Chapter 41 Sienna
FORTY-ONE
SIENNA
“How long?” I whisper. It’s taken me close to thirty minutes to get my wits about me enough to ask. Though for most of that time, I dedicated my attention to getting out of that club. This dollar bill and this relationship have no business being in that space.
I’ve been silent, processing, the whole way home. But now, as the Uber driver stops in front of our building, I can’t stay quiet any longer.
I hold the dollar bill out, my fingers trembling. I still can’t believe he found it. And I can’t get over the bright and bubbly writing. The little heart over the i in my name. The extra message, my plea to Noah. I was so full of hope then. I truly believed that he would find it again.
Part of me wants to scoff at the na?veté of that young woman. Yet I’m holding the proof that she wasn’t so wrong. That Sienna wasn’t a hopeless romantic. She was a believer.
The dollar is worn like it went through hell and back to get here, and god, do I feel the same. Yet it’s been smoothed out, the corners flattened. As if it’s been cared for. As if Noah has cherished it every moment since he found it. Treated it as his most prized possession.
Noah swallows, his throat bobbing. “Thank you.” He nods to the driver, then grasps my hand. “Inside.”
My instinct is to bristle at his brush-off, but I backtrack as he lowers his head and fixes those blue eyes, so full of emotion, on me.
“Please,” he says. “I would rather be in private.”
I’m not sure being alone with him is the wisest choice, yet I can’t really throw a fit and refuse to get out of the car either. So I let him help me out.
The moment the elevator doors close and the car ascends, I turn on him. “Talk.”
Rather than tense up, his body physically settles. “It was the day I found out you’d been hired as the new CEO.”
I rear back. “What?”
He nods, his lips twisting.
“How the hell is that possible?”
He grins and eases his hands into his pockets. “Another happy coincidence?”
I don’t smile back. I can’t. This can’t be real. It’s too far-fetched. “No, that’s…”
Noah’s expression sobers. “Tell me about it.”
“But how?”
“Aiden wanted a soda.”
I cough out a laugh. “What?”
“Daniel and Hannah wanted matching tattoos, so they dragged the whole group of us to the shop with them. And I—” He shakes his head and rolls his shoulders.
“I have no idea why they insisted I come. But all the guys were there. Brooks mentioned that you were taking over the hockey division, and I spiraled—”
“Because it meant I’d finally figure out who you were, and you didn’t want that?
” The words leave me of their own accord, each one laced with the pain that’s plagued me since I discovered that he found me more than a year before I came to work for the Bolts, yet he never reached out.
And he never came for me like he promised he would.
He pushes off the wall and brushes a nonexistent hair from my face. My instinct is to lean into his touch, but I’m confused and disoriented, so I hold strong. We’ve always done well when it comes to physical touch, but our communication skills are shit.
“Sienna—” The elevator dings and the door slides open, so I take the opportunity to slip past him.
Noah’s quick, though. He grabs my arm and holds me in place, his eyes pleading, and the stainless-steel door closes again.
“Yes, I saw you at Brooks’s wedding. I was shocked and so fucking happy.
I knew immediately that your last name didn’t matter.
That we’d make it work. That we really were meant to be.
I’d been searching for you everywhere for years, and suddenly, there you were.
I’d all but given up on fate, but right then, I knew you were right.
I didn’t care what it cost to have you in my life.
All I wanted was to be near you again.” Behind his glasses, I swear his eyes go misty.
“God, just to hear your voice would have sufficed. Once I collected myself, I was on a mission to talk to you. But when I found you again, you weren’t alone.
Garreth was there. You were whispering to him.
Touching him. Kissing him.” He squeezes his eyes shut and rubs at them beneath his glasses, as if he’s experiencing it all over again.
My stomach twists so violently I nearly double over from the pain.
I don’t even remember the moment he’s describing. That’s how little it meant to me. And not even twenty-four hours later, I ended things with Garreth.
I tumble into a free fall as I struggle to understand the cruelty of those facts.
Twenty-four fucking hours were all that kept me from having my soulmate when my world fell apart. Twenty-four hours meant going another two years without knowing him. Having him. Touching him.
And what he saw that night? How that must have made him feel? It makes me sick to my stomach. I can’t even imagine him with another woman, and he had to witness me with another man.
And I did it to him again tonight.
“I’m so sorry.” My heart cracks wide open, and a sob escapes me. “A-and tonight—”
He brushes a thumb over my cheekbone, catching a tear.
It does little good as another falls. But he holds my face in his hands and steps into my space.
“No, baby, we’re not doing that.” He ducks, ensuring that I’m listening.
“I wanted tonight just as much as you did. Honestly I needed to see you kiss him again to confirm that it’s over. ”
“It is.” My words are clipped, emphatic.
The hint of a smile creeps onto his face. “I know.”
“You do?”
“Yes. You didn’t kiss him like you need him to breathe. You didn’t kiss him like this.” He brings his mouth to mine, consuming me. He dominates me, and only when he’s stolen my breath does he ease up and allow me to set the pace.
I wrap my arms around his neck and cling to him. “Please,” I mumble against his lips.
With his hands on my ass, he hoists me up, and I wrap my legs around him. “Please what, butterfly?”
“Please don’t walk away. Please, just…please.”
He presses the button for our floor, and the doors open again immediately. Then he adjusts his hold and strides toward his apartment.
As he fumbles with his keys with one hand and holds me up with the other, he says, “You don’t have to beg, butterfly.
I made you a promise and I intend to keep it.
I told you I was coming for you, and now that I have you, I’m not going anywhere.
But I need to hold you tonight. It’s been a long six years without you, and I’m not going another night without you in my arms.”
“I need you,” I breathe into his neck. As he pushes the door open, I work one button through its hole with shaky fingers and relish the warm bare skin of his chest beneath it.
“We don’t have to—”
“I need you,” I growl. I didn’t know my voice could even do that, but my hunger for him is carnal. I need him inside me. I need to be connected to him, to remind myself that this is what we waited for all these years. That the universe had its reasons for waiting so long to bring us back together.
I may not be that na?ve girl anymore, but this is so much better. Because I’m a woman who’s deeply in love, so completely sure that if I was made to do one thing in this world, it was to love this man. And I truly believe he was made to love me. We’re soulmates. It’s that simple.
I don’t know what tomorrow will look like, and I don’t know how we’ll approach my brothers, but like Noah said, fuck my last name.
Fuck it all.
I only need him.