The Note

by Natalie Wrye

“Briber” and “bribee.”

  Man on top and woman underneath.

  Scratch that. I don’t need to think of all the ways that Sophia Somerset could be underneath me.

  “Would love to, actually.” Her eyes start to brighten. “But I can’t right now. I’ve got, uh…something I need to do first.”

  I can feel my face fall.

  I glance over to find another server from The Alchemist starting at us, the guy’s pale blue eyes bouncing between us.

  Curiosity at who this fucker is fires underneath my skin, but the distraction causes me precious time. I turn only to find Sophia talking to a table of customers, handing them bills before hustling behind the bar and slinging a stashed black bag over her shoulder.

  Heading for the exit within seconds, her legs move fast as she tries to hightail it out of the building, and I’m after her immediately.

  The weather has worsened since the morning, the afternoon rushing in ice-cold rain showers.

  The sound of wind and thunder rolling quickly into the city doesn’t break my step, and before she grab for the door, I reach for her arm, my touch light as I try to grab her attention.

  She whirls on me, one hand raised over her head. Ready to slap.

  I flinch. “Fuck, it’s me, Sophia.”

  “I know.” She arches one perfect eyebrow. “I just figured if you were using this opportunity to argue with me one last time that I’d get ahead of you. I don’t need you ruining my morning, afternoon and my evening, if you don’t mind.”

  “I mind a lot of things.” I glare at her outstretched hand. “Being slapped is one of them.” I point. “Do you mind lowering that?”

  She does, a fire still in her eyes, her stubborn jaw set in place, and it’s impossible not to feel the pull towards her.

  She’s sensual as fuck this way.

  Full of passion.

  Just as she’d been in that bar five days ago.

  No amount of time (or scotch, for that matter) was going to erase that.

  She drops her hand, letting it fall to her thigh with a thud, and the desire to press my lips to her limp wrist and inhale her lilac scent makes my insides twist.

  With all that’s going on with the company, with my family, with our freaking debt, the urge to lose myself in Sophia Somerset is stronger than ever, and if she were any other woman that’s exactly what I would do.

  The way I used to.

  So why can’t I get the little thief out of my head?

  I’m reminded why when Sophia’s small arms fold under her generous breasts, and I glance down to find her nipples tightening, turning to small peaks in the cold and humid air.

  I lick my bottom lip, drawing my eyes back to her face as I start.

  “I’m sorry…for exploding on you at lunch today. Yesterday, when we stopped by my office after the visit to Al’s Pawnshop, my employees had a lot of questions. And then my family had a lot of questions. And I was hammered with them.” I exhale harshly. “And so I hammered you. A lot of hammering went on today. And not the good kind.”

  She smiles at that, lowering her gaze, and I shift directions.

  I lean in. “I needed to talk to you. About our next steps. And… I thought you might need a ride through this rain.”

  Her small chin lifts. “And what would make you think that?”

  “Well, the last time I offered you a ride, you didn’t have a car—unless you’ve got a set of four wheels strapped underneath that skirt.”

  I can’t help but grin a little as a blush colors her pale cheeks, staining the skin pink. I remember that blush very vividly from when I once nearly slid my hands down her body to do very fun things to her other set of cheeks.

  “I’m not heading home,” she warns. “I’m meeting a friend.”

  “That’s fine.”

  “I might not have a lot of time to talk.”

  “I won’t need much.”

  Her mouth twists in that familiar way I’ve grown accustomed to. She gnaws on her plump bottom lip, releasing it with a soft pop seconds later, and the memory of tasting that plush skin assaults me where I stand.

  Sophia stands straighter. “You’re right. Anyway, I need to talk to you, too.”

  “About?” I glare at her with tightening eyes.

  “It might be best to talk about this in private.”

  I nod. “Then feel free to lead the way…” I wave towards the door. “Sophia.”

  She arches an eyebrow (probably because it’s the first time I’ve used her name) saying nothing as I open the door first. I pop open my large black umbrella first, but Sophia has her own, and apparently sharing isn’t high on her list of priorities.

