The thought that I could've lost Noah's baby torments me.
I would never want anything to happen to our precious child.
“Lauren was upset you so much, that’s why this happened,” Evan determines.
“Please don't tell your father anything, he's got a lot on his plate, I wouldn't want him to worry about me any more than he already does,” I ask.
Evan nods curtly.
“Done. But I think you should tell him,” Evan acquiesces to my request.
Then a nurse comes in.
“Mrs. Whittaker, I believe your husband is here,” the nurse says with a smile.
“My husband?” I question
Connor?
“I'm not her husband,” Noah's deep voice is in my ears suddenly.
“You called your father!” I gasp at Evan.
“I was in a panic! I didn't know who to call! He's the one I always call in an emergency!” Evan defends himself.
Then Noah notices that I'm crying and gasps.
“Oh god! What happened?” he asks.
He’s at my side instantly.
“Nothing, it's tears of relief,” I say.
My shoulders shake as I explain myself.
“There's nothing wrong with our baby; it's perfectly healthy,” I add.
“Good,” Noah sighs with relief.
“I couldn't handle the thought of you being in that kind of pain,” he says.
Then there’s a glance, down at my belly, and at me.
Then he smiles brilliantly, and that is precisely what I need.
“Wait! Our baby? What the hell are you two on about?” Evan breaks into our little moment.
“Evan,” Noah sighs.
“I forgot you were here,” Noah tells him.
“Gee thanks, dad, since you know, I called you, took Tinsley to the hospital, made sure she was okay-” Evan sounds as though he’s about to keep going.
“Evan, the baby, is your father’s,” I cut him off.
Noah and I both fall quiet as Evan mulls over this for a long moment, then shrugs.
“Ava and I figured as much, though you’d better tell her before she flips her lid. She’s been going around in circles with me about this,” Evan scoffs and exits the room.
Noah laughs.
“Are we all ready to go?” Noah asks.
He’s taken care of my discharge.
“Yes, let's... I need to go home,” I say.
“You’re coming home with me, you need me after a scare like that,” Noah is firm.
“You don't have to do this, you know,” I tell him on the ride.
“Tinsley,” Noah starts.
“I can't simply leave you alone, your mother is out, and I’m not going to leave you to Connor, obviously,” he states clearly, as the limo stops in front of his building.
I rest on the couch for a moment before Noah brings us both water.
“Here, put your legs up,” He offers, “I'll give you a massage,”
“Noah I'm not that pregnant,” I protest.
But I put my legs in his lap anyway, because I need him.
Noah needs to calm me down, and his hands work their magic on my feet.
They ache so much from my heels.
“Oh god, that feels good,” I moan.
He continues to knead my feet.
“I thought it would,” Noah replies with a smile.
“I could see the tension in your face, how stressed you were, and this always seemed to work for -” he stops mid-sentence.
I know what he's going to say.
Elizabeth.
“You can say her name, Noah,” I urge him.
“If you want to talk about her?” I ask.
“No, I... I caught myself there,” Noah explains.
“I haven't done that in a while, almost mentioned her I mean,” he adds.
“Is that so bad?” I ask.
“I thought with her in jail, she'd be out of my life but,” he explains.
He turns to me, his face a mixture of disbelief and anger.
“She's still the mother of my children. We'll always be attached to each other in that respect. Part of me still wants to respect her, because my life would've never been the same without them. I love my children too much, to truly hate her,” he admits.
“That sounds perfectly normal,” I comfort him.
The thought of Elizabeth and Noah always having their children to tie them together suddenly upsets me.
Tears prick my eyes immediately, and I assume it’s the hormones.
“Noah I'm sorry,” I cry.
“Hey,” He comforts me.
Without any words at all, he pulls me into a world of warmth and safety, and I can't imagine anything else.
“The merger was finalized yesterday, I heard,” Noah says once I am quiet.
It would be stupid to agree to this farce of a marriage any longer.
“It was,” I agree.
I barely spent two seconds in the wretched apartment of Connor’s, where half my things were moved against my requests.
“I can finally end it,” I say.
Noah’s face floods with relief.
“Let's go take a nap. I think that's exactly what you need,” his voice is soft, gentle.
I follow Noah into the bedroom, where we lay side by side.
What I need now, is to fall into a dreamless sleep.
I wake up a few hours later, to a sound I can't pinpoint.
“Noah wake-up, wake-up!” I scream, then I see the ceiling looks as though it's smoking.
Noah bounces right up.
“What?” he croaks, then his eyes widen at the ceiling.
“Come on; we've got to get out of here,” he tells me in a careful voice, as though any sound might trigger the ceiling to collapse.
The world is on fire.
More specifically, Noah’s penthouse.
We manage to run out of the bedroom, just as the ceiling collapses with the horrible sound of twisted metal.
