“Is it because you’re a vegetarian?” she asked, not meaning it to sound as intrusive as it did.
There was a long pause before he responded. “No, I have a condition, and my body doesn’t absorb minerals from foods very well. So, what’s your major?” Noah asked to change the subject.
“Education, with an emphasis in elementary school education.” She felt compelled to explain this choice, probably because her mother had never approved of the idea. “I really like children, and I want to do something that makes a difference for them.”
“You don’t have to sell teaching to me,” he assured her.
“I guess I don’t, Professor.”
“My brother thinks you’re pretty darn incredible,” he said out of the blue. “I’m glad he found someone like you.”
Her eyed widened. “Wow! I thought I was blunt.”
It surprised Hannah to see Maggie return so quickly with their food.
“Thank you! It looks fantastic.” It was true.
Noah thanked her as well.
Hannah had a mouthful of food, and had her eyes closed. Noah was right, the food was great. She was making happy humming noises that would have caused her mother to have heart palpitations.
“I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone enjoy a burger that much,” Noah seemed amused. “You almost make me want to start eating meat again.”
She blushed. “I can’t believe my manners are so bad around you.”
Noah waved a dismissive hand. “I’m not very refined so it doesn’t bother me.” With that he bit into his own food.
They were both so hungry that they made it halfway through their meal without uttering another word.
Hannah was the one to break the silence. “What has Nathaniel said about me, aside from telling you that I’m a student?”
“I can’t remember all of it,” Noah replied. “I can tell you that my brother is really excited about seeing you this weekend.”
That made her smile. “I wish he would call me.”
“Nathaniel hasn’t dated in quite some time. He’s a little out of practice.” Noah started to say something else, but stopped.
“I have to admit that I’m a little jealous of you,” she said.
“Why are you jealous?”
“It must be nice having a brother,” she said wistfully.
“It is,” Noah said without hesitation. “You don’t have any siblings?”
Hannah shook her head. “I’m not even sure why my parents had me. My mother was thrilled when I was old enough for her to send me away to school. Sadly, she couldn’t get me into a year-round boarding school so she had to see me during the summer.”
Noah gave her a sympathetic look.
Hannah suddenly felt guilty about complaining. “You just told me that you lost your mother as a child, and here I am complaining about my mother. That’s pretty insensitive.”
“It sounds like you have good reason to complain. What about your father? You mentioned that he was detached.”
“He’s been busy as long as I can remember. He runs a large corporation, and he just doesn’t have time for anything else.”
Noah reached out and squeezed her hand. “You seem pretty close to your cousin.”
Hannah smiled. “Lyd is great. My mom can’t stand her.”
“Why?”
“Apparently Lydia is a very bad influence on me. She even got blamed for my worst rebellion, despite that fact that she wasn’t even in the same state at the time.”
Noah leaned closer. “What did you do?”
“I was fifteen, and my mother had come to visit me at school. She was hoping to run into another mom that she wanted to network with. My mother is big on expanding her social circle with the right people. When she realized that my closest friend was there on scholarship, and came from a very poor family, she lost it. I don’t think I’ve ever seen my mother show that much emotion, and it was all over how bad I was making her look with my poor friend. She assured me that we gave plenty of money to those people, and we didn’t need to socialize with them. She actually slapped me.”
Noah’s eyes widened. “Wow!”
“So,” Hannah continued with an innocent smile, “I figured that since charity was my mother’s big thing I would make her happy.”
“What exactly did you do?”
“I emptied my accounts, and took out cash advances on my credit cards. Then I took a cab to the nearest homeless shelter and gave it to the people there.”
“How much money was that?”
She shrugged. “I think I managed to get around twenty-thousand dollars.”
Noah had just taken a drink, and he choked on it. “You walked around with twenty-thousand dollars?”
She nodded.
“You‘re lucky that you weren’t robbed, or killed, or worse.”
