by Hannah Ford
I imagined him staring at me, his eyes cold as I took the witness stand. I remembered the sick squishing sound his eye had made as I’d slammed the heel of my shoe into it.
My stomach lurched, and I quickened my pace as I walked down the hall to Noah’s office.
I needed him.
The door to the office was closed, and I knocked.
“Come in,” he said, sounding distracted.
He was on his cell phone, pacing back and forth across the carpet, his face set in concentration. His sleeves were rolled up, his jacket off, his forearms muscular and tan.
His suit pants hugged his ass, and I couldn’t help but admire his body as he crossed the room in front of me.
He was so gorgeous, so sexy, so in control. And he was mine. I resisted the urge to pinch myself, to make sure this was real life, that this beautiful man loved me and wanted to be with me.
And might be asking you to marry him tonight.
Butterflies swarmed my stomach at the thought, imagining him down on one knee in some romantic restaurant, his face bright with excitement.
I stood just inside the door, listening to him yelling at someone on the other end of the line for not getting a brief to him on time, ranting about how he was going to file a motion for a mistrial.
When he was finally done, he turned to me. I expected him to be in a bad mood, expected him to have a heavy darkness after what I’d just witnessed, but instead, his face broke into a smile.
“You are a sight for sore eyes,” he said, wrapping me in his arms and kissing me softly on the lips.
I felt myself melting into him, becoming a puddle against his body, his arms pulling me close as the tension I’d been feeling slid from my shoulders.
“How was your day?” he asked me.
“It was fine.” I swallowed, wondering when and how I should bring up the letter. “How was yours?”
“Brutal,” he said, releasing me and returning to his desk. “The phone has been ringing off the hook. Apparently almost getting killed is good for business.” He glanced down at his computer, running his eyes over a document on the screen. “And then there are the reporters.”
“I know,” I said. “There were a bunch of them waiting outside your office.”
“Did they bother you?” he asked, glancing up sharply.
“Not really,” I said. “I mean, they yelled questions at me, but they didn’t… they weren’t aggressive or anything.”
“Good.” He shut his laptop and grabbed his coat off the back of his desk. He crossed the room to me and pulled me to him, his hand resting on my hip. “I missed you today, Charlotte. You have no idea how much I’m looking forward to moving on from all of this.” He kissed me again, his hand sliding down over my ass. I felt my body responding to his touch, the way his mouth felt against mine, the way he tasted, the smoothness of his skin, the sensation of his tongue rubbing against mine.
“Ready to go?” he asked when he finally pulled away.
His tone was light, his body language relaxed and easy-going.
There was no sign of the horror that had happened at Force, no indication that under his expensive suit were stitches and staples holding his skin together because of something a madman had done to him, had done to us.
I reached into my bag, my fingertips grazing the top of the letter as I averted my gaze from his.
“What is it?” Noah asked, tilting my chin up and forcing me to look him in the eye. “Charlotte? What’s wrong?”
I opened my mouth to tell him.
But then I imagined how the night would go.
Noah would get dark.
He would shut down.
Our dinner would be ruined. He might even spend most of the time brooding, or even worse, calling people he knew to get the letters to stop. I didn’t want that.
We were finally getting to where I wanted to be, where we could do the kinds of things normal couples did.
“It’s nothing,” I said.
“You sure?” he asked, his eyes searching mine.
“Yes, I’m sure.” I swallowed and pulled my hand from my bag. I didn’t care what was in that letter. That letter had nothing to do with me or my future. It was just an ugly mark on my past, something that had happened to me, not that was happening to me now.
What was happening to me now was Noah and our life together.
The fact that he might be about to ask me to marry him.
Was I going to put all of that in jeopardy because of some stupid letter?
I didn’t want to lie to him.
But I didn’t want to risk our happiness more.
“Everything’s fine,” I said. “Everything’s amazing.”
He smiled and slid my hand through his.
“We’ll take the elevator down to the garage,” he said. “To avoid the reporters.”
I nodded and let him lead me down the hall and into the elevator. We took it down to the basement garage under Noah’s office building, and slipped into his car.
“I’ve never seen this one before,” I said.
“You haven’t seen many of my cars,” he replied matter-of-factly, like it was the most natural thing in the world to own more than one vehicle in a city like New York, where it could cost four figures a month just to park one car, let alone several.
“Where are we going?” I asked.
He pulled out onto the street, turning the car expertly as he smoothly joined the flow of traffic that was heading uptown.
“To dinner.”
“I know to dinner,” I said. “But where?”
The side of his mouth twitched into a half smile. “You are awfully inquisitive tonight, Ms. Holloway.”
“You’re awfully secretive tonight, Mr. Cutler,” I teased back.
He smiled at me, but I saw the look that crossed his face. Apprehension? Excitement? My stomach flipped and flopped. Could he really be about to ask me to marry him?
I thought of him down on one knee, slipping a ring on my finger, promising to stay with me forever. I shivered.
“You cold?” Noah asked.
