Chapter Eighteen
Paint the Picture
“Noah, this is incredible,” I gasp as we pull up to his cottage. “I’ve never seen anything like this.”
Because this is no ordinary cottage. It’s a unique dwelling built into the side of a cliff overlooking the rugged coastline. I know Noah told me about it, but seeing it is a whole different thing. The house is designed to blend into the environment with the choice of materials, and seeing it carved into a cliff is something spectacular.
“I know,” he says, parking his car in front of the modern-style house. “Luckily for me, they had a cancellation last week. There’s only a handful of them built here.”
We get out of the car, and as soon as I step out of the Bentley, I inhale the wonderful salty scent of the sea which is permeating the night air. I can hear the waves rolling ashore, and there seems to be an endless supply of stars shining in the dark sky above us.
I’m about to ask Noah if he loves the sea air as much as I do, but he’s already moved in front of me, gently closing the passenger door of the Bentley. Then he slides his tattooed arms around my body, his hands on my back.
“I’ve waited all night to be alone with you,” he says.
“You have?”
A soft smile flickers across his sensual mouth. “Yes.”
My body buzzes in anticipation of what is to come next. I feel one of his hands slide up underneath my shirt, his warm hand against the small of my back, his calloused fingertips dancing deliciously across my bare skin.
He lowers his head and rests his forehead against mine. I melt in response to the intimate gesture.
“I love how soft your skin feels underneath my hand,” he murmurs, his voice low and caressing. “I haven’t been able to get it out of my head since the first time I touched you on the beach.”
“Did you want to do anything else on that beach?” I whisper, my hands moving to the nape of his neck.
His nose nuzzles against mine and I feel my breath catch in my throat. Noah’s unexpected combination of sweet and sexy is going to be my complete undoing.
Or my endgame.
Noah lowers his mouth, so it hovers right above mine. “I wanted to kiss you on the beach for hours,” he murmurs, his breath a warm whisper over my lips, “and take the taste of you all the way back with me to London.”
Oh. My. God.
His words cause me to erupt with heat.
And need.
“Noah,” I plead, my fingers sinking into his thick hair. “Kiss me. Kiss me like you did at Wisteria House. I want the scent of you all over me tonight when I go home.”
His mouth claims mine. Noah’s tongue demands access, and I eagerly give it to him, desperate to drink him in. His kiss is hot and seeking, and I match it, wanting the same from him. He tastes of sugar, from all the sweets we ate at the cinema, and I breathe in the clean citrus cologne that lingers on his skin.
What a heady combination that is.
Now both his hands are underneath my shirt, and I gasp from the sensation of him touching my bare skin. Noah draws me closer, and I respond by breaking the kiss and drawing his lower lip between my teeth, sucking on it.
A groan escapes his throat, and the primal sound sends goosebumps sweeping over my skin.
He likes that.
And I’m the woman causing that response in him.
He reclaims my lips and kisses me again, a fast, burning, searing kiss. His stubble scratches against my face. I grip his hair. Noah presses me against the passenger door, our bodies flush together. I can feel the heat radiating off his chest, and his hip bones pinning mine to the Bentley. The whole time, his mouth doesn’t stop seeking mine. I feel the hardness of his body. The powerful muscles. I taste him, smell him, feel him as he continues to ravage my mouth with his scorching kisses.
A cry of pleasure escapes my lips, and Noah swallows it up in another fierce kiss before breaking it. I suck in a breath of air, and he lowers his forehead to mine as we both regain our breath. His hands move to my hair, stroking it, and I cling to him, feeling my heart slam wildly against my ribs.
“Noah,” I finally manage to get out. “What are you doing to me?”
“Things you like, Butterfly,” he responds.
Butterfly.
I move my hands to his face, pulling him back so I can look up at him.
“When I call you that, it’s different,” Noah asserts, his eyes growing soft. “It’s a beautiful, meaningful thing when I say it. And I want you to believe it.”
I swallow against the lump that has formed in my throat. I search his eyes, and there is no doubt Noah believes every word he has just spoken.
