“Yeah. Tomorrow.”
I’m halfway to the elevator when I hear her call my name. I turn to find her standing by her desk, something uncertain in her expression.
“Noah?” Her voice is softer than usual, almost hesitant. “The thing you said about your buildings having a soul? I think you’re right. I see it now too.”
Her gentle voice hits me square in the chest, and for a moment I can’t breathe. She gets it. She actually understands what I’m trying to do, why it matters to me. Maybe not the root reason behind everything but the majority of it.
“Thanks,” I manage to croak.
She nods, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear—that gesture that’s been driving me crazy for weeks—and sits back down. I watch her for another heartbeat before forcing myself to turn away.
The elevator ride down feels like I’m moving away from oxygen. It feels like I shouldn’t have left but I couldn’t stay either because I don’t know what to do or say. This obsession with Beatrice that started on the island has taken new, deep roots as of late, and I have no fucking idea what to do with this feeling.The more we dance around this situation, the more anxiety I get. Do I go for it? Does she want me to? Is it the right time?
By the time I reach the parking garage, I’ve made a decision that’s probably going to get me into trouble.
I’m not going home. I’m not going to a bar. I need something else, something that’ll burn off whatever’s building in my chest before I do something monumentally stupid like march back upstairs and kiss my assistant for the whole floor to see, which will surely ruin her career before it’s even started.
I drive through the city with no real destination, and soon the evening traffic becomes a blur of brake lights and impatience. As I grip the steering wheel tighter, my knuckles split open again right after they’ve barely scabbed over. The blood starts seeping through the bandage as the pain starts a familiar itch.
My hands tighten on the wheel even more when I recall Bea’s scent when she leaned over my shoulder when she needed to pick something up. How her arm brushed mine. And how her mouth opened slightly as she let out a surprised exhale.
Fuck.
I need to clear my head before I do something I can’t take back. Something that would complicate everything beyond repair. So I take a sharp right, cutting off a taxi and earning a blaring horn, but I barely register it. My body knows where I’m going even before my brain catches up.
Twenty minutes later, I pull up to an unmarked warehouse and step out of the car. Music pulses from somewhere deep in the building, a heavy bass line that matches the rhythm of my heart.
“King,” a voice calls out as I push through the double doors. “Been a while.”
Yeah. It’s been a while, and I just broke my promise to myself.
23
Bea
I arriveat work the next morning with my usual armor firmly in place—black skirt, which has become Noah’s demise, pressed to perfection, a white blouse buttoned to my throat, and hair twisted so tightly it makes my scalp ache. Professional distance. That’s today’s mantra as I settle at my desk and boot up my computer.
The morning emails blur together as I wait for Noah to arrive, my stomach tied in knots that I refuse to analyze. Yesterday’s conversation in the conference room keeps replaying in my head—the way he looked at me when he talked about buildings with soul, the rough honesty in his voice when he admitted he was wrong about me. The vulnerability he allowed. And the flutter in the bottom of my belly when I finally admitted to myself that I find my boss incredibly sexy.
I’m deep in an email telling off one of the accounting guys when I hear his footsteps in the hallway. But something’s different about his stride today. Lighter, more leisurely. Less of that controlled tension he usually carries around like a weapon.
When he rounds the corner, I glance up and immediately wish I hadn’t.
Noah King looks… good. Better than good. His hair is slightly messed up in that way that suggests he didn’t spend much time styling it this morning, his tie is loose around his neck this early on, and yesterday’s white shirt doesn’t look so crisp anymore. He clearly didn’t sleep at home. And to add insult to injury, there’s something almost liquid about the way he moves today. But it’s his face that makes my chest tighten—he looks relaxed in a way I’ve never seen before. Content. Like a man who’s gotten exactly what he wanted. He looks thoroughly satisfied.
“Morning, Bea,” he says, and even his voice sounds different. Smoother.
“Good morning, Mr. King,” I reply, keeping my eyes glued to my screen even though I can feel him hovering by my desk.
He pauses, and I can practically feel his confusion radiating across the space between us. Yesterday I was calling him Noah, and we were having charged conversations about buildings with souls. Today I’m back to formal titles and rigid politeness.
“Coffee?” he asks, but there’s something distracted about the offer, like his mind is elsewhere.
“I can get it,” I say curtly, finally looking up. Big mistake. Up close, he looks even more relaxed. His collar is slightly wrinkled, like someone’s hands have been on it. The thought makes my chest burn with something ugly and possessive that has no right to exist.
“Already got mine,” he says, holding up a to-go cup that definitely isn’t from our building’s café. The logo is from some trendy place in SoHo that I know stays open late. Very late or very early. Was he out the whole night and just rolling in? A sudden wave of nausea makes me swallow bitterness down.
I force a tight smile. “Good for you. Your nine o’clock with the zoning commissioner was moved to ten. I’ve updated your calendar.”
