What He Decides(3)

He took in a deep breath through his nose, and I could tell he was fighting his need to control. I’d seen him battling against it before, but this time, I wasn’t willing to let it go.

“We could at least try to –”

“No,” he said, taking my hand in his and pulling it away from his chest. My fingers balled into a fist and he wrapped his hand around it. “This is not up for discussion, Charlotte. I refuse to let you endanger yourself in any way.”

“What choice do we have?” I asked him. “You know how cases like this end up, Noah. You’ve seen cases like this, you know what the prosecutors are going to say, you know what the end result is going to be.”

“You’re acting rather arrogant right now, Ms. Holloway, assuming you know what a jury is going to think or how my defense team is going to proceed.”

Him calling me arrogant and referring to me as ‘Ms. Holloway’ sent fury coursing through my veins. “That’s funny, calling me arrogant.” I picked my jeans back up from the floor and stepped into them, and this time, he didn’t stop me. “You’re the one who’s being arrogant. You think you can just step in front of that jury, with the evidence they have against you, Noah, and what? That you’re going to charm them into ignoring DNA evidence? Worthington will never even let you take the stand.”

“Colin will do what I say.”

“No, he won’t.” I crossed my arms over my chest and shook my head vehemently. “He won’t put you on the stand. He won’t. He’s too good of a lawyer for that. And then what are you going to do? At some point, you are going to have to face the fact that you cannot control every single aspect of this case, that you cannot – ”

He grabbed me then, by the shoulders and pulled me to him. “You,” he growled, “will not tell me what I have to do. You will trust me to do the right thing.”

“No, I won’t,” I said. “Especially when you’re acting insane.”

“Tell me you trust me.”

I shook my head. “No.”

His eyes blazed with icy hot rage, so intense I could feel it radiating off his skin. “Tell me you’re mine.”

“No.” His grip on me tightened, his nails digging into my skin. “Noah,” I said, and I could feel tears stinging the back of my eyes. “Please, you’re hurting me.”

His face clouded as he realized how firmly he’d been holding me. He released me, then crossed the room to his desk and sank into the chair. He dropped his head into his hands.

I stood there staring at him, so beautiful, so broken, so damaged by things beyond my control, situations I couldn’t begin to fathom or understand even if he’d been willing to explain them to me.

He was the man I loved. I couldn’t deny it anymore, to myself, to him, to anyone. It didn’t make sense, but I was in love with him. I had never felt anything so powerful, so all-consuming as the way I felt about him.

And I couldn’t stand by and watch him destroy himself.

I crossed the room and sat down in one of the heavy wingback chairs in front of his desk.

“Noah,” I said gently.

He didn’t respond.

He stayed with his head bowed, his hands folded in front of him, almost as if he were in prayer. The silence filled the room, and adrenaline pushed through my veins as I waited to see what was going to happen. I had never pushed him like this before, had never not backed down about something.

I was just about to speak again when Noah looked up at me. “You understand why I cannot entertain this idea.”

“And you understand why it’s your only chance to avoid going to prison for the rest of your life.”

“Even if that were true, which it most certainly isn’t, you know that I would never put you in that kind of danger. Even if I decided I was going to try to lure out whoever killed Katie, I would find someone else to do it with me.”

I gaped at him. “You would find someone else to do it with you?”

“Yes, Charlotte. I would hire a cop, a private investigator, a soldier.”

“Someone like Clementine.”

“Yes, Charlotte. Someone like Clementine.”

Something about how he said her name betrayed a certainly familiarity, and I remembered how they’d looked that night, outside on Noah’s terrace. The way she’d touched his arm, how she’d handed him that green scarf. And then she’d just let Professor Worthington, her boss, believe she’d just met Noah today. She could lose her job over something like that.

The only reason she’d have for taking such a risk would be if she’d had some kind of personal relationship with Noah, something that went beyond her trailing his brother Audi. My heart shattered, the shards cutting at my skin from the inside. I wanted to ask him about it, but I knew it would be of no use.