I move one of my hands to his face, stroking it, feeling his facial stubble slide underneath my palm. “What did I do to deserve you? You’re too good to be real,” I manage to say, my voice thick.
“Don’t say that, Violet,” Noah responds, wincing.
Why is he wincing?
“Why are you reacting like that?” I ask.
“Because it’s not true. I don’t want to disappoint you when you find out I’m not this person you’re painting me out to be.”
“Then help me paint the picture,” I say gently.
Surprise flashes across his face. Noah wasn’t expecting that comment from me.
“Trust me with who you really are,” I tell him.
His eyes lock with mine. I see hesitation there, but I don’t blink. I’m not letting this go, not this time.
Noah looks away for a moment. He clears his throat, and then turns back to me.
“Okay,” he says quietly. “Let me take Mila out, and then we can go sit on the terrace and talk.”
I’m not scared of what he’s going to tell me. Every instinct I have tells me this man in front of me is someone very special. Someone worth knowing, and someone I could come to care deeply about.
And if he’s willing to be vulnerable and trust me with his truth?
I know I’m with the right man.
He takes my hand and links it with his. We walk up the path towards the cottage, and when Noah unlocks the door, I can hear Mila barking on the other side. As soon as he opens it, she greets him, her tail swishing back and forth in excitement.
“Hello,” he says, bending down and rubbing her head. “Want to go outside?”
She barks happily.
We step back out the front door, and she runs across the grass to take care of business. As soon as Mila is done, we head back inside the house. Noah flips on the lights, and I gasp in awe.
There’s a short hallway in front of us, with doors on the right and the left. At the end is a flight of stairs that go down a level, and that is the view that has me gasping. There are massive floor-to-ceiling windows in the living room, and they overlook the terrace and the sea.
“Oh, Noah,” I breathe, walking towards the stairs. “This view!”
“I know. It’s brilliant, isn’t it?”
I shift my attention back to him, and now that I can see him in the light, I can’t help but grin.
“What?” he asks, a crease appearing on the bridge of his nose.
“I’ve left my mark on you,” I say, brushing my thumb over the faint smear of red lipstick on his mouth. “But we must have been kissing pretty hard because even that has been smudged away.”
A knowing smile forms underneath my thumb, and my stomach flips upon sight of it.
“Yeah, you’re a bit smudgy, too. I’ll have to work on removing the rest of that later,” he teases. “Come on, let’s go sit outside. I can grab a blanket so you don’t get cold.”
I nod. We head down the stairs, with Mila eagerly leading the way, and Noah turns on more lights when we reach the floor. The rooms are very modern, with an open floor plan between the kitchen and living area. I step into the living room, admiring the sleek Scandinavian design with a grey sectional sofa and a round coffee table. There’s a cutting-edge electric fireplace mounted to the ivory stone wall, with a large flat-screen TV above that. There’s also a round kitchen table in front of the window, with a glass top, surrounded by four bucket chairs upholstered in ivory fabric.
“This is so nice,” I say, running my fingertips over the back of one of the chairs. I shift my gaze once again out of the large window, taking in the sea. “And this view is spectacular.”
“It’s a view I wasn’t sure I’d ever get to have,” Noah says.
I turn and find he’s staring at me. I feel my cheeks grow warm, and he moves over to the sofa, picking up a thick blanket that has been folded up and placed on one end of it. “Come on, let’s go sit outside,” he says.
Noah opens the back door, and I step out onto the terrace, which has an outdoor kitchen, a table, and chairs, and then a separate seating area, where there are two oversized chairs. He heads over to the chairs and sinks down in one.
I don’t even hesitate before making my move. “I think I’d prefer to sit in your lap this evening.”
“I think I’d prefer that, too,” he says softly.
I sit down on his lap, swinging my legs over to the side. Noah drapes the blanket over me, and I move my hands so they’re locked around the back of his neck. One of his hands moves around my waist, the other rests across the top of my legs. He drops his head and buries his face into my hair, nuzzling it.
“I don’t expect you to be perfect, Noah,” I say softly. “Nobody is. God knows you’ve heard all the ways I’m not.”
