What He Resists (What He Wants, Book Nine) (An Alpha Billionaire Romance) (2 page)

“No.”
 
I cut him off.
 
I didn’t care if I was being disrespectful or overstepping my
bounds.
 
I was sick of this.
 
Yes, I’d done something wrong by
getting involved with a client -- I shouldn’t have slept with Noah.

But Professor Worthington had known it
was going on – he might not have wanted to admit it, but he’d practically
pushed me at Noah, almost used me to get Noah to trust us.
 
I wasn’t going to be punished for
that.
 
And I wasn’t going to let
the fact that Noah had broken my heart get in the way of the experience I could
gain from working on this case.
 
Why should I deprive myself of something that could be good for my
career?

“I understand if Mr. Cutler wishes to
work with you on a more direct basis, but I should certainly still be able to
help with any research or paperwork,” I said, surprised at how in control and
direct I sounded.

“Charlotte, Mr. Cutler has made his
wishes very clear.”
 

“Again, I didn’t know we were in the
business of letting our clients dictate how to give them the best
defense.”
 
I paused and took a sip
of my coffee.
 
Despite my strong
tone, my hand was shaking, and as I set my latte back down on the table, liquid
sloshed onto the side of the cup, threatening to spill onto the table.
 
Fortunately, Professor Worthington
didn’t notice.
 
He was staring out
the window, contemplating.

He was on the fence, I could tell.

So I decided to take a chance.
 
I had nothing to lose.

“If you want my opinion, Professor,
that’s
the thing that’s going to sink
this case.
 
Letting Noah Cutler
think he can provide a better defense for himself than you can.”

I saw Professor Worthington’s eyes flinch
just a little bit, and I knew I’d gotten to him.
 
If there was one thing that defense attorneys, good ones
anyway, had in common, it was their egos.
  
They wanted to be the best.
 
They wanted control.

Professor Worthington’s phone rang then,
and he reached into his pocket and pulled it out.
 
He frowned at the caller ID, and my heart sank.

Please
don’t be Noah,
I
thought.

“Yes, Camilla?” Professor Worthington
said, and my heart returned to its normal rhythm.
 
“No,” the professor said, sounding annoyed.
 
He looked at his watch.
 
“No, you said ten o’clock.
 
Well, that doesn’t work now, Camilla,
does it?
 
It’s – ” His jaw
hardened into a line.
 
“Fine.
 
Bring him to my office.
 
I will meet you there.” He hung up the
phone and drained the rest of his coffee.
 
“Sorry,” he said.
 
“I have
to go.”

“Is there anything I can help with?” I
asked.

“No, it’s my wife.
 
Well, soon to be ex-wife.
 
We’re still working out custody, and
she doesn’t understand that leaving our son with whatever man she’s fucking
this week isn’t acceptable.”
 
He
shook his head.
 
“I’m sorry,
Charlotte, that was inappropriate.”

“No, it’s fine,” I said.
 
“I’m sorry to hear you’re going through
that.”
 
I shifted on my chair.
 
I had that same weird feeling I always
got when I was allowed a glimpse into the life of someone extremely successful,
whether it was a doctor or a lawyer or a pop star.
 
Their personal lives all seemed like a mess.

Professor Worthington stood up and
grabbed his bag.

“So about the Cutler case…” I said.
 

He sighed and looked at me.
 
“Fine,” he said.
 
“You’re still on.
 
But only in a research capacity.
 
You’re not to have any direct contact
with Noah.
 
Do you understand?”

I nodded.
 
“Of course.”
 
That would be easy, since he’d basically thrown me out of his house and
his life.
 
“Thank you, Professor.”

“There’s an evidentiary hearing we have
to prepare for,” he said.
 
“I’ll
send you over Katie Price’s email address, you can start going through her
emails, looking for anything we might have missed.”

“Sounds great.”

“And Charlotte?” Professor Worthington
said, right before he turned to leave.
 
“Please be careful.”

“I will.”

***

I forced myself to go to class and then
spend a few hours in the library, catching up on my reading and answering
“roommate wanted’ ads on Craigslist.

I was dying to get back to my hotel suite
and begin going through Katie Price’s email account – Professor
Worthington had sent me the log in info, just like he’d promised – but I
also needed to keep up with my classes.
 
If I flunked out of law school, it wouldn’t matter how much trial
experience I had.

It was six o’clock by the time I got back
to The Hawthorne, and I ordered a turkey club and French fries from room
service, making sure to pay for it with my own credit card and not Noah’s.

And then I dove into Katie’s emails.

I started at the beginning.

There were thousands and thousands of
them.
 
Katie didn’t delete
anything, and she was very chatty.

Most of her emails were to a girl named
Madeline.
 
From what I could glean,
Madeline was a friend of Katie’s and couldn’t text while she was at work, so
the two of them would have long conversations over email.
 
Most of it was banal and almost made me
want to fall asleep – they’d talk about clothes they’d bought, tv shows
they’d seen, plans for the weekend.

But somewhere around six months or so
ago, Katie began mentioning a man she was seeing.
 
At first, he was just a guy she was flirting with.
 
But soon it became more serious.

