Dinner was steak, tomatoes and mushrooms, served with chips that Olivia suspected might have come from a bag in the freezer.
Un-fuck-up-able, and not quite what she would call cooking, but to give Noah credit the food was good, and he had tried to make an effort, low lighting, slow and sexy old-school mood music playing, and he had bought her favourite red wine… which had scuppered her plans to drive home. She had planned to use the excuse of needing a good night’s sleep, telling him she had been awake much of the night. What she didn’t tell him was that she hadn’t slept great because she was starting to doubt herself, worrying if she was slowly losing her mind.
She wondered if Noah suspected she might try to get out of staying, which was why he had pulled his sneaky wine trick. Truth was, she was reluctant to sleep with him again until she knew whether she could trust him, knew that once she was in his bed, she wouldn’t be able to think straight. He had weakened her defences with the long lingering kiss he had given her in the kitchen before pouring her the wine, pushing her up against the counter with his body, hands in her hair, then roaming down her back and over her bum, while he used that talented mouth of his to distract her.
She had needed the wine after that kiss, and drank the first glass too quickly, while convincing herself that maybe his secrets weren’t that bad after all. Which is how she found herself flat on her back on his sofa a couple of hours later with most of her clothes on the floor.
‘I wasn’t going to stay tonight,’ she protested, her lips swollen from rough stubbly kisses. She arched her back, sucked in a breath as he trailed more kisses down her neck, her resolve weakening further.
‘Hmm, but you’ve had too much wine to drive and you’re already mostly undressed,’ he reminded her, breath warm against her ear as he unhooked her bra, easing her out of it. ‘You’re better off here.’
‘I didn’t sleep well last night.’
‘Well, you’ve been through a lot this last couple of weeks.’
‘It wasn’t that.’
‘So what was it then? Molly?’
When she tensed beneath him, Noah raised his head, his sharp green gaze studying her. ‘I thought you said you resolved things?’
That was what Olivia had told him, terrified to reveal what had really happened, in case he told her he agreed with Molly, that maybe she was losing her mind, because the truth was she no longer trusted herself to know what was real and what wasn’t. So she had glossed over it, telling Noah that Molly hadn’t even realised what she was doing, and that she had been mortified when confronted, confirming, ‘We did resolve things, kind of.’
‘Kind of?’
‘We’re good. Honestly.’ She hooked her arms around his neck, pulling him closer and distracting him with a kiss.
Tonight she decided she would forget her problems, stop worrying about her sanity and the secrets he was keeping from her, and just feel. Tonight she would take what he was offering and pretend for just a few short hours that everything was okay.
It was just gone four in the morning when she awoke, taking a moment to realise she was in Noah’s bed and not her own. Noah was sound asleep, rolled away from her, all messy hair and broad shoulders, with one arm wrapped around the pillow his face was buried in.
Olivia listened to his steady breathing for a few minutes, reminding herself it wasn’t a good idea to fall for a man with secrets, yet knowing it was too late. She was already halfway in love with Noah Keen.
Thirsty and needing to pee, she eased back the duvet and crept from the bed into the bathroom, careful not to disturb him. The house was silent except for her and after using the loo, she snuck back into the bedroom, grabbed Noah’s discarded T-shirt from the floor and slipped it on. She watched him sleeping for a moment. Her movements hadn’t disturbed him and he was dead to the world.
What she would give for such a restful night’s sleep. The middle of the night pee and drink thing was becoming the norm for her.
Tiptoeing from the room, she pulled the door closed and went downstairs.
Her mouth was parched – her own fault for drinking too much wine – and she found a tumbler in the kitchen cupboard, filled it with tap water, drinking greedily. As she rinsed it out and set it down on the drainer, her attention was drawn to the countertop, where Noah’s keys sat, next to the microwave, the small silver key to his office slightly set apart from the others on the ring, almost glinting at her as if it was taunting her.
Olivia chided herself that her first thought was of snooping in the locked room. She knew she couldn’t do that. It would be an awful betrayal of trust.
She hated that Noah had secrets and that he insisted on keeping the room locked, but it was up to him to share them with her. That was just the way it had to be. With one last look at the keys, she turned off the light, started to head back down the hallway to the stairs.
