The Note by Natalie Wrye (the read aloud family .TXT) 📕

In my floral-patterned dress and sweater, attempting to look nice amongst the Chanel and Dior couture, I look like someone’s poor adopted sister.

A charity case.

The other guests might laugh at us, if they could just see us now.

The lowly inner city girl trying to clean up, yelling at the blue blood man born in couture.

And through my rage, Noah stands there, staring at me. Despite being rain-drenched from bringing in wedding presents from outside, he looks perfect, ever the dark prince—a deep contrast from me, a woman who once believed the Gap™ was couture.

We were worlds apart.

Noah Quinn was just a reminder of all that I wasn’t. As if I needed another.

Drew was wrong; not that my dear friend had the habit of ever being perpetually right—or even on time.

I was better off at The Alchemist. Waiting on bankers who would make my life a living hell.

I couldn’t outrun who’d I’d been. And I couldn’t forget it.

At least I wouldn’t have to pretend anymore.

Pretend that I wasn’t what I had been in the past. Pretend that I could be more. Pretend that I’d find my fairytale life of safety and security.

The life that my parents could never provide.

I hold my ground—and my hands up in the air, as I demand an answer. “What else do you want from me?

I shake my head, my eyes filling with tears I refuse to let fall. “You’ve got what you wanted: Proof that I’m a poor liar. Nothing more than a criminal. A thief. You’ve shown that I’m shit, and you’re not. That I don’t have a pot to piss in and that yours is platinum. That you’re rich and wealthy and sophisticated and perfect, and that I will never be any of those things. You no longer need my help to find a watch. You can go to that Benny’s Pizza place by yourself and find it.” I blink fast, breathing deep. “Or am I not humbled enough for you?”

The words are barely out of my mouth before he destroys the distance between us, traversing the living room space in just a few steps. He grabs my chin in one hand, his dark blue eyes ablaze—almost alit in the dimmed glow from my nearby lamps.

The amber illumination highlights the many facets in his oceanic eyes, and my heart seizes, completely stopped as he stares down at me.

“What else do you I want from you?” His eyes flitter from one eye to the next as his stare burns into mine. His dark brows lower. “I’m not going to lie: A piece of me wanted to see you at my feet. To bring you there. To debase you.” He blinks. Just once. “That part of me left about two hours ago.”

He sighs, inhaling a breath so heavy that I feel it, too. His blue eyes glimmer. “I told you this already, Little Bear. But you don’t seem to get it yet. So let me refresh your memory… I want what I wanted from you the first night we met, the first time I tasted that awful tequila with you and listened to your absurdly loud laugh.”

He lowers his chin. “I want to be with you. To feel your body beneath mine.” He breathes. “I want to fuck you so hard you forget your name. I want to fuck you so long you forget time. And I want to fuck you so good that both don’t matter.”

I take a large gulp of air as Noah’s grip loosens, his large fingers trailing to my jaw. He strokes the skin there, no doubt feeling me swallow. I wet my bottom lip with the tip of my tongue.

“And what do you want me to say to that?”

“Say that I’m not a liar. That I’m not crazy to want you as much as I do. Say that I can believe you. That I can trust you.”

I shake my head, the motion making Noah’s fingers lower to my neck. They play along the sensitive nerves there and I suck in a breath.

“I can’t do that, Noah.”

His eyes turn to midnight-deep diamonds. “Why not?”

“Because I barely trust myself, Noah. I never have before. Until you showed me how to.” I exhale. “I need to believe. Believe in something. Believe in myself. God help me, Noah…” Teardrops start to decorate my lashes, and I close them. “I need you to help me believe in fairytales again.”

And then he kisses me.

Chapter 21

NOAH

Bedding Sophia Somerset goes against every better judgment my ass has ever had.

But I don’t know how to stop.

Her skin is still damp, still slightly cool to the touch when I grip the back of her neck, bringing her mouth onto mine.

My frustration with my company, with her, with the world melts the second our lips connect, and I realize in that moment that maintaining my cool will be a helluva lot harder than I expected.

But that’s just the thing…

I never expected her.

The expectation of perfection has followed me my entire life, the responsibility for upholding my flailing, father-less family sitting on my shoulders since I was four years old.

My brothers’ father died when Lachlan was a baby; my own secret father was never around.

In my world, a world of real estate and acquisitions, of pomp and pretending, my grandfather—and owner of the Quinn empire—made sure there was no room for the unexpected.

So when my heavily medicated bipolar mother had an affair with his lawyer, when she cheated on the man who should have been her ‘forever,’ my grandfather made the secrets, the truth and everything surrounding it go away.

The lawyer, Fitzergald Sparrow, retreated to the makings of his own empire. And his son lived on in ignorance.

That is, until Grandfather Quinn thought it fit to confess to a twenty-year old me on his deathbed, revealing the God-awful truth to a young man who’d already felt different form his brothers.

And now it seems that everywhere I turn, surprises are turning up around the corner.

And