  Having called my town car minutes before, it’s already idling around the corner when we walk up, soaked because of the slanting rain.

  I open the door, letting Sophia inside before hopping in the backseat with her.

  I don’t know why.

  I could have easily taken the front passenger seat when it occurs to me: I don’t want to.

  I want to be near her. For God knows what reason, I feel more alive next to the vixen than most anywhere else.

  Today, in the office, I’d found some of that old Noah, mixed with a new one. That dedicated businessman. That executive. That fighter that I’d once been.

  I attacked the act of finding Quinn Real Estate a new partner to save the business like I’d once attacked the act of landing a woman.

  I was on the edge of securing not just one, but two new partnerships, and I had exactly a week to close them, a fact that would have filled with me fear just two months ago.

  It’s now a dare, a challenge I welcome with open arms, and when Sophia sighs beside me, just as my driver Caesar heads in the direction of an address that Sophia points me to, I already know what she’s going to say.

  I head her off.

  “The watch is gone, isn’t it?”

  She fidgets beside me, showing rare signs of shyness, and I want to cast a kiss on her downcast eyelids as her stare sinks to the floor.

  “It might be. I called my sister-in-law who’s really good with stuff like this. I’m guessing you knew this already…” She breathes out. “But the watch you had is one-of-a-kind. Even if we find the guy on the tape who bought it, we may never find the watch. It’s probably been sold so many times already.”

  “Probably because a person who would buy it days after going on the market recognized the true value and decided to do a deal under the table. Most pawnshops wouldn’t recognize a real diamond if they chipped their tooth on one. I’m sure the buyer thought Al was pulling his or her leg when they saw a five hundred thousand dollar watch in the shop.”

  Sophia scoffs, a quiet laugh on her lips. Her eyes stay stuck to the floor. “I think the only one whose leg I was pulling was my own.”

  I sniff. “At least you got what you wanted. You paid your rent. Your apartment is saved. You got everything you could have asked for…”

  “Did I?”

  The words are bitten off, tinged with bitterness. The edge in Sophia’s voice draws my eyes to her face, and I watch emotion make her slightly tanned skin glow. A subtle blush colors her cheeks, and I imagine how the heat there would feel beneath my fingertips.

  I stare as her lower lips shift and she finally speaks. “Yeah, I guess I saved myself from losing my apartment. But I did it like I’ve done everything in the past. Through deception.” She sighs. “And that was the whole point. The point of leaving The Alchemist job. Of auctioning my new work off at the gallery. Hell,” she wrings her hands in her lap, “that was the whole goal. To have my art pay my bills. To make a career as an artist. A real one.” Her shoulders slump beneath her collared shirt and the rain beating on the black town car fills the silence with its thrumming.

  I know now, in my darkest of hearts, that this is the moment I’ve been waiting for.

  The bottom.

  The place where I wanted Sophia Somerset so that I could make her beg, make her regret
, make her pay.

  I’d dreamed of ways to make this woman suffer for what she’d stolen from me. And yet, all I want to do at this moment is to ease the pain in her pretty face. To settle my hands on those heavy shoulders and rub the tension out.

  To let my tongue lay a path inside her mouth that would stroke away all the self-deprecation.

  And I don’t get it.

  I never thought of myself as one for second chances. Hell, I’d never even given my own father any.

  He’d died before he could make up for his sins to his oft-forgotten son.

  I swallow thickly. “I wouldn’t be so sure about not being a real artist. What you did with that self-portrait? The one from the auction? That was masterful.”

  She snorts, a quiet sound that dismisses me immediately. “Yeah, sure.”

  “I bought it, didn’t I?” I glare.

  “To get to me.”

  “That was only one of the reasons, Sophia.” Her eyes, at last, rise to meet mine, and I stare at her unblinkingly. “I told you before: I’m a very, very simple man. What I want, I get.” I cock my head. “And I wanted that painting.”

  Sophia blinks fast, her long eyelashes fluttering across her cheek in the quiet backseat. “Why?”

