by Lia Lee
After Noah’s phone call where he told me we were being followed, I started to panic. He told me that it would be okay, and every time he said that before, he had been right. There was no reason for me not to trust him now. But my tires had been slashed the last time I had been to his house, and now a red car was following us. Everything felt wrong.
When I realized we had lost the red car, Noah drove home, and I followed him. We parked next to each other and heclimbed out, coming to my door. He opened it for me and helped me out even though it would be months before I needed this kind of attention.
“What was that all about?” I asked.
Noah shook his head. “I don’t know, but we’ve been getting a lot of attention lately, and there are some psychos out there. But we’re okay now.”
I nodded and let him lead me into the house. Noah made us tea. I couldn’t stomach fluid without throwing up, but I could handle tea and coffee. When we walked into the living room, I looked out of the window. I noticed the red car in front of the gate. Fear grabbed hold of me, and I struggled to breathe.
“Noah,” I said in a hoarse voice. “The red car is here.”
“I can’t believe this,” Noah said. As we stood by the window and watched, Nicole stepped out of the red car with a bag over her shoulder. She opened the bag and retrieved a small round object that she threw toward the cars. It hit with a crack, and I realized she was throwing eggs.
“What the hell?” I exclaimed.
“I should have known,” Noah said when he saw her. “Let me handle this.”
Noah walked to the front door. I stayed behind as he walked up the driveway toward Nicole. She was still throwing the eggs, ignoring Noah.
When hereached to her, she finally stopped and turned to him. I couldn’t tell what they were saying at first. Noah was talking in a calm voice to her. But she shook her head, waving her hand toward my car. Noah crossed his arms, defensively.
“You can’t keep doing this,” Noah said, his voice raising enough for me to understand what he was saying.
“Like hell, I can’t,” Nicole said. “You can’t treat people this way. You can’t just take what you need and walk away.”
Noah shook his head. “That’s not what happened, and you know it. Get out of here before I call the police.”
Nicole was furious, now. It was clear in how much she was shouting, in her stance and the way she jabbed at finger at Noah whenever she spoke.
“This is not the end of it,” she sneered.
Noah said something I didn’t catch. She turned around and picked up a rock, hurling it at my car. It smashed the back window with a crack. I pressed my hands to my mouth. I couldn’t believe this was happening.
“That’s it,” Noah said, pulling his phone out of his pocket.
“You’re a filthy whore!” Nicole shouted toward the house before she jumped into her car and tore out of the driveway. Noah pressed the phone against his ear, talking into it as he walked back to the house. By the time he reached me, he had called the cops and he was fuming.
“Are you okay?” I asked when he was inside.
“She’s crazy,” he said. I could see how angry he was. “She’s lost it completely. I’m so sorry about that.”
I shook my head. “It’s not your fault.”
“No, but I’m still sorry you saw that. And your car window. I’m so embarrassed.”
I shook my head again. “At least Lilly wasn’t here to witness that.”
“Thank God,” Noah said. “I don’t want her to see that people can be like this, and I don’t want her to recognize Nicole as someone she knew, once.”
I nodded, not sure how to respond to that. I understood where Noah was coming from, but there was nothing I could say. Nicole had called me a whore. I knew I wasn’t one, I didn’t sleep around or anything, but I was pregnant and hormonal, emotional after the rough two weeks I’d had, and it had cut me nonetheless.
The police arrived a few minutes later, sirens wailing as if it could change anything. A squad car pulled up with two officers, and Noah explained to them what happened. He had security cameras everywhere, which I hadn’t noticed, and after he gave his statement, and I gave mine, Noah took them to the security room for them to see the video of what Nicole had done.
When they were done watching the video, Noah and I stood with the officers.
“It’s vandalism, that’s for sure,” he said, scribbling in his notebook. “And harassment. It’s hardly jail time but we have the footage, your statements, and a license plate. We’ll be in contact with her and give her a fine and a warning. If anything happens, let us know. The more complaints I get, the better our prospects become for a restraining order.”
A restraining order sounded like exactly what we needed. I couldn’t deal with someone like Nicole slashing my tires and throwing rocks at my windows. I had so much I needed to deal with already.
When the police finally left, I sat on the couch in the living room. The tea we had made was cold by now, sitting on the coffee table in front of us.
“I don’t know if I can do this,” I said to Noah after we had sat in silence for a while. I wasn’t only shaken up by what had happened, I was scared. What if this kept happening? What if Nicole did something more drastic?
“The police are looking out for her, now,” Noah said when I raised concerns.
I shook my head. “How long will it take before they can do something? She needs to do more before they can get a restraining order against her, but I don’t think I can handle more. This thing we have. I don’t know how to handle it.”
“We’ll be okay,” Noah said.
I rolled my eyes. “Will you stop saying that? It’s not okay. This isn’t fixed. You have a stalker that is on my case now, and I’m scared she’s going to do something to me. What happens next time I come over? Or we’re out together and Lilly is with us? What do we do then?”
