The Bet

by Lily Zante

  “Dude, do you ever think of slowing down?” Xavier asked.

  “What for? Have to keep busy.”

  “For what?” He didn’t understand. The guy was rolling in money and didn’t need to work another day for as long as he lived. But buying real estate and turning it into cash cows seemed to be Luke’s specialty, and, more than that, he seemed to have a real passion for it. There were times when Xavier wished he’d had the same kind of luck. Maybe luck had nothing to do with it, and it came down to good old-fashioned persistence and hard work. At times he felt like a fluke, but nobody needed to know that. It didn’t matter. The gloss on the outside was what everyone saw and loved.

  “So that I don’t become a lazy old man floating around on my yacht like my old man.”

  “And instead you’ll be hanging around your bars and clubs?”

  Luke dismissed his comment with a nod. “When I hold the launch party, I might need you to get some of your actress and super model friends to come and create some buzz for me.”

  “Just say the word.”

  “Thanks, I will. How’s that project of yours going?” Luke asked. “I’m assuming you’re still batshit crazy and pursuing it?”

  Xavier made a noise in his throat then reached for his beer bottle. “The project’s going … fine.”

  “Yeah?” Luke swept his hands through his hair again, his signature move. “You getting anywhere?”

  “Of course.” Why the fuck couldn’t he tell Luke the truth? That he wasn’t even on the field yet, let alone first base.

  “I don’t need proof or anything. Your word’s good with me.”

  “That’s good to know.” He weighed it up in his head. I want out. But instead he found himself saying. “I might need more time.”

  Luke grunted. “More time?” He sat forward, his cornflower blue eyes glinting under the soft light. “I always got the impression these things were a done deal with you, from the pick-up line to getting them home.”

  “She’s complicated.” And that was putting it mildly.

  “Yeah?” Luke folded his arms and sat back, seemingly taking pleasure in his pained confession.

  Xavier nodded. It didn’t sit well with him, his manhood being challenged so blatantly. His pursuit of this woman, this girl, this college student, was turning out to be not as simple as he had once thought. Physical attraction aside—he liked the look of her, could see himself with her, and, well, what was there not to like about him?

  She probably did fancy him, but was in denial about it, or she would come to, if she gave him half a chance, but, moving all the physical attraction aside, he wasn’t sure they had much in common.

  He hadn’t dated a college student in years. He liked his women to be more experienced, and even though Savannah had said she was a couple of years older, he still wasn’t sure. When it came down to it, it was now a couple of weeks since he’d met her and he still didn’t know much about her. Hell, he didn’t even know what she was studying. All he knew was that she was a teetotaler and a vegetarian. It hardly made for a scintillating twosome.

  He just hoped that sex wasn’t off her menu, either.

  And now that he was here, did he really need to put himself through this? A glance around The Oasis showed him that he was surrounded by beautiful women. He only had to walk into this place, or its sister club in the basement, and he could get the number of at least five women by the time the night was over.

  Why was he busting his balls over a college girl? Laronde didn’t know a good thing when she saw it—but maybe that was part of the allure that stopped him from walking away completely?

  “She’s complicated, or she hates the sight of you?” Luke asked, digging deeper. It was spooky how spot on Luke could be at times.

  “She’s at college most of the day, and the only time I can see her is with Jacob. I spent yesterday having lunch with the kid’s grandparents.”

  “There’s commitment for you.” Luke looked suitably impressed. “But, if you want out, pal, that’s fine. Just admit it, there are some girls who you can’t win.”

  The hell he would, especially now that Luke had given him the option to quit. To take it would be the easy way out, and Luke and Tobias already thought he always took the easy way out, in most things.

  “I’m not giving up.”

  “It doesn’t sound as if you’re getting anywhere because, if you were you wouldn’t be here now talking about it.”

  “It’s only been a week since we got back.”

  “Does she actually like you?”

  “Like is too strong a word.”

  “No shit.”

