Showing Noah around my hometown was far more enjoyable than I expected. He didn’t seem to mind that we avoided the glamorous shops and restaurants on the foreshore. Instead, I took him to my favorite places, like the old candy store that made its own homemade treats and the doughnut van that usually had a line a mile long in the summer.
There was the graffiti-covered alleyway with a portrait of the ocean that was popular with visiting Instagram influencers and the lighthouse that overlooked the bay. Each time I showed Noah another part of my home, it felt like I was revealing another part of myself. He loved each and every bit of it, and I hoped he also liked the more he saw of me.
I saved the best part for last. After the lighthouse, I took Noah down one of the winding paths that led to the ocean. I didn’t take him to the main beach our town overlooked. Instead, I took him to a small secluded cove none of the tourists seemed to know about.
I pulled my shoes off as soon as we reached the shore and breathed in the salty air as my toes sank into the sand. There was a gentle breeze today, but the sea was surprisingly still, and the water wasn’t its usual deep shade of blue. Today it reminded me more of Noah’s green eyes.
The beach was small and protected by headlands that jutted into the water at either end of the sand. I’d always appreciated the spot most in the early morning light when the sun’s colors danced across the horizon, but even in the middle of the day, there was something enchanting about it.
“This is our best kept secret,” I said, gesturing toward the water. “None of the tourists know it’s here. So you often get the beach all to yourself.”
“I can see why you keep it to yourselves,” Noah replied.
I shared a smile with him. “And now you’ve seen Rapid Bay. There’s not much here, but it’s home.”
“It’s beautiful,” Noah said. “And much more peaceful than growing up in New York.”
Everyone thought Rapid Bay was beautiful, but hearing Noah say it meant more to me than I expected. It almost felt like I needed him to approve of where I was from. I guess I wanted reassurance that maybe we weren’t as different as I feared. “I love it, but it must feel a bit boring compared to life in the city.”
“I’d much prefer to live here,” he murmured.
I thought perhaps he was simply being nice. Living in Rapid Bay might have meant being close to this beautiful beach, but life here wasn’t always simple, and it definitely wasn’t easy. There was no way Noah would want to live here if it meant stressing over money and squeezing into a tiny apartment above a café. That wouldn’t be Noah’s life if he lived here though. No, he’d be living like a prince in one of the large homes on the foreshore, so life here probably did seem appealing to him.
“I’m serious,” he said, having caught my doubtful expression. “You have people here that really care about you. I’d give anything for that.”
I was surprised it was the people rather than the place that appealed to Noah, and I didn’t like the flicker of sorrow that flashed across his gaze. It made me wonder what his home life was like. I knew his dad was gone and his mom was rarely around. I’d lived my whole life without a dad, but my mom was the closest person to me in the world. I couldn’t imagine what it must be like for Noah without either of his parents in his life.
“You mentioned before that your grandfather is there for you though, right?”
“I guess.” He shrugged. “It’s not quite the same. He doesn’t worry about me like your mom worries about you. He wouldn’t care that I’d left school and borrowed his jet unless he needed it for business. Then he’d be furious. He is many things, but a grandfather is not one of them. I’m just a piece of clay he’s constantly trying to mold into shape. He wants me to be just like him and doesn’t care what it takes to make me that way.”
I had no idea how to respond. Noah’s face had turned hard, but his voice was filled with pain. He was looking out to sea like he wanted to dive in and swim away from all his problems. I felt like maybe I’d gotten a glimpse into his world after meeting my father. Matthew wanted to make me more like him—more like a LaFleur—but I still had my mom so I didn’t feel pressured to cave to Matthew’s demands like Noah did with his grandfather. Plus, I’d only had to deal with it for a couple of weeks. Noah must have been putting up with that pressure his whole life.
I couldn’t find the words, so I reached out and took Noah’s hand in mine. I gave it a tight squeeze, and he glanced down at our entwined fingers like it confused him, like he wasn’t sure how to react to the offer of support.
“I’m sorry your family isn’t there for you like they should be,” I said. It broke my heart that he didn’t have someone looking out for him—that the one person constantly in his life only wanted him if he acted a certain way. That wasn’t family.