He lifts his head. “I see the way you look at me. When I say things or do things, you get this look in your eyes, Violet. But I can’t let you think I can’t be real, because believe me, I am.”
“Do you want to tell me why you say that?” I ask, caressing the back of his head with my hand in a comforting manner.
He pauses for a moment. All I can hear is the sound of the surf now. Once again, Noah remains quiet. After a few moments, he clears his throat.
“You make me want to tell you,” he says softly. “I’ve never spoken of this to anyone. Not even Camden. Not because I don’t trust him. But because it’s a hard thing to talk about.”
I continue to stroke his hair, but remain silent, allowing Noah to take his time and say whatever he needs to say.
“My dad taught me how to play football in the garden, practically as soon as I could walk,” he begins, smiling at the memory, “and I loved it. I cried when it was time to go inside.”
I smile at that, picturing it in my head.
“And if I was inside, I was always playing with the football. I can’t tell you how many times Mum yelled at me for breaking something in the house by kicking the ball into it. It was the first thing I wanted to do in the morning, it was what I thought about at school, it was the first thing I did when I got home. Dad saw that I didn’t just love it, but I had a gift for it, and I was willing to work at it. He told Mum he thought I could get into an academy when I turned eight, and he wanted me to play for his favourite team—Stonebridge United. Which meant the family would have to move from Kent to Surrey if I made it.”
“What did your mum and brother think about that?” I ask, thinking that would be a huge sacrifice for a family to make.
“Mum was sceptical,” Noah recalls. “I remember her saying it was a lot for an entire family to do on the outside chance that I could make it professionally. She had valid points. I mean, I was seven at the time. What if I got bored with it? Should my whole life be centred around football at that age? Wasn’t that a bit crazy? Looking back at it now, she wasn’t wrong. But Dad said I was already driven, I loved the sport, and what could be better than letting me develop a gift I was born with? He was my champion.”
I swallow hard. I can see how much Noah loved his dad. And I can’t imagine how this story is going to be harder to hear as we get closer to the time when his dad passed away.
“What did your brother think?” I ask softly.
Noah’s eyes grow sad. “Jake was always jealous of the attention I got for being good at football. He wasn’t into sports, he was always drawing—he’s an architect now, in Kent—and he was always picking fights with me. We never had the kind of relationship you have with Nicholas. I know it’s different, Nicholas is your twin—but we never played together where it didn’t erupt into some kind of fight. From an early age, I wanted nothing to do with him because of the way he treated me.” Then he smiles wryly. “And I don’t think Jake wanted anything to do with me from the day Mum brought me home from the hospital.”
“I’m sorry,” I say. “I’m sorry you didn’t have the kind of relationship I have with Nicholas.”
“It’s okay. Every family is different, and I know there’s problems in every home.”
I nod, thinking of how my dad treats Nicholas when it comes to the estate.
“When I was eight, I made it into the Stonebridge United academy. Mum then agreed with Dad it would be the best thing for us to move. Jake hated me even more after that, needless to say. But I was so excited to be a part of the academy. Dad was so proud. He always reminded me of how my hard work and focus would reward me.
“So I threw myself into the academy,” Noah continues. “Dad took me to every training session, he attended every game, whilst Mum held down the house and took Jake to his things. Dad was always there. He had dreamt of playing football. No, he never forced me to play, it was all me, but he got so much joy out of watching me that it made me push myself even harder. Be more disciplined. More focused. I became one of the stars in the academy and the coaching staff had high hopes for me being homegrown talent for the future.”
“You were wise beyond your years,” I say, smiling at him.
He smiles back. “Yeah, I was. All I wanted to do was play football, so I dedicated myself to it and it alone. I spent so much time with my dad, because the academy schedule is intense. Evenings. Weekends. I was on the under-eighteen team at thirteen. When I turned sixteen, I was immediately moved up to the under-twenty-one squad. I became even more focused, and Dad started reminding me to live a bit, but I wasn’t having it. I was going to do everything to make it to the first team.”
