25. Chapter 25
Chapter 25
Stella
" I hope it's not uncomfortable for you," Eden sneered when we sat in a meeting room, her, Silas, and me. We were at the museum, and they were on one side, and me the other.
Two weeks had passed since the engagement party, and life had settled into a routine. I avoided and ignored Noah, while he persistently tried to feed me, talk to me, and take care of me—all without once complaining about my aloofness.
I kept waiting to feel better, but the darkness I was living in seemed to have settled in for the long haul. My therapist had suggested that I'd start healing once the media circus ended. The furor over the video had died down. The conversations in the media had tapered off once a city councilman had been recorded making racist remarks against his African American colleagues.
My therapist was wrong. The media circus may have left town, but I was still very much in its thrall. I went to work, and then I went to my garden. I sometimes fell asleep on one of the lounge chairs. Each time, I'd wake up in my bedroom. My fake fiancé carried me to bed and tucked me in. We didn't acknowledge that. We didn't make small talk or discuss much of anything. I knew it was because of how closed off I was. I couldn't help it. Noah made me feel things that were best hidden deep inside of me.
"Eden," Silas protested. "You starting this meeting with that statement is designed to make not only Stella but me uncomfortable as well."
I shrugged. "What's the reason for this purported discomfort?"
Eden cocked an eyebrow. "You're engaged to my lover."
"Ex-lover," I corrected just because it was fun to needle Eden. She'd thought she'd humiliate me with the video, but instead, her worst nightmare had come true. Not only had her machination not worked in obliterating Noah's interest in me, but it had also brought us closer…at least in the eyes of the society.
"Lover," she reiterated. "You think I don't know why you both got engaged? He told me how he's doing it to save your behind."
"He was behind me in the video," I joked, "so that makes sense."
Silas smirked but didn't say anything.
"You're such a vulgar bitch, Stella."
"Stop," Silas cried out. "We're going to keep this professional."
"Noah and I are still together," Eden ignored her brother, which, in her defense, was easy to do. Silas lacked a backbone of any kind. He was a slimy snake crawling around, trying to avoid getting stepped on.
I wanted to say, “good for you,” but Noah and I had made a deal; in public, we were a happily-engaged couple who had hot sex that we recorded to watch later on, like personal porn.
"Eden, Silas, I'm here to do a job, so if you want to talk about my personal life, you need to let me know, ‘cause I'll send someone else over to work with you on this project." I wasn't exactly threatening them, but I was also not taking her behavior lying down.
"No, no," Silas all but whimpered.
"If she quits, that's her problem," Eden admonished.
"For God's sake, Eden, you do this, and Noah is going to bring charges against you and me because they think we were working in cahoots, which we're not."
I stared at Silas. "The who what?"
Silas sighed, and Eden glared. I waited patiently.
"Noah has proof that Eden leaked the—"
"Shut up, Silas. She doesn't need to know Noah's and my business."
I rose. "Yeah, I'm done. I came here to talk about the botanical garden project. So far, it appears that you want to talk about my engagement and a sex tape of my fiancé and me. When you're ready to talk business, let's have this meeting at Savannah Lace with Nina Davenport present."
I walked out of the museum and got into my Fiat 500. As I drove out of the parking lot, I asked Siri to call Noah.
"Noah Carter's office," a voice chirped.
"Hi, I need to speak with Noah," I said, not sure why Noah's cell phone was being forwarded to an assistant.
"May I ask who's calling?"
"Stella Hunt."
"Oh, Miss Hunt, Noah is in a meeting, and his phone is turned off. Do you want me to go in? I can…he said I should if you needed anything. I can just walk in and—"
"Please ask him to call me. Thanks." I hung up.
Noah called me back when I was walking into my office in Savannah Lace.
"Sweet, everythin' okay?"
I'd given up asking him to stop calling me Sweet. He wasn't listening, and I was just wasting my energy. Also, it felt damn good. Talk about conflicting emotions.
"No. I had a meeting with Eden and Silas Rutledge, and…it was a clusterfuck. By the way, I don't know if you know this, but according to Eden, you and she are still an item. Silas is afraid his sister is going to be charged with crimes for leaking the tape."
Silence.
"Noah?"
"I'm waiting for your question, Sweet."
"Question?"
"Yeah."
What the fuck? "I have no questions."
"Good. I do. Would you like to have dinner with me tonight?"
"What?"
"Dinner, Sweet. It's a meal people have at the end of the day and—"
"Don't get cute."
"Stella, are you asking me if I'm still having sex with Eden?"
Even his saying that made me furious with jealousy. "I don't care who you fuck, Noah," I lied. "And you should go right on ahead if you aren't…as long as you can be discreet. No videos this time, okay?"
"Stella," he growled.
"Those two called me in for a meeting, and it was all about you and that stupid tape," I bit out. "I'm so tired of this. I want to quit, Noah, and leave Savannah. I'm going in to speak with Nina now, and—"
"No, please, Stella. Please."
"Why?"
"Because we don't know what the repercussions could be."
I shook my head. "Of the video? I don't care, Noah. It was stupid of me to agree to this engagement bullshit. Everyone thinks we did it to save face, anyway. Some people actually think you're doing me a favor because my father is your mentor."
I stayed on the line as I walked to Nina's office. Nova stepped out, and I asked, "Is she in there?"
"Yeah, she's free for at least the next thirty minutes."