“I’m not sure that there’s much worse than being killed, but I get your point. I was young and stupid. I told myself I was doing it to get back at my mother, but I think part of it was a cry for attention.”
“Well, I’m sure you got some attention after that.” He just kept shaking his head as if he couldn’t believe she would do something like that.
Her shoulders slumped. “Not really. My mother called to tell me how embarrassed she was. I got to spend what seemed like hours listening to her complain about what her friends would think if they heard about it. I’m not even sure my father knows about it.”
Noah wasn’t sure what to say. He would’ve guessed that Hannah had a very warm and loving family. She just seemed so sweet and down to Earth.
The alarm on Hannah’s phone startled her. “Oh my God, I'm going to be late for class. How much is my share of lunch?” She started digging in her purse.
His hand went up immediately. “Oh, no you don’t, I invited you which makes it my treat.”
She hesitated, but decided not to argue. “Thank you, but next time we do something together I'm paying.”
“We'll see about that,” he mumbled under his breath.
She stood, and slung her purse over her shoulder. “I'm glad that we had a chance to talk, I really enjoyed it.”
“I enjoyed myself too. What class are you off to?”
“Biology 101. Actually, it's not my class, but I told Lydia that I’d take notes for her,” she explained. “She's been sick all week. It doesn't help that she's going out every night with her new boyfriend.”
Noah looked down at the table. There was an edge of controlled anger in his voice. “Her new boyfriend isn't Dominic, is it?”
“Yeah, it is.” She gave him a puzzled look. “They've been practically joined at the hip since last weekend. Why do you ask?”
He stood quickly, and dropped some money on the table. “I just didn't realize they were seeing each other.” He was suddenly in a big hurry. “Let’s get you back to the campus before you miss that class.”
Chapter Seven
As soon as Noah dropped Hannah off, he called Nathaniel.
“Hello.” Nathaniel’s cousin Isaiah answered the phone.
“I need to talk to my brother.” He felt a little bad about being short with Isaiah. As a rule, Noah avoided the rest of the Draksel family, but Isaiah was mostly likable.
“He’s driving, but I’m really glad you called,” Isaiah said with a child’s enthusiasm. “I was going to come over to your place tonight.”
“That’s fine, but I really need to talk to Nathaniel.” Noah's patience was wearing thin, but he tried to keep his voice calm.
He heard his brother’s voice over the rumble of the engine.
“It’s Noah, and he wants to talk to you,” Isaiah said to Nathaniel. He then continued his conversation with Noah. “I designed a new program that I think will really help you out with the books.”
Isaiah didn’t acknowledge Noah’s annoyance, and possibly didn’t even notice it. Isaiah had always been quiet and introverted. Until the invention of computers Isaiah had mostly closed himself off from the
world, lost in books. Now, he did his best to fit the image of a computer geek, including wearing glasses that he didn’t need.
“Put Nathaniel on the phone now, please. Tell him it’s urgent.”
The next voice he heard was Nathaniel's. “Talk fast. I'm driving through the canyon.”
“Are you aware that Dominic is still seeing Lydia?”
“Who?” Nathaniel sounded confused and distracted.
“Hannah's cousin, and the girl isn’t doing well physically.”
The string of profanity coming from Nathaniel proved that he hadn’t known about this. It was also an indicator of how angry he was. Control was very important to Nathaniel and profanity indicated a loss of control. He heard the sound of the car coming to a stop by the side of the road, and then Nathaniel was back on the line.
“How did you find out about this? Did you see them together?”
“I had lunch with Hannah today,” Noah explained.
“Really?” Nathaniel sounded surprised so Noah assumed he hadn’t asked what school Hannah attended. “How is she? Did she ask about me?”
“Yes, I really had lunch with her. She’s fine. Yes, she asked about you. Apparently her cousin has been so sick that she’s been sleeping most of the time, but still managing to go out with Dominic every night.”
