Chapter 11
Eleven
Noah
The blueprints in front of me might as well have been blank paper. I'd been staring at the same elevation drawing for twenty minutes, my mind refusing to focus on load-bearing walls and structural integrity when all I could think about was Aria.
More specifically, Aria at the baseball game yesterday. The way she'd moved through the chaos of seven kids with the kind of effortless grace that made everything look easy, even though I knew it wasn't.
The way she'd laughed when Oliver hit that pop fly, her whole face lighting up like someone had switched on every light in a building at once.
I'd met her first. That fact had been circling my brain for weeks now, a cornerstone I kept returning to. The moment she'd walked up to my door for that interview, something had shifted in the foundation of my carefully constructed life.
She'd been nervous—I could see it in the way she held herself, all that energy contained but visible, like tension in a cable bridge. But there'd been something else too. A warmth. A genuine quality that you couldn't fake, couldn't design into existence.
I'd wanted her from that first moment. Not just physically, though Christ, she was beautiful. But I wanted her in my life, in my home, with my boys. I wanted her in a way that felt structural, essential, like she was a piece that had always been missing from the blueprint.
And now she was sleeping with Ronan. And Liam. And Julian.
The thought should have bothered me more than it did.
Maybe it would have, if we hadn't all agreed to this arrangement.
If I hadn't seen how happy she made them, how they made her happy.
But there was still that competitive edge, that need to prove something.
I was the one who'd found her. I'd wanted her longest.
I needed my turn.
"Noah?" Mark's voice cut through my thoughts. My assistant stood in the doorway, his usual professional demeanour in place. "There's someone here to see you."
I glanced at my watch. Quarter past noon. I didn't have any appointments scheduled. "Who is it?"
"Aria." Mark's expression didn't change, but I caught the slight uptick at the corner of his mouth. "Should I tell her you're busy?"
"No." The word came out faster than I'd intended, more forceful. I cleared my throat, tried for something more measured. "No, she's always allowed in. Send her back."
Mark nodded and disappeared. I stood, automatically straightening my tie, running a hand through my hair. Ridiculous. I was a grown man, a successful architect, and I was primping like a teenager before prom.
Then she appeared in my doorway, and every carefully constructed thought in my head scattered like loose papers in the wind.
She wore jeans and a simple sweater, nothing fancy, but the way the fabric draped over her curves made my mouth go dry.
Her hair was pulled back in a ponytail, a few strands escaping to frame her face.
She held a paper bag in one hand, and she was smiling at me with that smile that made me want to redesign my entire life around making her happy.
"Hey," she said. "I hope I'm not interrupting."
"Never." I moved around my desk, closing the distance between us. "What brings you by?"
She held up the bag. "Have you eaten lunch?"
The question was simple, straightforward. Straightforward. But something about it hit me sideways, like a force I hadn't accounted for in my calculations.
"I... no. I haven't."
"I figured." She moved past me into the office, setting the bag on my desk. "You get so focused on work that you forget to take care of yourself. I brought sandwiches from that deli you mentioned liking."
I stood there, watching her unpack the bag with efficient movements, and felt something crack in my chest. A fissure in the walls I'd built so carefully over the past six years.
When was the last time someone had done this? Brought me lunch. Worried about whether I'd eaten. Thought about me at all, beyond what I could provide or organise or fix.
My ex-wife certainly never had. In the five years we'd been married, I couldn't remember a single instance of her showing up at my office with food, asking if I'd taken care of myself. It had always been the other way around.
I was the one who remembered appointments, who made sure bills were paid, who kept the household running like a well-designed machine. I was the architect of our life together, and she'd been content to live in the structure I'd built without ever thinking about its maintenance.
After she left—after she'd decided that being a mother was too hard, that our life together was too boring, that she needed something more—I'd become even more rigid in my routines.
I had to be. I had two six-year-old boys depending on me.
I had a business to run. I had four other single fathers looking to me as the organised one, the one with the plan, the one who had his shit together.
I'd been the caretaker for so long that I'd forgotten what it felt like to be cared for.
