Page 30 of Hard to Forgive

He looked exhausted. There were bags under his eyes, dark enough that I could see them across the room. His skin looked paler than usual, like he’d not seen sun in way too long. He looked like shit.

Isabel noticed, too. I could see the moment she clocked how spent the other man looked. The anger that had burned behind her eyes every time he came up while he’d been gone faded away to something softer immediately. Concern, maybe. The same thing that had caused her to go after him the week before.

“He looks terrible,” she whispered. I nodded. “You should go check on him.”

“Why shouldIgo check on him?” I asked with a shake of my head.

“Because if he yells at you, you’ll yell back. If he yells at me again, I’ll probably end up spending the rest of this project sobbing in the bathroom.”

I glowered at her. “That doesn’t mean I need to go check on him.”

“Well, someone should,” she insisted. She fixed a fierce glare on me that made me want to shrink into my office chair. “And since I don’t think anyone else pays attention to Mr. Grump, it falls on you. Unless you think I should risk it again and possibly spend eternity crying in the bathroom…”

I sighed and pushed away from the desk dramatically. “You are a manipulative vixen,” I declared. She wiggled her fingers at me in a goofy wave. Clearly, it took two weeks to get me completely wrapped around her little finger.

I didn’t look back at Isabel as I crossed the room to his desk. I didn’t bother pulling up a chair this time. I didn’t plan on staying over there long enough to need it. I’d just do a quick check in to make Isabel stop worrying, and then I’d go back to my desk until Yvette called the huddle and the day started.

As soon as I got to his desk, he looked up at me. He looked worse up close.

“What the fuck happened to you?” The words fell out of my mouth in a tactless tumble.

“Not your business,” he answered without missing a beat, but there was no heat behind the words. Not like the heat that had been there in his foyer.

“Seriously, Jonas.” I leaned forward onto his desk. “You look like hell. Isabel’s worried, which she shouldn’t be since you haven’t apologized to her yet. Which you still need to do.”

“Did you just come over here to give me a hard time and act like you have some say over what I do?” he demanded.

“Why the fuck are you acting like a dick this time?” I whispered harshly.

“Did it ever occur to you that maybe I’m just a dick?”

“To me, yeah. Isabel, on the other hand…”

“Well go report back to your girlfriend that I’m fine. I was sick.”

Girlfriend?

“She’s not my girlfriend,” I replied automatically. If she were my girlfriend, then I’d be a shittier person than I already was because of Friday night.

“I don’t care,” he muttered. “Just go report back that I’m fine. No need to worry her nosy little head about it.”

He sounded exhausted. I wanted to rip him a new one for being a dick about her when all she’d done was worry about him. I also wanted to poke a little harder, find out what was really wrong, and why he looked like he hadn’t slept a wink since the last time I’d seen him.

Maybe he had just been sick.

It wasn’t like I should care.

I sighed. “Fine. Continue being a dick. No one cares.”

It felt like a lie, even as I said it. Because for some strange reason,Icared that he was being an asshole. It really was an inconvenient thing to care about, because it wasn’t anything that would go anywhere.

And so, I walked away.

I’d let him live in his misery. At least Isabel would be satisfied that I’d tried.

11

“Are you sure youwant to come out tonight?” Seb’s voice questioned over my car’s speakers as I drove home from work.

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