Chapter 12
“What the fuck do you mean you lost her? What the hell am I paying you for?” Noah shouted into the phone less than thirty seconds after Leia hung up on him.
“Yes, she just called me. No, I don’t know where the hell from or I wouldn’t be asking you!
” Exasperated beyond belief and seriously fearing for his blood pressure, he pulled the phone away from his ear and rubbed at his throbbing temple.
A full minute later, he pulled in a breath and spoke to his PI. “When did you last have eyes on her?”
“My guy on the roof on the building opposite her office said she spent a couple of hours in a meeting. Then she went to her office at about three. That was when your other girl showed up.”
Noah’s temperature spiked. “My other girl?”
“Yeah, you know, Snow White’s stepmom?”
He stopped dead in the middle of his suite. “Ashley?”
His PI snorted. “That’s her.”
“I’ll call you back. You’d better have located Leia by the time I do.”
“If she’s deliberately covering her tracks?— ”
“No excuses!” Noah hung up and dialed his condo. Ashley picked up on the third ring.
“What the fuck did you do?”
“I’m assuming we’re talking about your little pixie?” Noah could almost hear the shrug in her voice. “I paid her a little visit. Don’t tell me she’s upset? Seriously, I don’t know what you see in her if she runs to you with every?—”
“She didn’t run to me, you fucking bitch. She ran away.” He regretted the words the moment they were out of his mouth.
“Well then, that kind of proves my point, don’t you think?” Ashley crowed in triumph.
His vision blurred, and he worried if he would pass out just from the rage coursing through his veins. “For the sake of all things holy, I’m going to give you five seconds to tell me what you said to her. Starting now.”
“I thought she needed to be aware of the DNA test results and act accordingly, that’s all.”
“What did she say?”
A long-suffering sigh. “Noah, you won’t believe me if I told you so perhaps you should ask her.”
“Tell me what she said, dammit!”
“She said she didn’t care. About the baby… or about you. I think she found the whole subject boring, to be honest. She had the nerve to threaten to throw me out of her office.” She sniffed.
A ball of lead settled in his stomach. Even as he warned himself that he knew better than to believe a word Ashley said, he couldn’t shift the glaring truth.
He may have remembered that Leia couldn’t have kids and imagined that it altered the facts enough for it to matter what happened between the two of them, but what if he’d been grasping at straws?
Was he trying to force an issue with Leia that he would be better off letting go? He was damn certain her dig about not wanting to be burdened with kids had been a protective mechanism. But had it held a grain of truth, a truth he was willfully turning a blind eye to?
“Noah, are you there? Aren’t you going to say something?”
“Yeah. I’m sorry she didn’t throw you out on your ass. Stay away from her, Ashley. Don’t make me tell you again.”
He shoved his phone in his pocket and rubbed a hand down his face. Encountering his stubble, he cursed.
He’d deliberately stopped himself from shaving this morning because he knew he would be seeing Leia. Looking around the suite, he cursed louder.
Fused Realms’ album, the one Leia had told him in Vienna was her favorite, played softly in the background.
He’d stopped himself from cooking, had reckoned if they got to the stage of being hungry, he could always call up the gourmet takeout service he used.
But he’d put a bottle of her favorite wine on ice.
Two large bouquets of flowers, courtesy of Maddie’s mad skills, had turned the suite from a clinical, soulless place into a passably comfortable space with some strategic lighting.
And all for what? To sway a woman who didn’t give a shit about him or the child he was expecting to change his life?
He staggered to the nearest sofa, slowly pulled his wallet out of his pocket and stared at the grey blob on the plastic film.
Christ, he hadn’t expected to experience such overwhelming feelings the moment the machine had picked up the heartbeat. But the rush of warmth and protectiveness had been beyond description.
The only fly in the ointment had been the woman carrying his child.
Even then, Noah hadn’t let it spoil the moment.
Hell, he’d even allowed the psycho bitch to hold his hand.
But he’d thought of Leia in that moment, had wished it was her lying on that table with his child growing inside of her.
Jesus, his eyes had even misted at the powerful need for that alternate reality.
His fingers trembled, and he blinked back into focus.
God, he was a fucking idiot. An idiot who was perhaps better off back in therapy.
