Free The Billionaire's Pledge by Rachel Bond Page B

parked in front, fearful that she’d run into him as he came by to pick it up. But when she got there, it was gone. She checked her phone: it was only 8:33 a.m. He must have come by early to make sure he avoided her. 
    Or maybe I dreamed the whole thing. Ha! Yeah, right. That kind of silliness doesn’t happen in real life.
    Inside, she spent an hour going over her work for Zac and making a few tweaks, but her mind wasn’t in it. She was on auto-pilot, and that never resulted in good work. Instead, she checked her email. Amidst the usual random spam and Facebook updates and such, she found another note from Charles. Oh, God. She thought she’d heard the last of him after telling him he couldn’t come out to Hood River.
     
    baby baby!! Can’t cancel THAT ticket! no-re-fundo, ya know?? Be just like ol times. I still love you. I LOVE you, Savannah! when you see me youll know. I’ve held the rains down in Aaaaafrica…
    see you on twenty-two!!
     
    She shook her head and re-read his bizarre gibberish several times. How the fuck had she ever gotten together with this maniac? What was she supposed to do? 
    And why in the name of all that was holy was he mis-quoting that old Toto song?
    She knew he could easily find her, and even if she ignored his emails and didn’t pick him up at the airport, he would still show up at her door. For a moment it occurred to her to call the police, but what could she really say? He hadn’t actually done anything. He was thousands of miles away. There was nothing they could do. Even if he were here, it wasn’t like she had a restraining order.
    Her brain was buzzing. The weight of her past pressed down harder than ever, and the enormous debts loomed into her mind as big as Charles did. And that led her back to Zac and the project. She needed it, desperately. But she dared not get back in touch with Zac. Not yet. They both needed time to cool off, to regroup and maybe figure out what had happened last night. 
    She regretted sending the “Sorry” text. It now felt wimpy and foolish. She should have waited until she’d had more time to think, until she’d slept on it. Just thinking about it made her take a breath and let out a big sigh.
    Over and over, she played through what had happened. She knew he liked her. That much was obvious. And she liked him, too. She knew that. She also knew that he had enjoyed the walk to his house, the ice cream cones, and the dinner. She could tell he’d been having a good time. They had flirted. He had flirted with her. Asked her intimate questions. 
    But there was something he was hiding. Something he couldn’t—or wouldn’t—tell her. A secret? Something in his past? He’d told her a lot but kept something back. It made sense; after all, it was only their first date. She wouldn’t have expected him to tell her everything. But then to utterly reject her at the end…after allowing her to touch him and accepting her kisses and even making out with her…it didn’t add up.
    Maybe she’d been too aggressive. Maybe she’d come on too strong, and seemed too overtly sexual. Touching him like that. Kissing him. Perhaps he was used to being the instigator in his sexual relationships, and a woman starting something had scared him somehow.
    She went back to some of the articles she’d bookmarked about Zachary Cushman, and read them again, looking for insights she might have missed the first time. But there was nothing. The articles were all on the surface, never going more than an inch below the top of the ocean, when she knew there were depths underneath that must have been beyond the reach of daylight. Hell, she felt like she knew him better than anyone who’d every interviewed him, and she’d only been around him for a few hours.
    She walked to the coffee shop and peeked inside, half-expecting Zac to be there reading some of his books, but he wasn’t. She went in and found Elaine at the counter as usual.
    “I had dinner with him,” Savannah