Zach sighs and comes to his side of the island. His shoulders hang heavy and he’s frowning. It’s killing me to see him this way.
“I shouldn’t be surprised,” he says. “You work for Ethan, after all.” He laughs harshly. “Ethan Ford, Jr. Did he put you up to this? Is this part of his plan?”
“What? No!” I lean forward. “Zach, I needed to know what went down that night, why you guys stopped being friends. I couldn’t wrap my head around what I was being told. I think you’re both such great guys. Why would your friendship just end?”
“It wasn’t me,” he sharply says. “It was all Ethan.”
“Yeah, because he didn’t know the truth.”
Zach’s sigh is long.
“Why didn’t you just go to him?”
His jaw twitches. “I tried that.”
“Really? Did you? Because, just judging from the short amount of time I’ve known you, you’re a headstrong guy. I can see both of you just deciding you hate each other and never talking again.”
Zach’s face grows red. I’ve hit the bullseye. I also don’t like seeing him so mad, though—especially when it’s at me. But I have no one to blame for this situation. I knew I was taking a risk diving into this story. It’s time to face whatever comes.
“Did you go to him?” I ask again.
“You didn’t tell me if I’m right…about you doing this for Ethan.”
“Why are you dodging answering the question?” I cry out, throwing my hands up in the air.
Zach drops his head forward, runs his fingers through his hair.
“I called him. He didn’t answer. The next day, he left me a voice mail saying he never wanted to talk to me again. All right? Are you happy?”
I’m anything but happy.
“Speaking of dodging questions…” His eyes shoot daggers my way.
“I care about you,” I whisper. “Please believe me. This isn’t part of some plan of Ethan’s to bring you down. I was never a part of that, and, honestly, I don’t think that’s his intention any more. He told me to write the article however I wanted to.”
We lock eyes, and the emotion that floods me makes me want to fall to my knees. Don’t go, Zach. I need you.
I’m not going to say such a thing. It’s too soon, and he doesn’t fully trust me.
“So what are you doing?” Zach asks. “What are you publishing?”
“I’m going to publish the one based on the questions I asked you the other day.”
“But you’re also writing a second piece?”
There’s no hiding. Somehow, he reads me like a book.
“Yeah,” I admit. “But I don’t know what I’m going to do with it.” My mouth is dry, but I keep going. “I would never publish something without your permission. Please believe that. This—it just has to do with me. I needed to know…”
My words tumble down to the floor, laying there in a useless heap. I feel like half the person I did when we started this conversation. How can I really expect Zach to understand what I’m talking about? He’s so intensely private. He doesn’t care about what Ethan—or probably anyone else—is doing.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper. “I don’t want to hurt you.”
His long and heavy sigh fills the kitchen. “You haven’t hurt me. This has just… It’s a lot to face.” He stares me down. “I like you, Noelle.”
“I like you, too,” I whisper.
Actually, I think I love you.
Zach rubs his eyes and walks around the island. When he takes my two hands in his, I want to start bawling. What’s happening? Is he about to end things with me?
“You are a sweetheart,” he finally says.
“But?”
He looks at me in confusion. “There is no ‘but’.”
“Oh.”
His thumbs rub the tops of my hands. “I understand why you did what you did. It makes sense.” He reaches up and gently cups my face. “You’re just a caring person. It’s what makes you special.”
I feel like I’m going to collapse from relief. I can’t, though, because Zach is pulling me into his chest and holding me close. I squeeze my eyes shut, losing myself in the safe comfort of his embrace.
He nuzzles the top of my head, and I wrap my arms tight around him. This is perfect. This is where I need to be.
Zach pulls back just enough so that he can lower his face to mine. Our lips, perfectly carved for each other, brush lightly. With sure, careful movements, he kisses me.
The heat rises in me, wrapping around us and pushing us even closer. Zach’s hands work through my hair, his tongue sliding across my teeth.
“You’re mine,” he whispers against my mouth.
A shot of happiness zings through me. I’m his. I belong to Zach…
Except I don’t. Not really.
“What’s wrong?” he asks.
I pull back a bit more, unable to stop myself from stiffening. “I need to tell you something else.”
Zach’s arms are still on me, and I almost wish they weren’t. When he hears what I’m about to tell him, there’s a very good chance he might change his mind about everything.
I reach deep into the depths of my soul, looking for some courage. There isn’t any there, but it doesn’t matter. I’ve committed myself to full honesty. It’s time to follow through.
“Something happened between me and Ethan…after I met you. After you and I…got together the first time.”
Understanding washes over Zach’s face, and his Adam’s apple bobs.
“More than once,” I continue, inwardly flinching. Although Ethan and I have only had sex once, we’ve kissed—and made plans to rendezvous again. Acting like it was a one-time thing wouldn’t be fair.
Zach looks down, licks his lips. “Okay.”
We didn’t say we were exclusive. It’s too soon for us to commit to each other. I don’t know if you’re seeing anyone else! It’s the twenty-first century; a girl can do what she wants!
So many excuses fill my head, but I don’t give voice to any of them. This is Zach’s time. I need to hear his reaction, and it needs to come on its own, without any badgering from me.
