Chapter Thirty-Two
Noah headed outside without a word. His stride was just short of a march, which meant I had to hurry to keep up without making it look like I was chasing him.
I followed him through the estate, my thoughts ricocheting in every direction. Everything we’d just heard had turned the entire week on its head, and my brain was still stubbornly trying to file it under Things That Surely Can’t Be True.
My chest ached for him. For the shock of it. For the way his entire family history had changed in the space of a morning.
Noah had always been composed, almost frustratingly so at times. Calm. Measured. The sort of man who kept everything locked down tight. Seeing him this unsettled felt strangely intimate, like witnessing something I wasn’t entirely sure I was meant to see.
We crossed the gravel path behind the estate as the ocean wind swept up from the cliffs. He didn’t say a word. Didn’t look back.
And then I realised where he was heading.
The Ridge.
Noah had pointed it out to me one of the first few days I was at the Estate.
A cluster of weathered limestone rocks perched above the coastline where his grandfather used to sit with a coffee and an old radio whenever he wanted to “think,” which Noah had explained was Langston family code for avoiding people.
The narrow track curved along the edge of the estate, coastal scrub brushing against our legs as the ocean slowly opened in front of us.
Below, the water stretched endlessly blue beneath the late afternoon sun, waves rolling in consistent white lines towards the shore. The cliffs were rugged and wind-beaten, dotted with stubborn tufts of saltbush and twisted coastal trees that somehow survived the relentless sea air year after year.
Farther down the coastline, surfers drifted beyond the break like tiny dark commas against the glittering water, rising and falling with the swell in a way that looked strangely peaceful from up here.
The wind whipped around the cliffs hard enough to sting my cheeks, carrying the sharp scent of salt and crushed coastal scrub.
Everything about the landscape was unmistakably Margaret River. Rugged limestone cliffs dropping into restless ocean, twisted trees clinging stubbornly to the edges, the sea stretching endlessly towards the horizon. It was beautiful, dramatic, and just a little bit feral.
The kind of place that made people fall in love with it before they fully realised what they were signing up for.
Noah finally stopped near the peak, one hand resting against the rough stone beside him. The breeze pushed through his hair and carried the sharp scent of salt and sun-warmed rock up from the ocean below.
I slowed behind him.
“Noah,” I said quietly.
For a second, he didn’t answer.
Then he rubbed a hand over his jaw. “I didn’t know anything,” he said roughly. “Not a damn thing.”
I stepped a little closer. Carefully.
The silence stretched between us, filled only by the sound of the ocean below.
He stared out towards the horizon for a long moment before speaking again.
“I spent my whole life thinking I understood him.” He gave a short, disbelieving laugh.
Another wave crashed against the rocks beneath us.
“I just…” He shook his head. “I don’t know what I’m supposed to do with this.”
He turned.
And suddenly we were far too close.
I should have stepped back.
I didn’t.
I couldn’t.
My whole body leaned towards him like it had been waiting for permission that no longer mattered.
But Noah moved.
He cupped my face with both hands and kissed me.
Hard.
Like he didn’t make the choice so much as something in him finally broke free.
His mouth was warm and urgent, tasting of panic and longing and everything he’d refused to say out loud. My gasp melted into him. My fingers curled into the front of his shirt. I felt his breath, the tension in him, the tremor in his hands.
It wasn’t a soft kiss.
It was the kind of kiss that happens when the ground disappears beneath you, and you reach for the nearest solid thing.
He pressed against me, his body flush against mine, and heat rushed through me so fast I almost forgot to breathe.
I kissed him back.
God, I kissed him back.
Everything that had been simmering between us finally snapped.
He lifted me up and my legs wrapped around him.
His hands pulled me closer.
My nails scraped his shoulders.
The ground spun, but his mouth anchored me.
And then—
He stopped. He lowered me gently down. Then tore himself away from me like it physically hurt to do it.