She hesitated as she reached the locked office and glanced up the dark stairs. Noah was sound asleep; his office and whatever he was hiding in there from her was driving a wedge between them. She could have a quick look inside and he would never know. No harm would be done.
Curiosity wrestled with guilt. It was wrong, but she wouldn’t sleep for the rest of the night knowing she had missed this opportunity. Tomorrow she would kick herself for not taking the chance.
The catch of the lock clicking as the key turned cut through the silence, and Olivia caught her breath, waiting for any noise or movement from upstairs. If Noah heard her, if he found her snooping through his things, she would have no defence.
She questioned again if she was really going to do this, knew, though, that she had to find out why he kept the office door locked. Yes, she was betraying his trust, but if their relationship was to survive, she had to know why he was keeping secrets.
Carefully she eased the door open, her heart thumping as she stepped inside and softly closed it behind her. In the darkness her fingers felt for the light switch, casting light on the small room.
She recognised the desk, the Mac, the bookcase and the filing cabinets from when he had briefly shown her the room, before hurrying her out again, but this time she was able to take it all in, from the titles on the bookshelf to the wide corkboard that took up part of the door wall and was covered in Post-it notes.
Her attention was drawn to two photographs tacked to the board. One was of a group of people. Olivia recognised Noah in the picture. There were four other people, two male, two female, and she suspected it was probably his family. Curious she studied the older couple, could see where Noah had his father’s height and build, though he looked more like his mother. The younger couple she assumed were his brother and sister. They all had the same tawny brown hair. His brother was portlier, but his sister shared the same wide, crooked grin.
The other photo was of Olivia. She recognised this one, knew he had taken it of her a few weeks before they got together, when they were still in the friend zone. They had been walking down by the river and he had caught her off guard, snapping a couple of pictures of her feeding the swans. The shot he had pinned on the board was when she had just realised he was taking her picture, surprised, a little embarrassed, but grinning at him, caught in the split second before she tried to look away.
She remembered at the time wondering why he would want her picture, part of her secretly romanticising and hoping that he had done it because he liked her.
Seeing the photo pinned to his board, her heart swelled and a fresh wave of guilt burned through her. She shouldn’t be in here. It was wrong.
She was about to take heed of her guilty conscience, when one of the Post-it notes caught her attention.
Two names. Hers in capital letters and underlined, then underneath, Adam Somerville, a mobile number, and a date, 28/03.
Why was her name written on the note and who was Adam Somerville? More worrying though, why did Noah have her name written on a Post-it note that was dated several weeks before she had actually met him?
She tried to give him the benefit of the doubt. Maybe it wasn’t a date or if it was, perhaps it was relevant to something else, but a quick glance at the other Post-it notes showed dates on all of them.
How did Noah Keen know who she was before he had actually met her?
She thought back to that day in the restaurant when she had met him. He had never given any indication that he knew of her. No, she remembered quite clearly, she had spotted him walking through the door behind Jamie, laughing at something her brother had said, and he had glanced in her direction with that sharp green gaze, his crooked smile widening to a grin as he winked at her, and stupid as it sounds, she had been flustered and shy, her legs like jelly and butterflies nervously fluttering in her belly. When Jamie had introduced them, Noah had feigned surprise that they were brother and sister and she had been excited then secretly flattered when he kept showing up unexpectedly after that first encounter, always interested in what she had to say, seeming to want to get to know her better.
Had it all been fake?
She had showed him her scars, shared with him her past, told him things she trusted very few people to know, and she had slept with him, falling so hard for his bullshit.
For a moment she struggled to breathe, sickness swirling in her gut as she tried to process the betrayal, tried desperately to think of a way to prove she was wrong, that he hadn’t used her.
Turning her back on the board, she tried the desk drawers. They weren’t locked. She guessed if no one could get in the office in the first place, there was no need to worry about locking the furniture inside.
Not that there was anything worth hiding in there.
She turned her attention to the filing cabinet, pulling open the top drawer. The hanging files were alphabetised, each with a name, and she flicked through them, knowing before she came to it that her name was going to be in there.
There it was. Blake, Olivia. Was this what their relationship came down to, a formal file?
She plucked it out with shaking fingers, sat down on his office chair and closed her eyes for a moment as she readied herself, aware that this was going to be the death knell on their relationship.
Tentatively she opened the file.
