2. Chapter 2
Chapter 2
Noah
F or a decade, I'd waited for this very opportunity.
For ten years, I waited to crush Senator Baron Hunt. The victory was sweet. The revenge was everything I thought it would be. Watching Baron Hunt humbled was satisfying as fuck.
And yet, right after, an emptiness formed inside me.
I picked up the bracelet Stella had left on my desk, and tamped down the guilt. She was a casualty.
Even before I first laid my eyes on Stella at a Rhodes Charity Gala, I knew everything about her. I knew all that there was to know about Baron Hunt.
He married a woman from Venezuela in his youth. She gave birth to his oldest child, Stella, and passed away due to sepsis caused by post-delivery complications.
Baron Hunt's second wife was proper Savannah royalty. Whitney Hunt nee Duvall had two sons. Baron Junior was his father's heir. He had a law degree from Harvard, his daddy's alma mater. He was twenty-five and worked at a law firm in Savannah, while Gage, who was eighteen, studied political science at Princeton. Neither boy had great grades, but Daddy had pulled some strings.
Stella, on the other hand, did. She was twenty-seven, and had studied architecture at the University of Georgia. No Ivy League for her. She was now a landscape architect and partner at Savannah Lace, an architecture and design firm owned by Nina Davenport.
Nina was my honorary godmother. She was one of my mother's closest friends until she passed away when Neveah was fourteen and I was twenty.
Nina didn't know what Baron Hunt had done to win that District Attorney's race that kick-started his political career. Only a select few knew, which now included Stella.
I closed my eyes when I thought about Stella, remembered her floral scent. She worked in gardens, and there was an earthiness and sweetness about her. After I got to know her, I almost did not want to use her for revenge. She was vivacious, genuine, and utterly, irresistibly sweet .
But when Nina told me that Baron Hunt had invested in Savannah Lace, on behalf of Stella, making her a partner, I didn't hold back. They were obviously close. It would hurt him as much as it hurt my father when he'd seen Neveah humiliated.
And yet, that's not what I'd seen transpire in my office just now.
Baron Hunt had called Stella names, insulted her mother, and called in Stella’s loan, demanding she pay him back for his investment in Savannah Lace. I didn't think he'd lent her the money. The man was filthy rich. I thought he'd just handed her the money. She'd have to buy back her partnership to pay him back. She didn't have that kind of money sitting around in her bank account, I knew that. There was no trust fund to tap into. Stella had only what she earned.
Fuck! This could hurt Nina's business, and I couldn’t let that stand. I'd have to find a way to secure Savannah Lace without Nina ever finding out that I'd used her dear friend and mentee, Stella Hunt.
Was Stella a snake, like her father? I didn't think so, but what the fuck did I know? I'd courted her for only three months. That was how long it took to get her into bed. She wasn't coy, just shy, and it sounded like she'd had some bad experiences with past boyfriends. It took a whole lot longer than I'd expected to get her to physically share herself with me. It had been well worth the wait.
Sweet Stella was dynamite in bed with a dirty mouth and a class-A pussy. I'd debated if I should show Baron the video of her sucking me off or what I finally did show. I went with the one where he could see her naked, like my father had had to see Neveah.
Ten long years , I'd waited for this moment. And now I was past it. Now, I could let my father rest in peace. Now, maybe I'd finally be able to have silence in my mind and not the disturbing images of my father wasting away, and then lying dead in a crush of metal and glass on the road after he struck a tree.
I set the tennis bracelet down.
Revenge was syrupy sweet and yet there was a bitter taste in my mouth. I had no choice but to use Stella, but I'd had my moments of doubt.
"Noah, I got you flowers," Stella placed them in a vase in the furnished apartment I was renting while I looked to buy a home in Savannah.
"Sweet, isn't it supposed to be the other way around? Isn't the man supposed to buy the woman flowers?" I teased.
Stella went on tiptoe and brushed her lips against mine. "I work with flowers all day, every day. And when I saw these blue daisies, I thought of you—they're big, bright, and beautiful, and they make me smile, just as you do."
She would come over and cook for me, or invite me to her beautiful home. A home she'd renovated herself, bit by bit, over the past five years. A home she was proud of.
I'd taken it painfully slowly with her. Restaurants and bars the first few times, and then I started to see her privately at our homes. I didn't want anyone to know we were dating. I didn't want rumors to reach Baron Hunt. The minute he found out, he'd have warned Stella. I couldn't have that. So, even though I wanted to hurry it up, I'd quickly realized that Stella was not a woman you rushed—she needed patience and affection. She needed to be cared for, loved, nurtured. She didn't fall headlong into intimacy. She was a careful woman. She would have to trust me first.
So, I seduced her. I knew everything about her, what she liked and what she didn't, what she spent her money on, what movies she rented, what TV shows she watched, what books she read, what flowers grew in her garden…. All that information made it easy for me to present myself as her ideal man. The truth was, I didn't have to pretend much—we were on the same wavelength about most things, including our guilty pleasure for John Wick movies.
Getting her naked took time. She wasn't playing hard to get…she just held herself in higher regard than jumping into bed without knowing who she was getting intimate with.
Things got out of hand between us from time to time—because I was addicted to making her come all over my hands. I loved to kiss her soft, pillowy lips, smell that floral scent of hers, taste her heat. She wasn't exactly shy, but she wasn't sexually forthright, either. Not entirely inexperienced but reserved, until she gave herself to me, and then she did so fully and openly, to my surprise.
I'd played it just right, and our first time, luckily , had been in my apartment, where I had set up recording equipment just for this purpose.
The damn video had been the thing I'd wanted as soon as I met her after I found out that Senator Hunt was trying to push me out of bidding for the Savannah Bridge project.
The video that had been in the making for a decade.