“It’s fine.”
“It’s not. Even the toughest of us need to feel loved, and I think you deserve it more than anyone.”
His brow creased, and he turned away from me slightly. “You’re looking at me like I’m damaged.”
“No, I don’t think you’re damaged, but it sounds like you’re trapped in the image of what people want you to be. I feel like I’m just starting to see the real you, and I like it so much better than the guy you show the world. The guy they force you to be.”
He shook his head, unable to meet my eyes. “No one wants to see the real me.”
“That’s where you’re wrong.” Luther had told me Noah was the heart of their group. I hadn’t believed it at the time, but it was so easy now to see why. He cared deeply—almost too deeply. And the fact he did so despite not being surrounded by love himself growing up only made him more special.
He slowly faced me again. “You really think that, don’t you?”
“It’s hard not to after what you’ve done for me today.”
Noah reached out and tucked a stray piece of hair behind my ear, making my heart beat faster. It was impossible to ignore the connection between us when he was so close, and the invisible strings that tied us together seemed to pull taut, edging us closer still.
He drew in a deep breath as he gazed at me. “It would be so easy to fall in love with you, Isobel.”
Out of context, those words would have left me feeling giddy, but his voice was quiet, almost strained, and given the glimmer of uncertainty I caught in his eyes, I knew there was more he wasn’t saying.
“But…” I whispered, urging him to continue.
“But.” He flinched slightly at the word. “After seeing your home today, I wonder if it would be such a good idea.”
“I thought you liked my home…” I stopped as the truth hit me. “You didn’t realize I was quite so poor. That I’m not good enough for you.”
“No.” He quickly shook his head. “Hell no. If anything, you’re too good for me. My life is complicated, and I don’t want to drag you into my family mess. You deserve so much better than that.”
I nodded. Not because I agreed with him but because I could relate. I had a family mess of my own, and my life was no longer as simple as it once was. It felt tangled and chaotic, and his words were the reality check I needed. They were the warning I’d been waiting for. And yet, despite all reason, I’d given up trying to accept this was a bad idea.
“Shouldn’t it be up to me what I do or don’t deserve?”
“It should,” he murmured. “And I’m far too weak when it comes to you to try and convince you otherwise.”
I stared out at the ocean as I processed what he’d said. “You’re not the only one who’s weak.” It took me a moment to realize I’d whispered the words aloud, and when I glanced at Noah, I could see he was waiting for me to explain.
“I’ve felt something between us since the moment we met,” I said. “I tried fighting it, but you can see how well that’s worked out for me…”
“Why did you want to fight it?”
I didn’t know what to tell him. I’d had such a long list of reasons a few weeks ago, but it had been getting shorter by the day. I had to just be honest with him.
“I recently had my heart broken,” I started. “It nearly wrecked me. I’m still piecing myself back together, so I guess I was worried that if I were to trust a guy with my heart again so soon and the same thing happened there would be nothing left to fix.” I blew out a long breath. “The thing that worries me the most is that we’re so different. How could a pair like us ever have a future?”
“There’s nothing wrong with being different.”
I let out a sad laugh. “You’ve seen where I come from, and it’s nothing like the world you live in. I don’t fit in. I probably never will. It feels like we’d be destined to fail.”
He didn’t say anything as he stared into my eyes. His gaze was discerning, and a lump formed in my throat because, as much as I wanted him to be logical, I also wasn’t ready to give up on the connection between us.
When he finally spoke, his voice was deep and his eyes unyielding. “You say that like it’s already written in the stars,” he said. “As someone who has had their fate mapped out since the moment he was born, I can tell you that it doesn’t matter how much has been planned. At the end of the day, we are the ones that decide whether to accept it.”
He was closer to me now. Standing so near I could feel the heat of his body against mine. His hand crept up to caress the side of my face, and I leaned in, unable to fight the pull I felt to him.
“Whatever this is between us,” I whispered. “It could end in disaster.”
“Then let’s make it worth the pain.”
