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  “Noah, how are you?” he replies.

  I can tell from his expression he’s not very enthused to see me.

  “It's been quite some time. How is Olivia?” he asks.

  “That stings, Jamesen, you know” I reply.

  I take the seat across from him.

  “I assume you’ve seen the papers. We’re headed for divorce,” I say.

  “That I can understand. She's divorcing you?” he asks.

  “Quite the opposite,” I reply, shifting a bit in the chair.

  I wonder how Olivia’s smear campaign has done this to my reputation.

  This isn't working the way I wanted.

  I'm drowning rather quickly in scandal.

  Just as I would have in England.

  “That's a surprise,” he intones.

  His sarcasm isn’t lost on me.

  “Don't be petty, Jamesen. It’s not like you,” I say.

  I am always blunt with him.

  “After everything I've done, you'd judge me so? I'm thinking about making a larger investment, for a seat on the board of directors and this is what I get?” I ask.

  Jamesen ponders for a split second before shaking his head.

  I felt that coming.

  “There's too much scandal surrounding your marriage at the moment. Julian Bradford and I…” he starts, but I interrupt.

  “Julian Bradford is a petty man. You two have been fighting for years,” I point out.

  “Yes, that is true, Noah, but, things change,” he says.

  Something is wrong.

  I can sense it in the air.

  I have the urge to question him further, but I recognize that will be of no use.

  If Whittaker Energy is in so much trouble, they'll sacrifice their clean energy initiatives to partner with Bradford; if that is the case, then there's nothing I can do to save the situation.

  I've lost my power.

  There’s a sense of defeat, but my expression remains stoic.

  “Well, if that's the way you understand it,” I say.

  We stare at each other for a moment, trying to read minds.

  “Yes, well then,” he says.

  Jamesen doesn't rise to shake my hand, and I make no move to shake his.

  Tempted to comment, I rise from the chair across from him, wanting to tell him not to use his family to further his business interests.

  He's a desperate man; he doesn't recognize what to do.

  Suddenly, I feel petty and hope he loses everything.

  “I'll meet you on Saturday?” Jamesen nods.

  “Sure,” I agree, as I am leaving.

  All the way down in the elevator I swear, my plan dashed into tiny little pieces.

  After leaving Jamesen, I call the accountants and put them through the ringer.

  What I always do when I go through a sense of loss, I make them conference each other in, move money around and free up a considerable sum.

  This makes everything less intense to me

  It's not like I can hand over a check to Tinsley and tell her to take it and run.

  Or can I?

  I mull this fantasy over for a minute before discarding it.

  The thought was appealing, however.

  My pseudo-argument with Jamesen has left me defeated.

  I feel impotent.

  I feel more than useless to the woman I desire.

  I conference the accountants again an hour later, pouring money into random investments and freeing up cash from others.

  I confuse them, twist them and turn them until I have them near tears.

  That's when one of them suggests something that makes me think.

  “Mr. Stone, if I may, if you will continue doing this, why don't you start your portfolio management firm? It's much smarter business sense,” he says, trying to be reasonable with me.

  “I have enough,” I reply, brusquely.

  It's a statement.

  They all agree with each other.

  “If I were to do that, I would shake the ground these people walk on, rather than just play their game,” I say.

  “Mr. Stone you already shake the ground they walk on, with respect,” one accountant replies. Something Hale or other.

  I believe his son knows Corban, Olivia’s son.

  “I'll think about it, Hale,” I say, and I can tell he’s smiling ear-to-ear at his own cleverness.

  I end the conference call without warning, ringing off, and then flipping back to my cell phone, to the pictures of Tinsley in those dresses, wondering what she will wear tomorrow night.

  I wonder if she's kissed another man.

  It certainly seemed like it, but how am already so possessive of her?

  I want her to forget any man or boy she's kissed but me!

  I look for something to drink, wild thoughts invading my mind.

  These types of thoughts don't often occur, maybe never.