She got dressed before waking him. Her clothes were all still strewn on the lounge floor, which made it easy. It had only been a few hours since he had slowly stripped her naked, fucking her on his sofa, then later carrying her up to his bed where they had fucked again before falling asleep, but it felt longer.
It made it easier to think of it as simple fucking, even though at the time it had felt more than that. Feelings hadn’t been involved. At least they hadn’t been on Noah’s side. He had been using her. She understood that now.
Part of her, the cowardly part, wanted to leave without saying anything. He had hurt her, betrayed her, and broken her stupid pathetic heart. She should never have been foolish enough to believe that someone like him would fall for someone like her.
Kudos to him though, he had taken his work seriously, and she couldn’t help wondering if he slept with all of the women he investigated. He had been so cool, so laid-back about her scars. Had he known about them already?
Olivia hadn’t found anything in the file to indicate he knew about the fire and she recalled that brief moment of surprise when she had shown her scars to him, so perhaps not. She had been so relieved when he didn’t reject her, having no idea that she was just a job to him and that he had probably had to suck up his revulsion.
It was easier to think that way, let the anger stamp over the hurt and the humiliation, and it was the anger that carried her up the stairs and into his bedroom.
She wasn’t quiet this time, flipping on the light then marching round the bed to yank up the blind, pushing open the window, and letting a blast of cool air into the room, as he grunted and swore, not looking happy at being abruptly woken up.
‘What the fuck, Liv?’ He blinked at her as his eyes adjusted, a frown on his face. ‘Why are you dressed? It’s the middle of the night.’
‘Who’s Adam Somerville?’
‘What?’
‘Who the hell is Adam Somerville, Noah, and why did he want you to investigate me?’
He actually had the good grace to look sheepish for a moment. ‘I can explain.’
‘Really? You can explain? How are you going to explain all of this?’
She hurled the file at him, saw his expression darken as he realised what it was.
‘You broke into my office?’ He looked so annoyed that for a moment Olivia felt guilty. She quickly stamped that down though, reminded herself that her wrong was nothing in comparison to what he had done.
‘You used me. You lied to me. You betrayed me. Thank God I did break into your office. At least now I know it was never real, that I was only ever a job to you.’
‘That’s not true.’
She took a step away from him as he got out of bed and found his jeans, hopping into them.
‘Look, you need to calm down. Just sit down and I will explain everything.’
‘What? Tell me more lies you mean? You were investigating me? Everything that’s happened between us, it was all bullshit. I trusted you. I believed it was real. You tricked me into thinking I really mattered.’ Her voice cracked on the last word and she sucked in a deep shaky breath. She would not get upset in front of him, she would not show him how much she cared. Anger was better and she would hold on to that.
‘I never tricked you. It was real. It is real. You do matter to me.’
‘Stop lying to me!’ She held up her hand towards the window and Noah’s eyes widened as he realised she had his keys.
‘Liv, give those here.’
‘Or what?’ She arched her eyebrows, gave him a challenging stare as rage simmered through her veins, desperately wanting to hurt him and get him back for what he had done. ‘What are you going to do, Noah?’
‘Give me my keys!’
He moved suddenly and she sidestepped him, hurled the keys as far out of the window as she could before making her escape over the bed, just out of his reach.
‘For fuck’s sake, Liv!’
The keys only distracted him for a brief second then he was after her, charging down the stairs. She had pre-empted him. The front door was already ajar and her car unlocked with the keys in the ignition.
As she ran down the front step towards her car, she was aware of him gaining, heard him swear as the front door slammed shut behind him. She felt a flicker of satisfaction as she realised he had locked himself out.
His fingers brushed the car door as she slammed it shut, locking herself inside.
As she started the engine, he dropped down against the driver side window, and she stared straight ahead, chin jutted out, refusing to look at him.
‘I know you don’t believe me, but I never faked anything with you. Yes, it started as a job, but then I got to know you. I quit the job, Liv. I quit it because I was falling in love with you. I know you don’t believe that, but it’s the truth.’
He sounded convincing, but she now knew that it was just an act. All the lies he had told her, she had gullibly fallen for every single one, but not anymore. She was done with his bullshit.
Blinking back the tears that kept threatening to fall, she floored the accelerator and pulled off the drive, aware he had chased into the street after her, but refusing to look back.