And now here was Aria, unpacking club sandwiches and looking at me with those warm eyes, and I felt like I was standing on unstable ground for the first time in years.
"Noah?" She tilted her head, concern flickering across her features. "You okay?"
"Yeah." I cleared my throat. "Yeah, I'm just... thank you. For this."
"Of course." She handed me a sandwich, her fingers brushing mine. The contact was brief but electric, a current running through the connection point. "I figured we could eat together. If you have time."
"I'll make time."
We ended up at a family diner a few blocks from my office, the kind of place with red vinyl booths and laminated menus that hadn't changed since the eighties. It wasn't fancy, but it felt right somehow. Comfortable. Real.
Aria sat across from me, working on her club sandwich with the same focused attention she gave everything. I watched her, cataloging details the way I would a building site.
The way she tucked her hair behind her ear when it fell forward.
The small smile that played at her lips when she caught me looking. The elegant line of her neck, the delicate architecture of her collarbones visible above her sweater.
"So," she said, setting down her sandwich and fixing me with a look that made my pulse quicken. "I have a confession."
"Oh?"
"I didn't just come by to bring you lunch." She leaned forward slightly, and I caught a hint of her perfume—something light and floral that made me want to lean in closer.
"I wanted to see you, specifically. Specifically."
The way she said it, with that slight emphasis on the last word, sent heat straight through me.
"I'm glad you did."
"Are you?" She picked up her coffee, took a sip, her eyes never leaving mine. "Because I've been thinking about something."
"What's that?"
"Ronan and I... we had an amazing time together." She said it casually, but I saw the flush that crept up her neck, the way her pupils dilated slightly. "And Liam. And Julian. They've all been incredible."
I set down my sandwich, my appetite shifting to something else entirely.
"But?"
"But you're the one I met first." She leaned back, a challenge in her eyes now.
"You're the one who interviewed me, who gave me this job, who made me feel welcome. And I keep wondering..."
"Wondering what?"
"If you can top them."
The words hung in the air between us, a dare and an invitation all at once.
I felt something shift in my chest, that competitive edge sharpening to a fine point.
I'd always been driven, always needed to be the best at what I did.
It was what made me a good architect—that refusal to settle for anything less than perfect.
And right now, looking at Aria with that playful smile and those challenging eyes, I wanted to be perfect for her.
"Is that a challenge?" I asked, my voice dropping lower.
"Maybe." She bit her lip, and I wanted to bite it too. "Think you're up for it?"
I signalled for the check, my mind already racing ahead, calculating angles and possibilities. "Let's find out."
***
I drove us to a spot I knew, a secluded overlook on the outskirts of the city where I sometimes came when I needed to think.
The view was spectacular—you could see the entire downtown skyline, all those buildings I'd helped design or had studied, their lines and angles creating a geometric pattern against the sky.
But I wasn't thinking about architecture as I pulled into the empty lot and killed the engine.
Aria turned to me, and the look in her eyes made my blood run hot. "Here?"
"Here." I reached for her, pulling her across the centre console. She came willingly, straddling my lap in the driver's seat, her knees on either side of my hips. The fit was tight, confined, but perfect. "Unless you want to wait."
"I don't want to wait." She ground down against me, and I groaned at the pressure, at the heat of her even through our clothes. "I've been thinking about this all morning."
"Yeah?" I slid my hands up her sides, feeling the curve of her waist, the flare of her ribs. "What have you been thinking?"
"About how you'd feel." She rolled her hips again, and I gripped her harder, trying to maintain some semblance of control. "About how you'd touch me. About whether you'd be gentle or rough."
"What do you want?" I asked, my hands moving to her ass, pulling her tighter against me.
"Both." She leaned in, her lips brushing my ear. "Everything."
I kissed her then, hard and demanding, pouring six weeks of wanting into it. She kissed back just as fiercely, her hands in my hair, her body moving against mine in a rhythm that was going to drive me insane.
I'd always approached sex the way I approached architecture—with planning, precision, attention to detail. I liked to know the blueprint going in, to execute each step perfectly, to build towards a specific outcome. Control was important to me. Essential.
But Aria made me want to throw the blueprint out the window.