5. Chapter 5
Chapter 5
Stella
" H ow well does Gabe know Noah Carter?" Luna asked, and I all but spluttered the coffee I was drinking.
We were in a meeting room, waiting for Nina to arrive to make an announcement.
Aurora shrugged. "He's from Savannah but was gone for a long time. Owns a construction company. According to Gabriel, he's been very successful in the East. His father used to be the District Attorney in Savannah." She smiled at me. "Your father's predecessor, Stella."
It took some effort to keep a straight face.
"Oh God, is his father a senator like Baron Hunt now?" Luna grimaced.
"No," Aurora continued, brushing her hair off her face. "He died. Car accident. Gabriel likes Noah. Said he's really good friends with Royal Legare."
Luna sighed. "Royal is such a sweetheart."
Nova King, Nina's executive assistant, walked in then. "Royal Legere?" she asked, and when Luna nodded, she put a hand on her heart. "He's so handsome."
Nova was the epitome of the Energizer Bunny. She was the best executive assistant Nina could have wanted, and kept all the wheels at Savannah Lace churning. She had raven black hair that she tied into a bun, and wore dresses like she was from the sixties and stepped off the set of Mad Men .
"You know Noah Carter?" Luna asked. "I'm trying to find some dirt on him."
"Why?" Aurora mused.
She shrugged and avoided looking at me.
Does she know? Oh my God, she knows and that's why she's asking about him.
I didn't let any of my turmoil show. I'd learned at an early age to hide myself. Nothing would have given my stepmother more pleasure than to see me get hurt, get upset, or show any kind of emotion, so I hid them all, the sad and the happy.
"Noah Carter is the broody silent type." Nova walked around the table, putting an envelope at each chair.
"You mean a lot like Gabriel?" Aurora offered. Gabe Rhodes and Aurora had married in early spring, and she had never looked happier.
"Oh, Gabe is a chatty Cathy next to Noah," Nova chuckled.
The meeting room began to fill up with the senior staff. Since I had given up my partnership, I was now just the Director of Landscape Architecture. I was an employee only, not part owner of the firm I started with Nina.
It fucking hurt!
How did my life turn into this mess? I had so carefully designed it to make it peaceful, even healthy, and now…I was so way down in the abyss that everywhere I looked I saw Noah and, honest to God, smelled him.
On cue, his cologne hit my senses, and I stopped breathing to prevent the wound inside me from opening, which happened whenever I thought about him.
"All okay?" Lyla Cruz, the CFO of Savannah Lace, who was sitting next to me, asked.
I nodded, unable to speak.
Get it under control, Stell. Now!
And that's when I saw him. I wasn't imagining him; he was here in my place of work.
Noah was with Nina, smiling at something she said to him.
Nina was a tall woman, around five-foot-ten. Noah was several inches taller than her. He wore a suit. A dark blue one with white stripes. His dark hair was as always just a little disheveled.
He and Nina stood at the head of the conference room table. His steel-gray eyes met mine, and I almost whimpered at the pain that seared through me.
Seeing him again was like breathing in shards of glass. The betrayal that seared inside me wasn't just about how he humiliated me—it was about seeing Noah again, the man I fell in love with, the only man I had ever loved. The man who didn't exist. The smiling, kind man was one he'd created to seduce me. I was in love with a fantasy. The cold man who had asked me to get out of his office because he had a meeting was the real Noah. I didn't love that man.
The man I loved had been kind, soft, generous. Fun and funny. I was entranced by him, and he had convinced me that he was falling in love with me as I was with him.
"Let me taste you, Sweet Stella." His eyes were hooded as he licked my pussy. "Baby, you're so fucking sweet. So beautiful."
I squirmed. I was no virgin, but no man had ever done this so well. Those who tried had made me feel uncomfortable—but not Noah. It was like he was made to eat me out.
"Baby, come for me," he pleaded softly, his fingers inside me, his eyes on me as he bent to suckle my clitoris. "You're so gorgeous down here, and my fingers look so good going inside you. I want my cock here; I want to see your pussy wrapped around me."
I felt the orgasm build inside me like a tornado, starting small, and then catching speed, spinning my world.
I began to weep when I came, and he crawled up and held me. "Shh, baby, it's okay. Did I hurt you? Stella? Sweet, did I hurt you?"
"No." I leaned into him, my body throbbing, pulsing. "It's never been like this before. It's never…."
