by Hannah Ford
I ignored Josh and pretended to be engrossed in my reading.
“I’ll bet your pussy gets so wet,” Josh said. “I’ll bet you get so wet and you scream while he drills that ass. You have anal, right? Julia won’t let me get anywhere near her ass. But I’ll convince her.”
I fought hard to control my breathing, but tears of rage filled my eyes. Josh seemed to like this.
“Aww, are you gonna cry?” he asked. “You’re going to have a thicker skin than that, Charlotte. What if they call you to the stand? They’re going to ask if he ever got rough with you, if he ever took you to that club, what’s it called? Rape?”
He was talking about Force, and he knew it wasn’t called Rape.
He wanted me to refute him, wanted me to get into a back and forth with him so he could get a reaction out of me.
But it wasn’t going to work.
“It’s called Force,” I said evenly, my eyes still trained on Noah’s file. “Which you would have known if you’d read the report.”
I glanced up at him, and he smiled at me, like he knew exactly what the club was called. He took in a breath. “It doesn’t matter,” he said. “The guy’s a psycho for sure, but I still don’t think he did it.”
I looked up at him, interested for the first time. “Oh, yeah?” I said, still struggling to keep my tone light “Why do you say that?”
He swallowed, then bit his bottom lip nervously. The skin there was all torn up, like he’d been chewing on it a lot. “There’s something weird going on in this case,” he said. “Have you noticed – ”
But before he could finish, the door to the office opened and Professor Worthington walked in.
“Good,” he said shortly. “You’re both here.”
“Yes,” I said, nodding and smoothing down my sweater.
Professor Worthington took a seat in the middle of the table, in between me and Josh. I was happy for the buffer. He spread out a bunch of papers and a legal pad, then turned his attention to his laptop.
“We’re going to have to do something about Noah’s inbox,” Professor Worthington said, not wasting any time. “He’s turned his password over to me, and he has emails that are going to make him look exceptionally guilty.”
“What kind of emails?’ I asked, my heart sinking.
“He was having an inappropriate relationship with Katie Price,” Professor Worthington said, shaking his head as he scrolled through the emails. “Jesus Christ, Noah, you really should learn to keep your dick in your pants.”
“Can I see them?” I asked, the blood rushing in my ears.
Worthington slid the laptop over to me. It was open to Noah’s email account, and there was an email between Katie and Noah up on the screen. It was a long conversation, the kind of conversation that only happened when two people were emailing back and forth incessantly, all day. The kind of conversation you usually only had with someone you were involved with. My stomach turned.
“Maybe I should be emailing you from my personal account,” Katie had written. “Since the conversation is getting so personal.”
She’d followed it up with a smiley face. Was she that stupid? Didn’t she realize Noah was the head of the firm, and therefore, they couldn’t really get in trouble? Noah owned everything. If anyone found out they were emailing using their work email addresses, there was nothing they could do about it.
I kept scrolling through the conversation, which started out being flirtatious and funny, then quickly devolved into something borderline X-rated.
“I’ll bet you’re a good kisser,” Katie had written.
“I’ll bet you taste so good,” Noah had written back.
Bile filled the back of my throat. I didn’t want to see how far it had gotten, so I pushed the computer back over to Professor Worthington. I pretended to make a note on my legal pad, hoping Josh and Worthington wouldn’t be able to tell how upset I was.
I was devastated, not only because it pointed to Noah being guilty – this made three women now he was involved with who’d been killed – but because he’d lied to me. He and Katie had been involved.
I wondered how long they’d been together. Why had he killed her? Did it have to do with why she’d called him last night? Why had she called him last night? Was Katie in love with him? My thoughts swirled together, and I had to summon all my strength to bring my attention back to the meeting.
“Charlotte?” Professor Worthington was asking. “Can you take care of that?”
“Can I take care of what?” I asked.
He sighed and looked at me like I was useless. Which, honestly, I supposed I was at this point. “Of interviewing Katie’s friends. Poke around, find out who she hung out with, if there was anyone else who might have wanted to hurt her. Find out who she was, where she hung out, what she was like. Can you do that?”
“Yes,” I said, even though I would have rather poked my eyes out with a fork than find out exactly what kind of person Katie Price was.
“Here’s her address,” Worthington said, pushing a piece of paper over to me. “You can start there.”
I folded the paper in half and placed it in my purse. What had Noah said? That Katie still lived with her parents? I’m sure they weren’t going to welcome me showing up at her house, asking them all kinds of questions about what Katie was like. Especially when I told them I was a defense lawyer for her boss, who might have been the last person to talk to her before she was killed.
There was a headache starting at my temples, and all I wanted to do was go home and have a long, hot bath, followed by a glass – or a bottle – of wine before crawling into bed.
But I had reading for tomorrow’s classes that I was behind on from spending my weekend with Noah, and I needed to get it done. And then there was the matter of my stepfather’s birthday party. I still hadn’t bought him a present.
This is why I usually kept to a meticulous schedule, and why there was no room for anything else in my life. Distractions needed to be minimized. It was imperative that I stay focused, because as soon as one thing slipped, it was like dominos.
