My heart froze when she hesitated. But it was only a second or two, and then she was racing up to me, throwing herself into my arms. Her hair and sweatshirt were wet from the rain, and cold pressed up against my skin, but it didn’t stop me from lifting her off her feet and holding her as tightly as I could as she buried her face against the crook of my neck. Warmth and sweet relief rolled down my body and suddenly my aches and fears became a distant memory.
“I can’t believe how much I missed you,” she said into my skin.
I inhaled deeply, my nerves instantly soothed by her words. “Fuck, I missed you too, sugar. I missed your smell.”
She pulled back from my neck and took my face in her hands. Her kiss was sweet and powerful, a message without words. I bent my forehead against hers when it was over.
We stood there holding each other and listening to the river until I finally lowered her feet to the ground. She kept her body against mine as I stroked her hair from her face.
“Noah, I have to talk to you about something, and I have to do it before I lose my nerve.” Laurel looked up in my face with a determined brightness in her eyes, shifting from foot to foot like she was standing on hot coals. She grasped at my jacket almost unconsciously.
“You can talk to me about anything,” I said, cupping her cheek in my hand. “What is it?”
Laurel lowered her gaze for just a moment and took a few deep breaths. Then she met my eyes again. “I have something for you.” From out of her pocket came her hand, and in it was a small, black, plastic rectangle. The lid of the USB drive had been secured with bright red tape. When I didn’t react, she lifted one of my big hands in her tiny ones and placed it in my palm, then closed my fingers over it tightly.
“What is this?” I asked.
“It’s your proof,” said Laurel, blinking up at me through the light rain.
“It’s… what?” My words came out in one great exhale.
“I found your proof, Noah. Proof about the knife, it’s on that drive. It’s a video. It proves you acted in defense of Quinn. You… you don’t have to go to prison,” she said. Her words came in short spurts, like she was holding back tears.
The closed fist holding the drive trembled. Was this possible? Laurel—could she have saved me?
My knees felt weak. I gripped onto her shoulder. Suddenly everything felt far-away and dreamlike, and for half a second I expected to wake up. “Laurel, what… I don’t understand….is this real?”
“It’s real,” she said, but something fearful was in her teary smile. “It’s real, Noah, all you have to do is show the DA and this will be over. This is where I had to go, and what I’ve been working on. I’ve been hunting this down.”
Confusion coursed through my mind. So many questions tried to force their way out of my mouth. “I can’t even… this can’t be real. What do you mean, you’ve been hunting this down? Why?”
“Noah,” said Laurel. Tears had begun to run down her cheeks. She put both hands on my shoulders to make sure I was looking at her. “Noah, I have to tell you something else, please. Just hear me out, okay?”
I was already too stunned to respond.
“I found the proof because I was looking for it, Noah. I’m not…” She looked down at her feet and cursed under her breath. “Noah, I’m a journalist. I’m a writer for Slipstream.”
The sound of the river got louder in my ears. I could feel the closed fist over the hard drive getting clammy.
“When I said I was here for my job, it was true. I came here to find you—to find out what happened at the festival. I came here for a story. But… but something happened…” Her eyes darted around. “I came here to find out why that man died. I expected you were just going to be some asshole guy who finally lost touch with reality, but… that’s not… that’s not what you are. That’s never been who you are.”
Now the sound of the river was competing with the pounding of my own heart. Embarrassment and rage started to bubble up under the skin at my neck, flushing my face with heat. I had to close my eyes; I had to look away from Laurel. “So you… This was all a trick?”
“No,” she said firmly. “This was not a fucking trick, Noah. None of this was a trick.”
“But you didn’t come here to find me because you gave a shit about me. You came here to find me to use me for your story,” I said, pieces coming together in my mind. “Everything you did was just… was just to get close to me?” Tears stung my eyes and blurred the river rocks at my feet into a mess of gray-black splotches.
“Noah, I never lied to you about who I am. None of the stories we shared, none of the memories I told you or the things I shared about myself, were a lie. The only thing I kept from you was what my job was.” She rubbed her face. “I know that doesn’t make it better. I don’t fucking deserve your forgiveness. You are the realest man I’ve ever met in my life, and you have to know that the Laurel you’ve seen is really me, even if I’m just another bullshit poser on your list. I deserve to be there.”
My heart was screaming at me, cursing, calling me a fool. Of course Laurel didn’t give a shit about me. Of course the only single positive thing in my pathetic fucking life was an enormous joke, another thing that pretended to be real but wasn’t.
When I finally found the strength to look up at her, Laurel’s face was a mask of pain and shame, her eyes wide, waiting for me to seal her fate.
“I can’t believe you did this to me,” I said. A tear trailed down my face, disappearing into my beard.
