Torrid Page 20

  His voice is smooth as he plants a kiss just under my chin.

  “You look beautiful, by the way. Money well spent,” he adds, chewing some bacon and eggs.

  I planned to tell him today, at breakfast, but seeing his features so relaxed, and him sitting there in a bathing suit, the most casual I’ve ever seen him, I just can’t bring myself to do it.

  Telling him now would ruin this.

  What makes everything all the more difficult is I can picture this exact scenario, breakfast, every morning, for the rest of our lives together.

  It’s not hard to see that we’re good for each other, that he needs my influence.

  We balance each other out, and he is as essential to me as I am to him.

  Everything seemed so impossible alone.

  But if Noah and I are on the board of Whittaker together?

  We can change minds; we’ll have more sway.

  With his power and my insight, there is nothing we can’t accomplish.

  I push Manhattan, Connor, and everything else to the back of my mind convinced that this will work out for the best.

  Our first and only day with our small crew navigating the yacht from Miami to the Bahamas is uneventful, and sublime.

  Hours upon hours of lazing around the decks, making drinks for each other, kissing and lounging.

  Occasionally, I get up to cook a meal, and Noah joins in to help.

  Noah is mostly useless in the kitchen, so he watches, kissing my neck and asking questions; tasting things.

  My mind wanders, and I can’t help but think that every day together would be like this.

  Waking up and having our morning coffee, meeting for lunch, making dinner to talk about our days after work.

  It is a wonderful taste of whatever future we might have.

  The options are endless.

  “We should go to Fiji,” Noah mentions.

  “Fiji?” I raise an eyebrow at him.

  “I bought an island there,” he announces casually, as though he bought a new shirt. “I’m having a couple of things delivered; I will need someone to look them over with me,” he says, nonchalantly.

  “Are you asking me to go to Fiji, or telling me, I’m going to Fiji?” I ask.

  “I’m telling you, we’re taking a trip to Fiji, whenever you want to,” he whispers in my ear. “I built a house on that island. It makes me think of you whenever I’m there,” Noah whispers to me.

  The thought of anything so grand reminding him of me makes me shiver, and Noah runs his hands along my arms.

  “I’ve wanted to take you there,” he says.

  “We’ll leave from the Bahamas then?” I ask.

  I close my eyes as he starts kissing my shoulder.

  “Absolutely,” he mutters,

  His lips press against my skin.

  “Then, maybe Venice?” he asks.

  Another kiss on my skin.

  “If we’re going to Venice, I’ll have to show you, what part of Italy my mother is from,” I say as I turn around and finish tossing the pasta, the bowl now in my hands. “Now stop kissing me, or I'll going to drop this!” I say, laughing.

  Once we sit down to eat, it’s like we’ve already found our routine.

  Red wine, dinner, and easy conversation.

  And love.

  All the love…

  We can talk about anything, which is why I ask about Elizabeth.

  “Do you have any leads on Elizabeth?” I ask.

  “No,” he says, shaking his head.

  This brings me back.

  Back to all those years ago when Elizabeth made her last appearance.

  “You’ve seen her I take it? Since then,” I ask.

  “No,” Noah shakes his head, suddenly somber. “But I may have found Ava.”

  “Ava?” my eyes widen at this.

  He nods slowly. “I got the feeling that, if it is her, she might be in some sort of trouble. But there’s no way of telling for sure.”

  There it is.

  The guilt washes over me like a bucket of cold water.

  The earlier elation disappears.

  In its place is only the raw guilt that keeps me from admitting the truth, at least to him.

  And that truth is that I want much more of these uninterrupted stretches of time together.

  I know I am responsible for Elizabeth keeping his daughter away from him.

  Responsible for anything she did.

  “Tinsley? Were you listening?” Noah nudges into my thoughts.

  “No,” I admit.

  “What’s wrong?” he presses me further.

  When I don’t say anything, he knows.

  “Don’t tell me; you feel guilty?” Noah asks, his brows furrowed.

  “What if she’s done something awful? You and I both know what that woman is capable of!” I cry.

  I take a long sip of the wine.

  “I can feel it. Elizabeth did something awful, and it’s because of me,” I say to him.

  “No love,” Noah corrects me, “It has nothing to do with you. She’s conniving, but she would not hurt her flesh and blood,”

  “But I am partially responsible,” I argue.

  “You can’t be,” he tells me, taking my hands in his. “You simply don’t understand her as I do.”

  But I can’t believe him this time.

  I saw the look of hatred on her face.

  Elizabeth understood that I was the one who changed Noah.

  Just as Noah and I understood that.

  I think we all knew that Noah and I wouldn’t have come together unless I meant something to him.

  We’ve proven that much thus far.

  “Tinsley, please don’t think this way. I can’t stand it,” Noah begs.

  “I can’t help it,” I say.

  I feel helpless against these thoughts.

  “She would’ve done, whatever she has anyway,” he tells me truthfully. “I’m not going to lie to you, we may have ignited her ire, but she was always cross with me from the beginning. You know that. You know the story,” he says.