The bedroom turns into an inferno, and I only have a second to feel melancholy because all around us the flames lick higher and higher into the air.
The acrid smoke chokes us both as we take the stairs two at a time.
“Cover your nose and mouth,” Noah instructs, his hand firmly in mine.
I do as he asks as he puts his hand on the back of the front door.
“It's warm,” He reports. Noah shakes his head.
“We can't get out that way,” he declares.
“Oh my god, what are we going to do!” I can’t stop the scream.
“Here,” Noah takes me the back way into the kitchen, where the smoke isn’t as thick, but flames dart out from the pantry.
The smell of smoke begins to hurt my nose, and I pull my shirt up higher over my mouth.
I can hear glass crack and break as we move through the kitchen, only to look up and see the telltale signs of the ceiling about to collapse.
We make a run for the dining room just as the crash echoes throughout Noah’s penthouse.
“Here,” Noah explains before he rips off his jacket and gives it to me.
“Cover your mouth and nose with that,” he says as he stuffs the jacket into my hands.
Noah pulls his shirt up over his nose, but he's coughing.
We need to get out of here fast.
“This door,” He opens the door that Magda usually uses, close to the emergency exit.
But then I take a pause.
Something is off.
“Noah, the fire alarm?” I ask.
“Why didn't it go off?” my worries escape.
Noah looks around and then pulls the fire alarm.
Nothing happens.
“Come on,” I plead with him.
He shakes his head,
“You're pregnant; you need to go. Pull another fire alarm; I'll be right there. I've got to find-” he’s cut off in the seconds it takes him to explain that he needs to find Evan.
A beam comes out of
nowhere and smashes down on him.
Noah is pinned against the floor as the fire crawls closer to us.
“Go pull another fire alarm! Go!” He yells at me.
But instead, I watch as he tries in vain to push the massive beam off him.
“Tinsley go!” he screams.
I start to run and pray that's not the last time I'll ever see him.
33
Noah
October 28, 2017
So, this is where it ends.
In literal flames.
The searing pain continues to rip through my body as it gets harder to breathe.
I was thrown to the ground with such force; the wind knocked out of me, I was sure that was it.
But not every breath I try to take is harder and harder.
Tinsley needs to hurry.
I don’t even have the strength to push the beam off me, and I’m sure this is where I die.
Then I hear the blessed ring of all the fire alarms in the building.
But nothing happens in my apartment.
Not a ring.
Not a sound.
None of the sprinklers let out a drop.
Someone did this to me.
Someone who wanted to hurt me.
Now they're going to hurt the woman I love in the process.
Tinsley appears within moments.
“Noah, we have to get this off of you,” She demands.
“What did you think I was doing? Laying here getting a tan?” I ask sarcastically.
She pushes at the beam, but it doesn't budge.
It's too heavy for me in this state, and too heavy for her.
“Together then,” She instructs.
We both push, but the beam doesn't budge.
She's too weak, and I'm in so much pain I can barely move.
“Tinsley, you have to go!” I tell her.
“Go get help!” I demand with a wince.
The pain seeps through my body like the fire that continues to rage.
I'll never forget this.
One second I was about to finish a sentence, the next something felt like it had torn through my body.
I could feel the world spin as I was thrust against the floor violently.
With the wind knocked out of me I could barely talk.
I can still barely talk.
I just might die here.
“Noah I can't leave you here,” She cries to me.
“You have to,” I plead.
Every word hurts my body and sends searing pains up my chest.
“Noah no, I'd rather die with you than leave you,” She sobs on the floor beside me with no shoes on.
“Tinsley, you're pregnant. You can't be here,” I reply.
Then I glance back into my penthouse, to see the flames and smoke are thicker.
“I can’t!” she cries.
“Can’t what?” Evan's voice cuts in.
He appears to be wearing 18th-century armor that was being used as decor in one of my hallways.
Or I’m hallucinating.
One or the other.
“What the hell?” Tinsley blurts out.
“Got me through the flames didn't it?” Evan's smirk is still in place.
Evan shimmies out of the armor piece by piece in record time, dropping it on the floor.
“Christ that was hot,” Evan takes a deep breath.
“Oh my god!” Tinsley starts to cry.
“Come on Tinsley, let's get this from him, we'll push from your side, and hopefully it'll roll,” Evan pays no attention to her sobs.
“Okay,” Tinsley nods through her tears.
I remain silent because of how terrible the pain is.
“One, two, three,” They say together.
The first push moves it slightly, and I howl in pain.
“Oh god, what did we do!” Tinsley screams.
“Tinsley, look at me,” Evan tells her, as calm as anything.
“This time, we're going to get the beam off him. We will. Okay. Say it with me,” Evan tells her.
“We're going to get the beam off him,” They repeat together.
I start to lose all sense of time, but the pressure in my chest suddenly releases, and I pull my arm away seconds before the beam hits the ground.