  “She hasn’t fully appreciated my charms.”

  Luke massaged the back of his neck. “If she doesn’t, you need to accept that you’re not god’s gift to women, and move on.”

  “I’m growing on her.”

  “You’re growing on her? You mean like mold?” Luke chuckled, and it pissed Xavier off even more.

  “She’s interested. She just doesn’t know it yet.” Of that he was confident. Izzy Laronde was too bogged down in her day-to-day crap that she wouldn’t know a good thing if it snuck into her bed and made her come all night.

  “You’re struggling to get anywhere with her, aren’t you?” He hated it when Luke guessed correctly.

  “No.”

  “I don’t believe it.” The wide grin on Luke’s face made him want to punch him. “You’ve finally found a girl who’s not interested in you, and you can’t take it.”

  It might be a tiny bit true, but he was going to fix it.

  It was rare that he met a girl who showed such open disdain for him. Sure, he’d been in the situation many a time, when girls were plainly interested, and he wasn’t. Heck, he’d even been in the situation where more than one girl had been interested. Three had been his limit—so far—three girls all interested in him at the same time. It had been one heck of a crazy time. Two nights of debauchery in a Las Vegas hotel. Fun, pure and filthy.

  But Izzy wasn’t one of those virginal, sweeter than honey girls either. There was fire in her, he could sense it from her bubblegum to her ripped jeans and her attitude. He was making progress, but it was slow.

  He needed more time.

  “She is interested, but she doesn’t know it, yet.”

  “Doesn’t know it yet?” Luke repeated, slowly, as if he was thinking it over. “Is she allergic to your charm, or does she just find your pick-up lines offensive?”

  He scratched the back of his neck. “I’m not used to dealing with college students. I barely know anything about her.”

  “That’s never stopped you before.”

  He shrugged. “She doesn’t drink, either.” Because usually, a couple of glasses of age-worthy Cabernet Sauvignon or Pouilly-Fuissé would have lowered her steel defenses a heck of a time sooner.

  “You’re going to have to try some different moves,” Luke suggested. “You’re going to have to woo her another way.”

  This pursuit had left him in a precarious situation lately. He’d had no pussy in weeks, and he’d been tempted to make some booty calls last night because there was only so much of a dry spell a virile young man could take. And exactly how loyal did he have to be? He was single, and he hadn’t yet paired up with Izzy.

  He had even gone as far as calling someone, and then hung up before she’d picked up. Something about wanting to prove himself had made him back off, even though no one would have known if he’d been up to anything last night.

  “How much time do you need?”

  “6 months should do it. She has exams and shit, and Thanksgiving and Christmas is coming, and she’ll probably go home.”

  “Take as long as you want.”

  “I don’t need as long as I want. I’ve got this. 6 months.”

  “Whatever.”

  Going without pussy for as long as it took to win Izzy Laronde over, meant that when he finally had her, the reward would be all the more sweeter.

  Ch
apter 16

  “Be good,” Cara told her as she left to spend the weekend with her boyfriend. “And don’t go getting up to anything with Xavier Stone.”

  “As if. I hate the guy. He’s an A-star jerk, a total douchebag, a complete Neanderthal—”

  Cara closed the top of her knapsack and threw it onto her shoulder. “That’s a lot of hate you have for the guy, it makes me wonder ...”

  “Wonder what?”

  Cara threw her a searching look. “Wonder what you really think of him.”

  “After everything I’ve told you about him, you still don’t get it? I don’t like him, and hopefully he won’t be around this weekend. I don’t think he cares much about getting to know Jacob.”

  “Then why do you think he’s spending so much time with him?”

  “To get on Tobias’s good side?” she explained, when Cara rolled her eyes. “Don’t worry, it’s complicated. You won’t understand. Jacob doesn’t realize it and I’m not going to tell him.”

  “You’re onto a good thing, Iz. Karma works.”

  “How’s that?”

