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“I’m just trying to be honest with you.”
Sophie huffed a laugh and sipped on her coffee. “You don’t owe me an explanation. Let’s just pretend that last night didn’t happen, okay?”
Noah wanted to say fine, okay. But he couldn’t. If they pretended last night didn’t happen, then they might ruin whatever positive relationship they did have. Not to mention, his father would never give him the promotion if they messed us up.
He didn’t want her to hate him. They just needed boundaries.
“Can we talk about this?
“There’s nothing to talk about,” she insisted
His frustration was rising. “You asked me if I loved you.”
“Look, I have to get to work. I’m going to be late.”
Sophie grabbed her keys and purse off the island and set her mug in the sink.
“Please don’t make me out to be the bad guy,” Noah begged. “I really do care about you, Sophie. I just don’t want things to get messy.”
Though he knew, it was already too late for that.
Sophie halted her steps. “You know, for someone who hates their father and wants to be nothing like him, you sure are doing a bang-up job,” she spat.
She stormed off before he could answer. Noah listened to the sound of her heels on the floor until they disappeared into the elevator.
Her words hung in the air above him like bricks, slowly toppling over him. His eyes snagged on the kettle on the stove and he understood what Sophie was trying to tell him. He was the pot calling the kettle black.
In all his efforts to avoid being like his father, Noah had ended up following directly in his father’s footsteps. How had he ever thought that he could repeat his father’s actions and still be better than him?
* * *
He watched Sophie from across the office. She did not look his way and he did not blame her. He was the one who had gone cold and avoided her like the plague. He was the one who decided to pull back and refocus on his work.
Their confrontation last week had scared the hell out of him. Sophie had asked him if he loved her and he’d told her no. And then she’d completely shut him out. She’d pretended it didn’t happen, that it was simply her hormones getting the best of her.
Noah took the papers from Colin and headed back into his office, closing the doors behind him. He tried to review them but her words seized his mind.
She had barely spoken to him since that morning. Only when it was absolutely necessary.
Why was he so angry when she was only doing what he asked? When she was shutting him out the same way he was shutting her out? Noah knew it was unfair but he couldn’t stop himself.
Though her coldness subsided throughout the week, she was not herself. She didn’t laugh or smile at him. They no longer shared jokes or discussed their days.
He couldn’t even bring it up to her because she wasn’t doing anything wrong. She was playing her part perfectly. She even continued to cook for him on her days off.
The changes she made were subtle and quiet. She simply stopped asking his opinions on flowers and invitations, and stopped inviting him to attend her appointments.
Their interactions became intentional, driven not by their need for connection or pleasure, but by duty and responsibility.
When Sophie had said she wanted to pretend like last night didn’t happen, he’d thought that they would go back to normal. Friends.
Perhaps they never were friends. Maybe that was a side of Sophie that she kept private, only for her intimate relationships. Perhaps that’s what she was trying to convey to him. That the person she was with him and the relationship they were navigating wasn’t that far off from something real. Noah wouldn’t know. He never had a real relationship before. And if that was true, that meant he would never see that side of her again.
The thought physically pained him.
Part of him was angry that she had strayed from their arrangement but in truth, it was him. Noah had promised to become more involved, Noah had been the one to ask her to move in, the one who helped her decorate the nursery, who had bought the child a stuffed bunny.
Could he blame her for believing that things had changed between them? He said he didn’t want things to get messy but it was his fault. He had caused this. Sophie never asked for Noah to do those things for her. He created this mess entirely on his own.