“I
can’t give details,”
she
wrote.
 
“We have to keep it secret for now.”

“Who
is he?”
Madeline
demanded.
 
“I need to know!”

“Call
him Mr. X,”
Katie
replied.
 
“He’s the hottest, sexiest man I’ve ever known.
 
He’s not a little boy, Maddy.
 
He makes me come over and over and over
again.
 
He likes to tie me up and
spank me, and we pretend I’m his little girl.”

Bile rose in my throat.

Mr. X.

Noah had drawn an X on me the first night
I’d met him, and I’d called him that in my head.
 
Could Katie have been talking about Noah?
 
Could he be the one who was tying her
up and making her come over and over again?

He’d told me he hadn’t been involved with
Katie.
 
But was that true? Had he been
lying?

I’d done so well all day, constantly
moving and focusing on school, keeping my personal feelings for Noah from
invading my thoughts.
 
But now they
threatened to pull me under like a tidal wave.

You
don’t even know him,
I
told myself.
 
He was never yours, not the way you wanted him to be.
 

Of course, that was part of the problem
–I’d wanted so desperately to be the one to break down his walls.
 
I’d thought I’d be the one to finally
convince him it was worth it.

But the truth was, there was no such
thing as fairy tales.
 
I was like
every other stupid woman who’d met a damaged man and though her love for him
could heal his wounds.
 
And the
realization that it couldn’t – and the fact that I didn’t even really
want to let go of that hope – left me feeling so sad and pathetic that my
eyes welled up with tears.

I sat there in front of the computer,
paralyzed, not sure I could stand to read any more.
 
How could I work on this case, how could I attempt to get
closer and closer to the truth, when I still felt the way I did about Noah?

I’d wanted to prove a point to Professor
Worthington and myself, had wanted to show everyone I could put aside my
feelings for Noah, that I wasn’t going to do anything as stupid as let my
relationship with a man get in the way of my career.

I thought I was strong.

But right now, I didn’t feel strong.

I forced myself to google Katie’s friend
Madeline – I found her facebook page and sent her a message, asking her
to call me so perhaps we could set up a time to talk about Katie.
 
If anything, she might be able to tell
me if Katie really
was
involved with
Noah, and if not, if there was anyone else that might have wanted to hurt her.

After I’d sent the facebook message, I
sat there, staring at my untouched sandwich.
 
I hadn’t eaten anything all day – besides a quick sip
of water from a bottle I’d taken from the mini bar, the only thing I’d had
today was coffee.
 
And yet the
thought of putting anything in my stomach made me want to throw up.

I was done working for the day, I
decided.

I needed sleep, or at least to lie down.

My eyes hurt from staring at the
computer.

My brain hurt from thinking about the
case.

And my heart hurt from losing Noah.

I stood up, stretched, and then looked at
my sandwich again.
 
I was deciding
what would be worse – forcing myself to choke it down, or just giving up
and deciding I wasn’t going to eat today – when the sound of a key card
beeping in the door echoed through the room.

My heart pounded.
 
Housekeeping wouldn’t be coming this
late.
 
Who else would have a key to
my room?

The knob turned, and I reached for my
phone, ready to call 911.

A second later, Noah appeared in the
doorway.

“Oh my God,” I said, letting out the
breath I was holding.
 
“You scared
me.”

“Sorry.”
 
He closed the door behind him and just stood there.
 
He was wearing a pair of jeans and a
button-down navy shirt.
 
His shirt
was unbuttoned, showing a crisp white t-shirt underneath.
 
His hair was mussed, making him look
more like a frat boy on his way home from class instead of a wealthy,
successful lawyer.

“What are you doing here?” I asked.
 

He crossed the room, grabbed me by the
shoulders and pushed me up against the wall.
 
And then he kissed me, his mouth crashing into mine.

I tried to resist, tried to push him
away, but it was no use.
 
He held
me tight, and I was no match for his strength and desire.
 
His tongue pushed into my mouth and I
felt my body melting against his, my legs going weak, my knees quivering.

He tasted like alcohol, something dark and
sweet, like he did that first night I met him in the bar.
 
He pushed my arms up over my head, our
kiss deepening as I surrendered to him.
 
His cheeks were rough with stubble, and I loved the way they felt
against my skin, scratching me, leaving his mark.

He pulled away and slid his mouth down my
neck, tracing a searing trail over my skin.
 
I moaned as he returned his lips to mine, nipping my bottom
lip softly with his teeth.

“No,” he commanded.
 
“Quiet.”

I stayed quiet.

Everything inside of me knew I should be
yelling at him, telling him to get the hell out of here, to demand answers for
what he’d done to me last night.
 
But I was afraid if I did that, he would leave.

And right now, I didn’t care about the
heartbreak that was sure to come from being involved with him.
 
All I cared about was that he was here
and he wanted me.
 
The fallout
would no doubt be full of tears and questions and darkness.
 
But for now, he was here, with me, and
I would give him whatever he wanted.

But Noah surprised me.
 
Instead of demanding I get on the
ground or pushing me to my knees, he took a step back.
 
His eyes were bright and blazing, so
beautiful and full of intensity that it was almost hard to look at him.