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He was at a loss, trying to understand what had happened there. One moment they were in sync, she was climaxing in his arms, and the next she pushed him away, giving no explanation other than she no longer wanted this. His first instinct had been to seek her out and apologize. He had cornered her when she was vulnerable, at her place of work. Yet at the same time, it truly pissed him off that her first move was to play nice to him. She thought he was mean enough to let her rejection influence his due diligence of Kisharti. Her opinion of him cut deeply. She owed him an apology, as well as an explanation. Whatever he said or did wasn’t done on purpose to hurt her.
He stood undecided, berating himself for being a total coward.
He wanted his coffee. Badly. He’d surfed this morning, as he had done every morning these past couple of weeks, and barely had time to wake up Gal before he drove here.
He could still retreat. Except he was staring at her backside, and his legs wouldn’t move. She wore another curve-hugging dress, some sort of light pink. It was sexy and demure, reaching just below her knees in a ruffle.
“Hi,” he said from the doorway.
She turned to him. His heart did a little leap when the beautiful brown eyes met his in a startled gaze.
“Oh, you’re still here.”
It rubbed him the wrong way. As if she wanted him gone.
“Nearly done. Then I’ll be out of here.”
“I didn’t mean it like that,” she said, and there was an awkward pause.
He wondered whether the apology was so a disgruntled reviewer wouldn’t hurt Kisharti. He wished he didn’t think like that.
She smiled hesitantly. He expected her to leave, but she didn’t.
“Listen, Erez, I’ve been meaning to talk to you. It’s about your daughter. I asked around and I have a therapist name for you.”
“She doesn’t want therapy,” he said in a harsh voice, and winced when he heard himself. Gal went to the workshop dutifully every day, but there was no joie de vivre. He asked her if she wanted to try treatment and she got angry with him, saying there was nothing wrong with her.
“It’s a common reaction. I have the name of a good therapist for you–I found one after our talk. There is an article where her name appears, after she treated a reality show singer and helped her. And she has a very popular Instagram page with inspiring messages. Gal will go to meet her, even if out of curiosity, or a desire to gossip.”
Now he was ashamed of his reaction. “Thank you.”
“Hi, Erez!” Zoey came into the kitchen, smiling hugely. “Look at you! It was worth coming in to work early today, just seeing you all tanned like that.”
Zoey was another person he’d done his best to avoid. Not because he didn’t like them, but because he didn’t want to flirt with them, and Zoey couldn’t talk without flirting.
“I surf or paddleboard nearly every day now,” he said to both. Dafna’s eyes darted, scrutinizing his arms, the bit of chest that showed through his button-down. He thought he detected color stealing into her cheeks.
“Where? Can I come? Can you teach me?” Zoey raised their arms to bunch their hair and the bright red T-shirt they wore rode up, revealing a flat tummy, with a golden belly button ring. Erez looked away.
“Just north of Zuk Zafon,” he answered reluctantly, naming Tel Aviv’s northernmost beach, “but I’m warning you we get there at five thirty in the morning, and surfing is hard to learn. You can take a regular course in paddleboarding, those start at seven am.” He didn’t want to teach Zoey anything.
“Ach, it all sounds too early for me,” Zoey said, and he exhaled in relief, unaware until now that he had held his breath. He masked it with a cough. Zoey moved to the coffee machine, activating the Longo button, “Although for you Erez, I might just get up.”
“Have a good morning.” Dafna walked fast out of the kitchen.
“See you,” he said to Zoey, and made his retreat, giving up on his coffee.
After concluding his meeting with the young woman in charge of operations, he walked by Daniel’s department and decided to look into the matter of the emails. It nagged him. The CEO intervening in the nitty-gritty of the how and when his very professional VP of Marketing and Sales was choosing to contact their clients was odd.
In the tour Dafna had done with him two weeks ago, she had ordered everyone to comply with all his wishes and show him everything he asked to see. Even so, he was glad that Daniel wasn’t there. The large open space was nearly empty since it was still very early in the morning, and most of the talks with clients would take place later in the day. But the man he was looking for, Ron, was there, as he knew he would be. Ron was a surfer too, except Ron favored Tel Aviv’s southernmost beach of Charles Clore.
“We had a great swell today.” He approached Ron.
“Hey! That’s great. You surf in Zuk Zafon, right?”
“Yep, we had five seconds, even six second waves.” He smiled.
They chatted about waves and the different beaches, and Erez brought up the subject of emails to clients.
