“I told you, you are too important to...”
“Yeah, yeah, I know... too important to the firm.”
Isabel turned toward the balcony and stared out into the city. The buildings and streets were all lit for the nightlife and here they were sitting on a couch dealing with the emotional strain of yet another shit day. It wasn’t that long ago that Micah used to be down in those very streets partying it up and have an amazing time. Now he was stuck with her and her shit past.
“Do you miss it?”
“What?”
“The girls, the parties, the nightlife,” she said, pointing toward the window.
“No. Not at all.”
“But your life has been so boring since I’ve been around.”
“Isabel Diaz. You can hardly call our life boring,” he said with a laugh.
“What I mean is, I appreciate you agreeing to not be with other people while this fake relationship thing is going on.”
“Is something bothering you tonight?”
“You mean other than nearly destroying everything you’ve worked for since your father died?”
“Yes, that’s exactly what I mean.”
There were a million things bothering Isabel, but none she was willing to talk about right now. The biggest one weighing on her shoulders was when he was going to break off their relationship now that the Morales Estate was moving forward. She just didn’t really want to know the answer to that.
“No, I’m fine.”
“Listen, tomorrow my cousin is coming in town to see me. I need to meet with him for dinner. I’d bring you but... well, honestly, I just don’t want you around him. Not because of you, but because of him.”
“He doesn’t know about this whole fake engagement thing, does he?”
“No. But that’s not the problem. I’ve told you before, Dante is bad news. He’s done awful things, way worse than anything you could imagine. I just don’t want to put you in a position where you need to be around him.”
“It’s all good Micah. We don’t have to spend every waking moment together. I’ll go have dinner with my mom or something.”
He smiled. “Will you bring me home leftovers?”
“You’re going out to dinner. You don’t need my leftovers,” she laughed.
“But your mom’s cooking is so damn good.”
“Fine, I’ll pack some things up for here. But the more important question is, what are we going to eat tonight? I’m starving and I haven’t placed a grocery order.”
“I’ll order pizza. Let’s eat it in bed.”
“You want to eat pizza in bed with me?”
“That’s not the only thing I want to do in bed with you tonight,” he said, giving her a wink that melted her insides.
“Deal.”
Pizza in bed was the best thing Isabel had heard all day. She was grateful that tonight wouldn’t be the big breakup. It may come soon, but she was going to enjoy each minute she had with Micah until that day came.