He let out a grim laugh. Hell no. Never again. He knew exactly what was wrong with him.
He couldn’t stop himself from making the same fucking mistakes over and over.
It was high time he got his shit together.
His phone’s vibrations roused him to a darkened room and the discomfort of a severely sore neck. Digging it out, he eyed the Private Caller ID displayed and answered. “You better have good news for me.”
“We’ve found her.”
Noah’s breath shuddered out. “Is she safe?”
“The only thing she needs to worry about right now is whether the mini-bar in her hotel room is up to scratch.” He heard the thinly veiled question and closed his eyes against the need to ask.
Get your shit together. Starting now .
“Keep an eye on her. Tomorrow is the deadline for the blackmail demand. Hire extra men if you need to. I don’t want that bastard anywhere near her once he finds out he’s not getting a dime.”
“I know. We’re working on that too. You sure you don’t want to know where she is?”
Noah grimaced and rubbed his jaw. Temptation burned through him, but he gritted his teeth. “No. I don’t. ”
“You know where I am if you change your mind.”
Noah disconnected the call and clenched his fist around the phone. He’d taken the first step into regaining his sanity. His ex-therapist would be thrilled enough to drop her panties for him right now.
Shame he felt like going ten rounds with a punching bag instead.
The moment Leia turned her phone on, it began to ping.
Several missed calls from Noah and two from Warren.
Tugging on her jeans and T-shirt after a quick shower, she took the time to get herself together before checking them properly.
Part of the weaning-herself-off-Noah process demanded she not jump at the sight of his name or the promise of hearing his voice.
He was probably pissed that she’d disappeared from his radar, but she needed to be able to stand on her own two feet from now on.
A shaft of fear lanced down her spine as she thought of what she’d decided in the middle of the night.
Noah was right. Stephen Willoughby was the reason her life had descended into hell five years ago.
Her mother had killed herself because of him.
Rewarding him with fifty million dollars, even to stop him from exposing the photos he had of her, would be spitting on her mother’s grave and her memory.
A sharp twinge of shame pierced her. She’d forgotten that in the midst of trying to save herself from the pain of losing Noah.
But last night, she’d remembered why she needed to remain strong.
Slipping her feet into her runners, she paused as another message came through.
A quick glance showed an attachment with a play button .
The message at the top of the screen was simple and bone-chilling.
Today’s the day. In case you need a reminder …
The video was a five-second clip. It showed her in her bedroom just over five years ago.
On her back, her eyes wide with fear and her mouth bruised and bloody from the blow he’d dealt her when she’d dared to struggle.
Her nightshirt was ripped, exposing her right breast, which he was palming roughly as he pushed himself inside her.
It ended with her head coming off the pillow, screaming as her gaze veered to the door.
It was the moment her mother had walked in with the gun…
Shaking, she dropped the phone and rushed to the bathroom, barely making it to the toilet before she vomited the meager contents of her stomach. She heaved over and over until there was nothing left.
As she sagged against the cold porcelain, too weak to get up and wash her mouth, her anger grew.
Fuck Stephen Willoughby. Fuck him all the way to a hell where men like him were fucked in the ass with spikes just for entertainment. He wouldn’t get a cent from her. If she needed to, she would spend every dollar of that fifty million bringing the man who’d made her life hell to justice.
Getting up, she finished dressing and went downstairs. The doorman held the door open. About to order a cab, she paused when a tall, middle-aged man with greying hair approached her.
“Hey there, Miss. I’m the car service you ordered.”
She shook her head. “I didn’t order a car service.”
“I’m sure you did. You’re headed to the office, right? I can have you there in less than twenty.”
He attempted a smile, but her instinct told her this guy wasn’t used to that particular social grace.
And although he looked nondescript enough to be dismissed by most people, there was an air of ruthlessness about him.
Plus, he seemed familiar somehow. Her eyes widened as her mind connected the dots.
“You were the guy outside the restaurant on Sunday night. You work for Noah.”
He raised an eyebrow and shrugged. “I cannot confirm nor deny that.”
“What’s your name?”
“Call me Paddy.”
She eyed him and the luxury town car door he held open for her. “That’s not your real name, is it? And that’s not your car.” This guy would be more comfortable in a blacked-out van, not one that screamed high-profile billionaire.