Finally, he looks back up at me. “I know it’s early for us to have this talk…”
“Uh-huh,” I eagerly nod.
“And we never said this was a closed relationship. Or really a relationship at all.”
“We’ve only known each other, like, a week,” I agree.
His gaze pierces mine. “But I want you, Noelle. You’re supposed to be mine. I just know it.”
I want to laugh and cry at the same time. What he’s saying feels so right. But also…confusing.
“Are you angry?” I ask.
Zach rubs my back. “No. I’m not mad. A little jealous, sure. But that’s normal.”
“Okay.” I nibble on my bottom lip. “Have you…?”
“There hasn’t been anyone else since I met you.”
I feel guilty over how good that news makes me feel.
“We’ll figure this out,” Zach says. “That is, if you want to be mine.”
“I do,” I practically sing.
“Good.” His beautiful smile lights up his face. “Every relationship has its own stipulations and lines. I want to create our own together.”
“I do, too,” I whisper.
Not until he said those words did I fully realize how much I wanted Zach. And now that I have him, I never want to let go.
As he pulls me into him once more, though, there’s something else tickling the back of my mind. I want Zach, yes. We’ve fitted into each other’s lives so perfectly. It’s only been a handful of days, but I can’t imagine ever letting him go.
But there’s one problem. I can’t imagine ever letting Ethan go, either.
Chapter 18
I spend the night at Zach’s. And the night after that.
Being at his place feels so right. I go home once to grab some things, but then I’m right back to his penthouse, sleeping in his bed, using his sho
wer, eating in his kitchen. While I’m there, everything feels so right.
But at work, it’s a different story. Graham keeps shooting me questionable looks, and a few times I catch him whispering with other people while laughing and looking my way. Needless to say, it looks like rumors about me and the boss are circulating.
Great. As if coming into work after Ethan kicked me out of his office isn’t bad enough.
The word around the paper is that Ethan isn’t here, and now I feel certain that he’s shunning me. He probably wants nothing to do with me ever again.
Which is why I’m so surprised when I get a text message from him out of the blue.
Meet me at 6 tonight. Hotel Indigo.
My heart pounds as I read the message over and over. There’s no clue as to what he wants to talk about, so, like the last time we met, I plan on arriving prepared for anything.
At a few minutes till six, I arrive at the hotel, a spot where the lobby’s floor is so shiny it practically reflects my image. There’s one employee for every task, from opening the front door to opening the door to the bar.
In the dark-paneled bar, I find a seat on a plush, red couch in the corner. A server comes over, and I order a glass of wine. I know I probably won’t drink it, though. My pulse is racing, my nerves out of control.
“Noelle,” a familiar voice says.
I pop up out of my seat and whirl around. Ethan’s only a few feet away, wearing a black suit and a jaw of stubble. I have to clutch the back of the couch for stability.
“How are you?”
He steps forward, but stops an arm’s length away. His eyes roam across my face, but I can tell he’s hesitant to touch me.
“G-good,” I stammer. “How are you?”
“Well.” He curtly nods.
The server is back, setting a tumbler of some kind of liquor on the table in front of the couch before silently backing off.
“You must come here a lot,” I comment.
“I’m staying in a suite here for a few weeks while my new place is being renovated.”
“Ah.”
It feels like talking to a stranger. No—like talking to someone I knew a long time ago, someone I loved a long time ago, but who I haven’t seen in years.
But were we ever really that close? Or is Ethan just my boss—my boss that I made a mistake with?
My intuition tells me it’s more than that, but how am I to know? Maybe I’m just kidding myself here. Zach and I are together now. I should be happy. It should be time to let Ethan go.
But, looking at him, I know it’s not that simple. Just like with Zach, Ethan and I connect in a deep way. I could have the most perfect boyfriend at home—and I do—but I would never be able to wipe Ethan from my heart’s hard drive.
He clears his throat and looks away. “Let’s have a seat.”
We perch on opposite ends of the couch, the cushion between us feeling like a thousand miles.
Ethan clasps his hands and leans into his knees. “I guess you might have noticed I haven’t been at the paper.”
“Yes,” I respond with a thick tongue.
“I’ve been at my office across town.”
I nod, not sure what to say.
Ethan’s jaw tightens. “I care for you, Noelle.”
All the tension leaves my body in a second. “I care for you, too.”
He curtly nods. “I’m not trying to cut you down. I want you to succeed.”
“Okay. Thank you.”
His fingers are twisting around each other, a rare sign of anxiety. Funny. I would have guessed Ethan hardly ever got nervous.
“I’m not sure if you’re aware of this, but there have been some rumors going around the office.”
My tension is back, taking shape in my stiff shoulders.
“That’s what I suspected.”
“Don’t worry. I located the source of them. There won’t be any more talk.”
By ‘source’, I can only assume he means Graham.
“Were they lies?” I ask.
That seems to baffle him. “Well, there were… Someone was saying that you and I were meeting up while at work.”
“That sounds about right to me.”
The corners of his mouth twitch, his hardened expression vanishing. “Right. But no one needs to know that.”
