The Obsessed With Him Series: Complete Box Set (A Bad Boy Romance) (38 page)

“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?”

“No!” I said.  “No, I haven’t ever stopped to think about that, because you’ve never told me that.  You’ve never told me anything.”

“And I explained to you why that is.”

“No, you haven’t.”  My voice was rising, and I realized how ridiculously absurd it was to be having a conversation like this in such a fancy restaurant, with a bottle of wine that probably cost more than my rent sitting in front of me, with a delicious meal set out in front of us.  It was a perfect metaphor for what was going on between us – everything was supposed to be perfect, I
wanted
everything to be perfect, but everything was so broken beneath the surface that it was impossible.

“Yes, Charlotte, I
have
explained it to you.  I’ve told you about my difficulties when it comes to getting close to people.”

“No.”  I shook my head.  “All you’ve said is that you have a hard time getting close to people, because you’ve lost people.  You never told me how you lost people, or what happened to make you the way you are.”

His eyes blazed a warning to me across the table, telling me not to go there.  I was pushing him, and he didn’t like it.  But I was past the point of caring.  Why should I have had to let my guard down with him, push all my barriers down sexually and emotionally, while he could just decide something was too much for him and shut me out?

“What happened to you when you were younger, Noah?” I asked.  “What’s in your juvenile record?”

If he was surprised I knew about it, he didn’t show it.  “I’m not discussing that, Charlotte.”

“Yes, you are!” I said.  “You’re going to discuss it if you expect me to be able to help you.”

“You think I want your help?  Like I’m so damaged that I need you to save me?  You think I’m that fucked up, Charlotte?”

“No!” I said.  “But I wouldn’t know, because you won’t tell me anything.”

“What do you want me to say?” he asked, pushing his chair back from the table angrily and jumping to his feet.  “You want me to tell you what’s in that record?  How I got arrested for assault when I was seventeen?  How my father was beating my mother up so bad that I had to take a bat to his knees?  That I broke the motherfucker’s
knees,
Charlotte, that he ended up in the hospital?  That my mother and brother both turned on me, protected my father, said it wasn’t self-defense?  Do you want to hear about that shit, Charlotte?  Because I sure as fuck don’t want to talk about it.”

He grabbed the table and picked it up, then dropped it, slamming it against the floor angrily.  Water sloshed out of his glass, and my wine tipped over, spilling all over the tablecloth, leaving an angry red stain.

But Noah didn’t stop.  He picked up the table and dropped it again. And again.  And again.

I flinched each time it hit the floor, flinched each time the sound echoed through the room.  When he was done, he stood there, breathing heavily, and I could see the anguish in his eyes.

It was different than the other times he’d let his guard down in front of me.  This was more raw, more real, the pain of a man who’d done his best to cover up his sins and bad memories at all costs.

“Noah,” I said.  “I didn’t – ”

“Don’t,” he said.  And then he was walking away from the table toward the back of the restaurant, disappearing down the hallway.

I sat there for a moment, not realizing I was crying until I felt a tear hit my lips and tasted the salt.  I took in a shuddering breath, then stood up and moved toward the back hall.

There were two heavy oak doors off the corridor, one of them marked W and one marked M. 

I stood in front of the men’s room and put my ear to the door.  I could hear the faint sound of water running. I tried the knob, but it was locked. 

I knocked.  “Noah?” I asked.  “Are you okay?”

There was no answer, and I knocked again, louder this time.  “Noah!”

Still no answer.

The water shut off, but the door didn’t open.

“Please,” I called.  “I’m sorry I pushed you.”

A second later, the knob turned, and Noah appeared.  His eyes met mine, the two of us just staring at each other.  I felt powerfully connected to him, even though we’d just had a fight, if you could even call it that.

He didn’t say anything, just stared at me. 

I felt like I was hanging on the edge of a cliff, ready to fall off and head down into the canyon below.  I felt like I could save myself if I just knew what to say.

You do know what to say.

I swallowed.  “I need to be punished,” I said softly.

He raised his chin, his eyes questioning. 

“I should have trusted you,” I said, reaching out and touching his arm softly.  “I want to trust you.”

He opened the door and I slipped inside.