Girl on a Diamond Pedestal

by Maisey Yates

  Damien looked up from his companion, his expression not changing when he saw him. “Ethan. What brings you here?”

  Noelle looked at Ethan, her expression filled with confusion. She hadn’t known that his father would be here. That the show was for him. But every time Ethan had tried to explain, the words had stuck in his throat. She’d known he wanted revenge. He hadn’t told her the part she’d play in it.

  “Noelle and I decided to have an impromptu getaway. And wedding.” He held her hand up, still clasped in his, and let his father see her rings. “I assume you know who she is. Noelle Birch.”

  His father’s face drained of color, but his expression didn’t alter.

  He felt Noelle stiffen beside him, but she didn’t speak. She didn’t seem very present either. He looked at her, just a quick glance, but it was enough for him to see her blue eyes looking glassy, distant.

  “Why did you come tonight, Ethan?” Damien asked, his tone implying that he knew perfectly well why. And that he didn’t like it.

  “To let you know that grandfather is signing Grey’s over to me. All I needed was a wife, to prove how stable I was. How much more stable I was than you, and he was more than willing to pass it directly to me.”

  “You can’t have …”

  “I have,” Ethan said, cutting him off. He turned and put his hand on Noelle’s cheek. It was cold. “So now I have your company. I also managed to get one of the Birch women to marry me. Something you never managed to do. Funny how things turn out. Essentially, I have everything that you ever wanted.”

  As soon as he said the words, he wished he could cut out his own tongue. To treat Noelle like a possession … it wasn’t something he’d truly thought through. Or maybe he had. Not simply to hurt his father, but to try and reduce her in some way. Because she was too much inside of him. What she made him feel was too big to handle.

  He hadn’t fixed anything though. No, far from it. He could feel the fracture between them, the crack in the bond they had built. And it provided him with no relief. Instead, it hurt like the severing of bone from tendon.

  “What is it you hope to accomplish with this, Ethan?” Damien asked, pushing away from his date. “Proving the point that you’re somehow a man of valor, even while you stand here with your trophy bimbo? You aren’t any different. You aren’t any better. You’re just like me. You always have been, you always will be.”

  Just like me.

  Ethan swallowed hard. “Regardless, I’m the one who walks out of here a winner.” A lie. A bitter lie.

  He tightened his grip on Noelle’s hand and turned away from his father, heading back toward the door. Noelle released her hold on his hand and walked ahead of him, her skin icy pale. Her expression was set, strong, not betraying a hint of emotion. But he could feel it, radiating from her, echoing inside him.

  She opened the door and walked out into the hallway. He followed her, his eyes on her, no one else, because she was all that mattered.

  He closed the door behind them and followed her into the elevator. Neither of them spoke until the doors closed.

  “Why did you do that to me?”

  “I didn’t do anything to you. It’s an act, Noelle.” The tension in him exploded, unraveling his control. “All of this is, it has been from day one, and you knew it then, and you know it now. What I said to my father, that was a part of it. I wanted him to face the fact that I did things right and I still came out ahead.”

  “But you didn’t do it right! You lied. You cheated the game.”

  “Maybe I did, but I’m not the same as him. Someone had to show him. Make him pay.”

  “And you had to try and be the hero for your mother.”

  Pain sliced at him and he ignored it, pressed on. “Someone had to be.”

  “Maybe,” she said. “But there was nothing—” She looked up at him, her blue eyes unveiled now, all of her emotion exposed. “—nothing more painful that you could have said. It wouldn’t have been any worse if you’d called me your high-priced whore. Because that’s what you said I was to you. You reduced me to nothing more than my name. One of your many acquisitions.”

  Anger boiled in him, at himself, at the damned heavy emotion that was crushing him beneath its weight. It drove him, compelled him to push back. And anger was much easier to embrace than the bigger, scarier feeling that was trying to claw its way into prominence.