“No.” I shook my head. “No, I’m fine.”
He brought me to Le Meilleur, an exclusive French fusion restaurant in the middle of Midtown. It was on the top floor of its building, the expansive windows giving the restaurant three hundred and sixty degree views of the city. The maître’d nodded to Noah in greeting before whisking us away to a table in front of the windows.
Noah held my chair out for me, and the maitre’d slipped away.
I glanced around the opulent restaurant, with its circular tables, crisp linens, and crystal chandeliers. The lights were set low, and the sun was just setting, casting a rosy glow over the room.
Candles burned on each table, their flames dancing.
The room was huge, and the sweeping views of the city made it seem even bigger than it was, like there was no end to the restaurant, like it bled into the city, becoming one with the buildings and the sky around it.
I picked up my napkin and set it carefully in my lap.
“Is this… is the restaurant closed?” I asked.
“What?”
“There’s no one else here.”
“I bought it out.”
“You bought out the entire restaurant?”
“Yes.”
“Oh.” I swallowed, not even able to comprehend how much something like that must have cost. I wasn’t a foodie – I didn’t have the money or the interest -- but even I knew about Le Meilleur. It was insanely expensive, and insanely hard to get into.
There’d been an article about it in New York Magazine a couple of months ago, touting the chef and declaring it New York’s most exclusive hotspot. There was a waiting list of over a year for a reservation. For Noah to have bought out the restaurant must have cost him tens of thousands of dollars.
It was the kind of thing he would only have done if it were a special night.
The kind of night you would remember forever.
The kind of night you would get engaged.
My pulse pounded so hard I could feel it in the hollow of my throat, and I grabbed my glass of water and took a long sip in an effort to calm myself.
Noah leaned back in his chair and grinned at me wickedly, his eyes sparkling.
“What?” I asked.
“Nothing.”
“It must be something.”
“I was just thinking about the last time we were out eating together. Do you remember that?”
“Of course I remember it. You got arrested on the way out.”
He shook his head, like that was all a distant memory, and not something that had just come to a horrible conclusion only a few days ago. “I was thinking about what we did in the bathroom.”
Heat flooded my body.
I remembered that, too.
The way I’d knocked on the door and offered myself to him, the way I’d gotten down on my knees and sucked his cock, how hard he’d fucked me, holding me against the door, his pelvis pounding into me.
“Do you remember that, Charlotte?” he asked, and his hand was on my knee, moving up, pushing the bottom of my dress up a tiny bit.
“Yes.” I swallowed as his fingers moved over my skin in soft, slow swirls.
“Did you like that?”
“Yes.”
“Yes, what?”
“Yes, sir.”
My pulse pounded harder, my breathing becoming more pronounced. I could feel the heat on my cheeks. I loved the way he had fucked me last night, the way he’d moved inside of me, the way he’d made love to me. But there was a part of me that needed this too, a part of me that wanted to connect with him in this powerful way, that wanted him to control me, to dominate me, to spank me, to force me.
To give him total control over my body was something that made me feel close to him.
The waiter returned with drinks, pouring a bubbly moscato into my glass and setting a tumbler full of something dark and amber in front of Noah.
“Should you be drinking that?” I asked Noah when the waiter was gone.
“Why shouldn’t I be?”
“Because of your painkillers.” They’d given him a script for painkillers at the hospital with strict instructions to stay on top of his pain, to make sure he took them when needed, and to call if he needed refills.
“I’m not taking any painkillers.”
“What?” I asked, surprised.
He shrugged. “I haven’t needed them.”
I opened my mouth to protest. Of course he needed them. There was no reason for him not to need them. His body had been through a devastating trauma, a major surgery, he’d been stitched back together and given blood. Of course there was pain.
But then I realized his need for control must have been stronger than his need to get rid of the pain.
The waiter was setting the first course down in front of us now, a mesclun salad with fennel and a crisp parmesan crouton.
Noah was already moving on, talking about his day at work, asking me if I was going back to school tomorrow, if maybe I should call and talk to them about what happened.
The thought of going back to school was panic-inducing. How could I go back there with everyone knowing what had happened to me? But not going back obviously wasn’t an option.
The main course was a prime rib, followed by a cherry tart for dessert. The food was delicious, the kind of food you remembered, the kind of food that wasn’t just good, but felt like a masterpiece, served and presented in dishes and wish flourishes and garnishes that made it feel like a work of art.
But I couldn’t concentrate on the food.
All I could concentrate on was Noah.
And what he might ask me.
He’d obviously planned this whole night, had taken care of everything from the restaurant to the menu to the drinks.
When we’d finished our dessert, he sat back in his chair and gazed out across the city, his expression contemplative. Every one of my nerves was on high alert. Was this the moment? The moment he was going to ask me to be his wife?
My phone rang, and I jumped.
I glanced down at the screen.
My mom.
“Is it important?” Noah asked. “If it is, you should take it.”
“No, it’s … it’s just my mom.”
