Page 137 of Lust & Lies

Only she could break my heart. Only she could hurt me like this.

“Okay?” she asked again.

“Okay,” I whispered. “I’ll sleep in the guest room tonight.”

“For a few nights,” she clarified.

“Two nights,” I told her. “I’ll sleep in the guest room for two nights. I should be done handling the Clarks' mess by then. And then we’ll have a long conversation about our past. Deal?”

“Deal,” she told me, still not looking up from her plate.

I stood there for a moment, holding the saucer, staring at her. If she could see my heart, see how battered and bruised it was, see how much it missed her, how much it was fighting for her, she wouldn’t treat me this way.

“I love you, Noe,” I told her, hearing the desperation in my voice and knowing she had to hear it also.

She shoved a bite of food into her mouth to keep from replying. I gritted my teeth.

“Whether you respond or not, I still love you. Nothing will ever change that.”

She forked more food into her mouth.

“I’m going to leave to keep you from stuffing food into your mouth until you choke. But know this, Noe. I will never let you go. Never.”

Gripping the saucer tightly, I turned and stormed from the room, pulling the door shut behind me. I leaned against it and closed my eyes, swallowing the lump in my throat. Noe didn’t even want to sleep with me now.

I was losing her.Again. Not happening. I would do whatever it took to keep her by my side. Even if it meant never allowing her to leave this house again. Even if it meant neither of us ever leaving the estate again. We would be together. Forever. No matter what.

I’m sorry, Noe. But I can’t let you leave me. Not today. Not tomorrow. Not ever.

CHAPTER FORTY

AIDEN

I SLEPT ALONE THATnight. And I did indeed toss and turn, wishing I was in bed with Noe. Most of the night, I was staring at the security feed on my phone, watching her sleep. She only left the room to take her plate downstairs and then again to get a bowl of grapes.

Other than that, she remained in bed with the cover pulled over her head. And I watched her sleep, missing her like crazy. It was already morning by the time I finally drifted off to sleep.

Less than thirty minutes later, I was awakened by my phone ringing. It was my team calling to discuss the chaos happening with the Clarks. With the call on speaker phone, I washed my face and brushed my teeth as my team briefed me.

The bodies of those women had been found at Clark Constructions, and the police had been called to the scene. My team had been listening in on the Clarks’ conversations all morning, thanks to the bug Ethan’s girlfriend planted for us.

By listening in, they learned some things that would help us going forward and keep us a few steps ahead of the police. We learned that the older Aaron Clark and his son, Aaron Clark junior, were scrambling, trying to figure out how to make this go away.

But it wasn’t going to go away. This wasn’t something they could sweep under the rug by tossing around a little money.They’d murdered those women. They would have to pay for it. And if they somehow escaped unscathed, I’d personally make them pay for it.

Without the bugs we’d planted, my team would’ve found out too late that not only had the women been murdered in a hotel room, but that room had been at one of my resorts. To make matters worse, one of the bodies belonged to a female employee of Bak Resorts.

If I’d known that, I would’ve handled this differently. I told my staff to cooperate with the police when they showed up. We had nothing to hide. As for Ethan’sfriendwho helped us, she was now with Ethan.

He was protecting her from the fallout of what happened. After that call with my team, I showered quickly, dressed in some gray jogging pants and a black T-shirt, then slipped my house shoes on and left the guest room.

Today was going to be another long day of meetings for me and my brothers. On the way to my office, I stopped by Noe’s room. I stood there, just staring at the door, wanting to go in, but not wanting to wake her.

One more day.

I’d give her one more day to rest, and then we were going to talk about us. Nothing else would get in the way of our conversation. The world could be burning down around us, and I would ignore it.

This convo couldn’t be put off any longer. Noe and I had to revisit the past together, because her doing it on her own wouldn’t reveal the whole story to her. And there were always two sides to every story.