“I’m not sure,” I said. “They’d just found her body when they called me.”
He shook his head again. “She was only twenty-two,” he said. “She wasn’t even… she still lived with her parents. She wasn’t even done with school.” Something about the way he was talking about her betrayed a certain familiarity, more than one would have with an employee.
“Did you… did you have a relationship with her?” I asked carefully.
He shook his head. “No.”
I didn’t want to annoy him, or push him, and I knew he was upset. But what I said next had to be said. “Noah, that won’t matter to the police. They’re going to know you had a connection to her. You shouldn’t have shown up at the crime scene like that. And you shouldn’t have punched Josh. You were so lucky that the police weren’t closer. Josh could still press charges, he could –”
“Now you’re defending him?” Noah asked. He shook his head. “After what he did to you?”
“I’m not defending him,” I said. “I’m just saying that you can’t let what Josh did start to effect your case. It looks really bad, Noah.”
He turned to me. “You think I did it?”
“What?”
“Do you think I murdered those women?”
“What I think doesn’t matter.” The last thing I wanted was for him to think that my opinion had anything to do with his case. No one’s opinion did, except for the police and the jury, if it came to that. And I was pretty sure it might be headed that way. One woman dead, okay. Two women, awful. But three women? All connected to one man? It looked bad. Really, really bad. If he wasn’t arrested, it would be a miracle. And if he did get arrested, he was going to need Professor Worthington. In fact, he was probably going to need even more than that -- he was going to need Professor Worthington to head a team of high-powered lawyers, all working together.
“I didn’t ask you if it mattered,” Noah said. “I asked if you thought I did it.”
I didn’t say anything for a moment, and he turned to look at me. His eyes had softened, and it was that same expression I’d seen on him in the lobby yesterday, the expression that made me feel like he did care about me, that this wasn’t just fun to him, that it wasn’t just about sex.
The thing was, deep down, I didn’t think he did it. I’d been with him, I’d spent time with him, and I liked to think I had a good read on people. He just didn’t seem like the type of man who could kill someone, let alone three someones, with his bare hands.
But another part of me felt like I was being ridiculously naïve, that I’d slept with him and my emotions and my hormones were clouding my brain when it came to the facts of the case. How many times had I watched tape of trials or police interviews where someone’s mother or father insisted there was no way their son or daughter could have committed that rape, or that murder, or that assault, even though there was DNA evidence linking them to the victim?
I thought those people were ridiculously stupid. And now I might be turning into one of them.
“Answer me,” Noah said.
“I don’t know,” I said honestly.
He nodded, then stood up and started walking down the sidewalk toward his limo, which was parked against the curb.
I watched him go, my heart beating fast in my chest. I had a sinking feeling that if he got into that limo and pulled away, he was going to be gone forever, that I would never get a chance to be with him again. The thought was unbearable. A wave of despair and desperation washed over me, scrubbing away any kind of protests my brain was preparing.
I rushed after him and knocked on the window of the limo.
For a second, I thought he was going to refuse to talk to me.
But then the window rolled down.
Our eyes met, and I didn’t have to say anything.
He opened the door and let me in.
Once we were at his apartment, everything changed.
The vibe, which back on the bench had been about him wanting me to believe him, about him needing something from me, had shifted. Now his mood was dark. He walked over to the bar in the kitchen, uncapped a bottle of something amber-colored, and poured the liquid into a tumbler.
I wasn’t sure what to do, so I stood there for a moment, hovering by the door. He sipped his drink and then stared down at it, brooding. He was wearing a crisp white dress shirt, a dark tie, and a black suit. His clothes hung on his large frame perfectly, hugging his broad shoulders and chest. He was freshly shaven, his hair with just the right amount of gel to make him look gorgeous and put together without coming across as someone who cared to much about their appearance.
We stood there for a moment, not saying anything, and then finally, Noah pulled back and threw the glass he was holding against the wall. It shattered into a million pieces. I jumped at the sound of the breaking glass, my heart stopping in my chest, the sound seeming to echo through the eerie silence that followed.
After a moment, I moved toward it, intending to start cleaning it up.
“Don’t,” Noah growled.
I froze. He was removing his suit coat, draping it over the chair on the breakfast bar. He unbuttoned his sleeves and began rolling them up. A delicious shiver of fear and excitement skittered up my spine.
“It displeases me when I feel like you don’t trust me, Charlotte,” Noah said. “It displeases me even more when I feel like you’re not on my side.” He finally looked at me, his eyes boring into mine. “Do you understand?”
I nodded. I understood exactly what I meant. He meant that I’d chosen Josh over him, that I’d protected Josh back at the park. But it wasn’t like that. I didn’t give a shit about Josh. What I cared about was keeping my job with Professor Worthington, and making sure Noah wasn’t doing anything to fuck up his case. It was my job as part of his legal team. And beyond that, I cared about Noah.
“What do you understand?” Noah prompted.
“That you didn’t like it when you thought I was sticking up for Josh.” I took a step toward him. “But Noah, I wasn’t --”
“Stop.” He held his hand out, and I stopped moving. “You don’t understand at all.”
“I don’t?”
He shook his head, his blue eyes blazing. “When you upset me, Charlotte, when you defy me, there are consequences.”
And then I got it. There were consequences. Sexual ones. I bit my lip and looked down at the floor. “Oh.”
“Look at me when you’re talking.”
I looked up at him, and he began removing his tie. “Bend over the counter, Charlotte,” he said.
I swallowed. “Um, I don’t – ”
“Bend over the counter.”
I walked over to the counter and bent over, sticking my ass up in the air. He made me wait there for what seemed like an agonizingly long time, but was really probably only a few moments. And then his body was on top of mine, his chest pushing into my back. He pushed my hair back from my face and wrapped it around his hand, tugging on it gently. Heat pulsed through my body and I bit back the moan that was already threatening to escape from my lips.
Then Noah stood up, moving his weight off of me, and lifted up my skirt. “You know, Charlotte,” he said. “We’re going to have to do something about you wearing these sexy little outfits out of the house.” The cool air hit my ass, and that, coupled with the brush of his fingertips against the back of my thighs made my pussy start to get wet.