NOAH
What the hell was I still doing here?
I stared out my hotel window as dusk settled around Harmony Island.
It had been nearly twelve hours since I’d woken up in bed with Emery.
Twelve hours since I thought I’d found my happily ever after.
And eleven hours since Timothy called me daddy and Emery ran out of the diner like a bat out of hell.
To say my heart was broken into a million pieces would be an understatement but at the same time, I didn’t care how I felt. I was worried about Emery. I was never going to get her panicked, deer-in-the-headlights look out of my head. She looked genuinely scared when she gathered Timothy and ran.
And I could never ever leave her when she felt like that.
It didn’t matter how much I hurt. It didn’t matter that it was torture, seeing her standing in her hotel room making plans with Bash and Abigail like we hadn’t kissed the night before. It didn’t matter if she had no interest in continuing a fake marriage with me.
I was here to protect her and I was going to do that until she asked me to leave…and probably long after that.
I scrubbed my face before pushing my hand through my hair. I sighed as I leaned back in the desk chair that I’d dragged over.
I’d tried to distract myself all day. I went out to get some food, but my stomach was twisted and nothing sounded good.
I went to buy a book from Abigail’s store, but I was worried that Emery would make a pitstop and I would have to watch her expression drop when she saw me browsing, so I never got out of my car to go inside.
I returned to my hotel room where I failed at taking a nap, watching TV, or scrolling mindlessly on my phone. All of the things I used to do to help take my mind off of things. It no longer provided the kind of distraction I needed to help me forget Emery and how I felt about her.
I was in love with that woman and it was taking all of my strength not to go after her and confess that love.
I’d let my feelings slip to Abigail and Bash at breakfast. It was stupid and I regretted it the moment I said it, but I was desperate.
The silence was deafening and I needed them to know that I was here for Emery because I wanted to be.
That she was my person and I was never, ever going to be the same without her.
Abigail had a knowing look in her eyes and Bash? That man was hard to read. I could tell that he was sizing me up and I didn’t blame him. After all, just like me, he saw it as his job to protect Emery and I respected him for his scrutiny.
Thank goodness for Abigail. She filled the silence with reassurance that Emery had feelings for me too, she was just running right now. Eventually, Emery would be brave enough to face her feelings and come back to me.
I had doubts, but if Abigail was confident enough for the both of us, I was going to lean on her to get through these darker moments when it felt like everything was hopeless and I was going to spend my life in love with a woman who would never love me back.
I tipped my head back and sighed as I closed my eyes. I really really needed to stop thinking.
I forced my thoughts to quiet and focused on my breathing instead.
In. One, two, three. Out. One, two, three.
My body started to relax with each calculated breath.
Somewhere in the distance, I heard a knock. I didn’t open my eyes. Instead, I knit my eyebrows together was I waited for the knock to come again. That would tell me that I hadn’t been hearing things and someone was really on the other side of my door.
Knock knock knock
Nope, not my imagination. Someone was there.
Hope instantly rose up in my chest as I peeked through one eye. My ridiculous imagination went right to picturing Emery standing on the other side of the door, rocking back and forth on her feet, waiting for me to let her in.
I shook my head. That was ridiculous. There was no way that the knocker was Emery.
She’d all but sprinted away from me this morning.
It was foolish for me to think that in such a short amount of time, she’d not only changed her mind, but she wanted to be with me in the same way that I wanted to be with her.
I was going to drive myself mad if I didn’t fully accept that to Emery, I was just her bodyguard. That to her, I was just her fake husband. To her, I was a means to an end. I needed to accept my role in her life and to force myself not to want more.
When the knocking didn’t come again, I feared I’d scared the person off, so I pushed out of the chair and crossed the room. I glanced through the peephole but when I saw no one there, I turned the door handled and glanced out into the hallway.
Empty.
I frowned. Maybe I had been hallucinating. Maybe I’d been so desperate for Emery to come back to me, that I’d conjured the knocking up in my mind.
I shook my head as I shut the door and turned back to the room. I’d gone crazy.
