by Kelly Favor
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!”
“Is that what you think I’m doing? Having my way?”
“Yes! You just ordered for me! When I specifically said I wasn’t going to be eating.”
“You need to eat, Charlotte,” Noah said. “You have a hectic schedule, what with working for Professor Worthington and going to school. Not to mention anything else you might get up to.” He grinned wickedly when he said this last part. “You need to keep your strength up.”
I twisted my napkin in my lap and bit the inside of my cheek to keep from screaming. How was it that he was always able to do this? Any situation, any time I had the upper hand, he was able to turn it around so that he was the one in control. Was it because deep down, I wanted him to be in control? Or was he able to do it because he was just so good at it? Was he playing me or was I letting myself be played?
My thoughts swirled and burned in my head, making me feel like I was going crazy. I felt my eyes fill with angry tears and I hated when I saw Noah notice them.
His face softened.
“I didn’t kill Katie,” he said.
“You keep saying you didn’t kill anyone,” I say. “And yet people keep ending up dead!”
“I know,” he said. “I know it doesn’t look good. But you said you trusted me.”
“That was before I found out you were fucking Katie. And that you lied to me about it?”
He frowned. “You found out what?”
“That you were having sex with Katie.”
“I wasn’t having sex with Katie.”
“I saw the emails, Noah. You gave Professor Worthington your password, remember?” I took a sip of water. “You can imagine how exciting and interesting it was, reading about how good you thought she was going to taste.”
A look of confusion clouded Noah’s face, and then he laughed. “Those emails? Charlotte, that’s what you’re upset about?” He shook his head. “Charlotte, those emails are nothing. Yes, Katie did try to start something up with me when she first started working for me. But I put a stop to it.”
“You put a stop to it by asking her how she tasted? That doesn’t sound like putting a stop to it, Noah.” I took another sip of water, hating the way I sounded. I sounded like a jealous girlfriend. The issue here wasn’t supposed to be whether or not Noah was fucking Katie. It was supposed to be whether or not he murdered her.
“I flirted with her a bit,” he said. “It was six months ago, Charlotte. And that’s as far as it got. A couple of dirty emails. If you’d kept reading the chain, you’d see that was it. It didn’t even span a week or even a few days. It was over in a couple of hours.”
I swallowed. “I’m not… you still lied.”
“You asked me if I had a relationship with her, and I said no. It was the truth.” He made a motion with his hand, like it was nothing, like he couldn’t believe I was getting so worked up over something so trivial.
“Stop doing that!” I said, pounding my hand down on the table. “Stop acting like anything I feel means nothing!”
I expected him to soften, to try and comfort me or convince me, but my words had the opposite effect. They seemed to make him angry.
“Is that what you think I’m doing, Charlotte?” he demanded. “You think I’m acting like how you feel means nothing? How do you think it makes me feel when you accuse me over and over again of lying to you? Why do you think I’m here right now, trying to convince you that I haven’t done anything wrong?”
“I think if you wanted to convince me, you could just tell me the truth.”
“I did just tell you the truth!” he said, his voice raising now. “I told you those were just some emails sent months ago, before I even knew you.”
“And the pictures of her in your file folder? How do you explain those?”
He sighed. “Those weren’t taken by me. They were taken by a private investigator who I hired to follow her.”
“And why were you following her?”
“Because I thought she was leaking information to someone on a case.”
I frowned. “I don’t understand.”
“I thought she was giving the district attorney information about a client I was representing,” he said. “And I was having her followed to see if I could catch her.”
“And was she?”
“Yes.”
“Wonderful!” I said. “Means, opportunity, and now motive.”
“I didn’t kill her.”
“Do you see how this looks to me, Noah?” I asked. “Do you see how all of this looks? You keep everything inside, you keep everything secret and hidden. I’m a logical person, and when I start looking at everything logically, there’s really no way to believe anything else.”
“So you lied to me when you said you trusted me.”
“I want to trust you, Noah, but every single thing that happens points to you being a liar and probably a killer. So how can I?”
“That’s what trust is, Charlotte. Believing someone when the evidence points otherwise.”
“Yeah, well, do you see how hard that might be for me?” I asked, throwing my hands up in the air. “Do you see how that might not be that easy? And do you see how you might be making it even harder?”
He balled up his napkin and threw it onto the table. “I’m not making this easier for you? How do you think it felt,
Charlotte, having to give my email passwords over to Worthington? How do you think it felt when Nora died? Do you think any of this has been easy for me, Charlotte? I’m doing the fucking best I can.”
His voice was laced with pain and anger, and I felt the emotions swirling around in my chest, threatening to take over the logical part of my brain, the part that was telling me I should walk out of here and never speak to him again.
“No,” I said quietly. “I don’t think this has been easy on you. I’m just trying to explain to you how I feel. And how would I have known any of that? About why you were following Katie? You don’t tell me anything, Noah. You don’t let me in.”
The waiter returned then, setting our food down in front of us. A perfectly cooked filet mignon with a skewer of shrimp drizzled with a rich lobster cream sauce. It was all expertly plated, the food arranged just so around a scoop of quinoa and kale salad. It was beautiful, and I had no appetite.
“Compliments of the owner,” the waiter said, pulling out an expensive-looking bottle of red and pouring Noah and me each a glass.
“Thank you, Graham,” Noah said, his voice even. I marveled at his ability to go from seemingly about to lose it to being calm and in control.
“See?” I pressed as soon as Graham was gone. “Do you see?”
“Do I see what, Charlotte?” He’d folded his hands in his lap, seemingly not hungry, either.
“Do you see how hard it becomes to believe you? You were just about to get upset, and then the waiter comes in and you’re somehow able to tamp that down, like it’s nothing.”
“And you think this makes me a killer?”
“I think it makes you a person who’s able to turn their emotions on and off.”
“And this makes me a bad person?”
“Stop trying to talk to me like a lawyer!” I said, balling my fists up in my lap and struggling to keep control of my emotions. I took a sip of the wine Graham had set in front of me, hoping it might take the edge off my nerves. It was smooth and crisp going down, and I took another big gulp, letting the alcohol warm me as it moved down my throat.
“Then stop interrogating me like one,” he said. He sighed and leaned forward. “Look, did you ever stop to think that maybe the fact that I’m able to hide my emotions isn’t some deep character flaw or personality disorder? That maybe it’s something I’ve had to learn to do to survive?”