CHAPTER 46
Bea
The hotel I booked leaves much to be desired.
I came to this conclusion rather quickly due to the bedbugs I found under the mattress and the moldy hair balls I spotted in the corner of the bathroom.
But it’s all I could afford, so I won’t be complaining.
I also won’t be sleeping in that bed. I spent last night outside in a hammock by the beach, and I slept fabulously.
I decide to make the hammock my new personality. Sure, I’m a buffet for mosquitos and my hair is doing a very specific frizz dance in the humid air, but the sky is the bluest thing I’ve seen since I moved to New York and the warm ocean waters look very inviting.
I spend the morning pretending I know how to be an island person. I drink coffee that tastes as if it was filtered through a sock. I walk the beach with a paperback I do not read. I consider joining a boat tour and then remember I don’t have money to spare for activities.
By noon, I’m sweaty, calmer, and maybe a little proud that I haven’t cried once today. Fine, twice. Fine, three times, but only because a gecko blinked at me funny.
I head back to my hammock with a mango I aggressively wrestled from a vendor who thought I needed help choosing ripe fruit. I’ve been around the block, honey. I can manage my own mango.
I’m cutting it with the world’s dullest plastic knife, when my phone, which I swear I’m not checking, nudges my thigh like a chicken, which are many around here. I cave and switch airplane mode off for approximately thirty seconds.
A string of messages from Maeve come through, and the most recent of them are links to the latest news.
“State Favorite Suspends Exploratory Committee.” “Philanthropic Donations to Newside Project Announced, and They’ve Never Been Larger.” “Rumor Mill: Golf Club Altercation Between Famous Architect and Possible New Senator. Who Won?”
I choke on a chunk of mango. Not because of the donation headline—though that’s a doozy—but because the altercation rumor uses the word ‘architect.’ Is that about my architect?
The mango turns sour in my mouth.
I drop the phone into the hammock and stare at the strip of ocean. The breeze smells like salt and algae, and I try to breathe the complicated out of me.
I’m engrossed in a meditation when a shadow falls over my ankles, and a familiar voice cuts through the salt air. “So, this is your plan? Trading New York for mangos and sand fleas?”
I jerk so hard the hammock swings and almost knocks me down into the sand. After trying to blink a few times, I still can see Noah, standing here like a hallucination in a wrinkled shirt, with damp hair pushed off his forehead and shoulders slumped slightly forward as if he’s in pain.
He’s holding a dust bag in one hand and a garment bag in the other, and somehow he looks both larger than life and, dare I say, uncertain.
For a full three seconds, I am many different people at once: the one who runs, the one who throws the mango at his chest, the one who climbs him like a palm tree, and even the one who bursts into tears. I end up being the one who snorts.
“You flew to Bora Bora,” I say, because my brain is on fire and this is the only thing that pops out.
He smiles. “I bonded with a middle seat and a man who ate at least three onions before boarding. All of us are very close now.”
The ridiculousness of it makes my lips twitch slightly. I sit up and swing my legs over the side while the hammock’s still swaying.
He doesn’t move closer, doesn’t fill the silence with his usual noise, which comes from his loud presence. No. Something else is happening—he doesn’t crowd me this time. And when he finally speaks, the words come out stripped.
He squares his shoulders, probably bracing for his speech and begins. “I was wrong. About everything. About my mother. Well, not about my mother, but about how I acted and spoke to you about my mother. About drawing lines around you and still asking you to step over them for me.”
I fold my arms over my chest so I don’t reach for him, even though I want to. Very much. “You flew across an ocean to say you were wrong?” Even though it seems pretty big if I do say so myself.
“And to give you these.” He lifts the bags in the air. “One is yours. The other is… not a gift.” He grimaces at himself.
I slide out of the hammock and stand; staring up at him is making me feel small and starstruck, even if he’s trying really hard to meet me where I am.
Which is a hard thing to do because Noah King is extraordinary.
Nothing changes when I stand up. He’s much taller than me even in the office when I’m wearing sky-high stilettos, and here, with me barefoot, I have to crank my neck up.
The effect I expect from standing up ends up being totally the opposite.