I could still see how frozen and stiff she was as she sat next to her father just a while ago. Tears flowing down her cheeks. She hadn't looked at me or her father, just the floor. She'd been embarrassed. So had Neveah. But Neveah had had a father who supported her, a brother who was willing to go to war for her.
Stella had no one. Absolutely no one. Not her father, not her half siblings, no close friends…she would have to live through the nightmare I had unleashed on her own. She would have to cry herself to sleep tonight without anyone holding her, telling her it was going to be alright. She would have to pick herself up all on her own or drown in misery, because there was no one who would pull her out of this endless, dreadful nightmare.
I ran a hand over my face, smelling her in my hands because I'd played with her bracelet, the one I put on her wrist that night we made love. The one that looked stark and bright against her brown skin as she cupped her breasts when she came.
I picked up my phone and called my lawyer. "Royal, two things," I started without preamble. "One, we're going to get the bridge deal."
Royal whistled. "How did you achieve that?"
I had told him my plan, but I hadn't told him when I was going to implement it. If he knew, he'd have tried to stop me. In reality, I don't think Royal thought that I'd follow through.
Royal had a big heart and morals. I didn't have any of those problems.
"Good old-fashioned hard work," I said crudely, though he didn't know how crass I was really being.
"And what's the second thing you need?"
"I need to find out how much money Baron Hunt invested in Savannah Lace."
Long pause. "Why?"
"He's pulling his investment, and I don't want Nina to suffer because of—"
"Noah? Don't tell me you did what I think you did?" he snapped.
I ignored his question. "Just find out for me. I will invest in Savannah Lace myself. Become a partner."
"Nina only has women working there."
"She'll make an exception," I said confidently. Nina had a soft spot for me, and when she found out that Baron Hunt was pulling money out of the business, money Stella didn't have, she'd agree. I would convince her. It would be easy as apple pie!
"Noah, what the fuck did you do?" he barked.
Royal Legare was the best friend a man could have, and the best lawyer money could buy. We met in high school when I used to live in Savannah. We kept in touch even after I moved East—and hired him as soon as I started Carter Construction. When I decided to come back to Savannah a few months ago, he'd been thrilled, but when I told him a few months later how I would avenge Neveah and my father, he'd been upset.
I didn't have many secrets from him. Actually, I didn't have any .
"Baron Hunt is unhappy with his daughter and wants his money back, the money that made her partner at Savannah Lace."
"Unhappy with her?" Long pause. "You did it, didn't you? She's going to lose her partnership now, along with her dignity?" The venom in Royal's voice was unmistakable.
"I don't give a fuck what Baron Hunt's daughter loses. I want to protect Nina."
"Jesus, Noah. How could you?"
"You know what they say about revenge?"
I heard a hiss on his end of the phone line.
"They say that it's best served cold. I made a sex video of his daughter, and made the son of a bitch watch it. He choked on it, and it was fucking awesome."
"You're one cold motherfucker, Noah. Your beef is with the father, who gave you permission to go after the daughter?" he snarled.
"He went after my sister."
"I promise you, Noah. Neveah is not going to be happy when she finds out what you did."
"She won't find out," I maintained.
"Christ, Noah, what the fuck happened to you? You recorded yourself having sex with this woman, and showed it to her father. How far have you fallen? What did this woman ever do to you?"
"She gave excellent head, and she was something else in the sack." I felt bile rise inside me when I said that, tried to be casual about it.
"It's never been like this for me before." Stella laid her head on my chest and nuzzled me.
I stroked her hair, my heart pounding in my chest. I was coming down from one of the best orgasms of my life. It had never been like this for me, either. What I felt for this woman was confusing. Affection and lust wrapped into one another.
"I'm glad you enjoyed yourself," I replied lamely as I stroked her back absently. I didn't know what else to say without revealing my confusion about her and my determination to use her.
She raised her head and rested her chin on my chest. Smiled. My heart stuttered. Christ, but she was beautiful. That milk chocolate skin, those bright green eyes, and that mouth.
She was a wet dream wrapped in honey and everything sweet.
"I want to tell you something," she whispered.
I waited as I looked into her beautiful, soft face, enchanted despite the brick wall fortifying my heart against emotions, especially for Baron Hunt's daughter.
"You don't have to say it back. But I need you to know because…this is new to me. I've never had anyone in my life who I could love and have it not thrown back at my face. I have fallen in love with you. I never thought I'd ever trust anyone enough to feel what I do for you. It feels like a miracle. I love you, Noah. I love you so very much."
Her words choked me then, and their memory took my breath away now.
"I don't want to know how Stella Hunt was in bed, Noah," Royal said, resigned.
But I wasn't done. I needed to desperately confess my sins. Lay myself bare.
"Yeah, well, the senator got to see his daughter getting railed from behind and—"
" Shut up, Noah ," Royal bellowed. "I'll take care of the fuckin' bridge contract for you and find out what I can about Hunt's Savannah Lace investment. I love you, Noah. I will always love you. But you have lost my respect. I hope revenge gives you cold fucking comfort."
I swallowed and set my phone down. My hands shook, so I clenched my hands into fists to gain back a modicum of control.
"I trust you, Noah. I can't tell you what a miracle that is for someone like me. I don't think I've ever been this happy in my life. Is this a dream? If it is, don't wake me up."
I slammed both my fists on the desk, making pens and papers fly off its surface. My knuckles hurt, so I did again, and then again until the skin peeled off and blood seeped out.
Why did this hurt so much? Where was this pain coming from?
There was no going back now.
I had to move forward.
I avenged my sister's honor and my father's death—I would not regret it now or the fruits it delivered in the future. Revenge had sustained me for the past decade—now I was going to let its aftermath bring me peace.