“Yeah, you were going to tell me about that. What’s the deal with him and that chick?”
“Well, she’s a total bitch, for one,” she started with a disgruntled sneer. “Noah dated her for two years, give or take a lifetime. Her father, Dr. Everett Frost, is a really close friend of the family and that’s pretty much how they hooked up.”
“I, um, I met Dr. Frost,” I said, remembering his name from the appointment.
“Yeah, Everett’s a good guy. I don’t judge him by his offspring,” she said. “Anyway, Noah went away on a business trip, but he’d decided—against all better judgment—to propose to her when he got back. For some unknown reason, he thought he loved her. I’m not so sure he really knew what love was, and I’m still not convinced that he does even now. But anyway, he came home only to find his beloved Julie getting rammed in the ass by his best friend.”
I gasped and put my hand over my heart. I wasn’t doing it for dramatic effect; it was a completely natural reaction to my shock. “Oh, no …”
“Yeah, ‘oh, no’ is putting it mildly,” Polly said. “Needless to say, Noah’s heart was crushed, or maybe it was just his ego, but either way, he was devastated.” She paused and looked at me with this fearsome, overprotective mother-bear expression in her eyes. “And Lanie, I simply don’t know if he can take any more. So if this thing between you two really does advance to another level, you keep that in mind. We clear?”
How sweet was that? She was about as big as a mosquito and every bit as annoying, and there she was, sounding all authoritative and issuing a thug’s warning. Somehow, though, I didn’t put it past her to follow through. Not that it was anything she’d have to be concerned about, because Noah Crawford didn’t feel that way about me and I was going to fight against every urge I had to make sure I didn’t put myself in front of that train either. Any type of feeling I was developing for him would have to be buried somewhere deep inside, lest my heart get ripped to shreds in the hands of the one man with enough power over me to do so.
“Perfectly clear, Polly. No worries. Although I really don’t think Noah is the one you’re going to have to worry about getting hurt in this equation.”
“Yeah, I get that. I know he seems like a hard-ass on the outside, but when he lets the real him shine through …” She sighed. “He’s got some real potential to be all that and a bag of chips. So I can absolutely see where there’s cause for worry.”
“Ah, don’t say that, Polly,” I whined, and put my head in my hands.
“Sorry, babe.” She stood and patted my shoulder. “Keep your chin up, and believe for all you’re worth that what’s meant to be will be.” She winked at me before grabbing her clutch and tucking it under her arm. “I have errands to run. I’ll talk to you later.”
She gave me a chaste kiss on the cheek, and then all I heard was the clip-clop sound of her heels as she walked away, leaving me there to dwell on all my issues. The funny thing was that I didn’t dwell on it. I was more concerned about Noah and the horrible stuff he’d been through.
Yeah, my problems were probably tons more pressing, what with my mother dying a little more each day, but it was the nurturing side of me—and probably my perpetual state of denial—that made me push that aside for the time being and just feel for him. I couldn’t imagine walking in on my best friend and my guy going at it like that.
I cursed myself when an image of Dez and Noah together flashed behind my eyes and sent a shiver down my spine. Hell would freeze over before that would happen. I knew it, but if it ever did, Hell still wouldn’t be anywhere near as cold as my heart.
Poor Noah. That explained why a wealthy man with looks to kill and a body to die for would stoop so low as to purchase a woman—so she could never pull something like that on him again.
Stoop so low … that would put me on the bottom of the barrel then, wouldn’t it? Of course it would. Even though I wasn’t good enough for him, I pledged to make sure I took care of him the way he needed and wanted me to, if only for the couple of years I was bound to him.
Noah
Ten minutes to purchase her.
One hour to get her lips wrapped around my cock.
Three days to taste her juices.
Four days to pop her cherry.
Two weeks to lose my fucking mind.
Shit.
Just over two weeks. Fifteen goddamn days.
That was all it took for one purchased virgin to get me all kinds of wrapped around her cute little pinky. In the two years that Julie and I had been together, she never once managed to pull that off. But Delaine? My whole world had been turned upside down in just two motherfucking weeks.
It wasn’t at all how this was supposed to go down. How in the hell was I going to last two years when I’d already give her anything she asked for on a silver platter? Fucking Candy-Ass Crawford, that was what I should’ve changed my name to.
Goddamnit.
I had done nothing but think about her all day at the office. And that was exactly why I pulled a desperate move like having Samuel bring her with him to pick me up. Yeah, I could’ve easily had him break every traffic law there was in the state of Illinois to get me to her quicker, but when I started to entertain the thought of purchasing a helicopter so that I could avoid the delay of rush hour traffic, I decided having her brought to me was probably the best alternative.
I was sick in the head. And I probably should’ve looked into some sort of twelve-step program for my new obsession because there was no way it could have been healthy.