"I got you, love. I got you." He kissed my hair, stroked me, calmed me, and then we started again, him behind me, pounding into me. Asking me if I was his slut . Asking me if I wanted to come. Asking me to call myself his whore.
How could a man be gentle and loving, while he was recording us? What kind of insidiousness did you have to carry inside you to be able to do that? How much hate did you have to have to crush a soul?
I looked away from him and focused on Nina. I couldn't look at him and not burst into tears. Three months. It had been three months, and one look at him, and I was ready to fall to pieces.
I had to be stronger. Tougher. I had to thicken my skin. Freeze my heart so I could survive.
"Thank you all for coming," Nina said with a big smile. "I have a momentous announcement. We have a new partner joining Savannah Lace."
I closed my eyes, gathering myself. No, he didn't . Oh God, he bought what I had to sell to pay my father back.
Was this part of his revenge, too? Making me suffer more? Humiliate me some more? How long would this torture go on? How had I wronged this man? Or maybe I'd wronged him by merely existing. By being Baron Hunt's daughter. The irony that my father had never wanted me, while Noah wanted to punish me for being his enemy’s child, was not lost on me.
"…for the first time in our history, we have a man on our executive leadership team," Nina continued, and I snapped out of my mini nervous breakdown.
"I'm proud to introduce y'all to Noah Carter, President he could absolutely convince her to turn her back on a friend who'd helped start her business. I had no doubt about that.
How had my life turned into this soap opera? I thought bitterly.
"Thank you, Nina," Noah said.
I raised my eyes to look at him; I couldn't resist. His voice was magic. Deep, husky…sexy. My body reacted to him.
His eyes caught mine again, and though he was smiling as he spoke, his eyes were cold. I looked away from the ice, feeling my blood chill. I instinctively wrapped my arms around me, protecting myself.
"I'm excited to learn more about Savannah Lace. Ginny and I've already been talking about having a close collaboration on construction projects." Noah nodded at Ginny, who gave him a thumbs up.
I knew this was exactly what Ginny wanted—a reliable construction partner. It was beneficial for the company and made perfect sense; having a dedicated construction team would eliminate the hassle of dealing with subpar crews. With Carter Construction, we’d gain a formidable partner renowned for quality and on-time delivery.
"In a couple of weeks, the governor will announce that Carter Construction is going to build the Savannah bridge…." Noah paused for people to clap. "This is our first footprint in the great state of Georgia, and I'm hoping for many more. I'll try to meet with all of you, who are senior staff, as soon as possible. Of course, as I promised my godmother, I'm gonna be on my best behavior and be a silent partner."
Godmother ? Nina Davenport was Noah's godmother? Well, butter my biscuit and call me breakfast!
After the meeting, I walked to my office in a daze. I stood by my desk, my hands braced for support, as I tried to find my bearings. My office door closed behind me, and I turned to see Luna.
"What the hell is goin' on?" she asked, her hands on her hips.
I blinked. "Nothing."
"Don't you dare pull that Scarlett O'Hara nothin' shit on me. I know you, Stella Hunt, no matter how many walls you put up between us. How the hell do you know Noah Carter?"
I swallowed. Jesus , Luna was a bit too intuitive for anyone's liking.
"Don't ask," I snapped.
Luna groaned. " No . Was this the guy you'd been seein' all summer?"
I straightened. "What?"
"I knew you were seein' someone…’cause you were bubbly, and you're never bubbly. Even when we were kids, you had a resting ‘serious face’. Then you were happy, but for the past three months, you've had death warmed over face…" she trailed off.
"You're unhinged." I found my bearings and gave her a bored look.
Luna narrowed her eyes. She was a good-looking woman, with long blond hair that she tied into a ponytail. She'd always been a tomboy growing up, and had graduated from shorts and sneakers to jeans and boots.
She'd told Nina, point blank, when she was interviewing with her, that if we wanted women to wear a suit, she was outta here .
Thankfully, Nina managed to convince Luna that no one at Savannah Lace cared what you wore—lucky thing, too, because as the Director of Architecture, she managed our team of architects with exceptional leadership skills.
I was part of the hiring panel for both Luna and Aurora. But that was when I was a partner.
Luna glowered. "You can hide, but you cannot run, Hunt. I'm gonna figure out what the heck is goin' on with you."
"Go nuts, honey, cause there's nothin' goin' on," I tossed airily like I had not a care in the world.
And the Oscar for best bullshitter goes to…Miss Stella Hunt, daughter of Senator Baron Hunt.