  “Because it was damned good.” I lean back against the leather, my long legs stretching just a bit farther, inching a little closer to hers. The space around us shrinks. “My family—the Quinn family—collects things. Too many to count.” One of my collectibles used to be women. “Art’s been one of them, so I’ve grown up having an eye for artistic talent. And you are, Sophia…”

  Her brows scrunch. “I am what exactly?”

  “Talented. And I don’t mean at just ‘stealing.’”

  I grin, and to my surprise, she grins back. The heaviness in the air dissipates just a little as her back straightens and she looks at me with seemingly new eyes, her gaze inquisitive. I watch Sophia fumble with a few thoughts before opening her mouth.

  “I’m not the only one you should be calling talented, you know.” One eyebrow shoots upwards into a semi-circle. “You’re very good.”

  “At?”

  “That’s it. That’s what I mean. You… You’re ‘good,’ if that makes any sense.”

  “Me?” I flick a thumb at the center of my heart. “Good? Oh, I see. Well, I’ll give you this, Sophia: You may be talented in many ways. But lying isn’t one of them. I’m never been known to anyone as ‘good.’”

  “Then I think you’ve been talking to the wrong people, Mr. Quinn.” Her eyes glow under the gray lighting streaming from outside. The rain fogs the windows and glow from the decorated storefront windows, blurring everything but her face, and my heart thunders in my ears as I meet my eyes with hers.

  “What you did at the bar with those bankers the night we met? Good. The way you gave Nancy a ride from the auction? Good. The passion you show for your work in the office. The way your employees looked at you yesterday when I stopped by the office.” She inhales deeply, her breasts rising as she does, her nipples beading from the slight chill in the air, and my mouth literally waters. I keep my concentration on her eyes. “They like you, Noah. People actually like you. And they’d be there for you. If you’d let them in.

  “You pretend you don’t need anyone else. That you have a handle on every single aspect of everything you touch. But truth is? I think it’s a ruse so that you don’t have to let anyone in. Because as long as you’re perfect, as long as you pretend not to need anyone, then you don’t have depend on anyone else. Rely on anyone else. Trust anyone else. My guess?” Sophia tucks thick strands of her behind her ears. “Someone close to you betrayed your trust. And you’ve tried to pretend you don’t have any since.”

  “Is that what you think, Miss Somerset?” My stare hardens, the skin across my neck and torso heating and tightening as my subconscious fights against the truth of what Sophia is saying. I incline closer, invading her space.

  But this time, her gaze doesn’t flit to the floor. It remains stuck on me, and the tension—thick and dripping wet—replaces the heaviness that was once in the air.

  I lick my drying bottom lip as Sophia crosses her arms. Defying me. Daring me.

  My dark brows shoot up and back. “What else do you think you know about me?”

  I watch her swallow, her amber-emerald eyes flickering between mine. Back and forth.

  At this point, we’re inches from each other’s faces, and I realize that the dilemma I’d felt earlier is blown to bits. Shattered to smithereens.

  Because “sticking it” to Sophia Somerset for screwing me over is taking on a whole new meaning as I lean in. Slowly. So slowly.

  I can feel the quiet puffs of her minty cool breath on my face as I close the distance between us, my gaze dropping to her slightly opened mouth. Suddenly that mouth starts speaking.

  “I think that I, uh…”

  “That you what?” I minimize the distance by another inch.

  “That you…”

  Another inch. “That I…what, Sophia? What? Say it.”

  But she can’t say it. Not now.

  Not when the sound of a small explosion rings out beneath the town car, and the wheels lean at a dangerous angle. Not when the vehicle goes sliding through the slicked New York streets, kicking up slush as we careen towards the sidewalk, the brakes screeching beneath the carriage.

  The tires of the town car scream as we head towards a stop sign without slowing.

  It takes me several seconds to recognize that the scream is Sophia’s as I brace for impact.

  Chapter 15

  SOPHIA

  Wednesday afternoon

  I thought we were dead.

  For a full three seconds as our car lurched towards a wave of crossing traffic, I just knew that our car would be obliterated, smashed to pieces by the slew of cars coming in the other direction.

