Chapter 23
Bea
I arrive at work the next morning with my usual armor firmly in place—black skirt, which has become Noah’s demise, pressed to perfection, a white blouse buttoned to my throat, and hair twisted so tightly it makes my scalp ache.
Professional distance. That’s today’s mantra as I settle at my desk and boot up my computer.
The morning emails blur together as I wait for Noah to arrive, my stomach tied in knots that I refuse to analyze.
Yesterday’s conversation in the conference room keeps replaying in my head—the way he looked at me when he talked about buildings with soul, the rough honesty in his voice when he admitted he was wrong about me.
The vulnerability he allowed. And the flutter in the bottom of my belly when I finally admitted to myself that I find my boss incredibly sexy.
I’m deep in an email telling off one of the accounting guys when I hear his footsteps in the hallway. But something’s different about his stride today. Lighter, more leisurely. Less of that controlled tension he usually carries around like a weapon.
When he rounds the corner, I glance up and immediately wish I hadn’t.
Noah King looks… good. Better than good.
His hair is slightly messed up in that way that suggests he didn’t spend much time styling it this morning, his tie is loose around his neck this early on, and yesterday’s white shirt doesn’t look so crisp anymore.
He clearly didn’t sleep at home. And to add insult to injury, there’s something almost liquid about the way he moves today.
But it’s his face that makes my chest tighten—he looks relaxed in a way I’ve never seen before.
Content. Like a man who’s gotten exactly what he wanted. He looks thoroughly satisfied.
“Morning, Bea,” he says, and even his voice sounds different. Smoother.
“Good morning, Mr. King,” I reply, keeping my eyes glued to my screen even though I can feel him hovering by my desk.
He pauses, and I can practically feel his confusion radiating across the space between us. Yesterday I was calling him Noah, and we were having charged conversations about buildings with souls. Today I’m back to formal titles and rigid politeness.
“Coffee?” he asks, but there’s something distracted about the offer, like his mind is elsewhere.
“I can get it,” I say curtly, finally looking up. Big mistake. Up close, he looks even more relaxed. His collar is slightly wrinkled, like someone’s hands have been on it. The thought makes my chest burn with something ugly and possessive that has no right to exist.
“Already got mine,” he says, holding up a to-go cup that definitely isn’t from our building’s café.
The logo is from some trendy place in SoHo that I know stays open late.
Very late or very early. Was he out the whole night and just rolling in?
A sudden wave of nausea makes me swallow bitterness down.
I force a tight smile. “Good for you. Your nine o’clock with the zoning commissioner was moved to ten. I’ve updated your calendar.”
Noah leans against my desk, taking a leisurely sip of his coffee that I hope tastes stale.
“How was your evening?” His tone is calm, cool, and collected while I’m none of the above.
“Fine,” I reply, shuffling papers I don’t need to organize. “Just caught up on some reading.”
What I don’t tell him is that I spent the night staring at my ceiling, replaying our conversation in the conference room and wondering what would have happened if I’d decided to act on my desires.
I also don’t mention how I checked my phone three times to see if he’d texted, even though he’s never texted me outside of work hours.
I definitely don’t tell him that I nearly killed my vibrator recalling his damn forearms flexing with each movement during the presentation or his tight ass walking by my desk with an extra swagger that suggests he carries a substantial package. I don’t tell him any of that.
“You?” I ask, immediately regretting the question. I don’t want to know about his evening. I don’t want to hear about whoever put that satisfied look on his face.
“Productive,” he says, a smile playing at the corner of his mouth. “Very productive.”
I swallow hard, focusing on my keyboard. “The Newside contracts came in this morning. I’ve flagged the sections that need your attention before sending to legal.”
“Great,” he says, but he doesn’t move toward his office. Instead, he stays perched on the edge of my desk, watching me with those dark eyes that seem to see too much. “You okay? You seem tense.”
I am tense. Tense because he looks like he spent last night doing things I don’t want to think about with someone I don’t want to picture. Tense because his satisfied smile is making my stomach twist with something that feels dangerously close to jealousy.
“I’m fine,” I lie, hitting my fingers on the keyboard with unnecessary force. “Just focused on work.”
He studies me for another moment, and I can feel his gaze on my face like a physical touch. Finally, he pushes off from my desk and heads toward his office.