“You need to talk to her, Charlotte. I’m sure she’s worried about you.”
“She isn’t,” I said. “She doesn’t even know what happened.”
“You should tell her before she finds out about it some other way.”
“Is your mother worried about you?”
He chuckled. “My mother is not a worrier, Charlotte.”
“You mentioned something about her coming to visit,” I said. “Is she still going to?”
“Yes. I’d like you to meet her. You won’t like her. But I would still like you to meet her.”
He reached over and grabbed my hand, brought my fingers to his lips and kissed them gently. “You need to call your mother back. Let her know you’re okay.”
I frowned. Was that even the truth? Was I okay? I couldn’t tell. Everything seemed okay. I was here, with Noah, he was being sweet and forthcoming and inviting me to meet his mom. He was more relaxed than I’d ever seen him. He was acting romantic and saying the right things.
I was thinking he might even ask me to marry him.
But somehow… it was strange, but somehow it felt too perfect.
Shouldn’t we be talking more about what had happened? About how it was going to affect us? Noah was acting like nothing had happened, going back to his office and eschewing his painkillers in favor of work and fancy dinners.
“Come on,” Noah said, standing up. He took my hand and pulled me up out of my chair. “I want to show you something.”
“What is it?”
“It’s a surprise.”
That flash again, of Noah down on one knee, asking me to marry him.
“What about the bill?
“Already taken care of, baby.”
He led me to the elevator and back out on the streets of New York.
“It’s not far,” he said, putting his hand on my waist as we walked.
The air was warm and heavy, and the humidity was making my hair stick to the back of my neck. I had the feeling it was going to rain soon, and I hoped we’d get to wherever it was we were going before my hair turned into a frizzy mess. The rain held off as we strolled through Manhattan, dodging tourists and the after work drinks crowd.
“It’s only one more block,” Noah said, but I’d stopped.
Set up on the sidewalk was a cage full of puppies. A sign attached to it said NEW YORK CITY ANIMAL SHELTER ADOPTION EVENT. A few feet away, a woman wearing a blue polo shirt was talking to a middle-aged Asian couple, handing them a clipboard with an application attached. They must have been interested in adopting one of the puppies.
One of the dogs caught me looking at him and put his paw up against the cage, barking playfully.
I stroked his fur softly through the bars and he wagged his tail in delight.
“How sad,” I said, feeling the emotions of their situation well up in my chest.
“What’s sad?” Noah asked, seemingly disinterested in the plight of the shelter dog.
“They have no homes.” The puppy wriggled around, showing off, laying on his back and demanding I pet his stomach.
“They’ll get homes.” He pointed to the stack of applications set up next to the cage, all of them filled out.
“Yeah, sure, these dogs will,” I said. “Because they’re cute and they’re puppies. But what about the other ones, the adult dogs no one wants?” I sighed. “I always wanted a dog. But my mom said they made too much of a mess and that dogs didn’t like her. Which is ridiculous. Dogs love everyone.”
The woman in the blue polo shirt had finished with the Asian couple and turned to us, giving us a bright smile. “Are you interested in a puppy?”
“Oh,
no, she’s just looking,” Noah said. “Don’t give her any ideas.”
He wrapped his arm around my waist and began leading me away down the sidewalk.
“Don’t be sad, Charlotte,” he said, sensing my sadness. “Just think about all of the dogs that will get families, how happy they’ll be.”
I began to smile in spite of myself
“See?” he said. “It’s not sad. It’s happy. It’s their second chance.”
It was such an un-Noah like thing to say, so out of character for him that my smile couldn’t help but get bigger.
“I like your new attitude, Mr. Cutler,” I said.
We were coming up on a huge building, the kind of building with mirrored windows, the kind of building that was so tall it made you feel small and inconsequential.
Noah stood in front of it and smiled at me proudly.
“This is it?” I asked, confused. “You wanted to show me a building?”
“No,” Noah said, smiling devilishly. “I wanted to show you what’s inside of it.”
He led me through the lobby to the elevator bank. Everything inside was shiny and modern, with soaring beams and marble floors and ornate crown molding. The faint scent of new paint permeated the air, leading me to believe it was new construction.
He pushed the button for the 53rd floor, and we stepped out into an office. It kind of resembled the office Noah had already, but it was bigger, the views more sweeping. It was like Noah’s office on steroids.
I looked around, wondering if perhaps this was some kind of trick. Was someone going to jump out from some hidden nook or cranny after Noah proposed? My mom, his mom, some random friends? It didn’t seem like Noah’s style. Although he liked things a certain way, and didn’t have a problem with opulence or being over the top (evidenced by how he’d just bought out a whole restaurant for me), he was a very private person.
I had a hard time believing he would want to share our engagement with a bunch of people.
“What do you think?” he asked.
“It’s a beautiful space,” I said honestly, walking toward the windows. The ceilings were higher than the ones in his current office. His other office was modern, but this one felt even more contemporary and sophisticated, although it was hard to tell what it would look like once it was filled with furniture and equipment.