  “You saved that kid, and now his mom has you babysitting for her. It was a perfect fit—right after Shoemoney. And I was right, wasn’t I? Tell me I’m right, about Tobias being nothing like Shoemoney?”

  “You were right.” Tobias Stone was a family man and he was nothing like Shoemoney.

  She shivered at the memory of the first time she had experienced Shoemoney’s perversion. That time, she had been on her knees picking up dried pasta shapes from the kitchen floor. She happened to look up to see Shoemoney standing a few feet away, staring at her, and she’d had no idea how long because she hadn’t heard him come in. He’d been gaping down her shirt. She wasn't sure, even then, even as the hairs on the back of her neck stood to attention, warning her, and even as his stare lingered over her like a dirty stench. She had managed to stand up, somehow, but her knees had gone weak.

  And still, she gave him the benefit of the doubt.

  “What are you two doing today?”

  “Watching a Marvel movie.” Jacob couldn’t get enough of his Marvel superheroes.

  “Be good.”

  “Likewise.”

  Cara left and Izzy quickly washed up her lunchtime dishes, then quickly tugged on her leather jacket. She would Uber it over to the Upper East Side and check over Jacob’s homework—Savannah had asked her to look over it. And then, after the movie, they would go and get something to eat.

  She picked up her handbag and slipped it over her shoulder, and opened the door just as the doorbell went off.

  The air from her lungs stilled.

  Gideon Shoemoney stared down at her, his huge hulking frame almost as big as the doorway.

  “Isabel.” His smile made her want to retch. She strengthened her hold on the door, using it more like a riot shield to hide part of her body, and her jaw tightened, making speech impossible.

  “Aren’t you going to let me in?”

  “Fuck. Off.”

  “Fuck …” he said slowly, using the word as a weapon. “Off?”

  Creep.

  She swallowed, and heard the blood pounding in her ears. You are strong, she told herself, willing for her superpower to emerge, wishing, in this moment, that she had some of Jacob’s belief in the power of super-heroes.

  “What are you here?

  “I was in the area.” He pushed his foot forward, trying to wedge it inside the door, but she held it firm, so that it only opened a fraction. There was something unhinged in the way he was looking at her. Blood coursed through her body, making her giddy from the sudden adrenaline hit. She was scared, knowing that he was a disgusting and dirty old man, and that he was here.

  “What do you want?” Behind the door, with her shoulder hidden out of his sight, she slipped her hand into her handbag, to the inside pocket, and reached for her small pepper spray canister.

  “Cassia’s not too happy that you left so suddenly and without an explanation.”

  “Maybe I should call her up and tell her?”

  “She says we owed you some money,” he said, ignoring her veiled threat, “and she wants you to have it.”

  She smelled horseshit—this idea that he had suddenly developed scruples enough to come and pay her face to face. “Why didn’t you pay it directly into my account?”

  He wanted something. She didn’t believe he’d come just to give her money.

  “I wanted to see how you were, and make sure you were okay.”

  She didn’t believe the bullshit.

  “I’m fine, but I’d like you to leave.” Where was Cara when she needed her? If her friend had been here now, she wouldn’t have held back about telling this dirt bag exactly what she thought of him, but he was so much bigger than her, and even though she had taken self-defense classes at college, and had her Pepper spray in her hand, she didn’t want to risk anything.

  Gideon Shoemoney was the type of Wall Street Master who probably thought he could get away with doing whatever he wanted to her and that she would never say a word. It hit her then that it was exactly what she had done. She hadn’t told a soul, apart from Cara. She had kept quiet about it, wanting nothing more than a peaceful life, not even telling her parents.

  It would make her father even more depressed, and another rich and unscrupulous man had already destroyed him before.

  Shoemoney held out the wad of money. The twenty dollar bills seemed to be more than the two hundred and fifty dollars she was owed.

  “Here’s five hundred.”

  Her brows pinched together. “Why the extra?” She smelled more horseshit.