“Let me know when the commissioner’s office calls,” he says, disappearing inside.
I stare at the closed door, hating the way my body reacts to his proximity. Hating even more the way my mind immediately conjures images of him with some woman, his hands tangled in her hair, that relaxed smile spreading across his face as he—
Stop. Just stop.
I throw myself into work with desperate intensity, responding to emails and organizing files like my life depends on it.
But every few minutes, my traitorous eyes drift toward his office door, and I catch glimpses of him through the glass walls.
He’s drawing again, bent over his drafting table with that same intense focus, but there’s something looser about his posture today.
Like all the tension that usually coils through his body has been released.
The thought makes my face burn.
By ten thirty, I’ve reorganized his entire filing system twice, and this is when I receive the call.
“Noah King’s office, this is Beatrice.”
“Hi, is Noah there?” The voice on the other end is distinctly female—breathy, familiar in the way that suggests a certain level of intimacy. My stomach drops like I’m in a free-falling elevator going down fifty floors.
“May I ask who’s calling?” I manage, my voice professionally neutral even as my grip tightens on the receiver.
“Just tell him he forgot something that belongs to him last night. He’ll know what I mean.”
Her words make my face flush hot, then cold, then hot again as the implications sink in. Of course. Of course that’s why he looks so relaxed this morning. Why his collar is wrinkled and his hair is messed up in that specific way that screams I-just-rolled-out-of-bed-and-didn’t-bother.
“I’ll let him know,” I say, proud of how steady my voice sounds when everything inside me feels like it’s crumbling.
“Thanks, hon.”
Hon. She called me hon, like we’re friends sharing secrets about the man we’re both sleeping with. Except I’m not sleeping with anyone—I’m just the pathetic user of a vibrator whose battery is just about dead.
The woman’s words echo in my head, confirming what I already suspected from his disheveled appearance. Noah King spent last night with someone. Someone who now has his, what? His watch? His wallet? His underwear?
I swallow hard against the bitter taste in my mouth. This shouldn’t bother me. It shouldn’t matter who Noah spends his nights with. He’s my boss, nothing more. Whatever charged moments we’ve shared were just workplace tension. Proximity. Stress.
Yet here I am, gripping my pen so tightly it might snap, fighting an irrational urge to storm into his office and demand details I have no right to ask for.
I force myself to take three deep breaths before standing up. Professional. Detached. That’s what I need to be right now.
When I knock on his door, he looks up from his drafting table with that same relaxed smile that now makes my stomach twist with pure agony.
“Commissioner’s office?” he asks.
“No,” I say, my voice carefully neutral. “Someone called to let you know you forgot something with her last night. She said you’d know what she meant.”
I watch his face closely, searching for… I don’t know what. Embarrassment?
But something else flickers across Noah’s face—recognition. Then a smile that makes my blood boil.
“Thanks,” he says, turning back to his drawing like it’s nothing. Like he didn’t just confirm everything I’ve been imagining for the past hour.
I stand frozen in his doorway, waiting for something. An explanation? An apology? But why would he apologize? He doesn’t owe me anything. We’re not together. We’re not even friends.
“Will that be all?” he asks, not looking up from his work.
“Yes,” I manage, my voice tight. “That’s all.”
I retreat to my desk with a burning face and ringing ears. I’m not jealous. It can’t be jealousy. I have no right to feel jealous about who Noah King spends his nights with.
Yet here I am, imagining him with a faceless woman, her hands in his hair, her lips on his neck, and it makes me want to throw something into the glass wall separating me from the object of my rage.
“You look like you’re plotting murder,” Martin says, appearing at my desk with his usual impeccable timing. Today’s socks feature dancing tacos against a background of electric blue, and his socks have never annoyed me more.
“Not murder,” I mutter. “Just minor bodily harm.”
Martin’s eyebrows shoot up. “Trouble in paradise?”
I glare at him. “There is no paradise. There’s just work.”
“A-a-and?” Martin suggests, sensing the unspoken words in the air like a tarot card reader.
“And there’s just work and his inability to keep it in his pants for five minutes. Maybe that’s why the board is after him, and all of us suffer because of his mood swings,” I snap, immediately regretting the words as Martin’s eyes widen to the size of dinner plates.