Noah nodded. “I know it looks bad.”
“It looks horrible. I can’t be with someone that has this following them around.”
Noah’s face fell. “What are you saying?”
I took a deep breath, shaking my head. “I don’t know what I’m saying. Maybe I should go home.”
Noah nodded, looking somber. “I’ll call you an Uber,” he said. It was the second time I’d had to Uber home because Nicole had done something to my car. It was two times too many, and I couldn’t live like this. All the way home I wondered if it would be for the best if I stayed away from Noah.
When Iarrived home, my apartment door was ajar. I frowned. I had locked it before leaving the house earlier. I knew I had. I’d checked it. But it was open, now.
I pushed open the door slowly and cried out.
My apartment had been ransacked. Everything was turned over, the contents of drawers spilled onto the floors, curtains ripped down from the windows. Even the contents of my fridge had been pulled out.
I backed out of the apartment and dialed the police with trembling fingers. After I reported it and was told a squad car was on its way, I called Noah and told him what had happened, too.
“I’ll be right there,” he said but I stopped him.
“Don’t,” I said. “Please, don’t come.”
He sounded dejected, but I couldn’t deal with this. This was Nicole. I knew it was. There was no proof – I didn’t have security tapes like Noah had – but I knew it was her. It was since the press had caught wind of our relationship that everything had started going wrong.
“We meet again,” the officer said when he arrived and it was the same officer that had come to Noah’s place.
“It looks like it,” I said.
When I gave him my statement, and he took photos of the house, he sighed.
“If we can find anything proving that it was her, anything at all, she’ll do jail time for breaking and entering at the very least. And we can get a restraining order, too. But until we can be sure it was her, we have to go through the process. You mig
ht want to consider somewhere else to spend the night.”
I nodded. I didn’t want to stay here if she knew where I lived. But I didn’t want to go to Noah, either. It only pissed Nicole off more, and I’d had enough of Noah for now. I had to clear my mind and figure out what I was going to do.
So, I dialed the only other person that I knew would be there for me no matter what.
“Beth?” I said when she answered. “I need a place to stay for the night.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
Noah
I gave her the new office and the promotion. God knows she deserved it after everything she had done for the company. Even though I had said to her that it would take time to happen while the press died down, I wanted her to have it as soon as possible.
I figured now that we had gone official as a couple at the press release, it wouldn’t look like I was promoting her only to save face to keep the public from interpreting our relationship as a sleazy affair with my secretary.
Even though Elena had deserved every inch of the new office I’d given her, and she had the qualifications for the position as well – she was perfect for the job – I also promoted her because I felt terrible. She had to deal with Nicole. It was unfair that my past was interfering with our relationship. I felt like I owed her one.
I wasn’t trying to buy her with the promotion, but I didn’t know how else to make it up to her. Giving her the new position was the one way I knew how to show Elena and the world that I didn’t care about what they thought and said about me in the papers. I cared about Elena and our relationship.
That was a noble cause, right?
Elena’s office wasn’t very far from mine. I had chosen the location because of the view of the city and that it was around the corner from mine. Not that it meant anything. Elena hadn’t spoken to me since her car window had been smashed in and her house had been ransacked.
I guess I couldn’t blame her for being upset. The last thing she needed right now, with the baby and all, was someone stalking us and making life hell for her. Nicole had overstepped the line by breaking into her apartment, and the police were still on the lookout for her. But it wasn’t my fault, and I felt like I was being punished for it. I wanted to pick up the phone and call her extension. I wanted to hear her voice, to hear that she was alright. But I wasn’t going to push it. If anyone understood how tedious it could be when someone didn’t leave you alone when you wanted nothing more, it was me. Our situation wasn’t the same as my situation with Nicole, but I still didn’t want to force Elena to talk to me when she didn’t want to.
I wanted her to come to me on her own. Which was something I wasn’t sure was going to happen anytime soon. She had been so upset when she’d called me to tell me what had happened at her place. I’d wanted to go to her, but she’d said no, and now she was staying with a friend. I didn’t know where her friend lived, and I didn’t want to impose. So, I had to wait until Elena was finally ready to talk to me.
And the wait was killing me.
I was worried that this meant it was the end of our relationship. It was so soon after we had come out to the press with it. We could be in love without having to hide anything. Now this situation was turning out all wrong. I didn’t want to lose Elena. She was an amazing person to be with and not only because she had a hot body and was unbelievable in bed. She had a beautiful mind and a kind and gentle personality. Everything about her was pleasant to be around.
And she was so good with Lillian. It was rare to find someone that Lilly was comfortable around. Someone who was so good with her when my baby girl was shy around most people. The fact that I liked Elena and my child did as well was something that I knew I wouldn’t find again in a million years.