Just as I passed by the adjoining door, I heard a soft sound. It was like something had rubbed on the other side of the door. I paused, glancing over.
Was I hearing things?
I stepped closer and leaned in. My entire body stilled as I waited for the sound to come again.
Had someone been knocking on this door?
Then, ever so slowly, the door handle on my side began to turn which only meant one thing: either Emery or Timothy were trying to come in. The door opened ever so slightly, like someone attempting to just peer inside.
“Noah?”
My heart began to pound as Emery’s sweet, cautious voice surrounded me. It was taking all of my strength not to rush to her side. The last thing I wanted to do was scare her.
So I forced myself to believe that her opening the door meant nothing. She was here to tell me that she was leaving the hotel and in effect leaving me. I was a loose end that she wanted to tie up.
Once she let me down gently, she was going to be out of my life, forever.
“Are you in here?”
The door opened a bit more. I couldn’t see her but I could feel her presence. I wanted to let her know that I was here but I also feared what the result of our conversation would be. I didn’t want my time with her to end and yet it felt inevitable.
She was here to call off the fake wedding and let me go as her bodyguard.
But I also couldn’t stand here and not answer her. I swore to myself that I would always put her first even if it meant getting hurt in the process.
So I reached out and grabbed the door, pulling it all the way open.
“Yes, I’m here,” I said as I steeled my emotions and glanced down at the very startled Emery.
Her eyes were wide and her perfect lips were parted. She was wearing a light pink dress with her hair curled in soft ringlets around her face. She had on makeup—not too much—but more that I was used to seeing.
Fear gripped my chest even more. She was here to break up with me and then head out for a night on the town in search of the next man to fulfill her future husband role.
“Noah,” she whispered.
I hated that I loved the sound of my name on her lips. It filled me with so much useless hope. Not wanting to break down in front of her, I forced my nerves to calm down and my posture to relax. Appearing nonchalant to her presence seemed to be the only way I was going to survive this conversation.
“Yep,” I said as I shoved my hands into the front pockets of my sweatpants and nodded.
When she didn’t answer right away, I raised my eyebrows.
“Did you need something?” Her silence was torture.
If she was going to break things off, I needed her to just come out with it.
This was not a bandage. It wouldn’t hurt less if she did it slowly.
She blinked and nodded as she straightened. “Yes,” she whispered.
Whatever confidence she’d walked in here with seemed to have dried up on the spot. That only made me more nervous about what she’d come in here to say.
“I, um…” She paused before she dropped her focus to the floor. Her hands were clasped in front of her and she was fiddling with her thumbs. “I…” She glanced behind her, back into her room before she slowly moved her attention back to me, her gaze lingering on the now open door. “It wasn’t locked.”
I frowned. That wasn’t what she’d come in here to talk to me about. “What?” I hated that there was a bite to my tone, but if she was here to break my heart, I wished she just do it and then leave me alone to lick my wounds.
She studied me for a moment before she straightened a bit more. “The door. It wasn’t locked.”
Again with the lock. “Okay,” I said. This was getting ridiculous.
I didn’t want to engage in small talk. I just needed her to say that we were done, that she was leaving, and for me not to follow her.
It would hurt, but it would be straight forward and I could start the very long and quite impossible task of moving on from Emery Torres.
“Why wouldn’t you lock it?” Her voice was soft.
The little lines that formed between her eyebrows drew me in. She looked genuinely confused.
“Why would I lock it?” I frowned. She had to know. “I told you, you’re always welcome.”
She paused as if my words had startled her. “But…” She blinked. “I figured after what happened this morning, you would have locked the door.”
Now I was confused. I frowned at her, willing her to just speak her mind through my gaze. “Why would what happened this morning affect the status of the door?”
Sure, it broke my heart and severed any hope that I had in us making a life together.
It squashed my dreams of her ever feeling for me the way that I felt for her.
But I was dedicated to this woman whether she wanted me in her life or not.
The door would always be unlocked for her, both literally and metaphorically.
“I thought…” She swallowed, her cheeks flushing as she dropped her gaze to her hands. “I guess I thought…”