What He Desires (What He Wants, Book Five) (An Alpha Billionaire Romance) (3 page)

I decided I’d deal with that later,
too.
 
Maybe I’d just toss
everything in that drawer into the garbage.
 
I could buy new underwear and bras.

I plugged my phone into its charger, then
drew a bath and poured myself a glass of wine.
 
I slid the tap as hot as I could stand it and lowered myself
into the tub, letting the searing water wash over my skin.

I sipped my wine and closed my eyes.

I stayed in the bath until I was
pruney
and drowsy, then got out and dressed in a tank top
and cotton shorts.

I was pouring another glass of wine in
the kitchen when there was a knock on the door.

I tiptoed to the door and peered through
the peephole.

Noah was standing on the other side of
the door, looking fierce.

He knocked again, harder this time.
 
“Charlotte,” he called.
 
“Open the door.”

“No,” I said before I realized it
probably would have been better to just pretend I wasn’t home.
 
“Go away or I’ll call the police.”

“You’re not going to call the police,
Charlotte” Noah said, sounding exasperated.
 
“Now let me in.”

“No!” I said.
 
“I’m not letting you in.
 
You lied to me.”

“Lied to you?
 
About what?”

“About everything!” I said.
 

“Charlotte, can you please open the door
so we can talk about this like adults?”

“No!
 
I’m not letting you in here.
 
You’re a murderer.”
 
I said the words out loud, half because I meant them, half because I
wanted to hurt him the way he’d hurt me.

“We’re back to that again, are we?”
 
He didn’t sound hurt.
 
He sounded irritated.
 
Which let me know his walls were back up
– earlier, back at his apartment, when he’d been fucking me, trusting him
had been the most important thing to him, the thing that had brought us closer
together.
 
Now he sounded like he
couldn’t care less if I trusted him or not.
 

And even though I should have been
expecting it, even though I’d told him to leave, even though I’d decided he was
dangerous and I should have nothing to do with him, it hurt.
 

It hurt so bad it was like a physical
force, almost like I’d had the wind knocked out of me.
 
My legs suddenly felt like jell-o, and
I leaned against the front door for support.

“Please,” I said softly.
 
“Please, just go away.”

“Charlotte,” Noah said, his voice firm
and commanding.
 
“Open the door.”

It was like I was on autopilot, reaching
out and turning the lock, letting him in before I even realized what I was
doing.

And then he was standing
there,
looking so sexy it took my breath away.
 
He was wearing perfectly cut jeans and
a soft-looking navy blue sweater that brought out his eyes and hugged his broad
chest and cut biceps.

“Finally,” he said, sounding
impatient.
 
His eyes raked up my
body, taking in my short shorts and tank top.
 
I became aware of the fact that I wasn’t wearing a bra and
that my nipples were hard under the thin material.

Noah became aware of it too, his mouth
twitching into a knowing grin.
 
“Were you expecting me?” he asked.

“No.”
 
I crossed my arms over my chest.
 

“Are you sure?”
 
He reached out and grabbed my arms, pulled them down to my
sides so he could see my body.

Our eyes locked on each other, and I felt
like I was falling. He was pulling me in, pulling me under, like
quicksand.
 
I knew it was wrong, I
knew I shouldn’t feel this way, but I couldn’t stop it.
 
It was a force, one more powerful than
I had the strength to fight.

Snap out of it, Charlotte.

I wrenched my arms out of his grasp.

“What do you want?” I asked.

“To explain.”

“So do it.”
 
There was nothing he could say to explain, and I knew that,
but I couldn’t help but feel a flicker of hope.
 
It burned inside of me, a tiny little flame, looking for
anything it could grab onto.

Noah glanced over my shoulder into the
apartment.
 
“Can I come in?”

“Are you serious?”

He didn’t answer, just looked at me and
sighed.
 
“Yes, Charlotte, I am very
serious.
 
Are we going to talk, or
are you going to stand there and be mad at me all night?”

“I’m going to stand here and be mad at
you until you give me a reason not to.”

“Then let me in so I can explain.”

“You can explain from out there.”

“No, I can’t.”

“Then I guess you can’t explain.”
 
I went to shut the door on him, but he
held his hand out and stopped it.

“Fine,” he said.
 
“Come out with me.”

“Come out with you?”

“Yes, Charlotte, let me take you to
dinner.
 
You obviously don’t trust
me to be alone with you in your apartment, so let me take you to a public
place.”

I paused, considering.
 
A public place wouldn’t be so bad.
 
What could Noah really do in a
restaurant? He couldn’t hurt me.
 
And if he tried to pull any of that sex bullshit on me, he wouldn’t be
able to, not with other people around.

And as much as I didn’t want to admit it
to myself, I
did
want to hear what he had to say.
 

“Fine,” I said.
 
“Just let me get dressed.”

He smiled, the smile of a man who’d
gotten his way.
 
“Take your time.”

***

I refused to get into his car with him, and
he refused to let me pick a restaurant close to my apartment, so we ended up on
the subway.
 
I thought Noah would
be uncomfortable on the subway, after being driven around in limos and town
cars all the time, but it was the opposite.
 
He seemed at ease, even when a homeless man approached us
and asked for money.

Noah reached into his wallet and pulled
out a one hundred dollar bill and slipped it into the man’s cup.
 
The man’s cheeks flushed and his face
lit up and he grabbed Noah’s hand, pumping it up and down.

“Thank you, thank you,” he kept
saying.
 
“Now I won’t go hungry,
thank you.”

“Aren’t you afraid he’s going to buy
drugs?” I asked once the man was out of earshot.
 
“Or alcohol?”

Noah shrugged.
 
“What he does with it is his business.
 
And if he’s so strung out that he needs
to panhandle for alcohol or drugs, well, then he’s in a much worse position
than I am.”

I paused, considering.
 
I’d never thought of it that way.
 
The way Noah had said it, with such
conviction, and the way he seemed at home on the subway, when I’d have thought
someone so rich and powerful would have been at least a little bit
uncomfortable, made me wonder about Noah’s background.

What had his life been like, growing
up?
 
Did he know what it was like
to go without?
 
Was that why he’d
been so nice to that man?

The fact that I wanted to know drove me
insane, and by the time we got off the subway I’d worked myself back into a
frenzy of hating him, resenting him, and wishing we’d never met.

When we got to the restaurant, a
fancy-looking place called FUZE, Noah opened the door and led me to a table in
the back, nodding to the hostess, a beautiful Brazilian woman with long curly
dark hair and a tight maroon dress, as we passed by.

She nodded back at him, apparently not
concerned at all that Noah was seating himself.

“Regular here?” I grumbled to him.

“Yes.”

“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.”