What He Decides(8)
“Noah’s been calling me non-stop,” I blurted out as she turned back around. “I think he wanted to come here with me.”
It was subtle, but I was sure I saw something flash through her eyes -- my remark had irritated her.
“Yes, well,” she said as she sat down at her desk and picked up a legal pad. “You know how Noah can be.”
“Yes,” I said. “I do.”
She regarded me coolly across the desk, her back straight, her gaze even.
They’d been together. For sure they had. There was no other possibility. Noah wouldn’t have trusted Clementine to trail Audi unless he’d been close with her, wouldn’t have let her into his world unless he knew he could control her. And the only way he would know that for sure would be if she had been his submissive.
The thought of him touching her, of him doing the same things he’d done to me made my stomach turn. I thought about how I’d seen her leaving his office last night. Had it been business or pleasure?
It’s none of your concern anymore, I told myself. He’s not yours. He was never yours, not really.
My hands tightened around my coffee cup and I took a sip just to have something to do. The coffee was way too hot, and I sputtered, burning my tongue.
“So,” Clementine said. “I’m not here to interrogate you about your relationship with Noah, Charlotte. I’m just here to make sure you’re prepared when the DA’s office calls you in for questioning. Have you heard from them yet?”
I shook my head.
“Okay. Well, please let us know when you do.” She picked up a pen and poised it over her legal pad. As she did, a slim diamond bracelet slid down her wrist, and my breath caught in my chest. It was identical to the one Noah had given me that night at Force.
“I’m sorry,” I said, setting my coffee cup down on her desk and clearing my throat. “But will Professor Worthington be joining us?”
“Colin has put me in charge of this aspect of Noah’s defense.”
“What aspect?”
“Interviewing the women Noah’s been involved with.”
“Women?” I twisted my hands together in my lap. I didn’t like the sound of these plural women. I imagined them all lined up in a row, handcuffed together like the slave auction I’d seen at Force.
“Yes. You and a few others.” She picked up my cup and set a coaster under it. I glanced at her face, trying to figure out how old she was. She couldn’t have been more than thirty, and yet somehow she felt it was okay to treat me like a child. “Let’s start with the easy questions, shall we? Where did you meet Mr. Cutler?”
“We met, um…” I trailed off, not sure exactly how to answer that. Technically, we’d met at the bar, although I hadn’t gotten his name until later that night when I’d gone to his office to meet him.
“Just be honest with me, Charlotte,” Clementine said, her voice infused with a fakeness that I could tell was supposed to make me trust her.
“We met at a bar.”
“And you were intimate that night?”
I swallowed, wishing again that I had some water. “Yes.”
“Where?”
“In…in an alleyway, and then, um, back in his apartment.”
“And did he tie you up?”
“He, um… ” Flashbacks pulsed rhythmically through my mind, like scenes from a movie. Noah drawing an X on my arm. Him taking my candy necklace and pulling it tight into my skin, pushing my dress up and entering me from behind before he’d even asked my name or anything else about me. “Yes.”
“Hard enough to leave marks?”
“Yes.”
“And did you go to a BDSM club with Mr. Cutler at any point?”
“Yes.”
“Which club?”
“Force.”
She turned to the sleek computer that was set up on the desk next to her and tapped away at the keyboard, studying something on the screen. “And there was another club, too, is that correct?”
“What?”
“Another club, one you went to before Force?”
“Who told you that?”
“Noah.”
“Oh. I wasn’t… I didn’t know you’d be talking to him.”
She gave me a tight smile. “Yes, I’ll be talking to Noah. It’s important we know about all his relationships and exactly what they consisted of.”
“Oh.”
“As you can imagine, it’s going to be quite a job.” She gave a little laugh.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Oh, you know Noah.” She rolled her eyes and gave me a secretive little look, like we were just two women out chatting about men over cosmopolitans instead of sitting in an office while she grilled me in a deposition.