What He Decides (What He Wants, Book Eleven) (An Alpha Billionaire Romance) (2 page)

Him calling me arrogant and referring to
me as ‘Ms. Holloway’ sent fury coursing through my veins.
 
“That’s funny, calling me
arrogant.”
 
I picked my jeans back
up from the floor and stepped into them, and this time, he didn’t stop me.
 
“You’re the one who’s being
arrogant.
 
You think you can just
step in front of that jury, with the evidence they have against you, Noah, and
what?
 
That you’re going to charm
them into ignoring DNA evidence?
 
Worthington will never even let you take the stand.”

“Colin will do what I say.”
 

“No, he won’t.”
 
I crossed my arms over my chest and shook my head
vehemently.
 
“He won’t put you on
the stand.
 
He won’t.
 
He’s too good of a lawyer for
that.
 
And then what are you going
to do?
 
At some point, you are
going to have to face the fact that you cannot control every single aspect of
this case, that you cannot – ”

He grabbed me then, by the shoulders and
pulled me to him.
 
“You,” he
growled, “will not tell me what I have to do.
 
You will trust me to do the right thing.”

“No, I won’t,” I said.
 
“Especially when you’re acting insane.”

“Tell me you trust me.”

I shook my head.
 
“No.”

His eyes blazed with icy hot rage, so intense
I could feel it radiating off his skin.
 
“Tell me you’re mine.”

“No.”
 
His
grip on me tightened, his nails digging into my skin. “Noah,” I said, and I
could feel tears stinging the back of my eyes.
 
“Please, you’re hurting me.”

His face clouded as he realized how
firmly he’d been holding me.
 
He
released me, then crossed the room to his desk and sank into the chair.
 
He dropped his head into his hands.

I stood there staring at him, so
beautiful, so broken, so damaged by things beyond my control, situations I
couldn’t begin to fathom or understand even if he’d been willing to explain
them to me.
 

He was the man I loved.
 
I couldn’t deny it anymore, to myself,
to him, to anyone.
 
It didn’t make
sense, but I was in love with him.
 
I had never felt anything so powerful, so all-consuming as the way I
felt about him.

And I couldn’t stand by and watch him
destroy himself.

I crossed the room and sat down in one of
the heavy wingback chairs in front of his desk.

“Noah,” I said gently.

He didn’t respond.

He stayed with his head bowed, his hands
folded in front of him, almost as if he were in prayer.
 
The silence filled the room, and
adrenaline pushed through my veins as I waited to see what was going to happen.
 
I had never pushed him like this
before, had never not backed down about something.
 

I was just about to speak again when Noah
looked up at me. “You understand why I cannot entertain this idea.”

“And you understand why it’s your only
chance to avoid going to prison for the rest of your life.”

“Even if that were true, which it most
certainly isn’t, you know that I would never put you in that kind of
danger.
 
Even if I decided I was
going to try to lure out whoever killed Katie, I would find someone else to do
it with me.”

I gaped at him.
 
“You would find someone
else
to do it with you?”

“Yes, Charlotte.
 
I would hire a cop, a private
investigator, a soldier.”

“Someone like Clementine.”

“Yes, Charlotte.
 
Someone like Clementine.”

Something about how he said her name betrayed
a certainly familiarity, and I remembered how they’d looked that night, outside
on Noah’s terrace.
 
The way she’d
touched his arm, how she’d handed him that green scarf.
  
And then she’d just let Professor
Worthington, her boss, believe she’d just met Noah today. She could lose her
job over something like that.

The only reason she’d have for taking
such a risk would be if she’d had some kind of personal relationship with Noah,
something that went beyond her trailing his brother Audi.
 
My heart shattered, the shards cutting
at my skin from the inside.
 
I
wanted to ask him about it, but I knew it would be of no use.

“You can’t even consider the fact that I
might be able to handle something like this,” I said, fighting to stay calm.

“It’s not about you being able to handle
anything, Charlotte.”

My hands balled into fists at my sides
and my eyes filled with tears of frustration.
 
The urge to scream at him slid through my body, to yell and
freak out and tell him I had a voice in this relationship, too.
 
He said he loved me, and yet he was
still continuing to make all the decisions – I wasn’t allowed to have
opinions on anything.

And the worst part about it was that the
more I fought, the more I voiced my emotions, the more he thought I was
incapable of dealing with tough situations.

“You cannot keep my safe all the time,
Noah.”

“Don’t tell me what I can do,
Charlotte.”
 

“Noah,” I said.

“Charlotte.”

“I have a say in this relationship,
too.
 
You can’t stifle my voice
forever.”

“Is that what you think I’m doing,
Charlotte?”
 
He stood up and began
pacing the room, his hands on his slim hips.
 
“You have no idea what you’re dealing with.
 
You have this idea that what, you’re
going to parade around in the world with me? To what end?
 
So some madman will start stalking
you?
 
And then what are you going
to do, Charlotte?
 
This isn’t a
movie or a video game!
 