“No,” I giggle. “They don’t.”
Our laughs subside, leaving a cozy aftermath.
“Thank you for contacting me,” I tell him. “I was worried that you hated me.”
“No, Noelle,” he softly says. “I don’t.”
I nod, wholeheartedly believing him. “I want to show you something.”
His eyebrow raises in question, but I don’t say anything as I pull the two printed articles from my bag. Silently, I lay them both out on the cushion between us.
“This is the piece we talked about,” I explain, pointing to the article on Zach that I finished the other day. “And this…”
My hand hovers over the other pile. It’s longer, the finished product amounting to several pages.
“It’s something I wrote for myself,” I explain. “Not to be published, but just to use to make sense of things. I’d like you to read it.”
I bite down nervously on my bottom lip as Ethan picks up the second article and begins to read. For a minute, his gaze silently flicks across the page. I wait painfully, my hands pressed tight together.
Out of the corner of my eye, I see a familiar figure move. I don’t look that way, though, not wanting to draw attention to the bar.
Ethan runs his fingers across his mouth, reading aloud.
“Though they say time heals all wounds, the exact opposite is often the case. Sometimes the passage of years only serves to widen a divide, to increase the pain that one simple moment created. When too many sunrises to count have passed, what does the past become, other than a faint idea for us each to mold into our own liking? It is human nature, this tendency to rewrite history, to believe in alternate circumstances. It does not make any of us wrong. But it does make us lonely.”
I gulp. I’ve heard my writing read out loud before, but never when the piece was such a personal one.
Ethan falls back into silence as he finishes the article. With a grand finale that comes both too late and too soon, he puts the paper down.
“You received all this information from Harmony?”
I nod, hands still painfully locked together. “She’s sorry about what happened that night. She didn’t know that it led to the end of your friendship.”
Ethan looks down at his own clasped hands, lowering his face so far I can’t see his eyes. “I’ve been fucking up a lot lately.”
The words shake me. Ethan Ford Jr., cocky multi-billionaire, newspaper mogul, a personality of steel and grit…admitting he messed up?
But then I realize that I’m thinking of the persona of Ethan Ford Jr. The person I’m seeing in front of me doesn’t fit that facade at all. This man, the Ethan I’ve come to know, is just as complicated as the rest of us.
He looks at me. “I like it. We’ll publish it.”
My mouth falls open. “I… We… Huh?”
Ethan nods. “Yes. Next week.”
“But it’s so personal.”
“But real.” His eyes soften. “Don’t tell me you wrote this without hoping it would be published.”
“Honestly? I didn’t really think of that. I mean, you and Zach are both so private. I wrote it for us.”
“For us?”
My face grows warm.
“Yes. For the three of us. I wanted to understand what happened. And I wanted you two to make up. Maybe that’s some crazy fantasy that I have, but that’s the truth. I couldn’t understand why you guys went so long without seeing each other. It just…it broke my heart, Ethan.”
My voice cracks and my eyes grow wet. I’m not ashamed for Ethan to see me cry. I’ve already shown part of my soul by writing the piece on him and Zach. At this point, full disclosure is w
hat really matters.
Ethan surprises me by reaching across the couch and taking my hand.
“It broke me too when it happened. And now I get just how much I screwed up. If I had just talked to him…” He bitterly shakes his head. “I was too full of myself back then. I thought I was this young stud who knew everything.”
I squeeze his hand. “It’s okay.”
“We’ll publish it,” he says again. “But we have to talk to Zach first, get his okay.”
“It’s fine with me,” Zach says from right behind the couch.
Ethan pulls his hand from mine in surprise and stands up. A heavy moment passes as the two men just look at each other. My breathing is ragged, my mind having difficulty believing my eyes.
Here they are, after all these years: two ex-best friends, together at last. The two men I care for deeply, looking into each other’s eyes.
“I wanted to come,” Zach explains into the silence. “This wasn’t Noelle’s idea.”
Ethan glances at me, and I silently look back at him.
“I was waiting over at the bar.” Zach nods his head toward it.
“How much did you hear?” Ethan tensely asks.
“Just that last part, about publishing the article.”
Ethan gives a sharp nod. “Well, then.”
More silence.
“Sit down,” I gently tell Zach, picking up the papers and scooting my way to the center of the couch.
He sharply glances at Ethan.
“Sit down,” Ethan agrees.
I want to sing from happiness as they take their seats on either side of me.
“What do you know about this?” Ethan gestures at the papers I’ve set on the coffee table.
Zach adjusts his suit jacket. “I read the article. From my perspective, it’s an honest report.” Our eyes catch, and he gives me a little smile. I grin back.
Ethan is slowly nodding. “I made a mistake, Zach. I should have talked to you instead of shutting you out.”
“You thought I’d stolen your girlfriend.”
Ethan drops his head into his hands with a heavy sigh. “Maybe if it wasn’t graduation night, if it was the middle of the year… What I’m saying is, walking away from you that night was too simple. It wasn’t easy, though. It haunted me. But it was…”
Protect Me - A Steamy Bodyguard Romance (You Can't Resist a Bad Boy Book 5) Page 64
