Page 77 of The Payback Plan
Panicked, her pulse skipping a little too fast, she blurted the first thing that came to her mind. ‘Don’t be ridiculous. We’ve known each other forsixweeks. This situation has always been temporary.’ Bedroom antics or not – their time together had always been set to expire. ‘I’m… going to freakingEdinburghnext month.’
That was pretty much the complete opposite end of the country.
‘And you’re’ – she waved her hand in his general direction – ‘Oliver freaking Prendergast. Your father was so famous, the paparazzi followyou around.’
She quaked at the thought. That alone was a red flag. Only last week Doris had shown her a pic of Oliver on an online scandal rag entering a posh restaurant that had been snapped during his visit to London the previous weekend.
‘I live a quiet, small life. I run my own business. Imindmy own business. I’m apeachemoji for crying out loud. There is no world where you and I are a thing.’
There – she’d said it. It had come out in a stream of consciousness but she’d meant every word. Whatever had gone down between them had involved some weird kind of synergy that, had they met in the outside world, would never have happened.
If her quick dismissal affected him, he didn’t show it. He just nodded. ‘Right. So what you’re saying is, you’re going to potentially blow up a friendship over some’ – he stopped abruptly as if searching for the right words – ‘hot, spontaneous, mutual, convenient, going-nowhere shagging?’
Paige flinched as he boiled their weekend together down to its most base elements. And, from the outside looking in, it was a fair assessment. But he’d been on theinsideand it hadn’t felt like that. Not to her, nor she thought, to him either.
Gathering herself, Paige took a mental step back from the emotion of the moment. Oliver was making salient points. And she may even have taken his counsel had she not promised Sienna and Astrid she’d talk to Bella.
But she had.
Sienna had asked her not to make them complicit and, salient points or not, she wouldn’t put them in that position.
‘Are you prepared for it if Bella decides to cut you out of her life like she did me?’
Yeah, but youdeservedit, Oliver. That’s what she wanted to say. But the truth was, if Bella cut her off, she’d deserve it too. Paige might not have visited some grand public humiliation on Bella as Oliver had but what she’d done, in many ways, was much more personal. And those often cut the deepest.
As if he knew he’d been too harsh, Oliver huffed out a sigh. ‘Look…’ His gaze searched hers. ‘Just think about it, okay? That’s all I’m saying.’
Like she was going to be able to think aboutanythingelse…
15
By the time Paige tapped on Bella’s number several hours later, she’d gone back and forth and back and forth on the issue a hundred times. But she’d told the girls she’d do it and that was the end of it. Didn’t stop her from feeling physically ill as she waited for Bella to pick up the audio call.
Confessing to Bella was going to be hard enough without having to look her in the eye while she did so.
She was sitting on a step halfway up the staircase that led from the living area to the bedrooms. Oliver was in the media room watching a movie which she could vaguely hear from here. Muted light from the kitchen below pushed through the slats of the balustrading revealing glimpses of the blonde floorboards as the phone rang and rang. Paige contemplated hanging up a dozen times and almost did just as Bella picked up.
‘Hey, Paige,’ she greeted, in her delightfully upstate New York accent.
‘Hey.’ Paige injected an enthusiasm that she knew, if it sounded as fake as it felt, wasn’t going to fool Bella for a second. ‘How’d it go today? Did it work?’
‘Oh, it wasah-mazing,’ she gushed and went on to regale Paige with all the details.
Well, great. Bella sounded buzzed and Paige was about to rain on her parade. Maybe she should wait? ‘That’s… awesome,’ she said, her enthusiasm sounding more and more manufactured as she pulled her nightdress over her knees, yanking the fabric down to her ankles. ‘I knew you’d be able to pull this off.’
Bella was making everything right while she’d made everything worse.
‘You must be…’ Paige cleared her throat of the lump that threatened to cut off her air. ‘Thrilled.’
There was a beat of silence before Bella answered. ‘Paige?’ A note of apprehension had crept into her voice. ‘Is everything okay?’
‘Yes, yes,’ she assured quickly but her voice wobbled right at the end.
‘Paige…’ Apprehension morphed to concern which only made Paige feel worse. ‘What’s wrong?’
‘I don’t… I can’t… OhBella…’ Paige squeezed her eyes shut to stop the spill of threatening tears.
‘It’s okay,’ Bella soothed. ‘Whatever it is, it’s okay,’ she assured.
