What He Believes (5 page)

Noah sat me down
on the couch, pulled the cashmere blanket that was thrown over the back down
over me, then pulled my legs up onto his lap and handed me the glass of wine.

“First impression?”
he asked.

“She’s guilty.”

He looked at me,
his eyebrows raised.

“What?” I
asked.
 
“You’re surprised?”

“Slightly.”

“By what?”

“Your conviction.”

“You think she’s
innocent?”

“I don’t know what
I think.”

“But you think
there’s a chance she’s telling the truth.”

“Yes.”

“That she forgot
what she did with the knife?”
 
I
took a sip of my wine, letting the bitter liquid warm my body.
 
I took another sip right away.
 
My body felt tense, wired, and I wanted
to something to blur my edges.

“People do crazy
things when they’re in state of stress, Charlotte.”

“Yes, but this is
a whole other level of crazy, wouldn’t you agree?”

Noah shrugged,
took a long pull of his drink,
then
set it down on the
coffee table before reaching under the blanket and grabbing my foot.
 
He began massaging the arch softly, his
fingers kneading into my flesh.

It was like a
chain reaction.
 
My feet relaxed,
then my ankles, then my legs, my thighs,
my
stomach.
 
The wine combined with the
soft touch of my
fiancé’s
 
hands
caused the tension to flow
from my body.

I settled deeper
into the couch, letting my head fall against one of the burnt orange throw
pillows that were strewn about Noah’s couch.

“I think things
aren’t always what they seem,” Noah said.

“If it were a forty-year-old
man,” I said, “A huge six-foot-two, forty-year-old man accused of slitting the
throat of his eighteen-year-old girlfriend, who then said he couldn’t remember
what he’d done with the knife, would you feel the same way?”

“Why are you
asking me that question?”

“Because we’re
supposed to be blind to color, age, sex.”

“No.”
 
Noah shook his head.
 
“Juries are supposed to be blind to
those things.
 
As lawyers, we need
to take every variable into account.”

I tilted my head,
thinking.
 
His hands were still
moving over the arch of my foot, strong and safe.

“Admit her story
is a little insane,” I pressed.
 

“So was mine.”

“What?” I asked,
startled.
 
I took my head off the
pillow and propped myself up on my elbows.
 

“The murder
charges,” he said.
 
“All the
evidence pointed to me being guilty.”

“True,” I
allowed.
 
“But there’s a difference
between evidence making something look probable, and someone having a story
that just makes no sense.”

“Is there?”

“Of course!
 
You weren’t intentionally saying you
didn’t remember things, you didn’t admit you’d killed someone and had no idea
where the murder weapon was.”

“No.
 
But I wasn’t helping my case any.
 
It was just in a different way.”
 
His face softened, and he got a far away
look in his eyes.
 
“That girl, she’s
in a horrible situation.
 
She has no
one.
 
No family.
 
No money.”

“How do you know
she has no family?”

“You didn’t see
anyone rushing down there to be with her, did you?”

I shook my
head.
 
His hand was still on my
foot, but he’d stopped massaging me.

“She’s alone.
 
I had as much money as I wanted, as much
influence as anyone in the city.
 
That girl has nothing.
 
She’s
in the same situation as I was, and she’s all alone.”

My breath caught
in my chest.
 
I didn’t like the way
he was talking about Lilah, as if the two of them had something in common.
 
They couldn’t have been more
different.
 
Lilah had admitted she’d
killed someone.
 
Noah hadn’t done
anything wrong.
 
Not one thing.
 
He was nothing like Lilah.

Was Noah so convinced
that Lilah could be innocent because she was beautiful and vulnerable?
 
Noah’s instinct to protect, to control,
was the strongest thing about him, the thing that drove him.

Was that why he
was so determined to think that she was innocent?
 
Because he wanted to
protect her?

And then another
through entered my mind, cutting through my soul like a knife.
 
Was that why he’d taken me in that alley
just now?
  
Had he gotten so
turned on thinking about Lilah, about protecting
her, that
he’d needed to take it out on me?

Resist me.

Was he trying to
recreate what had happened with Lilah, how she’d said her boyfriend had tried
to force himself on her?
 
It seemed
completely fucked up.
 
But it made a
certain kind of sense.

I hesitated, not
sure if I should ask him about it.

But before I
could, there was a vibrating sensation against my foot.
 
Noah’s phone.
 
And then that now
familiar, annoying chirping.
 
“You have an important call from… Clementine.”

“She’s probably
calling to see how it went,” he said, standing up and walking out of the room.

I
laid
back down, trying to fight the waves of jealousy that
were burning inside of me.
 
Why was
I so jealous anyway?
 
Noah had never
given me any reason to doubt him.

He had been
nothing but clear to me about his intentions.
 
He’d just asked me to marry him for
God’s sakes, right in the middle of Times Square, in front of everyone.
 
It was the most romantic thing I could
have ever imagined happening to me.
 
No, it was
beyond
anything I could have imagined.
 
 

So then why did I
suddenly feel so insecure?
 

Was it because of
my own self-esteem issues?

 
I’d never been the type to be jealous of
other girls because they were thinner or prettier than I was.

Of course, I’d had
flashes of envy if I’d seen someone wearing a dress that looked insane on them,
or when I’d flip through a magazine and see celebrities with their perfectly
toned bodies and perfect white smiles, even though I knew most of it was fake,
a trick of air brushing and plastic surgery.