Laurel dropped her gaze and cried a little, then looked back up at me. “I know. I’m sorry. But I’m not going to do this to you… not anymore.” She gestured limply toward my clenched fist that held the hard drive.
I frowned at it, and then back at her. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
She waved again at my fist. “I’m not writing my story. That video is yours to save yourself. I’m going to tell my editors I couldn’t find anything, and you’re going to release this for yourself on your terms. No one will know I was here. You’ll be safe. So will Kevin and the club.” She licked her lips and looked at the river, then back at me. “I didn’t expect this to happen, Noah. I didn’t expect to find… you. And I’m not going to betray you like everyone else.” A pause. “Nothing would ever make me.”
Part of the panic in my mind died, hearing her words. “Is that right? Miss Ambition, and you expect me to believe you’re giving up this career move for me?”
Laurel nodded. “I promise,” she said. “No one else has anything, and they never will. I’ll leave town, and you can forget that any of this ever happened…” Her voice trailed off at the end of her sentence, too overcome to finish.
Seeing her standing there, cold and crying, it amazed me how strong the urge still was to take her in my arms and make it all go away. I never wanted to see Laurel like this. But her confession changed everything. What moments were real, now? Had she faked our passion, our connection? Did she really show me her true self with those stories from her younger days, or did she research those, too?
Yet part of my heart, it couldn’t keep the bitterness alive, and laughed at me that I knew the truth—I knew the Laurel that I had held in my arms, and in my bed, was really her.
But that didn’t mean I could forgive her for this. She was the last ray of sunshine in my world, and now she was dashed against the cold dark of the storm clouds like everything else.
Suddenly the rage was just too much to take. I looked at Laurel for a few moments, watching her eyes as they begged me silently to answer her. But I didn’t. I whirled without a word and stalked up the beachfront until I was in my truck.
As soon as it roared to life, I took off for the highway, leaving Laurel behind me.
Chapter 18
Laurel
After Noah left me on the beach, I spent two days in the hotel bed, only getting up to answer the door for room service or make use of the facilities. I slept so hard the first day, I didn’t bother to plug in my ph
one. When it finally came back to life on the second, there was a giant list of messages from Steve, demanding I explain the e-mail I had sent him before I met with Noah. The messages grew less angry and more worried as the hours had passed, until finally the last one said, Do not kill yourself in a tacky Seattle hotel. That’s so grunge and you’re better than that.
I texted him to tell him I was fine, but to leave me alone another day. After making damn sure I didn’t have a single text or missed call from Noah—which, of course, I didn’t—I shut the phone off again and left it ignored on the bedside table.
Hours passed blankly as I stared at the TV, barely even caring enough to change the channel when something shit came on the air. The only thing I cared to see was news that Noah had released the video and that everything would be okay for him. It was the only good thing that was going to come out of this garbage fire of a life decision I had made.
I fell in and out of sleep, and picked at the room service food when I got hungry. The minibar was toast. I was determined to spend every last dime cleared by the magazine for my expense account before they fired me for losing this story.
My dreams were of Noah. I could smell him on the beach as clear as day. I could feel the firm contours of his muscles under the palm of my hands, and his soft lips on mine.
After two days of depressed wallowing, I found the strength to drag myself to the shower and clean up the hotel room. On my invitation, Steve met me downstairs in the hotel lobby for breakfast at the complimentary buffet. We grabbed a table in the corner, away from the smattering of tourist families and old timers traveling cross-country who got up with the sun.
Steve looked more worried than mad as he shook salt and pepper over his eggs and said my name with a sigh. “Are you all right? You look like hell.”
“I’ll live,” I said, even though I felt exactly the opposite of that. “But you wanted to talk about the email, so let’s talk.”
“Let’s talk about what’s going on with you, first. What the hell?”
“Look, you were right,” I said, leaning back in my chair. I couldn’t look at him as I shook my head. “You were right. I was… I am in love with Noah. I fucked up and I got too close.”
The snarky reply I braced for didn’t come. Steve only watched me with curious, sort of sad eyes. “I was just trying to give you shit. I didn’t mean to make you feel ashamed for having feelings for someone.”
Raising a hand, I said, “It’s not that. I just want you to understand why I did what I did with the video. Yes, it was a huge loss for both of us and our careers. I know that, and I’m sorry. I don’t have any excuse for it.” I shrugged and poked at the food on my plate with my fork. “The moment came and I couldn’t do it to him. Even if it was going to save him at the same time, I couldn’t also exploit him… couldn’t unearth and give to the public everything he’s tried to keep for himself, just so I could make some tiny gain in my bullshit career.”
Disappointment was apparent on Steve’s expression, but so was something else. His mouth pursed in the corner and he put down his fork. He reached a hand across the table and held it out until I took it. “He didn’t take it well when you blew your cover, did he?”