My arm was almost crushed in the process!
“Oh my god!” Tinsley cries in relief.
“Come on old man,” Evan insists.
“Let's go you out of here,” He adds.
But being pulled up is extremely painful I almost pass out.
I scream in pain.
“Tinsley get on his other side. We're going to get him out of here. The freight elevator on the next floor turns into an emergency elevator for firemen; we'll go that way,” Evan instructs.
“Okay,” Tinsley agrees.
“Hopefully someone will be there,” she adds tearfully.
“That's my guess,” Evan replies.
I can see the worry that coats my son’s face.
Every step we take brings little black spots into my line of sight from lack of oxygen until I start to stumble.
Evan holds me tighter until he’s practically holding me up.
It's like I'm tight, like something inside me isn't working properly, and by the end of the stairs, I can barely walk.
“Evan... I can't do it,” I utter.
“Come on,” Evan picks me without hesitation.
The last thing I hear is Tinsley's screams.
I think I hear her call my name.
34
Tinsley
November 1, 2017
“Are you alright?” Connor asks in a bored voice, looking down at his phone.
“I'm fine,” I retort.
“I was only in a fire, inhaled smoke, almost died, let's continue down that list,” I sneer.
“What were you doing at Noah Stone's then?” He asks.
“Deciding to divorce you,” I tell him.
I pause to see if he’s going to react.
He doesn't.
If Connor ever cried, it was probably behind closed doors with a teddy bear, rocking back and forth telling himself 'I have money, I have money, I have money.'
My impression of him hasn't changed.
“Did the bastard die at least?” Connor asks.
“Connor, this is over,” I seethe at him.
“We’ll talk about this,” he dismisses me.
Then he’s gone.
That's when I start to sob for Noah, who's been in and out of surgery.
I'm only here for observation.
The smoke inhalation didn’t hurt me, or the baby, thank god.
But Noah could die.
He could seriously lose his life, and it was all to save Evan and myself.
If I hadn't stalled those few seconds, we would've been fine.
I need a distraction, and I pick up one of the magazines the nurse dropped by.
It’s a damned tabloid with Lauren Darlington and Noah on the cover.
“Fuck you, Lauren,” I mutter.
Then I throw the magazine across the room and narrowly miss Athena.
“The doctor said you are free to go,” She announces, with a weak smile.
“What was that?” She asks quizzically.
Athena's blonde hair is in a ponytail, she's not wearing make-up, and I've never seen her in jeans before.
However, she is still as elegant as always, as she sits on my bed with her legs crossed to fill out the paperwork for me.
“How are you?” I ask.
“I'm-” she starts to speak, but her voice waivers and she bursts into tears.
They're big baby sobs that wrack her tiny frame, and I rub her back gently.
That's exactly what I want to do.
Again.
“He's my big brother; he's always been there for me! What would I do without that bastard!” Athena wails.
“Athena he's going to be fine,” I try to comfort her.
I’m not even s
ure I believe this myself.
Suddenly she grabs both my hands and drops the paperwork.
“Tinsley, I realized something. I get it now; my bother loves you! I'm sorry for all trouble I've caused you two, but I never realized how much he loves you. I didn't know that you'd changed him so much,” She apologizes, even though there's no need.
Or maybe she’s apologizing for how she acted with Lauren.
She didn't know what she was doing, however.
“You have to be together. You have to,” She continues.
“Athena... I don't know what to say,” I mumble under my breath.
“Promise me that you will find a way to be with him. No matter what it takes. Even if that baby isn't his, he needs you more than he needs money,” She tells me, taking a deep, shaky breath.
“I need to believe you two will be together if I'm ever going to find happiness myself,” she adds.
“Athena, Connor and I are going to get a divorce, the baby is your brother’s,” I tell her smoothly.
“Oh my god!” Athena cries.
Then she starts to sob again.
I rub her back until she can talk.
“Are you sure? You’re sure you want to do that?” Her words come out disjointed.
“Positive,” I promise her.
“Promise me?” Athena asks.
“I promise,” I tell her honestly.
This isn’t a lie.
Connor and I are finished.
I will not lose Noah, if he survives, because of Connor.
My father's death, in light of all of this, weighs heavily on my mind.
If only I'd gotten to talk to him, see him one last time, explain that I love him and Noah and that the loss of one of them was never an option.
However, I can't even question that my father would want what's best because it's hard to think of him in any other light.
When I was a little girl, he would always tell me that he knew what's best and that always proved to be true. He was always looking out for me.
One time we were riding out in the country and my horse was spooked by something.
It was my father's careful instruction that helped me to calm the horse down.
There was a time where I wasn't a commodity to him.
I'd like to believe now that he sees things for what they were, what he did wrong, and would want me to what's right for the baby and me, despite his company.
Denial_A Stone Billionaire Series Novel Page 18