  “And I’m not the same to you, Noelle? Why did we get into this relationship in the first place? Because I had the power to give you back that wreck you call a home. Because you could use me to get your picture back in the paper, to climb back up onto your diamond pedestal. So don’t play the wounded maiden. You got what you wanted.”

  “Fine. Maybe. But I didn’t just parade you through a room and treat you like an object. I have never treated you like an object, or a means to an end. And until tonight, you hadn’t treated me like one either.”

  “Tonight was what this, this thing between us, this whole arrangement, was all about. You know that.”

  “Yes,” she said. “We made an agreement in the beginning, and I’ve held to it. And I knew that being on your arm was a part of that. But now you know me. And you know what my mother did to me, how she used me. I thought that might change something.” She choked on the last words.

  “It can’t.”

  She looked down, and he looked past her, to where her expression was reflected in the high-gloss obsidian wall.

  She looked tired. And sad. And he wanted to hold her. But he was the cause of her suffering, and wanting to be the one to ease it just seemed cruel.

  “Well, fine then,” she said. “You did it. That’s all there is.”

  The elevator doors opened and neither of them moved for a moment. Noelle felt each beat lacerating her tender heart. She was being beaten, destroyed from the inside out by her own body. Her own emotion.

  When they got to the hotel suite he closed the door behind them. The silence was like an entity between them. Real and powerful, hard to break.

  “I suppose I’ll see about getting my own room.”

  “You damn well won’t,” he growled.

  He pulled her to him then, his kiss hard, fast, containing all of the rage and frustration and bitter anguish she felt inside herself. It tasted like her own sorrow. Like the ashes and ruin of heartbreak.

  And she gave as good as she got. Everything. Because he wasn’t allowed to just hurt her and walk away. He wasn’t allowed to feel nothing, not when every breath seared her insides. She laced her fingers through his hair and held him to her, hoping to make him feel what she did. To feel all of the pain and desire and frustration.

  He wrenched his mouth from hers and trailed hot kisses down her neck, leaving flames in his wake.

  “Ethan. Please.”

  No matter what happened tomorrow. Or in the next hour. She needed him, with her, in her, now.

  He pushed her dress up, that stupid dress he’d picked to make her look like a trophy.

  “Say my name,” she said, working his belt buckle and opening the closure on his slacks. “I need to know that it matters.”

  “Noelle,” he rasped, his voice rough. He slipped his fingers beneath the edge of her panties and tugged them down as he leaned her back onto the bed, her legs still hanging off the edge. He got down on his knees in front of her and shrugged his pants and underwear down his hips, leaving them most of the way on. There wasn’t time to take everything off. There wasn’t enough time, period. There never would be.

  She hooked her leg over his back and pulled him to her. He entered her in one smooth stroke and she locked her legs around his hips, holding him to her, reveling in this moment. In being joined to him. Because nothing made sense. Not how she felt about him, not how he seemed to feel about her. Or didn’t feel about her. At least this was honest.

  Here and now there was no acting.

  She put her hand on Ethan’s cheek, and he met her gaze, his dark eyes glittering in the dim light o
f the room. The tendons on his neck stood out, his breathing harsh, his heartbeat raging. She could feel his pulse echoing beneath her hand, pounding through her.

  Every time he entered her, she wanted to take him deeper, to hold him to her longer. She slid her hands down to grip his shoulders, dug her fingernails into his back. He held her too, hands braced on her hips.

  The pleasure was blinding, beyond anything she’d ever known. But it was secondary to the connection that was forged, stronger, more permanent, with each breath, with each movement.

  He was a part of her. Drawing pieces of her away, bringing more substance back into her. Like sand in the waves.

  She fought against her climax, because it meant the end. Because this was the end. She knew it. Knew it in every fiber of being. But it caught her, grabbed her. She reached the peak of pleasure as he found his and they rode the crest together, completely silent except for the harsh notes of their breath.