His gaze heated as he leaned in, but he stopped just inches away from my lips and hovered there for a moment. I couldn’t decide if he was giving me a chance to pull away or testing himself to see if this was really what he wanted. If he thought I might have found some sense in these last few minutes, he was sadly mistaken. Didn’t he realize my heart and my head had lost all reason when it came to him?
Like two waves finally reaching the shore, we crashed together with unstoppable certainty. It was as though we were two magnetic forces being denied each other and finally succumbing to the pull that constantly drove us together.
All it took was one brush of his lips against mine, and I knew there was no going back. I kissed him deeply and without thought, completely swept up as I felt his hands circle around my waist, pulling me closer. He kissed me as though he had no lingering doubts and with the kind of determined intensity that left me with no option but to give in to him. And I was more than happy to surrender. My mind, body, and soul had all rebelled against caution, and even if I wanted to, I knew I couldn’t walk away.
I’d toyed with the idea of Noah. I’d known he was a bad idea. And that was before he had kissed me. His kiss was both the worst and best kind of torture because I wasn’t sure if I’d ever be able to give him up now.
“Isobel,” he groaned when he finally pulled away. His eyes burned like they were consumed by fire, and as he looked at me, I felt as if the blaze had spread to my skin.
How could a guy make you feel this way just by looking at you? How could someone’s lips completely erase your mind of all thought?
He took a small step away from me. It was the smallest of gaps, but with it came the ability to think clearly once more. It was like my brain had been deprived of oxygen and suddenly took a gasping breath in.
“I don’t want to break your heart,” he said. “I can’t promise you forever, but I can promise you our differences won’t tear us apart. If anything, I think they might be what keep us together.”
“You really think that?”
“I do. But, even so, you should know I’ve never had a girlfriend, and I’m not very good at trusting people or opening up. I want a relationship with you, but I don’t want you to get hurt because of me.”
“Then don’t hurt me.” I’d been prepared to walk away from him, but after that kiss, I wasn’t sure if I could. I’d never felt that kind of passion before, and I didn’t think I could simply ignore it now that I knew it was there.
He let out a humorless laugh. “You make it sound so easy. I can only control so much of my life.”
“But you can control your heart.”
“I’m not sure I can anymore,” he said. “Not when it comes to you.”
I closed the distance between us once more. Screw being able to think straight. I was tired of trying to do the logical thing. Especially when there was nothing logical about Noah and me. We made no sense together, but sometimes the best things in life came from the least likely of places.
“Are you sure about this?” he said as I drew close. “Don’t kiss me again unless you’re all in. You’re not the only one who doesn’t want to get hurt…”
I gave myself one breath to reconsider. One moment to try to talk myself out of it. But it was too late, and I was too far gone. I’d been falling for Noah since the moment I’d fallen on top of him in the woods.
I reached up and wrapped my arms around his neck. We were never going to stop this relationship from failing if we gave up before it even began. “I’m all in.” I kissed him again.
I could feel his smile against my lips as he kissed me back. “Does that mean you’ll come to the White Ball with me next weekend?”
“Only if you’re prepared to hobble out of there at the end of the night. I’m a terrible dancer.”
“That’s a sacrifice I’m willing to make.” He chuckled. “Who needs feet when I have you?”
NOAH and I had to rush as we made our way back from the beach to the café. We’d both gotten a little caught up in our beachside kisses and had completely forgotten the time.
“It was really nice to meet you,” Noah said to my mom as we exchanged goodbyes. He held out his hand to her, but Mom pulled him in for a hug.
“I hope we see you here again soon, Noah,” she replied.
He was smiling as she released him. “I hope so too,” he added before turning to me. “Take your time. I’ll wait out by the car.”
“But we’re late for the plane,” I said.
“It can wait.” He winked at me and then smiled, which set my heart racing. I couldn’t seem to stop looking at his lips. Had I really kissed them? It felt like it was a dream.
“See. Totally crazy about you,” Mom said as Noah closed the restaurant door closed behind him. “And I think you might be crazy about him too.”
My cheeks warmed as I realized I’d been staring after him. “He asked me to be his girlfriend on the beach,” I said.