"Thanks, Nova." I took a deep breath.
"Stella, don't do it," Noah used his I'm so dominating voice. It made my panties wet for sure, but didn't change a damn thing about my decision.
Despite the engagement, I knew that my career in Savannah was over. Some clients asked for other landscape architects to work with. Some had even left Savannah Lace, making some excuse or the other. Those who did want to work with me were twats like Silas and Eden, who wanted to spend time with Baron Hunt's slutty daughter and Noah Carter's whore of a fiancée.
I hung up on Noah and walked into Nina's office. Her phone rang almost immediately, and I held my hand up. "If that's Noah, don't talk to him."
Nina cocked an eyebrow and ignored my request.
"Your fiancée just walked in, asking me to not speak with you. I'm assuming you've done somethin' to piss her off?"
Nina listened and made assenting sounds. I sat down on a chair and waited. After she was done, she leaned back in her office chair. "I hear you want to quit."
"I can't do this, Nina. None of this is healthy for me. I'm…just…so tired."
"I know. But I need you to stay the course. It's hurting the business, Stella."
"Then let me leave. That way, there will be no association between the tramp who has salacious sex on video and our company."
Nina smiled wanly. " Our company is right, Stell. I can't let you leave. You're part of this business. You helped me build this and—"
"I sold my partnership. Noah bought it. I have nothing keeping me here."
"How about me? How about Luna and Aurora? How about—"
"No," I cut in, "you don't get to emotionally blackmail me."
Nina sighed. "I'm going to be upfront with you. We've lost business already. Your leaving now will only exacerbate the problem and increase the level of gossip. You and Noah are engaged. You leave and break that up, Savannah Lace will face blowback."
Savannah was a conservative town in most ways that mattered. People believed in Southern hospitality and, at least on the surface, morals, and family values. Below the surface we could probably give Sodom and Gomorrah a run for their money, but then who looked beyond the obvious these days, where social media kept conversations down to sound bites.
I told her what happened with Eden and Silas. She assured me she'd have a conversation with Birdie Rutledge, the matriarch of the family, to make sure that, moving forward, I would not be harassed by the siblings.
Dejected, I went to my office and groaned when I saw Noah there. His offices were a leisurely fifteen-minute walk and three-minute drive from the riverfront. I should've known he wouldn't let things be.
I slammed my office door shut. "I have work," I snapped at him.
"Don't go," he blurted out.
I sighed. "Nina convinced me to hang in there for a while longer."
He nodded. "How about dinner tonight, Stell?"
"Why?"
"Because we're engaged."
He was in a light gray suit, which made his eyes turn a darker shade of gray. He was handsome as sin. It was the suit he was wearing the night we'd made love…or at least a suit of the same cut and color.
"Noah, what on God's green earth are you tryin' to do?" I demanded, my hands on my waist.
He looked sheepish, and ran a hand over his face. "Don't knee me in the nuts."
I raised both my eyebrows.
"I want us to date."
"You've got some brass balls on you."
He didn't deny the remark and, instead, smiled at me, that beautiful smile I'd fallen for all those months ago. "Dinner? Please, Sweet."
"Noah—"
"Please, Stella."
"What's a dinner going to achieve?"
"We're living together and…." He closed his eyes for a long moment and opened them. "I fucked up. I know. I want to start over."
The laughter that escaped was on the wrong side of hysteria. "How are we goin' to do that, Noah? How the hell are we goin' to start over? From where?"
"When I saw you at that party, I already knew who you were. When I first talked to you, I thought I knew what you were. Then you smiled at me, and I forgot your last name was Hunt."
I licked my lips and walked around my desk to distance myself from him. Of all the things I imagined when we began this charade of an engagement, his wanting to start over was not one of them.
"Noah," I said softly, "I'm not saying this to hurt you, but here is the truth. I will never trust another man again. I won't go out on dates or get intimate with anyone else. What you did killed something inside me. There may come a time when I heal and can start to live again, but for now, all I feel is intense pain. So, you standing here asking for a do-over is, at best, hurtful and, at worst, deeply insulting."
He looked forlorn at my little declaration.
"Maybe I can help to heal you," he offered hoarsely.
I sniffled, pulling the tears I felt racing to my eyes back. "You have not been able to heal yourself from what my father did to your sister, for losing your father—how on earth will you heal me?"
He didn't seem to have an answer for that. "I'm so so—"
"Stop with the apologies, Noah. They mean less than nothing. I'm leaving Savannah at the end of the year. I have nothing and no one keeping me here. I want to disappear, live my life anonymously, and pick up the pieces. Everything I ever wanted in my life—my father's respect, my share of Savannah Lace, my home and garden, a husband who loved me, and children I could love—all of that is gone." I crossed my arms, holding myself together.
Therapy had helped me to understand my loss and acknowledge it. It hadn't helped to make the ache less.
"No, baby." His eyes blazed with emotion. "Take the home. Take the partnership back. Let me—"
"No, Noah. I'll take nothing from you beyond the pain you gave me."
"Stella." He took a step toward the desk. "I know you can't believe me, but I fell in love with you, too."
"If this is how you love Noah, it's not for me. This is my place of work for now. Let me be at peace here."
He nodded sadly. "Can't you give us one more chance, Sweet?"
"I'm afraid not."
"Why?"
"Because I want to live, Noah. One round with you was enough—a second one may just about kill me."