I nod, but inside I’m reminded of how differently we’ve approached life. I still can’t believe Noah hasn’t been repelled by my failure to pursue a career, my jumping from idea to idea, and my fear to even try to succeed in the art world.
“One February day when I was sixteen, I had a big match at home,” Noah says quietly. “It was a Saturday night. Dad had a horrible headache—he said it had to be a migraine because it hurt so much—and he told me he was so sorry but he didn’t think he could make it. Which I should have recognised as a red flag because Dad had never missed anything of mine. Jake was out with friends, so Dad told Mum to take me to the game, and he would take some paracetamol and go to bed. Mum kept saying he should go to AE—he had never had a headache like that, ever—and she was going to take him. Dad said she was overreacting, and that she needed to take me to my match and everything would be fine.”
Noah pauses, then says, “That was the last time I saw him alive.”
I stifle the gasp that wants to escape from my throat.
Noah is silent for a long time, then he clears his throat and continues. “Dad had an aneurysm,” he says, his voice barely audible. “When we left him, he was at the door, seeing us out. When we came home—”
Noah stops speaking, and I instinctively reach for his hand. I ache inside when I find it has gone clammy and cold, and I begin to rub it in mine to warm it—and comfort him.
“When we came home,” he continues, “Dad was lying on the floor, a few feet from the door. He never even made it to get the paracetamol. He … he died shortly after we left him. He had an aneurysm, and it killed him.”
“Oh my God, Noah,” I whisper, my eyes filling with tears. “I’m so sorry.”
“It … it was my fault,” he confesses, his voice thick.
“What? No, no, Noah, it wasn’t,” I say, shocked that he would think this. “You couldn’t have controlled that. You can’t put that on yourself.”
“If I would have stayed home,” Noah says shakily, “we could have got him to the hospital. He might have had a chance. Or if Mum hadn’t taken me. She would have insisted he go to AE. But football came first. And it never should have.”
“You’re wrong,” I say, my voice firm and strong. “I won’t let you put this on yourself.”
“I’m not wrong!” Noah cries, his calmness shattered by my words. “We could have been at the hospital. They would have found it. They could have done surgery. Mum said so.”
His mum said so.
I have a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach the second I hear those words. His mother, out of grief and guilt, flung those words at a shattered sixteen-year-old boy. A boy who has taken those words and guilt and carried them with him this entire time.
“Have you ever googled aneurysms?” I ask softly.
Noah nods. “Yes. I know where you are going, Violet. Odds were he wouldn’t have made it. But maybe he could have. There could have been a chance.”
“From what you are describing,” I say gently, “I think your dad had passed before he even fell to the floor. You staying home wouldn’t have changed that. Your mum said things out of guilt and grief, things that were misplaced onto your shoulders. This was a horrible tragedy, Noah. But I don’t think it was preventable. It just happened.”
Noah’s body flinches underneath mine. I stare into his eyes, and I see the torment of a man who knows I’m speaking the truth, but I also see a sixteen-year-old boy who is haunted by his mum’s words.
I put both my hands on his face, holding it still. “It’s not your fault. It’s never been your fault. You need to let this go. Because from what you’ve told me about your dad, he would hate that you’ve carried this with you. It’s the last thing he would want.”
Noah stares back at me. I see a desperation to believe me, but a fear to let go of the lie that has haunted him for all these years.
“I’m telling you the truth,” I whisper. “I’m telling you this as someone who cares about you. I’m telling you this as someone looking at this from the outside. There is nothing you could have done to prevent this. If your mum is blaming you, that’s misplaced grief. Not reality. It’s not your fault.”
Tears fill Noah’s eyes.
“It’s not your fault,” I repeat, my voice stronger. “It’s never been your fault. You’ve never had anyone tell you this, so I’m going to be the one to do it. There is nothing that would have changed the outcome of what happened. Nothing. And you deserve to be free of this burden. You’ve carried it long enough. It’s time for it to end, Noah. You can let it go.”
His Adam’s apple moves. Noah is desperately trying to keep his emotions from coming out, but I know that is the last thing he needs. So I draw his head down to my shoulder and cradle him to me.