God,
Charlotte, you just …” He sighed and ran his hand through his hair, his chest
heaving with emotion.
 
“You need to
be smart about this.”

I laughed out loud, a brittle sound that
echoed through the room.
 
“I need
to be smart about this, Noah?
 
How
can you ask me to do that when the logical and smart thing would be to stay
away from you?
 
I’m already in
danger, Noah, just by being
around
you.
 
I got a call from some psycho who sent
me to Force so that your brother could pretend to slice me open and do God
knows what else to me.
 
Do you
think that’s smart, Noah?
 
Do you
think that’s
logical?”
 
The words were tumbling out, coming so fast I was powerless to stop them.
 
It was like a stitch had been holding
my heart together until finally it couldn’t take the pressure any longer and it
split open, sending my blood spilling across the office along with my words.

My frustration with the situation tangled
with the way I felt about him, with how he could effect me like no man ever
had, how he could play my body and my mind with his hands and his words, and it
made no sense but it made me feel reckless and out of control.
 
It felt good to finally push him, to
finally tell him exactly how I felt.
 
And yet as soon as the words were out of my mouth, I wanted to take them
back.

Noah looked like he’d been slapped.
 
His cheeks darkened, his face turning
from a mask of determination to one of confusion and horror.

“I’ve…” he trailed off.
 
“You’re right.
 
I’ve put you in danger, Charlotte.”

I felt where the conversation was going,
and I took in a breath, trying to keep a hold of myself, but it was too
late.
 
I’d given the boulder a tiny
push down the hill, and now there was no way to stop it.

“Noah,” I said.
 
“Please…” Emotion clouded my voice, thick and heavy, feeling
like it was going to choke me with its intensity.

He stood up and walked around his desk,
stood me up out of my chair and pulled me close.
 
I rested my head against his chest, listening to the
familiar beat of his heart, slow and steady.
 
How could he say he loved me and then be so willing to just
throw me aside like he was about to? I could feel it starting in him, feel it
in the way he was holding me.

He lowered his head to kiss me, but I
pushed him away.
 

“Don’t.”
 
I turned my head, then took a step back and forced myself to look at
him.
 
“Say it.”

“What?”
 
He frowned, confused.

“Go ahead.
 
I want to hear you say it.”

“Say what?”

“That you’re too dangerous for me, that I
need to stay away from you, that you can’t do this anymore.”
 
I raised my chin in the air.
 
“Go ahead, Noah.
 
I want to hear you say it.”

He opened his mouth, that familiar look
of determination overtaking his face.
 
But then he averted his eyes.

I shook my head.
 
“Coward,” I spit.
 
“You’re too afraid to let me in, too
afraid to admit to yourself that this might be real, that you might have
finally found something you have no control over.
  
Well, congratulations, Noah.
 
You got what you wanted.
 
You can have your control back.”

I walked out of his office.

I didn’t look back.

He didn’t try to stop me.

He didn’t call my name.

He didn’t come after me.

I held it together until I got into the
elevator.
 

And then I collapsed onto the floor,
shattered.

***

I went back to my apartment, hoping for
the first time since I’d been living with her that Julia would be home.
 
I relished the thought of confessing
everything to her, of telling her everything that had been going on between me
and Noah.
 
Of course I couldn’t get
into specifics about his case – there was lawyer/client confidentiality
to consider.
 
But I could get into
the relationship specifics all I wanted.

But when I stepped through the front
door, the apartment was empty.
 

Julia was probably still out with Josh.

I swallowed my disappointment and headed
straight for the refrigerator, where I found a mostly full bottle of white
wine.
 
I poured some into a plastic
cup and took a long swallow, the liquid burning my throat as it went down.
 
I was hardly a wine connoisseur, and
yet even I could tell it was cheap, the kind of wine you bought when you were
broke and just trying to get drunk. But I didn’t care.
 
I took another swig.
 
It was already starting to taste a
little better.

The thought of spending the night alone
in my apartment was depressing.
 
I
was in New York City.
 
I was
young.
 
I should have been out with
friends, having adventures and causing trouble. But I’d never been a social
person, and I certainly wasn’t one for adventures or causing trouble.
 
Even the night I’d met Noah, the night
I’d been at the bachelorette party, had been kind of a fluke – I’d only
been invited because the bride, Cora, had invited everyone from our study
group, and I think she thought it would have been rude not to include me, too.

I’d always felt slightly out of place
when I was forced to socialize, like everyone else knew exactly what to say and
how to behave.
 
Everyone else had
cool stories and interesting questions to ask each other.
 
Meanwhile I’d be standing off to the
side, counting down the minutes until I could get home and curl up with a book
or a movie.

I took my cup of wine and walked across
the living room until I was standing in front of the tiny sliding window in the
corner.
 
The view was depressing,
just a grey brick building across the way, so different from the view in Noah’s
apartment which was all bright city lights and sweeping panoramas.

I remembered being tied up outside on the
terrace of his hotel room, the warm breeze gliding against my skin as he fucked
me.
 
I shivered and an overwhelming
wave of despair overtook me.