What He Decides (What He Wants, Book Eleven) (An Alpha Billionaire Romance) (4 page)

A few minutes later, the door opened and
Clementine poked her head in.
 
“Charlotte,” she said, giving me a smile.
 
“So nice to see you again.”

“Nice to see you, too,” I lied.
 

“Shall we go to my office?”

“Sure.”
 
I stood up and grabbed my bag, then followed her down the
hall.

Her office was the second door on the
right, and it was elegantly done in shades of chocolate brown and burnished
copper with cream accents.
 
Paintings of cityscapes hung on the walls, along with Clementine’s law
degrees.

“You can have a seat right there,” she
said, indicating the two cream-colored wingback chairs that were set up in
front of her desk.

She crossed the room to a delicate silver
tray that was sitting on an oak serving cart and picked up a carafe of coffee,
pouring some into two tiny white cups.
 
My throat was scratchy and dry, and I knew a hot beverage could only
help –but I was annoyed at her presumptuousness, not even asking me if
I’d like coffee, and just assuming I took it black.

She handed me one of the white cups.

“Thank you,” I said.

“You’re very welcome.”
 
I wasn’t sure if I was imagining it,
but her voice sounded slightly condescending.
 
Her dark hair was pulled back into a sleek bun, with just a
few strands escaping.
 
It was
perfectly highlighted with tiny coppery gold streaks that looked natural, but
couldn’t be, because no one’s hair was that perfect.
 
She was wearing a white linen blouse and tight tan pants
that were tucked into soft suede boots.

She looked casual yet elegant, and I
wondered why Professor Worthington would let her wear anything other than a
suit to the office.
 
It was
annoying.

“What a beautiful day,” she said,
reaching up to open the blinds over the window behind her desk.
 
As she did, the back of her shirt slid
up a fraction of an inch, and I caught a sliver of a tattoo peeking out over
the top of her pants.
 
Of course
she would have a tattoo.
 
She was
the perfect mix of professional and badass.

“Noah’s been calling me non-stop,” I
blurted out as she turned back around.
 
“I think he wanted to come here with me.”

It was subtle, but I was sure I saw
something flash through her eyes -- my remark had irritated her.

“Yes, well,” she said as she sat down at
her desk and picked up a legal pad.
 
“You know how Noah can be.”

“Yes,” I said.
 
“I do.”

She regarded me coolly across the desk,
her back straight, her gaze even.
 

They’d been together.
 
For sure they had.
 
There was no other possibility.
 
Noah wouldn’t have trusted Clementine
to trail Audi unless he’d been close with her, wouldn’t have let her into his
world unless he knew he could control her.
 
And the only way he would know that for sure would be if she
had been his submissive.

The thought of him touching her, of him
doing the same things he’d done to me made my stomach turn.
 
I thought about how I’d seen her
leaving his office last night. Had it been business or pleasure?

It’s none of your concern anymore,
I told myself.
 
He’s
not yours.
 
He was never yours, not
really.

My hands tightened around my coffee cup
and I took a sip just to have something to do.
 
The coffee was way too hot, and I sputtered, burning my
tongue.

“So,” Clementine said.
 
“I’m not here to interrogate you about
your relationship with Noah, Charlotte.
 
I’m just here to make sure you’re prepared when the DA’s office calls
you in for questioning.
 
Have you
heard from them yet?”

I shook my head.

“Okay.
 
Well, please let us know when you do.”
 
She picked up a pen and poised it over
her legal pad.
 
As she did, a slim diamond
bracelet slid down her wrist, and my breath caught in my chest.
 
It was identical to the one Noah had
given me that night at Force.

“I’m sorry,” I said, setting my coffee
cup down on her desk and clearing my throat.
 
“But will Professor Worthington be joining us?”

“Colin has put me in charge of this
aspect of Noah’s defense.”

“What aspect?”

“Interviewing the women Noah’s been
involved with.”

“Women?”
 
I twisted my hands together in my lap.
 
I didn’t like the sound of these plural
women.
 
I imagined them all lined up
in a row, handcuffed together like the slave auction I’d seen at Force.

“Yes.
 
You and a few others.”
 
She picked up my cup and set a coaster under it.
 
I glanced at her face, trying to figure
out how old she was.
 
She couldn’t
have been more than thirty, and yet somehow she felt it was okay to treat me
like a child.
 
“Let’s start with
the easy questions, shall we?
 
Where did you meet Mr. Cutler?”

“We met, um…” I trailed off, not sure
exactly how to answer that.
 
Technically, we’d met at the bar, although I hadn’t gotten his name
until later that night when I’d gone to his office to meet him.

“Just be honest with me, Charlotte,”
Clementine said, her voice infused with a fakeness that I could tell was
supposed to make me trust her.

“We met at a bar.”

“And you were intimate that night?”

I swallowed, wishing again that I had
some water. “Yes.”

“Where?”

“In…in an alleyway, and then, um, back in
his apartment.”

“And did he tie you up?”

“He, um… ”
 
Flashbacks pulsed rhythmically through my mind, like scenes
from a movie.
 
Noah drawing an X on
my arm.
 