  “Tell it to me again,” I command.

  “She was pregnant. We were together young. It was an accident,” he explains. “Do you want to hear this?” he asks, worried.

  I know the story.

  But I nod anyway.

  “My parents, and the Darlingtons, wanted us both to get married. We were only eighteen, and I knew even then that I wasn’t going to marry her. She wasn’t the one for me. I tried to talk with her, and that only ended badly.” Noah explains. “I’m not proud of that…” he adds.

  “And then she ran,” I finish for him.

  The Darlington’s weren’t even upset with him, because Noah went chasing after her, trying to find her to bring her and the baby back home.

  His father died shortly after, and he was away when that happened.

  Elizabeth has already taken so much from him.

  I feel my anger flare at her.

  She took something from me too.

  However long it takes, I cannot shake the guilt.

  I stand, walking towards the rail and placing my hands on it as the yacht glides through the water, sunset beginning to take and I can see land far off in the distance.

  “That’s probably Nassau,” Noah explains.

  “And you don’t need to feel guilty,” he adds, trying to defuse the situation.

  “We’re equally guilty,” I protest.

  “We’re going around in circles,” Noah sounds annoyed now. “Besides, as I said earlier, I’m sure she’s done nothing,”

  It’s not that I want to ruin a perfectly good day, but a sullen silence falls over us.

  It isn’t until we’ve arrived in the Bahamas, and Noah’s yacht is safely in a private marina that he approaches me with something I didn’t consider before.

  “Tinsley,” he hands me a glass of whiskey, leaning against the bow of the boat as I watch a shooting star streak across the sky.

  “
Do you think I would be as in love with you, as I’ve always been, if I thought you had an ounce of guilt in what Elizabeth has done?” he asks.

  This makes me think.

  “What?” I say.

  “Anything to do with her makes me sick. I don’t tie any memory of you to her, not in any way. She’s separate from that. I hope you see that,” Noah says.

  Noah is about to walk away, to let me think about this when I put a hand on his arm.

  “You’re right; you know that?” I admit.

  “Of course, I am love. I usually am,” Noah Stone says, with that confidence and conviction I’ve come to know and love.

  The fact that he’s loved me all this time, only makes it harder for me to tell him they’ve planned a pending engagement without my consent.

  That and the fact that I’ve practically agreed to marry Connor.

  19

  Noah

  September 21, 2015

  Being with Tinsley, away from Manhattan and the prying eyes of the social elite, is a breath of fresh air.

  This only prompts me to consider the facts.

  We clearly belong together, falling easily into a pattern.

  Tinsley makes breakfast after our usual routine of morning shower sex, we eat, make love again and head out for the day, walking through Nassau hand in hand without a care in the world.

  This is the woman I belong to.

  It’s never been clearer in my mind, and I intend on making an honest woman of her before we return to civilization.

  It makes me think we have a real chance together.

  “What do you think about our future together?” It’s a simple question.

  “There’s some possibility there,” She doesn’t give me a straight answer, hiding her smile.

  We’re both thinking the same thing.

  “So much possibility,” I agree with her.

  “Do you want children?” she asks suddenly. “I mean with me?”

  We pause to sit on a bench under the shade of a palm tree.

  I wrap my arm around her, propping my sunglasses up on my head.

  “I wouldn’t mind having children with you. In fact, I think I would quite enjoy it. Especially the part where we get to make them!” I say, giving her a wicked grin.

  “Really?” she seems shocked by my admission.

  “You didn’t think I would?” I tease her.

  “No, it’s not that,” She laughs, sensing my tone. “I just never pictured you wanting that sort of life, all over again. With me.”

  “Not right away of course,” I add. “We’d need time to do some traveling, I guess. Wouldn’t you want to be married for a while?”

  “Just the two of us? Alone?” I hint.

  “Any stretch of time with you, with or without children, is all I want,” she confesses.

  All the other people that exist to keep us apart are no longer worth our time.

  We are finally on solid ground together.

  That hope I’ve been hanging onto for all these years wasn’t for nothing.

  “We could buy a house on Long Island,” I suggest.

  “Near Ava Darlington?” she asks. “You’d like that wouldn’t you?”

  “She’d love it. She loves children, and me,” I agree with her.

  Ava Darlington, Ava’s namesake.

  The woman has been more of a mother to me than my mother was before she died.

  Ava is warm and motherly, she’s aged quite well, despite the search for her granddaughter.

  She prefers to stay in her home in Long Island, closer to me, because she believes that Ava, my daughter, is in New York.

  She’s always believed this.

  While the rest of the glamorous Darlingtons stay in London, going on holiday in various exotic places, and live their fabulously rich lives, she remains in one place.

  They are one of the few remaining old money families.

  As legendary as the Kennedy’s, and only slightly less scandalous.

  Ava Darlington and I have not given up on my daughter.

  Tinsley makes everything seem right in the world.

