He laughed. “I think I actually like you, Noah.”
Huh? Was he on drugs? “The feeling is not mutual.”
Lior
Istared at my phone and put it away again.
Noah hadn’t contacted me since the weekend. I hadn’t called him either.
Not speaking to him was killing me, but I wanted to fix things and prove to him that I would do anything to protect us. That meant getting the meeting with the partners out of the way first. Then I’d go to him, beg him to take my stupid ass back, and then kiss him until all the oxygen on the planet was used up.
I’d seen Lex earlier and thanked him for coming through with the photos. He’d taught me about all the points in each photo that clearly proved they’d been doctored. He’d even found the original source of a couple of the photos. Stock photography models had been used to make it look like Noah was being intimate with other men or had gone out on dates.
I was already feeling like a dick for how I’d treated Noah, but after talking to Lex, I felt a hundred times worse.
I liked to think the photos had been for my benefit only and would never have been made public because whoever had gone to the trouble knew they’d never get past the eagle eyes of the press.
“Mr. Van Stern,” Tina called from the door.
I looked up. She seemed tense.
“What’s up? Have the partners arrived yet?”
“Some of them, yes. They’re being served refreshments in the conference room. It’s um…you have visitors on the way up.”
“Visitors?”
She bit her lip. “Mr. Dellcourt and Mr. Spencer.”
“Lex?”
“Your husband, sir.”
I stood, my pulse increasing at the thought of seeing Noah. Before I rounded my desk to meet him at the elevator, Tina’s words sank in. Did she say Pierce was here too?
As I thought it, the elevator at the other end of the office opened. Noah and Pierce came out side by side.
“Oh fuck.”
Noah didn’t look happy. What had Pierce said to him? I would seriously punch him if he’d so much as suggested to Noah that anything was happening between us.
They both stopped in front of me, but my eyes were on Noah.
“Hey,” I said.
“Hey.” The corners of his mouth curled up a little, but then he glanced at Pierce, and the frown returned.
“What are you doing here, Pierce?” I asked, turning back and leaning against my desk.
“You wouldn’t answer my calls, so you gave me no choice.”
“You told me to divorce my husband and marry you. You can see why answering your calls was not only not on my priority list, it was way down on theI will never again look at this listlist.”
He deflated a little. “That’s fair. I get it. Look, I don’t understand this thing between you two. I guess I was jealous. When I saw you in Atlanta, you already looked like you had so much chemistry, and you’d barely met. In twenty years of knowing each other and five in a relationship, you never looked at me like you do him.”
“I’m sorry.” And Iwassorry. Maybe I’d driven him away by not being present when we were together, but he’d ruined all chances when he cheated. He had to know that.
“Don’t be. I can’t force you to love me, and I guess…maybe I deserve someone who looks at me the same way.”