  He withdrew from her body, but stayed on his knees, his arms resting on the bed. Noelle blinked and brushed her hair out of her face with shaking fingers. Every part of her was trembling, inside and out.

  She rolled to the side, trying to put distance between them, trying to find a way to escape the pain that was clawing in her chest, pushing out the memory of the pleasure, the closeness they’d just shared.

  She looked at Ethan. His face, his gorgeous, precious face. She had never loved anyone like she loved him. Had never needed anyone the way she needed him.

  And she knew she couldn’t do that to herself. She couldn’t keep loving people who didn’t love her back. She couldn’t keep pouring herself into people who would leave her.

  Because as hard as she had fallen when her mother had left, as devastating as it had been to lose her piano teacher, those two constants in her life, if she grew to trust that Ethan would stay … that he would love her when everyone else seemed unable to … she didn’t know how she would survive it.

  So she had to walk out now. While she had the strength.

  She stood up from the bed and walked over to her suitcase. She found a pair of jeans that had remained unpacked and tugged them on beneath her dress.

  “Noelle,” Ethan said, his voice rough. “Stay with me.”

  She shook her head.

  “Stay,” he said again, more desperate this time.

  “I can’t.”

  “Why?”

  She took a deep breath. “I have an audition next weekend. I haven’t practiced at all while we’ve been here. I need to get back.”

  “So you can work on your music.” It wasn’t a question, neither was it an accusation. It was a statement, hollow, empty.

  “Yes. You’re right. That’s why we had this whole relationship. That’s the point of it all, you reminded me of that.”

  She looked at him. He was still on his knees at the foot of the bed and she wanted, more than anything, to drop to her knees in front of him and kiss him. But she didn’t. She couldn’t.

  “I wish you would stay,” he said again, his voice muted.

  Her chest tightened and she feared her heart would burst from it. “I can’t, Ethan. This … this is all fine for a few days,” she said, indicating the gaudy room. “But it’s not my life. My music is my life. It’s what I need.”

  “Take my plane.”

  “No, I’ll figure something out …”

  “Take it. Dammit Noelle, take it.” He stood and jerked his pants back up, reaching into his pocket and pulling out his phone. He opened it and punched in a number. “Have the plane fueled and ready to go. Mrs. Grey needs to get back to New York.”

  “That wasn’t necessary,” she said.

  “It was. You’re still my wife. And you will be until the ink is dry on the contract my grandfather sends over. Don’t forget that.”

  No. Of course not. She couldn’t forget why they were married. Certainly not for love. At least not on his part.

  “I won’t.” She took her purse from the nightstand and ignored everything else. She didn’t want it. She didn’t need it. She just needed to get away from Ethan, needed to get out of her skin so she could escape the horrible, sick feeling of grief that was washing through her.

  “He was wrong, you know,” she said, her voice breaking. “You aren’t like him. You’re like your mother. You’re like I was when we first met. You think … you think you’re going to fix something in you by getting revenge, or by getting Grey’s Resorts. Just like I thought having my career back would fix something in me. But it won’t, Ethan. Not for either of us. It’s not about things. It’s about people. It’s about love. And if you can’t figure that out, if you can’t find that, then you won’t ever be happy. And nothing you have will ever be enough.”

  Ethan watched Noelle walk out of the room. She closed the door with a finality that rocked him. Still he watched. To see if she would come back.

  He was a fool.

  He had thought that somehow winning this game with his father, that somehow making Damien pay for what had happened would make him, Ethan … worth something. That he would suddenly be the man he needed to be to make things right. That holding the power, the Grey family legacy, would add some sort of value to him.

  The boy who had been ignored by the two people in his life who should have loved him had been working toward this paper, pinning his hopes on it meaning something, for years. Hoping that revenge would prove him to be the better man, that having the family business pass to him would somehow prove him to be smarter, more worthy.