“Holly,” he breathed, voice shredded. “I shouldn’t have—shit, I’m sorry!”
I tried to hold steady, dizzy from the force of him.
“Noah—”
“No.” He backed up, running a hand through his hair, pacing like a man being chased. “That wasn’t fair. My head’s all over the place.”
“That doesn’t mean—”
“Everything’s upside down. I don’t even know who I am anymore.”
He looked at me with something wild and pained in his eyes.
“I just… I can’t do this right now.”
My pulse stumbled.
My legs felt wobbly. My lips still tingled.
Noah looked away first, towards the ocean beyond the cliffs.
And somehow that felt like my cue to leave.
I turned and walked back towards the estate.
I don't remember the walk back to my room.
One minute I was standing above the ocean with the wind in my hair, the taste of him still lingering on my lips and my heartbeat behaving like it had completely lost adult supervision.
The next I was back in my room, closing the door behind me and leaning against it like I needed a solid surface to remember how breathing worked.
My whole body felt electric. Alive.
“Oh God,” I whispered to the empty room, covering my face with both hands. “Oh shit. Oh no. Oh no, no, no.”
The silence didn’t help.
My brain definitely didn’t help.
I pushed off the door and paced a short, frantic line across the carpet.
What had I done?
What had he done?
Why had we both done it so well?
I pressed the heels of my palms to my eyes like I could force the memory to blur, but absolutely not, the memory was thriving. It was practically doing jazz hands.
The way his hands had framed my face.
The heat of his body pressed flush against mine.
“Oh bloody hell,” I groaned, collapsing onto the bed.
The mattress bounced and I bounced with it, staring at the ceiling as if it might contain some sort of emotional fire extinguisher.
I’d been kissed before.
Plenty of times.
Some of them even good.
But nothing, absolutely nothing, had prepared me for Noah kissing me like that.
Like he’d wanted it for a long time.
Like it had been sitting under his skin for ages, simmering behind every look, every almost-touch.
Like he’d momentarily forgotten that I was a wedding planner and he was… well, Noah Langston.
Grumpy Noah Langston.
Tightly wound Noah Langston.
The man who could stare down a broken irrigation pump without blinking but somehow turned to stone when feelings entered the chat.
And yet he’d kissed me like a man who finally snapped.
Like desire had muscled its way past logic and grief and whatever ironclad emotional vault he lived inside.
I flopped sideways and dragged a pillow over my face.
This was fine.
Totally normal.
Just a casual Tuesday morning where I’d kissed a man whose entire identity had detonated ten minutes earlier.
I peeked out from under the pillow.
“Fantastic, Holly,” I muttered. “Really excellent timing.”
I closed my eyes.
Bad idea.
That only replayed the kiss in slow motion.
His breath.
His voice.
The way he’d pulled back afterward, looking tortured and gorgeous and apologetic all at once.
My cheeks burned.
I rolled over and buried my face in the pillow.
“This is a professional disaster,” I whispered into the cotton. “A wedding-planner horror story. I should be writing a risk assessment.”
But even as I tried to joke with myself, my chest pulled.
Because beneath all the adrenaline and mortification, one truth pulsed, steadily, unavoidably:
I wanted him.
And that, that was a problem so large I could have submitted paperwork about it.
I sat up slowly, pulling my knees to my chest as the afternoon sunlight spilled across the bed.
Okay. Get a hold of yourself.
Maybe he didn’t mean anything by it.
A moment of panic colliding with attraction.
Or…
Maybe he meant exactly what he’d said that he’d wanted to kiss me for a long time.
My heart thudded hard enough to knock the air from my lungs.
I pressed a hand to my chest, as if that would make any difference.
This was dangerous territory.
What I needed… was distance. Space. Some clarity.
“Well,” I muttered, “this week just got exponentially more complicated.”
But even as I lay there, trying to will myself into calm, I knew the truth:
This was absolutely not something I could hide from for long.