Nathaniel started to curse again. Finally, he calmed down and said, “Saturday will be the last time that he sees her, and he won’t see her until then.”
Chapter Eight
Hannah’s fingers tapped impatiently on the steering wheel as she waited for Lydia to finish grooming herself. “I thought you did your hair and makeup before we left. We're going horseback riding. Do you really think that you need to spend several hours preparing for it?”
Lydia looked at her and rolled her eyes. “Speak for yourself, nature girl. You know I hate horses.”
“Then why did you agree to go riding with us today?” Hannah asked through her teeth. She was trying her hardest to be patient, but she really wanted to see Nathaniel. After spending the last ten minutes sitting in the car, Hannah’s patience was just about gone.
Lydia sighed and rested her head on the back of the car seat. “It seemed like a great excuse to spend more time with Dominic, although I'm beginning to wonder if he even wants to see me.” She let out a pitiful moan.
Hannah squeezed her shoulder. “I’m sure he wants to see you.” She hated to see her normally confident cousin looking so dejected. On the flip side, it was nice to see her healthy again and Hannah was certain that spending a couple of nights at home had helped with that.
Lydia blinked her pouty blue eyes, crossed her arms over her chest, and pushed out her lower lip. No one could pout quite like Lydia. “He hasn't called me in three days.” She held up three fingers just in case Hannah didn’t know how many days she meant. “We spent four days in a row together. One night, I even had sex with him in the college courtyard in honor of the place we met.”
Hannah put her hand up. “I really didn't want to know that.” Still, she heard herself ask, “Weren’t you afraid of being caught?”
“Of course I was,” Lydia said matter-of-factly. “That’s part of what made it so exciting.”
Hannah shook her head, and tried to give her most disapproving stare. It wasn’t easy when she was on the verge of laughing. “I love you, Lyd, but you scare me.”
“You know you wanna try it,” Lydia teased with a wicked grin. “Don’t tell me that you never thought about doing it in public when you were with Mr. CEO in training.”
It felt strange to talk about her ex-fiancé. “CFO, and the sex was scheduled and sedate at best. He never would have risked any impropriety.”
“Well, we may as well get this over with,” Lydia muttered pitifully.
“Stop feeling sorry for yourself, Lyd. If he doesn’t want you, then you’ll just find someone else, someone better,” Hannah said with conviction. “Now, get out of the car and show that loser what he’s missing.”
Lydia gave one last miserable sigh. “I wish it was that easy. I don’t know what it is about him, but I just can’t get him out of my head. I feel like some sort of addict. I will admit that the sex is out of this world, but it’s more than that. You would not believe the stuff he does.”
“Please don’t go into details again.”
Lydia stuck out her tongue.
Hannah stepped out of the car. “C’mon. Let’s just go have some fun. I don’t know what his problem is, but you’re too good for him anyway. Want me to kick his rich ass for you?”
Lydia laughed so hard that she accidentally slammed her head on the dashboard. “Ouch!” She rubbed her forehead and continued to laugh until she was almost in tears. “I just love it when you try to use profanity. Your voice gets all high like a little girl.”
“I’m so glad that I amuse you.” Hannah feigned annoyance.
Lydia finally got out of the car, and they walked to the house. Before they could ring the bell, the front door opened. Dominic lifted Lydia off of the ground and kissed her. Hannah felt a little uncomfortable just standing there. She studied the potted plants to avoid gawking at them.
Dominic finally set Lydia down, letting her body slowly slide across his. “I am very happy that you are here.”
Lydia pushed him away and placed her hands on her hips. She tried to look mad, but her eyes gave her away. Still she scolded him. “Then why haven't you called me? You canceled Wednesday by text message, and then you don’t even return my calls. Now, I show up here and you're all over me like nothing has changed. What's the deal, Dominic? One day I don't even get a kiss my ass, and the next you're glad to see me?”
“Don’t be angry with me, sweet Lydia.” He massaged her arms. “I would never hurt you. I have spent our time apart fantasizing about you. When you return from your ride, I will show you how much I have missed you.”
