Page 46 of Saving Jennifer
The echo of Gator’s words wasn’t lost on him. Noah reached for her hand, half-expecting her to pull away. She didn’t. “I’m not good at letting people help.”
“I noticed.” Her voice softened. “But I am here now, and I am helping, whether you like it or not.”
In the stillness that followed, something shifted between them—something fragile yet powerful, like the first tendril of a plant breaking through soil.
Outside, the lateness of the night wrapped around the motel like a protective cloak. For now, they were safe. For now, they had this moment of respite before the storm that awaited them in New Orleans.
Jennifer’s fingers tentatively traced the edge of his bandage. “You should try and get some sleep.”
As his eyes grew heavy, Noah wondered if, after everything, there might be a future worth fighting for—one where the weight he carried might somehow be lighter because she was there to share it.
Easing gently fromthe bed, Jennifer paced the worn carpet of the motel room, her bare feet silent against the threadbare fibers. Her nerves remained frayed, raw from the confrontation at the airport. Several hours had passed since they’d escaped, but adrenaline still coursed through her veins, making sleep impossible despite her exhaustion.
She paused at the dingy window, carefully peeling back the edge of the curtain just enough to peek outside. The neon sign from the motel cast an intermittent red glow across the nearly empty parking lot. Cracks and pockmarks scarred the asphalt, broken chunks and jagged fissures shiny from the earlier rain. Their car sat hidden in the shadows, unremarkable and anonymous—precisely what they needed right now.
Skinner’s face flashed in her mind. The way he’d gripped her arm, his fingers digging into her flesh as he’d tried to force her toward the private plane. The mercenaries had flanked them, their eyes constantly scanning, hands never far from their weapons. She shuddered at the remembered violence. They hadn’t been worried about causing an incident or shooting her, she’d read that in their faces when she’d tried to escape. If Noah hadn’t created that diversion…
She turned to look at him now, sprawled across the queen-sized bed. His breathing was deep and even, but occasionally his brow would furrow, as if whatever he dreamed wasn’t peaceful. Not surprising, since he hadn’t had much peace since he’d met her. It seemed like they’d raced from one place to another, from one safe house to the next, without having time to do more than take a breath.
The makeshift bandage on his side was holding, though a faint bloom of red had appeared at its center. Jennifer approached the bed, carefully sitting on its edge to avoid disturbing him. In sleep, the hard lines of Noah’s face softened, making him look younger. The small scar through his eyebrow caught in the dim light, a reminder of some previous danger he’d never elaborated on.
Why don’t they just kill me?
The question had been circling in her mind for hours now. It would be the simplest solution for the Amirs. With her dead, the prosecution’s case collapsed. The Amirs’ attorneys had already had most of the evidence excluded, the conversations she’d overheard while working with Tarik, as well as Sayifa and Rashid manipulating her to help them kidnap an innocent child—all of it meaningless without her testimony.
Yet it seems like now they’d rather kidnap me than kill me.
Yet they seemed determined to take her back to Dubai alive. To make her disappear quietly, without the messy international attention a murdered witness would bring. Perhaps they had other plans for her first—something they needed, or some twisted form of punishment for her perceived betrayal.
A soft groan escaped Noah as he shifted position, wincing even in sleep as the movement disturbed his bullet wound. Jennifer reached out instinctively, her fingers hovering just above his forehead before gently brushing back a strand of dark hair.
Five days.
That’s all the time she had until she had to be back in New Orleans at the courthouse. Five days until Noah’s job was finished and he left her behind, to go back to his life—a life without her.
Jennifer’s chest tightened as she studied his face. How had this happened? When had this man—this stoic, professional, occasionally infuriating man—become someone she couldn’t imagine her life without?
She’d built walls around herself for years. She’d crafted an identity in Paris. Successful, sophisticated, and deliberately superficial. Expensive clothes, exclusive restaurants, and casual relationships that never penetrated beyond the glossy surface she presented to the world. It had been safer that way. Easier. In her perfect little world, she couldn’t be hurt.
Noah had seen through it all immediately. “You’re wearing your wealth like armor,” he’d told her that first night, as she’d complained about leaving her designer wardrobe behind. The observation had stung because it was true.
In the days that followed, as they’d been forced to move between safe houses, dodging the Amirs’ increasingly bold attempts to capture her, those walls had crumbled. Noah had witnessed her at her most vulnerable—terrified, exhausted, stripped of all pretense—and hadn’t flinched. Instead, he’d shown her a steadiness she’d never experienced before, a quiet strength that asked nothing in return.
Jennifer touched her lips, remembering their kiss in the middle of the thunderstorm. The desperation, the fear, the longing. It had been impulsive, desperate, both aware of the approaching mercenaries on their trail, the danger escalating around them. Noah had pulled away first, his professional boundaries reasserting themselves, though his eyes had told a different story entirely.
Noah stirred, his eyes opening suddenly, instantly alert. “What’s wrong?” he asked, his voice husky with sleep.
“Nothing,” Jennifer whispered. “Everything’s quiet. You should rest—you’ve been shot—”
“I’ve had worse.” He sat up, grimacing slightly as he checked the bandage. “Have you slept at all?”
She shook her head. “I can’t stop thinking.”
Noah swung his legs over the side of the bed, now sitting beside her. The proximity sent a flutter through her stomach, despite everything.
“About the airport?” he asked.
“About what happens after.” The words escaped before she could reconsider them. “After the trial, I mean.”