Beth drummed her pen idly against her desk and couldn’t help looking over her shoulder at Evan for the umpteenth time. The door to his office had been left open when he returned from lunch, and she could see he was now deep in conversation with someone on the phone.
With his chair facing the windows, she had a perfect opportunity to study his profile unnoticed. He had been acting differently toward her these past few days since their boating excursion to Catalina, and she couldn’t understand why. True he had been busy working on the case, but still she couldn’t help feel he was deliberately avoiding her.
She stared mesmerized at his perfect lips, moving provocatively with every word uttered, even though she had no idea what he was saying. He leaned farther back in his chair and ran his hand across the side of his head before resting his elbow on the armrest in a casual manner. All the sudden, he tilted his head in her direction. His eyes slammed into her watchful stare as he gave her an orb-shaking smile. Averting her head, she pretended to be engrossed in the file she was working on, until she heard her name.
Turning back around, she saw him placing the receiver back in its cradle.
“Can you come in here, please?” he asked as he swiveled his chair back to the front of his desk.
Slowly she rose to her feet and made her way inside his office.
“Close the door and have a seat.”
Again she did as instructed. Not looking directly at him, she took a seat in the chair directly in front of his desk. Nestling back, she crossed her legs and smoothed her palms down the front of her skirt, and only then did she venture to look in his direction.
“Is there something you wanted?” he asked with a cute grin on his lips.
Winging her eyes to one side and then back to his, she shook her head. “What gave you that idea?”
“I don’t know, maybe the fact you’ve been staring in here for the past thirty minutes. Surely there must be something on your mind.”
Awkward! She should have known the man would have eyes in the back of his head. Shifting uncomfortably in her seat, she blurted out. “Okay, yes, there is something on my mind.”
“Well…spit it out.”
Tilting her chin upward, she met his beautiful eyes head on. “I feel there’s something you haven’t told me, something bothering you about this case.”
She felt herself holding her breath waiting for his answer. She hoped that was what was going on with him, because the alternative would be he was avoiding her for other reasons. Reasons that may concern his and her relationship and she wasn’t prepared to face this truth.
He continued to watch her with an odd expression in his eyes. She couldn’t take it anymore, finally she said, “Just tell me what’s going on, Evan. You said you wanted to be my friend, so the least you can do is level with me.”
Pushing his chair away from the desk, he rose to his feet and walked over to the window. Then turning back around toward her, he let out a weighted breath. “I’m not going to lie to you, Beth. There is something worrying me and I don’t know how to tell you without upsetting you.”
Her heart plummeted. Deep down she knew she would have to say goodbye to him eventually when he left for New York, but she had hoped they could have had a little more time together. A little more time for him to see he couldn’t live without her. Now she knew that was wishful thinking on her part.
Be strong and don’t let him see you cry, she told herself in silence, fighting back the tears warming the back of her eyes. Rising to her feet, she swallowed hard over the thick mass forming in her throat, and blurted out, “You don’t have to say anything more, I already know everything.”
