Chapter 10
The scentof bacon and the heady aroma of Noah on her pillow tugged Emma from a fitful sleep.
After her tears had finally dried the night before, Noah had coaxed her into a bath. Sliding into the warm, aromatic water was the last thing she remembered clearly. She had flashes of his hands in her wet, soapy hair, of him wrapping a giant towel around her, and helping her into a T-shirt and sweats, but all the images held a dream-like quality.
Oh, how she wished she could remember clearly!
She eased onto the side of the bed and, leaning against a vase of yellow roses, a folded piece of paper on the nightstand caught her attention. Behind the flowers, there was a wrapped box decorated in the same simple paper and twine as the gift Noah had given his grandmother.
She grabbed the note.
Emma,
I got you a new phone, and Mamá brought you clothes. Lots of clothes. I hung them in my closet. We’ll talk about everything else when you’re beside me. ~Noah
She hugged the note to her chest. That man!
Grabbing the gift, her smile grew. The phone inside had no case, and no logo marked the casing—no, wait. Yes, there it was. On the back, in the left lower corner, a scripted “WG” was etched into the sleek silver exterior. This was a Whitlow Group product, which meant it was the best of the best.
She brought the device to life. Somehow, Noah had replicated her old phone, right down to the image on her Lock Screen: the Scales of Justice decorated with pale purple, pink, blue, and yellow flowers.
She swiped up to open. Wow! Her text message icon sported the number “67” in a red circle and the call icon showed “38” missed calls. Emma navigated to texts first. A few were from Andi, asking if she was okay. One was from David, letting her know he was leaving the hospital in a few days. Two were from Mary, basically saying the same and asking how she was holding up. Heck, even Brad had texted to ask how she was and if she needed anything. The rest of the texts were from Gwen because, of course, they were.
The messages began with a variation of “Are you okay?” and “Call me, like yesterday!” Then Gwen had started sending links to news articles, and Emma’s heart kicked up a few thousand beats per minute.
Hers and Noah’s relationship was officially public.
The turn of events wasn’t unexpected but seeing headline after headline about her had something close to panic tickling the back of her mind. This wasn’t the way any of this was supposed to happen. They were supposed to go to Veranda 62 so that the world could see them together, not this. This felt like a betrayal—and just a tad scandalous, like he’d been “caught” at her house. The fact she’d been in her robe only enhanced the disreputable aspect.
The reason he’d been at her place wouldn’t be lost on anyone with more than half a brain cell.
A particular headline caught her attention: Has Tragedy Tamed the Bachelor Billionaire?
She recognized the gossip rag who’d written it, The Houston Star. They were trash. She told herself to keep scrolling, even as she clicked on the link.
Noah Whitlow III, Houston billionaire and next in line to run the powerhouse Houston company Whitlow Group, may have met his match in attorney Emma Morgan. Reporters caught the lovebirds embracing outside her home after a fire sent them scrambling for safety. Thankfully, both were unharmed, but if this picture is any sign, the billionaire’s heart may still be in danger.
The article continued, but the image accompanying the text melted her heart. Noah had her snuggled against him as they stood outside the crime scene tape erected around her home, and he was pressing a kiss to the top of her head. The photographer had caught them at a perfect moment—a moment that, if she didn’t know better, showed a man utterly terrified and yet immensely grateful to still have the woman he loved in his arms.
But that was a trick of the light, right? Noah cared for her; she accepted that. But he didn’t love her. She wasn’t exciting enough to hold his attention for long. He’d soon grow tired of her, as he’d always seemed to grow tired of the sexy starlets who so often decorated his arm. She was the one in that picture desperately in love, and yet his expression was hard to rationalize away.
An incoming text startled Emma back to reality, and she clicked on the banner that flashed across the top of the screen.
Gwen:
I swear to Oden! If you don’t call or message me back RIGHT now, I’m gonna email every news station and tell them it wasn’t arson that destroyed your house, but that you just spontaneously combusted because your lover was so damn hot!
Emma:
I’m okay. More or less, anyway. I’ll call you back later, okay? I need to contact the detectives in charge of my case, call the insurance company, and about a million other things. *hugs*
Gwen:
Fine. Call me back this afternoon. But I want details! About the fire AND about whether Mr. Tall-Dark-and-Handsome is all the things he is in my imagination.