  So now he had it. And it hadn’t made a damn bit of difference. He wasn’t better. He wasn’t fixed. His entire life was shattered now, broken into a million unfixable pieces. He had lost Noelle.

  He had everything that he’d wanted, that he’d dreamed of. He had billions of dollars and he had notoriety and fame, and yet she had walked away. He had banked on this moment. On somehow triumphing over his father and it mattering in some way, somehow removing the empty, unsatisfied ache inside of him.

  Maybe because his own success had never impressed his father. Had never made his mother care.

  Anyway, he had done it now, and in the process had increased his own power, his own bank balance. And it had only confirmed what he’d always suspected. Everything he’d feared.

  That, as much as he’d wanted to place blame elsewhere, the problem was with him. Revenge had proven to be an empty thing. The acquisition of more hotels, even emptier. Noelle was right. No amount of material possessions could make a difference.

  The problem truly was in him. He would never be enough. His love would never be enough.

  And he loved Noelle. No matter how much he’d tried to deny it to himself today, no matter how much distance he’d tried to wedge between them with his actions in the high-roller room tonight, he loved her.

  Even now that she’d rejected him, walked out the door when he’d all but begged her to stay, he loved her.

  And he had let her go. Because when it came right down to it, he was afraid that if he had told her why he wanted her to stay, she still would have said no.

  He hadn’t been willing to take the chance.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  IT wasn’t the number she dreamed of seeing on her phone, but it wasn’t a bad number to have pop up either.

  It was Jacques. Probably calling about last week’s audition. She’d all but given up hope on that. But now he was calling, and she was really hoping it was good news. She glanced at the clock, and at the line of people that stretched out the door.

  It wasn’t a good time for her to take a break, and break-taking was something she had to discuss with her supervisor. Because that was how her new job as barista at the Roasted Tea and Coffee Company worked.

  She had a job. And she was learning it, a lot faster than she’d imagined she might. Steaming milk and pulling shots had come pretty naturally to her, and now she could make her own latte. Which was good, since Ethan wasn’t around to buy her one. It was a small step on the road t
o self-sufficiency, but it was a step. One she’d been too scared to take before Ethan had come into her life.

  That silly little job inputting data had done so much for her. And Ethan had acted as though she’d done it brilliantly. He’d always looked at her as if she was brilliant. And beautiful. But not the sort of beautiful other people talked about. He said it like he saw something deeper. Hidden. Something she hadn’t seen before he had shown it to her.

  Noelle released the catch on the espresso grinder and let a fine dust of beans pour into the porta-filter. She twisted it back onto the machine and hit the button, watching the shot, making sure it took the right amount of time, that it was just the right color. There was a kind of art to this job too, and she found herself really enjoying it. She liked making people smile.

  She’d give it all up to play on the stage again, but it was nice to have something else to do.

  “Noelle.”

  Noelle looked at her co-worker, David, who was busy taking orders. “Skinny latte please, a sixteen-ounce, no foam.”

  “Got it.” She put a pitcher of skim milk beneath the steam wand and nearly laughed out loud. Such a contrast from the over-the-top glitz of Las Vegas. Had it really only been two weeks? Two weeks since she’d seen Ethan? Two weeks since she’d touched him?

  Then why did her skin still burn? Why did her heart still ache like this? More importantly, would she ever feel right again?

  She clenched her teeth to keep from tearing up, something she’d done countless times in the past fourteen days. It was enough to drown in. She wasn’t drowning though, she was doing. Living.

  Because one major difference between having her mother walk out of her life and losing Ethan was that Ethan hadn’t torn her down. He’d built her up. Told her she could do anything. He’d left her stronger. Even though he’d also left her broken-hearted.

  You left him.

  Only because she’d had to. Because someday, in the not-too-distant future, when he got Grey’s in his possession, he would have left. He’d shown her so much. Made her want more than surface fame and recognition. But he didn’t seem to want anything more than what was on the surface.