They stared at each other in silence for a long beat, and Hannah fought not to shift around in her chair.
“You have nothing to say for yourself.”
“Not really. I think threatening my ex-boyfriend with an ice pick at an event I’d planned really spoke for itself.”
“You’re definitely fired.”
“I figured that.” She went to pick up her bag in a move that Viola Davis would be proud of, when Annalise held up a staying hand.
“Your ex-boyfriend?”
This bitch was really going to insert herself into the situation again. “I think you’ve meddled in my love life enough, Annalise.”
“I never thought you’d actually find a boyfriend.”
“And you never intended to promote me.” Hannah didn’t need to question it.
Annalise took her dark, thick-rimmed glasses off and sat back in her chair. For the first time, Hannah noticed how brittle her boss seemed. Sort of like a de-winged hummingbird that couldn’t stop moving even though she couldn’t get anywhere.
“You were good at planning parties for professional sports teams. And they liked to look at your tits.” She shrugged one of her shoulders. “And you’re a smart girl. I thought you would fail and realize that you were really doing what you were meant to do.”
She shouldn’t have asked the next question, which she definitely asked. “And what was I meant to do?”
Her former boss made a pfft sound. “Look pretty. Do the dirty work.”
Two weeks ago, Hannah would have believed that was all she was good for. In that moment, confronted with someone who saw her the way she’d seen herself for years, something had changed. She knew that she was meant for more than looking pretty and doing someone else’s dirty work. She no longer doubted her own ambition.
And she wasn’t crying. She’d probably cry later when trying to figure out how to pay her student loans on time while she and Sasha were getting their ideas off the ground, but not as she made her very Viola-like exit.
* * *
—
AS SHE WALKED OUT of the office, she flipped off Giselle, who blanched at the rude gesture. Then she winced again when Hannah mouthed the c-word in her direction. This reaction filled Hannah with so much satisfaction that she ran into Noah’s tall frame as he exited the elevator.
“Are you okay?” He grabbed her arm, and Hannah waited for her body to react to him now that she wasn’t wrapped up in an oxytocin overdose named Jack Nolan. Still, there was nothing except a hint of irritation that he’d ruined her perfectly good exit.
“I’m fine. Except for the fact that I just got fired, I’m fine.”
He laughed, and it was the annoying sound he always made when he thought she was being cute. “Lucky you didn’t get arrested.”
“Wouldn’t be the first time.” She looked up at him and noticed that his smile was strained. Funny, knowing someone that well. “What are you doing here? Shouldn’t you be seeing about bailing your boss out? And wouldn’t he have fired us even if he hadn’t gotten hauled away in a paddy wagon?”
He looked back toward Annalise’s office for a beat and then back down at her. Grabbing her arm and steering her toward the elevator before she could extricate herself, he said, “Let me take you for coffee.”
They were both silent on the elevator. She didn’t know what Noah was thinking about, but Hannah was hoping that he wasn’t here to give her a list of reasons why the party sucked before the Post story dropped and the senator got arrested. She didn’t think her ex was that much of a jerk, but she hadn’t thought that Jack would lie to her repeatedly throughout their entire relationship, either.
Once they exited the building and Noah led her toward a coffee shop, she breathed easy. He cared too much about what people thought of him to get really mean in public. But he still kept her in suspense while he ordered her coffee for her.
“I might have changed my order.” She hadn’t, but still.
Noah shook his head. “Always difficult.”
“This is well-trod ground.” She knew she was difficult, and she wasn’t about to change that—not with her ex and not right now.
Noah ignored her and smiled at the barista who handed over their drinks. Then he pointed at a table in the corner with her cold brew.
When they were both seated, he said, “I’m going to marry Madison.”
She wouldn’t have been more surprised if he’d told her that he was joining a Catholic monastery. “Madison Chapin?”
He smiled again, but this time it wasn’t the smile that he’d indulged her with when he’d thought she was being ridiculous. It was damned close to the smile that Jack had laid on her after the first time they’d done sex things. Holy shit.
“Yeah.” He sounded shy. He’d never sounded shy about anything with her.
“You realize she’s a white girl, right?”
He took a drink of his black coffee. “Yeah, and I’m in love with her.”
Not once, in the year they’d dated, had he said he was in love with Hannah. And, strangely, she wasn’t hurt by the fact that he was in love with someone else and could say the words. She wasn’t jealous that she’d never heard them from him, because they would have been a lie. He’d liked certain things about her a lot—mostly the way she looked and how good the sex was. But he’d never truly seen her.
He’d wanted her to become more reserved and proper and go to law school so that they could be a black power couple.
And now he was in love with a white girl. A senator’s daughter who’d been kicked out of the United Kingdom after blowing off her third day of study abroad.
Amazing. All there was to do was laugh. And laugh harder. Noah stared at her as though she was afflicted or speaking in tongues. She fought to catch her breath so that she could explain, but tears were starting to leak out.
“It’s just so funny.” She wiped her eyes, probably rubbing runny mascara all over. “I spent my whole life wanting to be as white as possible—so I could be like the rest of my family. And then you dumped me because I couldn’t just put on a dashiki, wear my natural hair, throw up a fist, and embrace my blackness, and now you’re—”
“That’s not quite fair—”
“And now you’re with the Beckiest Becky to ever Becky!” The barista was definitely staring at them now, but she couldn’t stop.
“I’m in love with her.”
Holy shit. He was totally telling the truth.