The Note by Natalie Wrye (urban books to read .TXT) 📗

the chance. But with this news, I no longer have to wonder.

I now know I should have run long ago.

Chapter 16

NOAH

Two days later

Friday evening

Working on saving a company that was crumbling under your very feet was hard.

It was even harder when the time clock was winding down.

All my life, I’ve been skating on impossibly thin ice, but tonight, the night of my brother’s wedding welcome party—two days before his wedding—the ice is made thinner by the minute.

Thin ice was the name of the game when you were your family’s savior. When your grandfather passed down a real estate empire to a mother too mentally damaged to do what was right.

Sometimes it feels as if I were born on thin ice. Raised on it.

But I can’t remember it ever feeling this thin, especially when Cynthia flounces in my open Manhattan office door, a grim look on her pallid face.

I don’t dare look up into it as I continue writing a passionate case to another potential partner on the Luxe building. My patience, equally on thin ice, threatens to crack.

“An open door isn’t an invitation to come in whenever you feel like it, Cyn.”

“I’m sorry.” I hear from a few feet away. “I thought that’s exactly what it meant. Open door. Open guests.”

“Maybe in another office.” I try not to snap. “In this one? It’s more to give an appearance of ‘openness.’ I like ‘appearing’ to be open to clients. And sometimes I am.” I finally glance up, my eyes finding her face. “But you’re not one of those clients. Not tonight.” I return to my notes. “I have to get ready to head to the Quinn Connecticut estate for the weekend. And so do you.”

Not to mention I have to pick up Sophia to come along with me.

Wouldn’t want to walk into my brother’s wedding welcome weekend without the woman I’m going to pretend-marry. Not at this juncture in the game.

The only good part is Sophia played it pretty cool when I asked her to pretend to be my almost-fiancée back in that bar, I’ll give her that. The scotch really hadn’t set well with her stomach—I’d forgotten to mention that rule of thumb.

But after ordering her a cup of coffee to wash down that Dalwhinnie dram, she’d nodded, her back stiff.

When it came down to playing partners, Sophia Somerset was all the way in. I was curious as to how the weekend would play out—watch and all.

The fact that Sophia and I have to pretend to be a couple, to share a hotel room together for over two days hasn’t escaped me, and I’m still imagining the painting little waitress, alone, in a room with only us two when Cynthia speaks, reminding me that she’s still there, taming strands of blonde hair as she stares at me.

“I see,” she says. I hear the shuffle of her heels, scraping along the carpet as she shifts. I resist the urge to look back at her, but I fucking suck at it, and I lift my gaze.

“I guess you’re going to have to earn the right to this coffee, then,” she continues, holding a white mug in her tiny hands. A smirk plays on her pink lips, and she turns to head out of my office, her black skirt swaying as she strolls.

I bite down a bark, dropping my pen to the surface of the paper on my desk. I call out her name.

“Cyn?”

She swings back towards me. “Yes?”

She knows she’s won.

I need the coffee more than ever, and my best friend knows it. At Sophia’s suggestion, I’ve replaced my taste for scotch with the lesser evil of dark caffeine, and I motion for Quinn Real Estate’s number one lawyer to return and she comes back in. She shuts the door behind her and I pause, my skin hot under the collar. I press my back into my leather seat, sighing as Cynthia stands before me, dangling my cup of coffee like the proverbial carrot.

Fuck me for being such a rabbit.

I exhale. “I will take that cup of coffee after all…” I try hard to humble myself, a rage rolling around on my tongue. It’s a rage that only hot caffeine can temper right now, and at the moment, I’m weak without it, the dwindling time to save this company making it hard to concentrate on anything else.

Anything else but …but Sophia.

I swear under my breath.

“It’s been a long morning.” It’s the only apology I will give Cynthia.

And she seems to know it.

That bottom lip of hers twists. Sucking into her mouth, she seems to consider my half-assed attempt at a “sorry” before handing me the hot mug, her fingers refusing to brush against my own.

She draws them quickly back, dropping them to her sides, and I sigh, needing the dark brew, noting how Cynthia’s touch lingers on mine.

If only for a moment.

I have to remind myself that this wedding and damn watch have been making me a little crazy. But it’s hard when Cyn’s gazing at me like that, brown eyes a bit hot, her pale blonde hair pulled back into a severe bun that only adds to the highlight of her serious face.

I take a sip of the piping coffee and wince.

And still Cynthia stands there.

I look up.

“Is there anything else I can do for you, Cyn?”

“Yes, there is,” she retorts. “You could give me something to work with.”

“Excuse me?”

She sighs, and the sound is loud. Or maybe it just seems like it in my quiet office.

I’m suddenly aware that, with the door closed, there’s only the two of us. And I don’t like it.

I don’t like being forced this close when Cyn’s in one of her moods. Like I told Lachlan, Cyn’s tougher than most. But she seems off nowadays—nearly angry, and I watch her pretty brows furrow from some confusion. But her mouth clarifies everything right up.

She clears her throat.

“So, the rumors about Sophia are true? You have a whole girlfriend?”

I tilt my head. “Well, it’s