Him taking my candy
necklace and pulling it tight into my skin, pushing my dress up and entering me
from behind before he’d even asked my name or anything else about me.
 
“Yes.”

“Hard enough to leave marks?”

“Yes.”

“And did you go to a BDSM club with Mr.
Cutler at any point?”

“Yes.”

“Which club?”

“Force.”

She turned to the sleek computer that was
set up on the desk next to her and tapped away at the keyboard, studying
something on the screen.
 
“And
there was another club, too, is that correct?”
 

“What?”

“Another club, one you went to before
Force?”

“Who told you that?”

“Noah.”
 

“Oh.
 
I wasn’t… I didn’t know you’d be talking to him.”
 

She gave me a tight smile.
 
“Yes, I’ll be talking to Noah.
 
It’s important we know about all his
relationships and exactly what they consisted of.”

“Oh.”

“As you can imagine, it’s going to be
quite a job.”
 
She gave a little
laugh.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Oh, you know Noah.”
 
She rolled her eyes and gave me a secretive
little look, like we were just two women out chatting about men over
cosmopolitans instead of sitting in an office while she grilled me in a
deposition.

“No,” I said.
 
“Why don’t you enlighten me?”

“Eh,” she said, waving her hand in the
air as she leaned back in her chair.
 
“He’s just a hard man to pin down, that’s all.
 
Going through his backlist is going to take considerable
effort.” She sighed, like it was going to be a herculean task.
 
She bit her bottom lip and then pushed
a strand of her perfectly highlighted hair behind her ear.

As she did, her bracelet slid down her
arm.
 
The sunlight streaming
through the window bounced off the stones, sending tiny glittering rainbows
scattering onto the desk.
 
She saw
me looking at it, and she quickly turned back to her questions.

“Did you find the things Noah did to you
pleasurable?”

“What?”

“Did you like the things Noah did to
you?
 
Sexually, did you find them
pleasurable?”

I bit the inside of my cheek.
 
It wasn’t any of her business if I’d
found the things Noah had done to me pleasurable.

She placed her pen down on the pad and
looked at me.
 
“Charlotte, I know
these questions can feel intrusive, but it’s better to be prepared.
 
The prosecution is going to ask you if
you found these things exciting, if you liked what Noah was doing to you, if
you enjoyed him tying you up and spanking you.”

I gripped the arms of my chair.
 
I hated that Noah had told Clementine
the intimate details of our relationship.
 
Or had he?
 
Maybe she was
just assuming, maybe she knew because Noah had done those things to her as
well.
 
Either way, I didn’t want to
be here anymore, sitting here answering these kinds of questions.

But even more than that, I didn’t want to
give Clementine the satisfaction of thinking she’d upset me or made me
embarrassed about the things I’d done with Noah.
 
There was nothing embarrassing about my relationship with
Noah.
 
The things we’d done had
been exciting and thrilling and wonderful.

“I loved it,” I said evenly, raising my
chin in the air.
 
“I loved the
feeling of him tying me up, loved how he fucked me in his office until I came
over and over.”
 
I averted my eyes
and giggled in what I hoped was a clueless manner.
 
“Sorry,” I said.
 
“I’m not… I mean, I don’t know how graphic I’m supposed to get.”

I met her gaze again.
 
Her face was a blank mask, but I saw
her right temple twitch slightly.

Gotcha.

She opened her mouth to say something
else, but before she could, the door to her office flew open and Noah came
storming in.

The blonde receptionist trailed behind
him, looking quite flustered.
 

“I’m sorry, ma’am,” she said to
Clementine.
 
“I tried to tell him
no one was allowed back here, but he… ” She trailed off and gestured at Noah,
like he was a wild animal who couldn’t be controlled.
 

“What the hell,” he growled, “were you
thinking?”

“What?”
 
I shook my head, confused and thrown by his presence.
 

“Noah,” Clementine said, standing up and
coming out from behind her desk.
 
She placed her hand on Noah’s arm the same way she’d done that night on
the terrace.
 
“Why don’t you sit
down? I’ll get you a coffee and we can discuss whatever it is that’s come up.”

He ignored her.
 
“What is this?” he demanded, pushing his phone at me.

I took it and looked down at the screen.

Dear Ryan Ramos,

I’m writing to let you know that
my name is Charlotte Holloway…

I frowned.
 
Why did Noah have an email I’d written?
 
And who was Ryan Ramos? A second later,
it all came rushing back to me in one horrible flashback.

“Oh my God,” I breathed.
 
I looked up at Noah, who was staring down
at me, his eyes seething with fury.
 
“How did you get this?”
 
I
asked.

“It was sent to me by a contact I have at
the New York Crown.
 
They ran it on
their website this morning.”

“Ran what?” Clementine asked.
 
She reached down and took Noah’s phone
out of my hand and skimmed the email.
 
She took in a deep breath through her nose, and I saw the look of panic
that flashed across her face.
 
But
then it was gone and she was suddenly all business.
  
I could almost see her mind moving, her brain forming
connections as she tried to scrape together a plan.
 
She pushed her shoulders back.
 
“We’ll get it thrown out.
 
They won’t be able to ask her about it, we’ll say it’s
– ”