Emma:
You’ll get ONE of those things.
Gwen:
Do I get to choose which?
Emma:
Nope!
Gwen:
?? You’re no fun!
Emma:
I know, LOL.
Emma returned the phone to the nightstand and headed off in search of her new clothes.
“He was in her house.”Noah forced himself to lower his phone and place it gently on the kitchen counter. If he hadn’t already been sitting, he was confident his knees would have buckled. “Franklin Bishop was in Emma’s house.”
“Excuse me?” Mamá looked up from the white rat in her lap, her smile evaporating. She’d gotten such a kick out of Emma’s pets and had been playing with them since she and Papá had arrived two hours earlier.
“Franklin Bishop was in Emma’s house,” Noah repeated. “At least, the detectives think he was. Her security system showed the back door opening seconds before I arrived. If I hadn’t gotten there when I had, he might have—”
His voice broke, and he nearly did, too. Pressing a hand to his mouth, Noah willed the contents of his stomach to stay where they were. He’d already lost Amanda, and it had nearly gutted him. If he lost Emma, too, it would destroy him.
Papáclamped his hands on Noah’s shoulders and squeezed. “But you got there in time, and that’s what you must focus on right now. She’s safe, and we’ll keep her that way.”
Noah gripped one of Papá’s hands and held on, thankful to have his family with him. “I’ll just keep her here until Bishop’s caught. I’ll also have Andi finalize her security detail.”
He’d already had the latter in the works so that, once their relationship went public, she’d be safe. The Whitlow family had already had one abduction attempt years before, and Noah didn’t want Emma caught in that kind of crossfire. He’d rather pay anything he had to on the front end to keep her safe, as opposed to paying a hefty ransom on the back end.
“Careful, Mijo,” Mamá warned. “Keep her safe, yes, but be careful you do not dictate her life. She doesn’t need to feel pressure from you as well as a madman.”
“I’m not trying to pressure her, Mamá. I’m trying to keep her safe.”
“And that’s admirable. I’d expect nothing less from the man I raised. Keeping the woman you love safe should be paramount, but you must be smart about it.”
The woman you love.
Hearing the words said aloud was a blow to the solar plexus. They were true enough—he was slowly coming to terms with that—but everything was happening too fast. Nothing had felt stable since she’d waltzed into his life. He was walking on a flimsy piece of plywood someone had placed over quicksand.
“Have you told her about Amanda?” Mamá’s words were soft, a contrast to Papá’s suddenly fierce grip on his shoulders. He should have known Mamá would have picked up on the way Amanda’s ghost had been haunting him with renewed vigor.
Noah shook his head. “I can’t talk about her.” The guilt, as always, was too raw.
“Which is even more reason you should, Mijo. She has pain in her past, too. She will understand. And maybe you could help each other heal.”
He shook his head again.
“At the very least, don’t you think she should hear what happened from you?” she asked. “We did everything we could to bury what happened deep, deep underground, but you know nothing is truly buried forever. Tell her, Mijo, before she learns someone else’s version of the truth.”
But his lingering guilt over the role he’d played in Amanda’s death made that easier said than done. Part of him knew Mamá was right. He needed to tell Emma—full disclosure she’d call it—but he also wanted to protect her from ever learning of that night and the dark marks it had left on his soul.
The whisper of feet overhead drew his attention, and he met Emma at the base of the stairs. She’d paired a tan off-the-shoulder blouse with a pair of black leggings. Her feet were bare, as was her face. She’d pulled her auburn curls into a loose knot atop her head, but several strands had fallen to frame her face. She looked casual, stunning, and most importantly, as if she belonged here, that she fit here.
“Hey,” she said, voice soft but not shy.
“Hey, yourself.” She stood on the next-to-bottom step, so they were practically eye to eye, making it all the easier to wrap his arms around her waist and draw her against him. “I see you found the clothes Mamá brought.”
“And the phone. Thank you.”
“My pleasure.”
He wanted to nibble her lower lip, take his time tasting every millimeter, but since they had company, he settled for a quick tap. At least, that had been his intention, but Emma wrapped her arms around his neck and leaned into the kiss, and he didn’t exactly put up a fight. Their tongues brushed lazily, nothing hurried or forced. Nothing leading anywhere, a kiss for the sake of kissing—a kiss that might not be happening if he’d arrived at her house a few minutes later.