“Josh,” Professor Worthington said. “I’ll need you to go through Noah’s email, line by line, mail by mail. Any emails with Katie should be deleted. Any mention of Katie to anyone else should be deleted.”
My attention snapped back to the conversation. “Should we really be doing that?” I asked. “Isn’t that destroying evidence?”
“There is no case yet,” Professor Worthington said. “So none of this is evidence. And we’re not destroying them, we’re deleting them. If the prosecutor’s office is that determined to find the emails, they can access the back up files. Which reminds me, we’re going to need access to Katie Price’s work email account.” He made a note on his legal pad.
“Yeah,” I said. “But if they find out we – ”
“We’re not doing anything wrong,” Josh said, shrugging. “It’s a gray area.”
My phone buzzed with a text before I could reply, and I looked down.
Noah.
“Come back to my apartment. Immediately.”
God, he was so arrogant. What gave him the right to think he could just demand where I went or what I did? It was barbaric, when you really thought about it.
You like it. It turns you on, how demanding he is, how he wants to take control of you.
This was how he roped women in. He got them all confused, caught up in a whirlwind of sex and lust and hormones, so they couldn’t see what was really going on. Well, I wasn’t going to be another Katie.
I picked up my phone to text him back and tell him to leave me alone, but before I could, the screen died again. Lovely. The cheap charger I’d gotten was already worthless.
“We have bigger problems than the emails, anyway,” Professor Worthington said. “There’s also the matter of Noah’s juvenile record.”
“His juvenile record?” I asked, frowning.
“Yes, Charlotte, have you not read the file I gave you?”
“I’ve read it,” I lied. “But I must have missed that part.”
“Noah has a juvenile record,” Josh piped up helpfully. “But it’s been sealed. And he won’t tell anyone what’s in it.”
“Which is going to be a problem, because the first thing the prosecutor is going to do if Noah is arrested is ask for it to be unsealed and admitted.” Professor Worthington sighed and rubbed his temples.
Great. On top of everything else, now Noah had a secret sealed record from when he was a juvenile. It was so absurd I almost wanted to laugh out loud.
A moment later, Professor Worthington dismissed us.
“See you in class tomorrow, Charlotte,” Josh said happily as I walked out.
I ignored him.
When I got back to my apartment, there was no sign of Julia. I breathed a sigh of relief, happy I wouldn’t have to deal with her yet. I peeked into my room, my eyes taking a quick inventory to see if anything had been messed with after I’d left last night. But everything seemed like it was in its right place. Of course, there was still the matter of the panties Josh had defaced, the ones he’d placed back in my top drawer.
I decided I’d deal with that later, too. Maybe I’d just toss everything in that drawer into the garbage. I could buy new underwear and bras.
I plugged my phone into its charger, then drew a bath and poured myself a glass of wine. I slid the tap as hot as I could stand it and lowered myself into the tub, letting the searing water wash over my skin.
I sipped my wine and closed my eyes.
I stayed in the bath until I was pruney and drowsy, then got out and dressed in a tank top and cotton shorts.
I was pouring another glass of wine in the kitchen when there was a knock on the door.
I tiptoed to the door and peered through the peephole.
Noah was standing on the other side of the door, looking fierce.
He knocked again, harder this time. “Charlotte,” he called. “Open the door.”
“No,” I said before I realized it probably would have been better to just pretend I wasn’t home. “Go away or I’ll call the police.”
“You’re not going to call the police, Charlotte” Noah said, sounding exasperated. “Now let me in.”
“No!” I said. “I’m not letting you in. You lied to me.”
“Lied to you? About what?”
“About everything!” I said.
“Charlotte, can you please open the door so we can talk about this like adults?”
“No! I’m not letting you in here. You’re a murderer.” I said the words out loud, half because I meant them, half because I wanted to hurt him the way he’d hurt me.
“We’re back to that again, are we?” He didn’t sound hurt. He sounded irritated. Which let me know his walls were back up – earlier, back at his apartment, when he’d been fucking me, trusting him had been the most important thing to him, the thing that had brought us closer together. Now he sounded like he couldn’t care less if I trusted him or not.
And even though I should have been expecting it, even though I’d told him to leave, even though I’d decided he was dangerous and I should have nothing to do with him, it hurt.
It hurt so bad it was like a physical force, almost like I’d had the wind knocked out of me. My legs suddenly felt like jell-o, and I leaned against the front door for support.
“Please,” I said softly. “Please, just go away.”
“Charlotte,” Noah said, his voice firm and commanding. “Open the door.”
It was like I was on autopilot, reaching out and turning the lock, letting him in before I even realized what I was doing.
And then he was standing there, looking so sexy it took my breath away. He was wearing perfectly cut jeans and a soft-looking navy blue sweater that brought out his eyes and hugged his broad chest and cut biceps.
“Finally,” he said, sounding impatient. His eyes raked up my body, taking in my short shorts and tank top. I became aware of the fact that I wasn’t wearing a bra and that my nipples were hard under the thin material.
Noah became aware of it too, his mouth twitching into a knowing grin. “Were you expecting me?” he asked.