I’d been envious
of girls who were thin enough to wear tight shorts or crop tops, girls who
never felt self-conscious in a bikini.

But I’d also known
that love was about more than what someone looked like, that people cheated not
because of their spouse or partner’s physical imperfections, but because they
weren’t getting something from them that they needed, or because they had a
flaw in their character.

Noah had no flaws
in his character.

But he was
damaged, in ways that hadn’t even begun to be revealed to me.

And I would always
be worried about being enough for him, because those girls in the magazines
might have been
fake
, but Noah wasn’t.
 
He was gorgeous and beautiful and just
as attractive as any man you’d seen on the cover of GQ or Men’s Health.

I hated that I was
jealous, hated thinking that those feelings could contribute to me not being
able to have a clear head about this case.

It was disturbing
to think that my personal feelings might be interfering with my professional
life.

And then I almost
laughed out loud, thinking about how Noah had started out as a client accused
of murder and how I’d gotten romantically involved with him anyway.

I pondered all of
this in my mind, wondering if I was destined to be a bad lawyer who couldn’t
keep her emotions in check.
 
I was
sliding down a black hole of self-doubt when Noah returned to the living room.

“Clementine was
just checking in,” he said.

“What did you tell
her?”

“That we hadn’t
found out much.
 
That Lilah was
being treated at the hospital and we’d know more in the morning.”

I nodded.
 

“Come on,” he
said, reaching his hand out.
 
“Let’s
go to bed.”

I shook my
head.
 
“I’m not tired.”

“Charlotte, you
need to sleep.
 
You need to take
care of yourself.
 
If things get
crazy with this case, you will need to be well-rested.”

“No,” I said, and
shook my head.
 
“I’m going to do
some reading.
 
I need to go down to
school tomorrow and explain to all my professors why I’ve been out for two
weeks and beg for their understanding.”

“Your professors
already know why you’ve been out for two weeks,” Noah said.
 
And then he bent down and slid his arms
under my knees, picking me up off the couch in one smooth movement.
 

I buried my face
in his shoulder.

“Noah!” I
squealed.

“What?” he asked
playfully.
 
“You know what happens
when you disobey me.”

“What happens?” I
teased.

“I get my way
anyway.”

He carried me down
the hall to the bedroom and into the master bathroom, where I was surprised and
delighted to find he’d drawn me a bubble bath.
 
The room smelled of lavender and
vanilla, and tea candles flickered softly around the Jacuzzi tub.

Noah set me down
on the floor,
then
undressed me slowly and sensually
until I was naked before him.

He gazed at me,
pushing my hair off my shoulders and shaking his head.
 
“God, you are so fucking beautiful,” he
breathed.

I blushed and felt
myself instinctually start to cover myself.
 

But before I
could, he reached down and picked me up again, then set me down in the bath.

“I want you to
stay in here for at least thirty minutes.
 
Do you understand?”

I nodded as I
slipped into the scented water.
 
The
warmth of the bath combined with the wine combined with Noah’s voice soothed my
muscles and calmed my thoughts.
 
He
dimmed the lights as he left the room, leaving me in complete bliss.

I soaked until my
fingers were
pruney
,
then
pulled myself from the water.

I dried myself
with the towel Noah had laid out for me,
then
wrapped
myself in the luxurious cashmere robe he’d also left.
 
My wrists stung as they brushed against
the fabric, and I pulled the sleeve up to inspect my skin.

“Jesus,” I breathed.
 
My wrists were
rawer
than they’d ever been, the skin broken and bright red.
 
That same feeling of weirdness bloomed
inside of me.
 
Was it just another
sexual fantasy we’d acted out in that hallway?
 
Or was it something more?

I picked my
clothes up from the floor and placed them in the hamper in the corner, tossing
my ruined panties into the trash basket.
 

When I got back to
our room, Noah was in bed on his iPad, his tumbler of scotch sitting next to
him on the nightstand.

“How was your
bath?” he asked.

“It was nice,” I
said.
 
“Thank you very much.”

“You’re welcome.”

I hesitated by the
door of the bathroom, not sure I should bring up the uneasy feeling I was
having.

“What is it,
Charlotte?” Noah asked, his eyes not moving from the screen.

“Nothing.”

He glanced up at
me.
 
“Obviously there is something,
otherwise you wouldn’t be lingering by the bathroom door.”

“I just…” I walked
over to him and pulled the sleeves of my robe up, showing him my wrists.
 
“My wrists…”

He turned them
over in his hand, inspecting them, then got up and disappeared into the
bathroom.
 
When he returned, he was
holding a tube of some kind of balm.

“Hands out,” he
commanded.

He squeezed some
of the balm into his hands and then rubbed it over my wrists.
 
The relief was instant and
soothing.
 

“Better?” he
asked.

I nodded.
 

I thought we were
done, but he reached out and tugged the robe off my shoulders until I was once
again standing naked before him.

“Lay down on the
bed.
 
On your stomach.”

I did as I was
told, and I felt him mount me, his body heavy on top of mine.
 
He straddled me around the waist, and
then his hands were on my neck, pushing my hair back.
 
He reached for one of the hair ties that
was sitting on my nightstand,
then
gathered my hair
into a loose ponytail.

His hands found my
shoulders, kneading them as he began massaging me.

I almost groaned
with pleasure.
 
His grip was strong,
assured, in control, just like him.