Hannah nearly gagged. While Lydia seemed to find Dominic’s strange way of speaking exotic and endearing, Hannah felt like he was overplaying his struggle with the English language. There was just something fake about him.
Lydia was eating it up. She smiled and leaned her entire body against his. “That's so sweet, but aren't you going riding with me?”
With Dominic’s powerful arms wrapped around her, Lydia looked even thinner than usual. “I don’t like horses very much.”
Lydia heaved a sigh of relief. “Good, then we can do something else. I hate horseback riding. Horses are smelly and they bite.”
He leaned down so that he could nuzzle her neck. “Then we will have to find a more appealing way to spend our time,” he murmured against her neck.
This was getting old. Hannah cleared her throat loudly to get their attention. She wasn’t trying for subtlety. It occurred to her that she had been feeling much less inclined to do what was expected of her lately. That was an empowering realization. “Now that we've settled your plans for the day, and you've examined each other's bodies thoroughly, would you mind telling me where Nathaniel is?”
Dominic stopped nibbling on Lydia's ear. “Nathaniel is preparing the horses for your ride. I can show you the way. It’s just around the side of the house.”
“I’m sure I can find it,” Hannah insisted.
Dominic didn’t argue, most likely because he didn’t really want to walk her to the stables.
Hannah found Nathaniel tightening the saddle on a white Arabian in a semi-enclosed tack area. The sun was behind the structure, so it seemed a little dark to Hannah. The darkness didn’t hinder her view of him. She’d found men attractive before, but Nathaniel Draksel was in his own class of sexy. The muscles on his arms and chest strained the material of shirt, and his faded blue jeans were sinfully tight.
The white Arabian was full of energy and continued to move her feet as he tightened the girth. A second horse, a bay Thoroughbred, was already tacked.
Nathaniel noticed her watching him and grinned. When she walked over to join him, he took one of her hands t
hen leaned down to kiss her on the cheek. “I'm glad you’re here.” His voice was a sexy rumble. “I just need to prepare a horse for your cousin and then we’ll be on our way. I wasn’t sure how much she’s ridden.”
“Actually, Lydia doesn’t really like horses so she decided to stay at the house with Dominic.”
Nathaniel’s composure slipped, but he quickly recovered.
“Are you okay?” she asked.
“Of course,” he replied casually. “I was just under the impression that they weren’t getting along, but I guess I was mistaken.” He gestured to the white mare. “I told you I had a white horse.”
She got the impression that he didn’t really want to discuss their cousins, which worked out well, because neither did she. “I can't believe that you tack your own horses.”
He raised one brow. “Do I look too weak for manual labor?”
That was laughable. “Weak is not a word I associate with you. For some reason, I just assumed that you would hire someone to do this sort of thing. I guess that was a silly assumption.”
“I prefer to take care of my own horses.” He put his hand on the Arabian. “I took the liberty of selecting a horse for you.”
“She's beautiful. What's her name?” Hannah asked as she stroked the mare’s neck.
“Minnie Mouse,” he said sounding a little embarrassed.
She giggled. “You named your horse Minnie Mouse.”
“No,” he replied a little awkwardly. “I let one of my much younger cousins name her. He had just come back from Disney World.”
“Well, Minnie Mouse,” she spoke gently to the mare, as she continued to stroke her neck, “you are a beautiful baby.” Hannah had always had a way with animals. Minnie Mouse nickered softy, and leaned into her. The bay danced to get closer to her. “I’m sorry, you sweet boy, I didn’t mean to ignore you,” she said as she walked over to the gelding.
“That’s Beast,” Nathaniel said. “Be careful with him, he doesn’t like most people.”
Hannah reached out a tentative hand, and Beast whinnied in excitement as he pushed his nose into her hand. She laughed. “You’re just a big old softy, aren’t you, Beast?”
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