“That’s lovely.” Mom smiled and nodded, but she didn’t seem as excited as I might have expected. She seemed more cautious.
“Why do I get the feeling you’ve got more to say about this?” I asked.
My mom sighed, and she looked a little defeated, like she’d much prefer to keep her thoughts all bottled up. “I am really happy for you both,” she said. “I just want you to be careful. He comes from a very different world than you with all those expensive things. A relationship with him won’t be as easy as you might think. Trust me, I know.”
“You’re talking about Matthew, aren’t you?”
She slowly nodded. “Your father and I had a whirlwind summer romance. He tried to charm me with expensive dinners and luxurious gifts, but I wasn’t really interested in those things. I was only interested in him. He was funny and handsome and the sweetest boy I’d ever met. We had a wonderful time together, but when the summer ended, reality hit.”
“What do you mean?”
Mom hesitated, and I could see she was finding it hard to dredge up the past. “Matthew had to return to college, and he invited me to come with him. I thought about it a lot, and a part of me desperately wanted to go. It would have been so easy. He was going to pay for everything to make it happen. But I’d visited his home already and seen the life he led. I knew I would never fit in there, so I stayed here.”
Her eyes fell to floor as she recalled the memory, and it was hard to read her emotions. I couldn’t tell whether she regretted the decision or not.
“A few months after he left Rapid Bay, I found out I was pregnant with you.”
“What did you do?” My mom rarely spoke about Matthew this openly, so I was hanging off her every word.
“It was Christmas by then,” she continued. “I went to visit Matthew at his home in New York so I could tell him about you. I had a whole speech planned and everything, but the moment I rang the doorbell, I forgot everything I wanted to say.”
She laughed and shook her head at the memory, her gaze still dipping low rather than meeting mine.
“Thankfully,” she said. “Matthew wasn’t there. I was almost relieved at the time because, with all the pregnancy hormones rushing through me, I would have been a blubbering mess if I’d had to tell him in person. So, I chickened out. I wrote everything down in a letter, left it with his butler, and came home.”
“And…” I prompted her.
“I received a note in response.”
“What did it say?”
“I can remember it word for word.” My mom’s eyes closed as though she was trying to shut out the memory. “It just said: Candice, this is all I can offer you. I’m sorry. Goodbye. There was a check in the envelope.”
“You’re kidding me?”
“I wish I was,” she said, shaking her head. “Of course, I tore both the note and the check to pieces. I was devastated at the time, but it didn’t take me long to realize that it was probably for the best. I knew I didn’t belong in that world, and I’d made the right decision to stay in Rapid Bay.”
She was standing taller now and looked directly at me.
“Once you arrived, I was so in love with you that your father’s presence in your life didn’t matter to me anymore. The last seventeen years haven’t always been easy, but I wouldn’t trade a moment of that time for anything.”
My mom stepped forward, and I opened my arms to pull her in for a hug, squeezing her extra tight. I wished it hadn’t taken me escaping from school on a private jet and Noah becoming my boyfriend for her to finally tell me what really happened between her and Matthew, but I was glad she had. It was probably a good thing she hadn’t told me sooner, or there was no way I ever would have agreed to meet with my father.
“How am I supposed to pretend I don’t hate his guts after learning this?” I asked when I pulled back from my mom’s embrace.
“I didn’t tell you this to make you angry with him,” she said. “And there’s more to the story. I think you need to hear your father’s side. I just wanted you to have your eyes open when it came to the kids at this new school. People who have the kind of money your classmates grew up with come from a very different world to us.”
“Noah’s not like that,” I said.
“I’m not saying he is,” she agreed. “I just want you to be careful and go into this relationship with a clear head.”
“Okay, I will.” Even as I said the words, I had to wonder how honest I was being with myself. I’d already abandoned a whole lot of caution when it came to Noah. Was I already being too reckless with my heart?
I knew Mom had been burned before, but that didn’t mean a relationship with Noah would end just as badly. Still, I couldn’t help but look at him in a different light. Was Noah the kind of guy who thought he could make his problems disappear with a check in the mail too? I hoped I never had to find out.