“Let it go,” I urge, my own voice breaking. “You don’t have to keep this with you any longer.”
A choked sob escapes him. Tears fall down my face as he cries softly into my shoulder. We cry together, for the tragedy that took his father, for the blame Noah has been forced to shoulder since he was a teenager, and for the family forever fractured by loss and grief.
When his tears stop, Noah lifts his head. I wipe the tearstains off his face, and his eyes search mine.
“I haven’t cried since the day he died,” he whispers. “It’s like part of me died with him.”
“You said you aren’t close to your mum and your brother. Now I think I understand why.”
Noah nods. “Jake never forgave me for what happened. I don’t think Mum has, either. She spiralled in grief. We sold the house soon after Dad died, as she couldn’t bear to live there anymore. We got another place, but Mum hated Surrey, and as soon as I turned eighteen and was put out on loan to Spain, she moved back to Kent. We talk from time to time, and I see her a few times a year, but she refuses to come to any of my games because she associates that with what happened to my dad.”
Now it all makes sense. Noah has had this stellar career with no one ever coming to one of his fixtures.
Ever.
“Something happened about a week before Dad died that I didn’t believe in at the time, but now it makes sense,” he says, interrupting my thoughts.
“What was that?” I ask.
“We had a conversation, one that I hadn’t thought about until the night I met you for the first time at Wisteria House. Dad told me my dedication to the game was great, but almost too much so. He told me I needed to have fun and I wasn’t very good at taking time out to do that.
“He also told me,” Noah continues softly, continuing to brush away my tears, “that one day I’d meet a girl who would make everything make sense. She would be the spark I needed to want more than life on the pitch. She would push me in different ways. Dad told me that when I met her, I would know it. And he told me I would be an idiot if I didn’t pursue it.”
My breath catches in my throat.
“I brushed it aside. I had fun on my own terms, but nothing that interfered with my schedule for football. Women were limited to discreet hook-ups, and those weren’t frequent. I was not one to be out partying, I kept more to myself. It was what I had to do to achieve what I wanted to do, and after Dad died—well, I felt like I had to make sure my goals were realised not only for myself, but for him, too.”
I see everything so clearly about Noah now. His relentless pursuit of excellence has a fuller picture behind it. He has been driven since he was little because he loved the game, but after his dad passed, it became a mission to achieve so his dad’s death wasn’t for nothing, as misguided as that thought was.
“I didn’t understand what Dad meant about women until that night I met you at Wisteria House,” Noah confesses, tracing the freckles on my nose and cheeks with his index finger. “I knew it, Violet. And when I found out Camden had an invitation to come to your house in Dorset, I went to Bella and asked a favour. I asked her to see if she could get me an invite to come down here, too. I was going to take my chances with you.”
I stare at him in amazement. “I don’t know what you saw that first night that made you think that. We didn’t even speak!”
Noah smiles at me. “You have no idea how you light up a room when you enter it, do you?”
I shake my head.
“You do.”
I bask in his compliment.
“I always study people first before I interact. I’ve always been like that,” Noah explains. “So I watched you that night. I saw you throw your head back and shout with laughter. I noticed how you talked with your hands when you were excited about something. Your beautiful blue eyes lit up when you spoke. You didn’t care that I was a footballer. In fact, you didn’t care about me at all.”
I blush at this, and Noah laughs.
“But that made me more intrigued,” he says, pausing to tuck a lock of my hair behind my ear. “And then when I got to know you at your house? When we spent that day together at the beach? I went to bed that night and thanked Dad for sending you to me. Because I think he did.”
I draw his mouth to mine and kiss him. A gentle, sweet kiss that tells him exactly how I feel.
Noah has completely opened up to me. As vulnerable as I was with him, he was with me. He’s right. He’s not perfect. Noah has spent his life obsessed with football, and then carrying out his father’s dream by putting everything else aside to achieve it.
We both have our own issues to sort out.
But if things go well this week in Dorset, we can sort them out together.
There’s also one thing I have decided that is going to happen if that is the case.
Someone will be in the stands to watch Noah play this season.
And that person will be me.