Until that moment, I had been sure things could never work between Noah and me. We came from two completely different worlds, and regardless of how we felt about each other, those worlds could be unforgiving. But when I saw, felt, and heard his conviction, I knew we deserved a fighting chance, and I wasn’t going to be the one who killed our shot of happiness. Not when I felt the same way he did. We could make it work. Maybe all those romantic comedies weren’t just fantasies. Maybe Noah and I could have a little bit of that magic, too.
I was going to tell him that I loved him, but then he told me to look at him, and I saw what I could only imagine was how he truly felt on the inside. It was as plain as the sexy nose on his face, and then he said those three little words again, using the familiar version of my name. I couldn’t hold back the orgasm that it evoked. Utter bliss.
I even tried to tell him again, once we each had a chance to cool our jets, so to speak. But he didn’t want to talk. He just wanted to bask in the aftermath of what we’d done, and that was A-okay with me, too. Because we still had today, and tomorrow, and the next day, and every glorious day of our lives after that.
We were in love, and nothing or no one was going to be able to come between us.
I mean, what were the odds? Two strangers, both taking desperate measures to relieve the hardships we had to endure, and from all that mess, we found each other. We found love. We took nothing and made it into something. That would be the story we would one day tell our children and our children’s children—leaving out the part about their mother and grandmother being a whore and all, of course, ’cause I really couldn’t see that being an “awww” moment.
I was happy. I was giddy. It was a new day. The storm clouds had been pushed away. The sun was shining. Birds were chirping. I bet if I had gone over to the window, pushed it open, and leaned out, a little blue songbird would have even landed on my finger and sung me a song. Talk about a fairy-tale moment. Not that I had any intention of doing that, though. With my luck, I’d trip or something and fall two stories to go splat on the pristine concrete below with nothing to break my fall except that teeny-tiny songbird. It would look like a smushed blue M&M beneath me, and I couldn’t have that on my conscience.
Nope, wasn’t going to happen. Nothing was going to ruin the beauty of the day. So I mentally told that little blue bird to stay on his side of the window, and I would stay on mine. That way nobody had to get hurt.
Big sigh, huge stretch, and bingo! Brilliant-idea moment.
Breakfast. I was going to make him breakfast. I got a huge, cheese-eating grin on my face when I decided it would be bacon and eggs, and a devilish smirk when I thought about what could possibly come of that. Who’d have thought? Bacon, a cholesterol-filled aphrodisiac. Huh. Great for the Cooch—bad, bad, bad for the arteries.
The Cooch gave me two thumbs-up for my idea. But of course she would, little slut.
I shrugged her off and went to toss back the covers to get breakfast started—because the way to a man’s heart was through his stomach, after all—but then the bathroom door opened and Noah stepped out. He was completely dressed and looked like pure sex, even with the slight shadows under his eyes. Guess I must have kept him up too late last night. My inner whore giggled like an innocent schoolgirl. Total contradiction, I know.
“Good morning.” I smiled timidly, suddenly unsure if he would still feel the same way now as he had last night.
“Good morning,” he answered, except his tone was a tad bit more sullen than I had anticipated. He dropped his eyes and started fussing with his tie, even though it was perfect as usual. I got the feeling that he didn’t want to look at me.
Oh, crap. Okay, there was no need to panic. Maybe he was just thinking along the same line as I was and didn’t know what my reaction was going to be this morning. Easily fixed.
“So, um, are you going to work?” I asked, because I wasn’t really sure how to start.
“Yeah. I kind of left in a hurry last night and hadn’t made all my rounds to prospective clients and the board members. So I need to do some damage control.” His unnecessary preening moved from his tie to the sleeves of his jacket.
“Oh. Sorry about that,” I said, feeling a pang of guilt over my behavior. “Do we have time to talk first?”
He shrugged. “No need to, really. I already know everything you’re going to say, and the solution to the problem is simple.”
Well, that sort of pissed me off. How dared he presume to know what I was thinking? And what solution? To what problem? As far as I was concerned, everything was perfect.
Noah walked toward the bed and pulled a folded paper from his inside pocket, opened it up, and then ripped it in half. He let the two halves drift onto the bed beside me. “Go be with your mother and father. They need you far more than I do. Besides, it would’ve never worked between us. Not in the real world.”
As I looked down at the paper, he turned his back on me and headed toward the door. It didn’t take a great deal of studying to realize that the sheet he had destroyed was our contract. What once served as a tether that kept me bound to the man I loved was now an insignificant donation to the Earth Day cause: recyclable material.
“Noah, I—” I started, but he cut me off.
“I have to go,” he said, pausing at the door with his back to me. “You should, too.”
With that, he opened the door and walked out on me.
They need you far more than I do … it would’ve never worked between us. His words were almost deafening as they rang in my ears. And why was I so shocked? He’d only confirmed what I’d known to be true all along anyway.
My heart, which had been about to bust with giddiness mere seconds before, was now much like the useless document that lay beside me: destroyed, shredded, torn in two.
“But … I love you, too,” I whispered to the now empty room. I couldn’t let him leave without making sure that he at least heard the words.
I jumped out of the bed to run after him, but when a rush of cold air caused me to shiver, I realized I was still naked. So I grabbed one of his T-shirts and threw it over my head, then ran for the door and down the long corridor. I nearly fell headfirst down the stairs, but I somehow managed to stay upright long enough to reach the foyer. Then I wrenched open the front door and opened my mouth to shout the words just in time to see taillights of the limousine as it pulled down the drive.
Too late. He was gone. And I was all alone.