  I am convinced that Lucius will find my daughter, and Elizabeth.

  Tinsley slides onto my lap.

  Despite the heat of the day, I don’t mind as her arms encircle my neck.

  “Are you serious about having children together?” she asks.

  “I am always serious about you. Despite the time apart, not much has changed,” I reply.

  It would be easy to believe no time has passed, however, because we fall so easily back together.

  “I admit I was scared before,” I say to her.

  Tinsley presses her forehead to mine.

  “Me too.” Her voice is low as she takes a deep breath.

  “It could be, we just weren’t ready,” she whispers.

  It’s hard for me to believe that I ever would not have been ready to be with her.

  But a part of me wasn’t.

  However, I cannot admit to her that I was afraid to back then, I was scared to face the backlash had we revealed our intense relationship to anyone.

  All we have in front of us is an endless stretch of time, and lazy days full of enjoying each other.

  I feel no sense of urgency to prove anything to her anymore. We are together; the time apart seems so insignificant to what we have now.

  Tinsley and I rent a car, driving through Nassau until we happen upon a spot where Tinsley wants to stop, so I pull over.

  “Cloisters,” she points out. “I’ve read about these.”

  The old arches stand out against the lush greenery and well-kept gardens.

  Wandering in out of the arches, Tinsley spins in circles, her cream dress lifting above her thighs, hair free-flowing as she laughs.

  “This is one of the most beautiful things,” she says.

  Then, she stops, leaning against one of the arches.

  “Did you know, this is the remains of a 14th-century monastery?” she says.

  “No, I didn’t,” I tell her, as I lean against the arch across from her.

  “It is. You can feel it, how peaceful it is,” she replies.

  Her expression changes as her eyes close.

  The relaxation settles across her face, and she looks genuinely at peace.

  This is something I have not seen since our affair began all those years ago.

  Back when things first started up, there was always tension over getting caught.

  Then, when we were running into each other, neither of us knew if we would fall back together again.

  Now we have such an easy pattern together it’s impossible to think that this could’ve worked out any other way.

  Then she says something I don’t expect.

  “I’m getting engaged to Connor, or I’m supposed to be. They’ve already got the engagement party planned, Alex told me.” Tinsley looks stunned as though she wasn’t planning on blurting those words out.

  “Oh my god, I didn’t mean to say that! No!” she cries.

  “What are you talking about?” I take a step back.

  What just happened?

  “What are you talking about?” I repeat when she says nothing.

  “Alex told me,” Tinsley explains, “That they’ve got an engagement party planned in a few weeks, that everything’s been set,”

  I close my eyes, count back from ten, and try to breathe.

  My voice remains steady when I speak.

  I cannot get angry with her.

  “And you intend to marry him? Why didn’t you tell me?” I say, evenly.

  “Noah, how could I do that when I know in my heart, you’re the man for me?” she says.

  “Why didn’t you tell me?” I repeat, afraid that if I say anything else, I will start yelling.

  “I was afraid you’d be angry with me.” she cries, and I can tell the tears are close, now.

  “Well, now I have to bring you back.” I tell her, ready to scream. “Jesus Christ, Tinsley,
you need to let at least them know that you’re not going through with this. That you know what is happening!” I shout.

  She takes a step back.

  “You can’t want me to go back?” she asks, incredulous.

  “Of course I don’t!” I roar. “What am I supposed to think when you don’t tell me these things!”

  Clearly, I’ve lost my mind.

  “Listen,” taking a deep breath I step away from her before I raise my voice again.

  “You are in control, I want to be with you, but before anything goes any further, you are responsible for your own life,” I tell her.

  “I know that,” she says as closes her eyes. “I just wanted to escape with you,”

  “Escaping never fixed anything. The last six years are evidence of that,” I remind her.

  We’re right back where we started it feels like.

  Tinsley is slipping out of my fingers again.

  I can feel it.

  We both know that if she goes back, there is the possibility that she will cave, and let them convince her to agree to this engagement.

  “Come with me!” she pleads.

  Her eyes are bright with tears, and she seems frantic to convince me.

  “Come with me, and we’ll tell them, together. I don’t want to hide this from them. If, if you’re there, then maybe…” she begins.

  “Tinsley, I can’t do that,” I cut her off. “We both know, that this is something you have to do. I can’t do that for you.”

  “Noah, please just come with me.” she begs.

  “Come on,” I tell her, taking her hand and pulling her roughly into my arms.

  “We’ve got time, and I can’t let you go yet. But, you do have to go. Soon,” I shake my head.

  I don’t say it as we drive back to the marina, but it’s pretty clear that everything we’ve planned has been put on hold until she’s ended this charade.

  It isn’t that I don’t have faith that she will do her best to remain unattached to Connor, but I know how persuasive her father can be.

  Also, I can’t help but think that I was left out of his plans because he has a suspicion.

  When we get back to the marina, I know I need time to think, and Tinsley decides to go for a walk.

  But the second she’s gone, I feel her loss completely.

  20