life.”
 

Izzy’s
already fragile heart broke. Hearing him confess that he felt something for her
and that he thought about her was more than she could hear.
 
Looking into his gorgeous eyes, she said,
“Alex, if I meant something to you, if that night meant something to you, then
you would have at the very least said goodbye.”
 
It was her turn to run away from him.
 
Pulling free from his embrace, she grabbed Roni and headed to the bar to
drown her sorrows in strong alcohol.
 

Shaking off the memory
of how sad she had been after that encounter with him, she went back to
punishing him for what he had done to her.
 
"Yes, I told you when we were dancing that you had that one song to
explain.
 
You gave your explanation,
doesn't mean I have to believe you or forgive you. If I was so important to
you, you would have at least told me your real name."
 

“You’re right; I should
have been honest with you.
 
At that
point, I had figured out that girls only wanted me for my money.
 
A quick Goggle search would have told you
what I was worth.
 
I missed women being
attracted to me for me, not my bank account.
 
I started lying about my name to protect myself.”
 
Alex said defensively.
 

Thinking for a moment,
she could see his point. It had to be difficult to not know if someone was with
you because they liked you or if they wanted your money when you were a person
of Alex’s wealth.
 
She was still curious
about a couple of things.
 
“I understand
why you lied. Tell me, Alex, would you have told me your name in the morning
had you stayed?
 
If you could have
overcome that voice in your head telling you to run, would you have wanted to
see me when we came back to the states?”
 
These were the questions she had been dying to ask him since he came
back into her life.
 
She had never asked
out of fear of the answers.
 

Sighing, he ran his
hand down his face and shook his head.
 
“Honestly?
 
No, probably not.
 
I would have enjoyed our time together on
vacation.
 
Kissed you goodbye and tried
to move on with my life.
 
As I told you, I
was too selfish at that point in my life to realize that what I felt for you
only comes along once.
 
The end would
have been the same, you would have been hurt and I would have realized too late
how truly special you are to me.”
 

Honesty sucked
sometimes.
 
She appreciated that he
didn’t bother to sugarcoat what would have been.
 
Maybe if she would have been able to say
goodbye to him all those years ago she would have been able to move on.
 
 
Looking
down, Izzy fiddled with one of the appetizer trays as she became lost in
thought.
 
“I think a proper goodbye would
have made you leaving easier.
 
I wouldn’t
have felt so humiliated. I wouldn’t have been so confused about what I did wrong.”
 
She responded honestly.
 
“I could have looked back on our vacation
romance with a smile.
 
However, since you
did leave, I try not to ever think about those days I spent with you.
 
Even after all these years, the same ache of
pain in my chest hits me.”

BOOK: Frenemies With Benefits (Geek To Chic Book 2)
7.88Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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