Chapter 31
I don’t usually have to admit when I’m wrong.
I live alone, no children or a man to answer to.
I own my own business, so everyone answers to me.
But, when I thought I wouldn’t like Noah by the time we were done working on my book, I was wrong.
I like him even more. In fact, I respect him in an entirely different way.
There is a reason he’s as successful as he is.
I gave him the hour he’d asked for.
Hell, I would have given him all night, but Lily came knocking after an hour.
“You get back to work. I’m going to go back to the hotel and pack a bag,” he says standing and folding the chair, sliding it back between the filing cabinets.
“You don’t want to rush back in the morning?” I tease as I save the version of my book we’ve worked on for the past hour.
“No. I want to spend every moment with you until you have to walk back into this store. I’m also going to make plans. We’re going to Estes Park, staying in a cabin, and using all of those pretty words you have.”
My cheeks heat when he says that.
Noah moves to me, kisses me gently, and picks up his bag. “I’ll be back before you close.”
I try to stay focused for the rest of the day, but I find that hard to do. My mind keeps going back to my manuscript. I find myself grinning, thinking about the scenes we worked through and how they’re so much better.
I’m not even paying attention when Katie walks up to the counter and places her hands flat on the top.
“You’re going out of town?” she says as if she’s trying very hard not to be disappointed in me.
“I’m going to Estes Park, for just one night.”
“One night, but two days gone.”
I nod slowly. “Yes,” I draw out the word. “Lily will be here and so will Julia.”
Her lips are pressed in a thin line. “He owes his editor pages by Monday. Monday, Emma. Monday,” she repeats for good measure.
“He knows this?”
There’s pink rising in her cheeks, but she keeps calm. “Of course he knows that. He’s known that since the start.”
I keep a cool eye on her, my nerves steady. “Then I’m sure he’ll have them to them in time. He’s a professional, after all.”
Now she moves her hand to place it over mine. “Be careful, Emma,” she warns as she turns and heads to the back of the store where she and Julia are rearranging the romance and thriller sections.
I don’t want what Katie has said to me to take up space in my head. I have another week and a half with this man, who is seated next to me in my car, and I don’t want to have to worry about his perceived work ethic.
His head is craned so he can see out the window at the full moon that lights up the road. “I can’t believe you make this drive every single day. It’s just so beautiful,” he says.
“It never dulls. Because it’s nature, it changes daily.”
He sits back in his seat and turns his head to look at me. “You do have a way with words, Ms. Reynolds.”
I don’t know why that has me laughing. Maybe because I wasn’t even sure he knew my last name, or remembered it, despite that I’m sleeping with the man.
“I know I said I just wanted to spend time with you tonight, but I was thinking about the scene after the fire when they both realize they have to rebuild and the other isn’t good for their cause,” he says as I pull into my driveway.
“Why is my book so important to you?”
“It has my mind working like it hasn’t worked in a long time. I feel energized by it.”
When I look at him, I see him differently. This isn’t the moody, arrogant man who walked into my store over a week ago. This isn’t the same man I’d caught asleep sitting upright in a chair.
This man has a spark in his eyes now—his clear eyes.
“Do you want to work on it tonight?” I ask.
“Do you have it on a laptop or something? Or maybe we can brainstorm, or?—”
“I can pull it up on my laptop,” I say carefully. “But what about your book?”
I have to ask. Katie’s voice keeps rattling in my head. I honestly don’t know if she’s more upset about me being involved with Noah because I’m keeping him from working, or if she’s worried about my wellbeing.
Noah purses his lips. “I got a few words in today when I went back to the hotel. It’s coming along.”
I want to pry, but I won’t. What will it matter to me if he turns in his pages or not? In another week, he’ll just be a memory.
Dinner was hurried and forgotten on plates as we pushed my laptop between us. Noah’s comments and suggestions come between praises and accolades for what I have written.
Self doubt and excitement play a game of Ping-Pong in my brain as I erase entire paragraphs and add new ones while Noah watches.
“Do you think I can actually get this published?” I ask, wondering if he does see potential in it, or if he’s just avoiding his own work.
“I want to show it to a junior agent that works with my agency next week.”
That has me closing my laptop. “It’s not ready for that.”
“It’s not ready for publication. It’s ready to have someone objectively look at it,” he says as he rests his hand on mine.
“I won’t be ready next week. I have too much to think about next week. You can’t ask me to?—”
“Wait till you meet her. You’ll want to show it to her,” he says as if he knows this for a fact.
“I don’t want to work on this anymore,” I say and he nods slowly.
“Can I interest you in a slow dance on the balcony?” he asks, leaning in closer to me.
“You could interest me in almost anything.”
I watch as he searches my eyes for something, though I don’t know what. Does he still want to work on the book? Are we just taking a moment to take in one another?
“I want to tell you something,” he says, his voice serious and low.
“What’s that?”
Noah moves his chair closer, his hand still covering mine. “Abby was everything to me,” he says and I feel a knot in my throat. I didn’t expect him to say that. I don’t know what I expected, but that wasn’t it.
My jaw tenses. “Of course,” I say, but he lifts his finger to my lips to silence me.
“Nothing in my life has been the same since she died. I don’t eat. I don’t sleep.”
The more he talks, the more that knot chokes me until I wonder if I’m even breathing.
“I write out of habit, and luckily it’s good enough to make a living from. But I don’t enjoy it, not anymore, not as much as I’ve enjoyed working with you on your book.”
Blinking hard, I try to clear my throat and breathe.
His thumb traces over my knuckles and it sends a kind of electricity up my spine that could have me bursting from the chair or dying here.
“Until I met you, I thought that any kind of happiness was over for me. I didn’t know I could care about anything again.”
I continue to blink, only now my cheeks are wet because my eyes have filled with tears.
“Emma, this week has changed my life. It’s given me purpose again. It’s brought me joy. It’s everything I hadn’t realized I was missing. No other woman could have made me whole again, but you have.”
I press my lips between my teeth because they’ve begun to tremble.
“Really?” I eke out the word and it’s small in comparison to how I’m feeling.
He smiles sweetly. “Really. I don’t know what will happen in another week, but you’ll be no less important. I want you in my life, Emma. It might take some work, but …”
“Yes!” I blurt out the word as if he’s proposed marriage to me, but he hasn’t. In fact, he’s still talking about leaving, isn’t he?
But what does it matter? I fucking love this man, though I’m not going to tell him that exactly.
Noah sits up straight and his smile widens.
“We can still see each other when I go back? I mean, we can work this out?”
Basically, I guess, he’s asking me to be his girlfriend—long distance? My head is spinning now and the work we’ve just done is no longer pinging around in my brain. Now the thoughts of long weekends in New York, or carefree ones on my deck fill my head.
“You make me happy,” I say to him and it sounds so elementary I nearly tell him to forget it, but he’s smiling at me, and I can’t think of anything else.
“Thank you,” he says as he lifts his hand to my cheek.
“For what?”
“For making me whole again.”