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

But reminiscing about the tangled web that was my life leaves me vulnerable, and a woman in a tight dark dress stops as she walks past. She gazes closer at me.

“Are you lost? Can I help you?”

I hold my head high, steadying my chin. “Uh, no, actually.” I point in the direction of the incoming tables and chairs. “I’m with the waitstaff.” I motion to my shower-wet head. “We got caught in the rain.”

With a cursory glance of my wrinkled outfit, the brown-haired woman dismisses me quickly, heading over to talk to a nearby wedding guest who watches the busy affair in the lobby with amusement.

She smirks. “Looks like we won’t exactly be having a white wedding. More like ‘off-white’ with all this rain and smudge.”

The other woman nudges the brunette. “Well, it’s like you said before, the rain isn’t all bad. It’ll force a lot of indoor activity, and speaking of ‘indoor activities…’” she lingers. “Have you managed to get Noah Quinn in the sack yet?”

The brunette grins, one side of her smooth face pulling tight. “It’s only a matter of time, really. I mean, I didn’t get a good look at his date or anything, but I know Noah better than most. The man’s never been with any woman more than a night. He’ll be mine by the time Jase and Mindy say ‘I do.’”

Her comments leave me bristling, gripping my weekend bag in my hands hard enough to hurt.

As if anything could hurt worse than what I’ve been made to feel since the second Noah left my sight this morning.

I was so very wrong about what I wrote to this man in that damn note…

This rich, prince-like playboy who was only good at pretending to be a man.

It was that man that was “make-believe.”

He was the liar.

A liar who brought me into his circle of chaos, into his twisted harem. As his fiancée Ainsley was so kind enough to point out, it was true: I wasn’t the only woman to fall in love with Noah Quinn…but I could be the last.

Turns out my heart could comprehend worse matters after all.

As with my father before him, I’d fallen in love with a man I can never trust. I’d fallen for a fairytale that could never come true.

I squeeze my way through the drenched waitstaff in the grand foyer, heading to the front door without a backward glance.

Chapter 25

NOAH

Sophia isn’t in the room when I return. And my heart has never sunk so fast.

My heart is hammering when I head back to our bedroom, the espresso I drank earlier practically pumping in my veins.

My internet can’t pull up on my phone fast enough and I find myself searching, searching, searching.

Looking for the clues that may have been in front of my face the entire time.

Looking for information on the owner of Benny’s Pizza and the possible sell of the small pizza shop close to Sophia’s apartment…

Looking for a buyer with the last name Stratford.

Because Lachlan was right: Cynthia Stratford, NYU finance grad, Harvard Law alum came from a family that owned half of Manhattan.

And nothing can prepare me for his little truth bombs in Grandfather Quinn’s sequestered bar.

Combined with this new one, each explosion continues to implode inside my mind, clouding every thought, detonating as I pace the length of the bedroom.

Collar unbuttoned, breathing heavily, I try to put the pieces together, pieces I’d tried desperately not to see when I feel a touch across my chest from behind—gentle and familiar.

I turn, ready to grab Sophia and sink my nose right into her shoulder. To ground myself in something real.

But it isn’t Sophia.

Blonde hair sways where there should be brown, and I glance up into expected hazel eyes finding green ones instead. A ghost from my past stares back at me in the present, her red lips spreading into a smile.

Ainsley smirks. “Hello, Noah. It’s been too long.”

I stumble back as if burned, rage squeezing my words into a rasp. I can barely speak. “What the fuck are you doing here?”

“I thought you’d be happy to see me.”

“Happy to see you?” The words come out on a croak. I’d laugh but disbelief is stuck in my throat. “Are you talking about before or after you tried to screw my brother? In our apartment?” My voice lowers to a subtle growl. “In our bed? Or do you not remember that part either?”

But I know she does.

Because there’s no forgetting something that changed the course of my life, my relationships forever.

My ex-fiancée stares at me in my own family’s home as if not a day has passed. And yet through the anger I can only think of one person. The only person I care to wrap my arms around at this very moment. The person who tore my shields down and finally revealed the actual man that was inside.

I look over Ainsley’s shoulder. “Where’s Sophia?”

She scoffs. “Oh, you mean that little brunette? The one with the tattoos?” She hitches a shoulder. “I think the trash took herself out, actually. A neat trick. She could show my garbage men a thing or two.”

I spin on my heel. “I have to find her.”

But Ainsley grabs my wrist and I’m two seconds from snatching it away. Her emerald eyes burn into mine.

“Noah, you can’t be serious. I came here today, looking for you, to tell you that we made a mistake. I know that now.”

I glare back at her, my skin heating under her touch. I can barely breathe. “The only mistake I made was you, Ainsley. I see that now.”

“Come on,” she whines. “Nothing happened between Jase and me. We didn’t take off our clothes. We didn’t sleep together. Hell, we barely kissed!”

“Not for your lack of trying.”

“And even if we did…” she runs right over my words, ever the spoiled snob used to getting her way. And I was the man who used to give it to her. She saunters closer.