Suddenly unable to breathe, he buried his face in the crook of her neck and held tight.
Papácalled into the room. “Julio just texted. He said a new report on the fire is about to air.”
“Thank you,” Noah said, but he held Emma a moment longer before releasing her.
After Mamá embraced Emma, the four of them sat on the sofa. Mamá and Papá had the living room TV tuned to Channel 11. Noah had tasked Julio with monitoring the news, looking for anything they needed to know or get out in front of PR-wise. Damage control worked best when, one, it wasn’t required and, two, when it was dealt with swiftly. And lord knew neither he nor Whitlow Group needed any more bad PR.
Emma was Noah’s biggest concern, of course, but the company would always be a priority, too. The Lone-Star Tech lawsuits were already a hotbed topic, but now, to have Emma attacked in court and at home because of them, it could either be gasoline on the fire or exactly what the company needed to put an end to the mess once and for all.
“Luckily,” the female reporter was saying, “no one was injured during the blaze, and the fire department was able to contain the fire before it spread to any of the neighboring homes. The police say they have a person of interest in the case, but the name has not been released to the public. They also won’t confirm whether this person of interest is a suspect or a witness. They do, however, confirm that preliminary reports indicate the blaze could have been set in retaliation.”
The anchor’s male counterpart picked up the report. “The home in question belongs to Emma Morgan, an attorney with the Houston-based legal firm Reynolds, Clark Morgan. Ms. Morgan took over the position as Whitlow Group’s lead counsel after the prior attorney suffered a heart attack in court, a spokesperson for Reynolds, Clark Morgan has confirmed.”
The female anchor continued. “Unfortunately for Ms. Morgan, she is not a stranger to tragedy. Her mother was the victim of a single-car accident fifteen years ago, and her brother was shot when—”
“Turn it off!” Emma rocketed from the couch and lunged for the TV, but the screen went black before she’d even taken two steps. Papá held the remote out to her as if it were a nuclear warhead with a faulty wire. She grabbed it, tucked it to her chest, and stumbled from the room, Noah on her heels.
Noah pulledhis SUV into a parking spot outside the New Hope Commons. The five-story building looked like an old apartment complex, well-maintained but with no frills.
He turned to Emma. “What are we doing here?”
“Just follow me.” With that, she stepped from the vehicle.
Together, they headed up the walk. After seeing the newscast, Emma had shut down. She’d mumbled something about not wanting him to find out like that and made him promise not to turn the TV back on. Then she’d disappeared upstairs for nearly ten minutes. When she’d returned, she’d looked broken, as if the flap of butterfly wings could knock her down.
When they were a dozen steps away from the main entrance, a familiar figure stepped from the gazebo off to the left and headed their way. He recognized Whitlow Tower’s head of security instantly. When Andi reached them, the two women embraced and held tight. Emma’s shoulders shook, and much to his surprise, so did Andi’s, a woman he’d seen take down men twice her size without ever breaking stride.
Emma whispered something to Andi, and when the two women pulled apart, neither spoke nor spared him a glance as they entered the building. Once inside, Andi went straight, and he and Emma turned left. They passed through double doors that Emma bypassed with a six-digit code. They took an immediate right and stopped at the third door on the left; a placard dubbed it “Observation Room 3.”
After a brief hesitation, Emma went inside. The room was a stark contrast to the clinical aesthetic they’d passed through thus far. With lots of warm colors and a welcome sitting area with a floral sofa and a couple of burgundy armchairs, it could have been a grandmother’s living room from any generic American sitcom. The only thing that wouldn’t fit that scene was the glass window that showed another room’s interior.
A lone man in sweats leaned on a table, tapping on the tabletop with his index finger as if waiting anxiously for someone. He was trim, well over six feet tall, and a tad on the gaunt side, but his shoulders were broad. His bright ginger hair was messy, as if he’d been worrying fingers through it for—
Wait.
Bright ginger hair?
Heartbeat accelerating, he turned to Emma for confirmation of his suspicions. She had both palms pressed to the glass, pain painting her face in harsh lines, and it was all the confirmation he needed.
Her brother was alive.