  I'm dialing her number before I can stop my hands, the phone ringing on the speaker in my office before I can hang up.

  “Noah?” she sounds lazy, relaxed, and I picture her laying across my bed in her underwear.

  Not a good image to hold mentally, if I'm supposed to be playing nice.

  “What are you doing?” I swear to god I sound aroused.

  “Nothing.”

  Her voice is lazy, and I hear the rustle of sheets, and I realize that she is laying in her bed.

  I'm instantly hard.

  “You want me to come over?” her question poses a challenge.

  Evan is with my sister, Athena, gone to the movies.

  Magda went with them.

  We would be alone in the Penthouse.

  The reasonable answer is no.

  “I'm ordering sushi. Should I order for two?” I ask, not listening to the logical part of my brain.

  “I'm on my way,” comes her reply, and the line goes dead.

  She didn’t even hesitate to question my invitation.

  The food arrives before she does.

  Tinsley is dressed in a black mini skirt, a white blouse with one button too many undone, no makeup and her long straight hair free flowing.

  It’s enough to drive me wild.

  I am pressing her against the door as soon as I've closed it.

  “What's wrong?” she asks.

  It's almost as though she has immediately seen the worry lines creased across my forehead.

  “Nothing, you're here now, Dear,” I whisper.

  My admission is enough to make her smile.

  She came here intent on seducing me.

  I tell myself it’s true because I can see her black bra through that white blouse.

  Her cleavage is so plump I can't help myself.

  “Hungry?” I ask.

  I leer at her chest.

  “Not what I was thinking,” she replies, coyly as she tilts her head slightly.

  She wants a kiss.

  It's well past eight.

  It's clear what our intentions are, but I've already told myself I will not go past the point of reason.

  Sex cannot happen.

  That being said, I pick her up, pushing her up against the table in the hallway before I taste the skin of her neck, going lower, down the V-neck of her blouse.

  Tinsley relents immediately, tossing her head back with a little moan that only urges my lips to hers.

  This time kissing her is so easy, I don't feel the guilt I had last time as her hands slip underneath my shirt, against my chest, making my skin hotter against the softness of her flesh.

  I should stop this madness.

  This is not just another affair.

  Why should I tear my hands away from her now?

  How much trouble will I be in, if I sleep with her?

  I'm acutely aware of the possibility I could hurt this woman in my arms horribly, but she is the one woman I'm unable to let go of.

  I do not understand what my fascination is with her.

  There's no explanation fo
r the undeniable attraction between us.

  Let's not forget she's forbidden.

  That must be it.

  Tinsley is a woman I shouldn't have.

  Therefore, I want to take her to bed.

  This is the rational explanation.

  The irrational explanation is I've hopelessly fallen in love with her because she is the only person who understands me.

  “Where's Evan?” Tinsley's voice, choked full of desire, prods between her soft kisses.

  “With Athena,” I pant into her ear.

  The wrongness of the situation only serves to excite me further as she undoes the buttons of my shirt.

  So, I carry her the couch, where we kissed the previous night.

  I press her down against the suede, as she pushes my shirt down around my shoulders.

  It's just so easy to shrug the shirt off.

  It's only fair that her shirt comes off, tugged over her head, to reveal a lace push up bra.

  Tinsley is mine.

  I decide that I want no one else touching her.

  She is mine.

  I want her for myself.

  Though I don't dare say this out loud, or else I'm assuring our doom.

  If I haven't already.

  I realize I'm holding onto false hope already.

  That somehow this will work out.

  “Admit it,” I whisper, my lips traveling down her cleavage, watching her eyes as she sucks in a breath, finding the hook just above the zipper on the side of her skirt. “You've wanted this.”

  Tinsley nods.

  “Good.”

  No regrets there.

  “I haven't done this before,” she says.

  That makes me pause.

  I kneel in front of her for a moment, the sight of her swollen lips, and the expression urges me to keep going.

  Now, I have to ask what she means.