And it had only been a few short months that she’d been with me in the office. I had fallen for her so hard in such a short time, but somehow it felt like we’d been together for years. I felt like I knew everything about her even though we hardly knew each other. It was what it should be like, what real love and fate felt like. I was sure of it. I hadn’t had it with Cheryl because I hadn’t known what to look for, but now that I knew, I wouldn’t be satisfied with anything less, ever again.
Not to mention that she was carrying my child. When Cheryl had left, I hadn’t dared to think about having more children. I was already raising a daughter on my own. To bring more children into a world that was deceiving and painful seemed like a bad idea. But everything had changed when I’d met Elena, and now that she was pregnant with my child, it felt like the light had come on in my life.
There was hope for a bright future again. At least, there had been before Nicole had gone and ruined everything for me.
I was driving myself crazy thinking about Elena, aching that I couldn’t see her. I couldn’t stand it anymore. I picked up the phone and dialed her extension.
“Please come to my office,” I said. I sounded angry, I knew, but I was freaking out.
Elena knocked on my door a short while later. She stepped in and closed the door behind her without me having to ask her.
“How is the search for a new secretary going?” she asked.
I hadn’t even thought about replacing her yet. “I’ll get there,” I said.
Elena nodded, and an awkward silence stretched between us.
“What’s going on?” I asked, finally breaking the silence. “Why are you avoiding me at all costs?”
Elena’s face was carefully blank, her stance betraying nothing that she might be feeling. She was so switched off and distant. It hurt. We were only a few feet away from each other, but it felt like there was an ocean between us that I couldn’t cross it.
She took a deep breath. “I can’t do this,” she said.
“Do what?” I asked. I wanted her to put it into words so there was no misunderstanding. Was she wasn’t talking about the silence between us? I thought she meant our relationship.
“Us,” she said.
My heart dropped to my shoes.
“Elena, don’t do this,” I said, but she shook her head.
“I’m sorry, Noah. I can’t do a relationship when this is already happening so soon into the game. I’m not equipped to handle this thing with Nicole, and I have to look out for myself more than ever, now.”
I shook my head back and forth as if I could negate what she was saying if I willed it hard enough.
“What about the baby?” I asked. Surely, we had an obligation to be together for the baby’s sake? I couldn’t have my one child grow up without a mother and the other without a father. Or worse, lose the baby altogether.
“I’m going to keep the baby,” Elena said, and I let out a breath of relief. “And we can work out custody. But I can’t be with you.” Tears rolled over her cheeks. Her expression was still blank. There was no wailing or contorted facial expressions, no excessive sobbing. She stood before me with a straight face and tears streaming down her cheeks.
“Don’t do this,” I said again. “Please, Elena. Let’s work it out.”
She shook her head. “I’m sorry, Noah. I can’t. I can’t live a life where I feel like I have to look over my shoulder all the time. I can’t be with you when this is what’s going to happen. I’m going to be a mom soon, and I must look after myself.”
Istood and walked around the desk. I wanted to wrap my arms around her and pull her against me. I wanted to keep her safe from the world that had somehow turned against her. But when I came closer to her, she shook her head and took a step back. The rejection wedged itself between my ribs like a knife.
“I’m sorry, Noah,” Elena said. She wiped her cheeks, and it was like she hadn’t cried at all. She touched her eyelids with her fingertip sand inspected them for mascara before she swallowed hard and looked me in the eye one more time before turning around. She opened the door and left my office, closing the door behind her.
I shook my head. I couldn’t believe what was happening. We had broken up. I had believed I’d found true love, and n
ow, I had lost it again. I had let her walk out of my office without fighting for her, without grabbing her hand and telling her how much I loved her.
But she hadn’t wanted me to touch her, and I wouldn’t get into her personal space if that’s what she wanted.
I sighed heavily and walked back to my desk. I sat down and stared at the paperwork that I didn’t have the energy to take care of anymore. I had lost Elena, and nothing else would fill the gap that had opened inside me.
Elena loved me. I knew she did. But this wasn’t only about love. It was much bigger than that. So I couldn’t blame her for the choices she made, for how she wanted to handle the situation. I couldn’t stop her from trying to look after herself.
But I needed to change what had happened. I needed to prove to her how much she meant to me and that I could keep her safe. What she needed was a grand romantic gesture and some time away from all the attention. Where no one could find us so she could think about how she felt about me without anyone or anything interfering.
So, I would make that happen for her. I could do something drastic if it meant I could win back the girl of my dreams.
I picked up the phone and dialed Doug’s extension.
“Can you handle things around the office for a couple of days while I’m away?” I asked him.
“You’ve scheduled the investor’s meeting for Friday. I can’t handle that,” he said.
“I’ll be back before then. I need someone to take care of business until then. Let’s say Thursday at the latest.”
Doug hesitated. “I guess it won’t be a problem. But if you keep expecting these favors from me, I need a raise, man.”
I chuckled. A raise was the least of my problems right now. “You got it,” I said. “As soon as the profits after the launch are enough to do something about it, you’ve got your raise.”