  “Just a little something.”

  “For what?” She refused to take it. Whatever his motivation, she didn’t want his money.

  “Take it,” he ordered.

  Slipping the pepper spray into the back pocket of her jeans, she quickly counted and took what he owed her, and returned the extra to him. “This is extra. I don’t want it.”

  “It’s yours.”

  “What for?” If he was worried she was going to tell anyone, she wasn’t. Despite all these new allegations by women, against all the big bad bosses, despite everything that was starting to come out into the public arena, she couldn’t find it in herself to put her hand up and confess that she too had been the victim of sexual assault, that this had happened to her, too. “Leave.”

  “Take the money.” He ground the words out slowly.

  “I don’t want it. Are you afraid?” she asked, suddenly gaining strength, gaining comfort from the thought that women were beginning to speak up, and that she wasn’t alone. “Are you scared of the women’s march? Are you scared that we’re outing pigs like you?”

  “What are you talking about?” It was clear from his face he had no idea. “Look,” he said, stepping away. “I heard that you’re working for the Stones now.” He coughed again. “I don’t want you to think we deliberately refused to pay you, especially with the way you left. People might talk.”

  And then she understood. He was worried she might tell the Stones what he’d done.

  “You’re hoping to buy my silence?” Was this compensation? Hush money? And how did he know she was working for Tobias?

  He was worried. For all his tough exterior, his loud arrogance, this man didn’t want anyone, least of all Tobias Stone, to know exactly what type of a creep he was. And he was worried that she might let it slip. He coughed again and shuffled back a step. “I don’t want someone like Tobias Stone to think badly of me.”

  “You creep.” She threw the money at him and tried to shut the door, but he jammed his foot in the way. “I only want to talk to you. I want to explain what happened that day—”

  But she didn’t want to give him the time of day. In a flash she reached for her pepper spray and pointed it directly at him.

  He laughed. “You wouldn’t dare.”

  She placed her finger over the top, her heart pumping. “Try me.”

  �
�You are a feisty little girl, aren’t you?” His dirty smile did it. She pressed the top and kept her finger on it.

  “You fucking bitch!” he cried, his large, fleshy hands shielding his face as he stumbled backwards.

  “Get out!” she screamed, “Get out, get out, get out!” She slammed the door and bolted it in both places before securing the door chain. Closing her eyes, she leaned against the door, her insides fluttering violently, like a frightened, caged canary.

  Seeing Shoemoney had brought it all back. The feeling of grime, the guilt, the hole in her stomach. She started to sweat, her throat turning drier than sandpaper.

  She covered her mouth with her hands, trying to hush her loud, labored breathing, as she strained for sounds that Shoemoney might still be on the other side of the door.

  She listened, trying to get her breathing to calm down, and after a while, when the thudding of her heart quietened, she heard nothing.

  When her cell phone rang, she quickly silenced it, and answered the call without looking to see who it was.

  “You’re late, Izzy!”

  “Huh?” she looked up, scowling.

  “Don’t worry. We’re coming to pick you up.” Jacob’s voice shook her out of her nightmare. “Izzy? Izzy, are you there?” His sweet words made her want to cry with relief.

  “I’m running late, sorry.”

  “’Sokay. We’ll be there in…” She heard someone say it in the background first, before Jacob said, “Five minutes.”

  “Okay.”

  It was only after she had put her cell phone away, after she had waited for her breathing to still, and when she was sure there was no sound coming from the other side of the door, that she realized it had been Xavier’s voice she’d heard in the background.

  A short while later she heard a knock on her door. “Izzy!”

  She had been sitting on the floor the entire time, slumped up against the door. She got up slowly, unbolted the locks, took off the chain, and opened the door to find Jacob’s smiling eyes looking at up her. Behind him stood Xavier, not smiling. If anything, he looked uneasy.

  “How many locks do you have?” he asked.

  She had never been so relieved to see him before.