  I didn’t think; I just acted.

  My arms braced for impact, yes. But more importantly, they braced for impact against him.

  Noah.

  My fingers found him in the relative dark of the town car’s backseat, and I wrapped my hand around his, squeezing tight as I waited for the car to slow, and my heart with it.

  We skid to a halt, hitting the sidewalk, just before coming into contact with horizontal traffic, and a strangled breath left my lips as we slumped against the gray cement of the New York sidewalk, the heavy rain mimicking the sound of my panicked pulse.

  The city continued moving around us amidst the hammering showers, and when I finally unclenched, well…everything, I had a chance to disentangle myself from the suited man who sat beside me, my insides humming from the sheer proximity of his larger-than-life presence.

  The driver Caesar curses under his breath, heading out into the rain to check on the tires as Noah and I focus on re-learning how to breathe. I’m still practicing the art of inhaling when Noah looks down at me.

  “I think we blew a tire.” He glances outside briefly. “Or two.”

  “Better a tire than a blood vessel.” My finger brushes over my temple. “I think I almost had a heart attack.”

  Noah’s fingers close over mine. “You know what the cure for almost-heart attack is, don’t you?”

  I have to admit: I don’t. But I know the cure for forgetting about an ‘almost-heart attack.’ And it’s having a gorgeous Australian man touching you.

  Twenty minutes later, soaked to the skin, Noah shows me the cure to ‘almost-heart attacks’…

  Scotch.

  At the nearest bar, we decide to wait for a tow company while Caesar idles inside the broken down town car.

  The temperature drops, dumping a deluge of white snow down on the city as the Wednesday afternoon fades into evening. Rush hour traffic still rages like a contained chaos outside the Scottish pub’s dark doors, and while the sirens blare in the distance, horns honking under the quickening snowfall, Noah orders me the second taste of scotch I’ve ever had in my life.

  Th
e first taste I’ve ever had was with him. Five minutes ago.

  I’m still reeling from his instructions as I hold taste number two—otherwise known as a dram, an eighth of an ounce—over the bar top.

  Noah stares at me. “Now do you remember the rules?”

  I nod. “It starts with the right glass. And the right ice.” I eye the large icefall currently in my Cobita glass.”

  Noah grins. “For most first-timers, they need something to lessen the harshness, ease the burn. But if you want to be a Big Bear, instead of a little one,” His grin grows wider, “you won’t need the watering down.”

  I groan. “In this case I think I’d rather be a Little Bear.”

  “Don’t sell yourself short.” His blue eyes glow under the dim light. “Next rule?”

  I raise the glass chin-level, doing as I was told. I take a deep breath, my eyes skimming over the straws and stirrers on the mahogany countertop. “Now? It’s time to inhale the aroma.”

  Noah draws nearer. “Lightly through the nose and slightly through the mouth.”

  I take in air through my nostrils but all I can make out as I sniff is the scent of Noah’s cedar and pine-infused cologne. I try to do as he says anyway.

  Next is the sip, the sitting of the deep flavor on your palate, the swishing of the sultry whisky against your cheeks.

  If you love it, you swallow the whole dram down. If you don’t? You take a breath in.

  It’s the most accurate metaphor for life I’ve ever found. Or more than that, it’s the most accurate metaphor for a man like Noah.

  The smell of the real estate mogul’s skin combined with the sight of him watching me makes my chest tighten, filling it with his arresting aroma as he slips out of his suit jacket, setting it aside.

  The flavor of the Dalwhinnie Scotch on my tongue is fruity, full of fruity taste, toffee and just a touch of smokiness.

  But unfortunately for my raging hormones, it’s not nearly as powerful, intoxicating or damning as Noah who, despite looking like he just emerged from the depths of some sexy pool, overwhelms the space with his soft autumn scent. Still wet from the slushy rain and snow, his eyes follow mine as I sip, circle and swish the scotch around in my mouth. I swallow with his stare landing on mine, his sapphire eyes wide with appreciation.