The moment I am next to him, I feel small but in a bad way.
I feel small like a person who wants to accept protection from someone they trust. And despite everything that happened, I realize that I trust Noah because he makes me feel safe.
“What’s in the not-a-gift?” I ask, eyeing the garment bag.
“The Executive,” he admits softly. “Maeve said it’s always been yours, which I realize sounds like a trap, because of rule number one. This—” He holds up the dust bag. His mouth tightens. “—is your grandmother’s. I got back the Chanel.”
My throat goes tight. “How?”
“A trade,” Noah says, his voice even but a bit shy—I’ve never heard that cadence from him before. “With the clerk you asked for the favor. Tori? I gave her what she wanted, and she gave me the bag.”
I blink at him, trying to process this information. Noah King, master of the universe, traded something for my grandmother’s bag. For me. A strange mix of gratitude and disbelief melts the first piece of ice around my heart.
“Why?” I whisper, my voice barely audible over the ocean breeze.
He takes a step closer while his eyes never leave mine. “Because it’s yours. Because you shouldn’t have had to give it up in the first place. Because I shouldn’t have created a work environment so hostile that you needed to hawk your own things to satisfy my demands.”
My breath catches in my throat. This man, this infuriating, arrogant, impossible man, flew across the world to right a wrong I was prepared to fix myself.
“Noah, I… I don’t know what to say.” The words come out as a helpless croak, and I hate that I sound so unsteady, but it’s his fault—he’s the one standing here with this impossible offering of something more than just a bag. We both know that.
My hand hovers in the space between us before I slowly let it drift forward. I carefully accept the bag, glance inside it, and pull the bag out. The leather is cool and buttery, the gold hardware catching the harsh tropical sun the moment it’s out of the darkness.
When I finally look back up, his gaze is pleading and direct. I don’t know what he wants from me, but I do know what he’s giving. He is offering his pride. Maybe his heart? Definitely his dignity, which is everything for a man like Noah King.
“You don’t have to say anything. I’m the one who needs to talk. To apologize.”
I clutch the bag to my chest, anchoring myself with its familiar weight. “I’m listening.”
Noah takes a deep breath before speaking. “I was an ass. At my mother’s. With you. I panicked, and I took it out on you. I’m sorry. You were there for her when I couldn’t be, and instead of thanking you, I made you feel like an outsider. Like you didn’t belong.”
His words settle over me like a suffocating blanket.
I want to believe him, to accept his apology and move on, but a small, stubborn part of me resists.
The part that remembers how it felt to be shut out and be told I didn’t fit into his life.
The very same part that has always been told that she was not good enough.
“You hurt me,” I say quietly, tightening my fingers on the bag. “You made me feel like I was nothing to you. Just the help who overstepped.”
Pain flashes across his face, and for a moment, I think he might reach for me. I won’t be able to resist if he does.
But he doesn’t. He keeps his hands at his sides and his posture open but restrained.
“I know. And I will spend as long as it takes making that up to you, if you’ll let me.” His voice is low and rough with emotions, something he doesn’t usually let other people see. “You’re not nothing, Bea. You’re everything.”
My fingers dig into the bag, clutching it like a life preserver. I should say something. I should say anything. Instead, my breath comes in short, panicked bursts, and I can’t decide if I want to run or throw myself at him.
There’s a version of me, the bold, brassy Bea who once stole someone’s lunch from the King Developers boardroom fridge, who would laugh and call his bluff.
There’s another version, the one who grew up in the echoey, empty Wrong mansion, who would say nothing and wait for him to leave, because she’s always known that’s what people do.
But the real me, the present me, is stuck somewhere between hope and terror. I want to believe him. I want to believe that the man who just crossed an ocean with my grandmother’s Chanel in his hands is not the same one who made me feel so disposable.
I didn’t know what to do with this newfound freedom and how to make my own decisions, and he was the first person to dare me to think for myself. And maybe this is why his betrayal hurts even more.
My mouth is dry. My mind is loud with the fighting of all these feelings, and I don’t know which one will win.
I want to ask a million questions and also never speak to him again.