“No.” I crossed my arms over my chest.
“Are you sure?” He reached out and grabbed my arms, pulled them down to my sides so he could see my body.
Our eyes locked on each other, and I felt like I was falling. He was pulling me in, pulling me under, like quicksand. I knew it was wrong, I knew I shouldn’t feel this way, but I couldn’t stop it. It was a force, one more powerful than I had the strength to fight.
Snap out of it, Charlotte.
I wrenched my arms out of his grasp.
“What do you want?” I asked.
“To explain.”
“So do it.” There was nothing he could say to explain, and I knew that, but I couldn’t help but feel a flicker of hope. It burned inside of me, a tiny little flame, looking for anything it could grab onto.
Noah glanced over my shoulder into the apartment. “Can I come in?”
“Are you serious?”
He didn’t answer, just looked at me and sighed. “Yes, Charlotte, I am very serious. Are we going to talk, or are you going to stand there and be mad at me all night?”
“I’m going to stand here and be mad at you until you give me a reason not to.”
“Then let me in so I can explain.”
“You can explain from out there.”
“No, I can’t.”
“Then I guess you can’t explain.” I went to shut the door on him, but he held his hand out and stopped it.
“Fine,” he said. “Come out with me.”
“Come out with you?”
“Yes, Charlotte, let me take you to dinner. You obviously don’t trust me to be alone with you in your apartment, so let me take you to a public place.”
I paused, considering. A public place wouldn’t be so bad. What could Noah really do in a restaurant? He couldn’t hurt me. And if he tried to pull any of that sex bullshit on me, he wouldn’t be able to, not with other people around.
And as much as I didn’t want to admit it to myself, I did want to hear what he had to say.
“Fine,” I said. “Just let me get dressed.”
He smiled, the smile of a man who’d gotten his way. “Take your time.”
I refused to get into his car with him, and he refused to let me pick a restaurant close to my apartment, so we ended up on the subway. I thought Noah would be uncomfortable on the subway, after being driven around in limos and town cars all the time, but it was the opposite. He seemed at ease, even when a homeless man approached us and asked for money.
Noah reached into his wallet and pulled out a one hundred dollar bill and slipped it into the man’s cup. The man’s cheeks flushed and his face lit up and he grabbed Noah’s hand, pumping it up and down.
“Thank you, thank you,” he kept saying. “Now I won’t go hungry, thank you.”
“Aren’t you afraid he’s going to buy drugs?” I asked once the man was out of earshot. “Or alcohol?”
Noah shrugged. “What he does with it is his business. And if he’s so strung out that he needs to panhandle for alcohol or drugs, well, then he’s in a much worse position than I am.”
I paused, considering. I’d never thought of it that way. The way Noah had said it, with such conviction, and the way he seemed at home on the subway, when I’d have thought someone so rich and powerful would have been at least a little bit uncomfortable, made me wonder about Noah’s background.
What had his life been like, growing up? Did he know what it was like to go without? Was that why he’d been so nice to that man?
The fact that I wanted to know drove me insane, and by the time we got off the subway I’d worked myself back into a frenzy of hating him, resenting him, and wishing we’d never met.
When we got to the restaurant, a fancy-looking place called FUZE, Noah opened the door and led me to a table in the back,
nodding to the hostess, a beautiful Brazilian woman with long curly dark hair and a tight maroon dress, as we passed by.
She nodded back at him, apparently not concerned at all that Noah was seating himself.
“Regular here?” I grumbled to him.
“Yes.”
“What did you do to get such perks?” I asked as he pulled out a chair at a table in a secluded section in the back. It was set with a crisp black tablecloth and ivory plates etched in turquoise and gold. Wine glasses and elegant water goblets sat at each setting, along with shiny silver flatware.
“Perks?”
“Yes,” I said, taking the chair from him and pulling it out myself before sitting down. “You must have done something to be allowed such liberties.”
“Are you asking if I’ve slept with that woman, Charlotte?”
“No,” I said. “And if I was, it wouldn’t matter. Because I wouldn’t believe whatever you said.”
He sighed. “Are you referring to the pictures of Katie that you found in my office?”
“Oh, those,” I said, laughing sarcastically as I picked up my napkin and set it in my lap. I had no intention of eating – I wasn’t going to be here long enough for that – but I needed something to do with my hands. “I’d almost forgotten about that, what with all the other things I found out you’ve been hiding.”
Before he could answer, a waiter wearing a crisp white shirt and tailored black pants appeared at our table.
“Mr. Cutler,” he said in a British accent. “It’s lovely to see you.”
“Thank you, Graham,” Noah said. “It’s nice to see you, too.”
“Will you be having the usual?”
“That would be great,” Noah said as Graham filled our water glasses with sparkling lemon water from a fluted pitcher.
“I’m not eating,” I announced. “So nothing for me, thanks.”
“She’ll have the same,” Noah said.
“Excellent choice, miss,” Graham said to me, as if I hadn’t spoken.
“You are infuriating,” I said to Noah once Graham was gone. “You know that, right? You brought me here because you’re supposed to be explaining yourself to me, and all you’re doing is trying to have your way again!”