I shook my head. Steve’s image began to blur in my eyes. “No. Not that he should have.”
Steve squeezed my hand. I used my other to fumble for a napkin and wipe my eyes.
“I just wish you had come to me before you did this, that’s all. I thought we were in this together. Maybe together we could have found another way.”
“I know,” I said. “I’m sorry. It is on the long list of unprofessional behavior that is probably going to end my career once we get home.”
“You’re just human,” said Steve as he squeezed my hand once more and released it. “And even if we didn’t get the scoop, you did save an innocent guy from getting sent to prison. That’s a good day for any journalist, Laurel.”
I guess he wasn’t wrong there. I would always hold that action close to my heart as one to be proud of. “Can you forgive me?”
“Yes, but only because you’re going to owe me a massive, Godfather-sized favor in the future. I’m talking, like, disposing-of-a-body massive.”
I wasn’t joking when I said, “Deal, Steve. Anything.”
“And, of course, you have to be the one to call Domino.”
I sighed and stared at the waffles on my plate that were slowly getting cold. “Yeah, I know. Let me have my goddamn breakfast first so I can have something to throw up afterwards.”
“I don’t understand. When I talked to Steve a few days ago, he said you were both onto something… and I quote, ‘bombshell as fuck.’ Was Steve just blowing his load too early?”
My editor, Domino Baptiste, was a beautiful woman from the West Indies who worked her way up through the East Coast punk scene during a time when both women and black people were not nearly as welcome. There was no fucking with her. Not that I’d want to—I respected Domino and used her as a template for what I wanted to become. But I had failed that template, and myself. I didn’t realize until I heard her voice over the line how deeply it was going to cut me to disappoint her.
This was all a fancy way of saying I couldn’t keep my tears in my eyes as I told her I didn’t have the story I had promised her. My voice stayed even though sheer determination, so maybe she couldn’t hear my pathetic crying, but it was happening regardless.
“No,” I said. “No, this isn’t on Steve, he was only following the information I got. This isn’t his fault.”
“So this is your fault? What happened, Laurel? The fire under your ass in your pitch meeting wasn’t a lie. You were hungry for this.”
“I was. And please believe me when I say I did everything I possibly could to get to that information I needed. But it was just… beyond me.”
Domino hummed into the phone, a sound she made when she wasn’t buying what I was selling. “Nothing’s beyond you, Laurel. The Tusk story was a disaster, but it wasn’t because you lack ability; it was because you didn’t use your abilities properly. Is that what’s happening here?”
I didn’t know what to tell her. Already confessing the truth to Steve had drained me. How could I tell my mentor why I failed? “I don’t know, Domino. I just know this story isn’t… it’s not happening like I thought. And I’m sorry. I fucked this up.”
“And you’re sure you can’t find any way to salvage it? The mag will pay for more time out there, if that’s what it takes.”
“No,” I said immediately, shutting my eyes as I did. “No, this can’t be salvaged.”
Domino was quiet for a moment. She had to have known there was something I wasn’t telling her. “We’ll talk about all this when you get back into town. How long do you need to wrap things up there?”
I need to stay forever, said one part of me. I want to be teleported out of here immediately, said the other. The idea of having even just one extra day to try and get in contact with Noah and soothe the deep pain in my heart was intoxicating, but fortunately, I was at least mature enough to recognize what a mistake that would be. Noah had made it very clear at the beach how he felt, and hadn’t contacted me since. I was the invading force, here—the conquistador who came to pillage for my own benefit. I had no right to demand his response. And I loved him too much to disrespect him that way.
It was over. The white flags had to be raised.
“I can be ready to fly home tonight.”
Chapter 19
Noah
This would be the last time I sat around this conference table—or any table—with these men, and I knew that now in my heart. On the far side, away from Quinn and I, sat the three I had thought were my brothers. Or in the case of Duke, at least an ally with a mutual goal I could count on to protect the band when things got dark.
But I was wrong about all of them. And now they would pay for it.
Gavin stood at the head of the table near the windows. The day outside was fitting for my mood: c
ompletely gray-black with swirling violent skies keeping out the light. As Gavin fumbled with the TV display and the DVD I had given him, I watched the skies churn and ignored everyone in the room. Unlike previous meetings, the feeling of having Duke so close just slid by me like water off a duck’s back now. This was over, and I had the victory. He didn’t have any power over me anymore.
The pain in my heart came from a different place now. The spot that held my band was beginning its mourning period, something it was well practiced at, even if this one would be the toughest. But the deep, bright place that Laurel had burrowed into didn’t have the same kind of experience with darkness, and every beat sent fresh waves of ache through my muscles. And that pain was greater than anything Duke could have ever done to me.
Billionaire's Bombshell Page 57