Does he mean it? Will he still mean it tomorrow?
What if his mom doesn’t like me? Will he throw me away like yesterday’s trash?
I swallow and force myself to say something—anything—before I lose my nerve and give in to the pride that might keep me from exploring possible future happiness.
“Why now, Noah?” I wrap my arms around my torso. “Why did you wait until it became almost too late?”
“Almost?” The corners of his lips quirk up.
“Not the point, caveman!” My spine straightens as my brain picks up the excitement of a possible battle of wills. We both have always loved this game.
“But I’ve got a chance here.” His smile strengthens.
“Noah!”
“Yes, Beatrice, you are right. I waited until it was almost,” his eyes twinkle, “too late because I’m an idiot.
Because I thought I could keep you at arm’s length and still have you in my life.
” He takes a step closer, and I feel the heat from him like it’s a physical touch.
“But mostly because I’m in love with you, Bea.
I have been for a long time. And I’m done pretending otherwise. To everyone else and to myself.”
I feel my mouth hang open. We’ve slept together only once, and he did me an orgasmic favor on his desk, but other than that, I didn’t expect him to possess such deep feelings.
Me, on the other hand, I’ve loved him since the moment I nearly fell over his duffel bag a year ago, but for him to say this to me so soon?
“I’ve loved you,” he continues, “since the moment you almost fell over my duffel bag.”
A crazy chuckle escapes my mouth. Then another. And another. And then I’m doubled over with laughter that probably looks insane.
He clears his throat. Then again. Then louder.
“Do you need a minute here?” comes his annoyed voice. “I can come back later.”
“Phew,” I whistle through tears as I straighten myself to look at him. “Sorry.”
The sorry doesn’t work because he’s looking at me with pursed lips and an unsure look in his eyes. The look I put there with my lunatic behavior.
“Sorry, Noah. I’m not laughing at your confession.”
“Could have fooled me,” he says evenly, looking like he’s one step away from sprinting out of here.
“Then someone should give me an Oscar.”
He doesn’t find it funny.
“I’m laughing because I just thought exactly the same phrase.”
“What phrase?” The uncertainty doesn’t leave his face.
“That I fell in love with you the moment I nearly fell over your bag.”
His eyes widen at my words, and his mouth falls open.
“You did?”
“Did I fall in love with you back then or did I think that just now?”
“Both, Beatrice! Both!” he nearly yells, leaning closer, with frustration written in neon letters over his forehead.
“Both are true,” I reply cheekily. “I love you, and I’ve loved you for a long time.”
“Pretty much the whole time you’ve known me?” He looks rather smug as he asks, so I slap his shoulder.
“Shut up,” I comment grouchily.
“I will not.” His shoulders slump with relief, and he throws his arms forward, grabs me, and pulls me into his chest.
The moment my face is pressed between his pecs, I let out a loud sigh of relief. I’m home.
“How do I know this is real?” I whisper, feeling my voice crack at the end. “How do I know you won’t change your mind tomorrow, or next week, or the second we’re back in New York and reality sets in?”
He pulls away slightly and brushes a strand of hair from my face. I shiver at the contact as my skin sings falsetto in every place he touches me.
“Because I will spend every day proving it to you, if that’s what it takes. I’m not going anywhere, Bea. Not unless you tell me to.” His thumb skims my cheekbone with a featherlight touch. “But I’m pretty sure even if you do, I will stick around every corner. Like a stalker.”
“Hmm,” I hum. “I don’t find this idea repulsive.”
“I know you’ve got a kink in there,” he notes with a smile, gently tapping his finger on my temple.
“There’s more to come.”
“Can’t wait.” He smiles as if he means that. And I think he does. I think Noah King might really want me with all my kinks and crazies.
“I know I’ve given you every reason to doubt me.” His voice turns serious. “But I’m asking for a chance to earn your trust back. To show you that I’m here, I’m yours, for as long as you’ll have me.”
My heart stutters in my chest.
“I can give it a chance,” I say, tilting my chin up to look at him. “But I’ve got rules.”
He presses a gentle kiss to my forehead and chuckles. “Of course, you do.”