  Goddamn it.

  “What do you mean?” I ask.

  “I shouldn't have said that,” she sighs.

  She shifts her position, letting me see that she’s not wearing any substantial underwear.

  Maybe a thong?

  Tinsley props herself up on her elbows, only making her more enticing. “I've never done this.”

  Maybe she can't find the right words?

  “Had sex?” I smirk at her innocence.

  That I can handle.

  She shakes her head.

  “You've done other things I assume?” I say.

  “Noah.” She scolds me.

  Fuck.

  I think I skipped something huge with her now.

  I wouldn't care about other women.

  Tinsley, however, I care about, a lot.

  “I didn't tell you to stop,” she says when I make a face at her. “Noah, don't stop! Please!” she begs.

  God, why did she have to say that?

  Of all things?

  “Take that as I trust you, and I want to?” she asks, brightly.

  Her face is suggestive, I'm tempted to kiss her again.

  I want to take everything and leave nothing behind for anyone else.

  She belongs to me.

  “You look torn,” she says.

  The anguish on her face makes me want to kiss it away.

  “Please don't get upset,” I say, but it comes out like a whine.

  My begging tone comforts her as I kiss her cheek.

  “There's a difference between this and fooling around with someone closer to your own age,” I say to her.

  “There is no difference, Noah,” she argues.

  Then, she’s tilting her face, so our lips are closer together.

  “Huge difference,” I insist.

  But, it's too painful to be firm with Tinsley, especially in this position.

  One of her delicate hands drifts to me, grasping me where I'm hard, and then squeezing gently.

  “Big difference?” she teases.

  “Tinsley!” I shout.

  I'm trying to do the right thing here, but discussing the difference between us does not affect my desire to do the dirtiest things imaginable to her.

  Somehow my lips are on her flesh again, anyway.

  “You’re trouble,” I tell her.

  My words have zero effect as I press her against the couch again.

  She surrenders immediately, running her hands through my hair with a content sigh, but I need to draw the line somewhere.

  “I'm not sleeping with you,” I whisper.

  “You will,” she promises.

  Probably.

  Not tonight.

  But probably.

  “I won't,” I lie, both to her and myself.

  Arguing with her is more fun than just letting her get her way.

  As if right on cue, her back arches against me, her hands brush against me, and for the first time since she walked in the door my resolve not to take her into my bedroom wavers.

  Not even carrying her into the bedroom seems like an option as she wraps her legs around my waist.

  I could take her right here, I swear to God!

  Then, as though Fate knows she needs to stop us, I hear Athena’s voice.

  “Evan, I swear to god, you're just as much trouble as your father,” Athena says in her high-pitched tone.

  It’s the one she only uses when she's angry.

  Her screech intrudes upon my senses and Tinsley and I both freeze on the couch, half-naked as the clip of Athena's heels comes closer.

  “I'm hungry,” I hear Evan reply.

  “There's a fridge; I don't cook,” Athena argues with him.

  I created just as much of a monster out of my sister as I did my son.

  “What do you get done around here?” Evan asks out of spite.

  “Shut up, brat,” I hear Athena swear under her breath. “Little asshole, just like your father!”

  Athena walks in on Tinsley and I, tangled in each other.

  “Holy fuck!” She covers her mouth. “Noah Leviathan Stone, what in the hell are you doing? Get up! Now!” she orders.

  We disengage our bodies in a matter of seconds, and Tinsley finds her shirt, slipping it back on before Evan makes his appearance, his mouth full of sushi, asking what's going on.

  “Nothing!” Athena and I yell in unison.

  Evan knows better than to question the two of us.

  He shrugs, his head shaking as he wanders off to find another video game to play.

  “I'd better go,” Tinsley says.

  Her breathing is ragged, and she’s tugging her clothing on in little jerky movements.

  Tinsley's eyes flash over me one last time as I walk her to the door, scanning the look on my sister's face.

  I saw Athena's face.

  Athena presses her lips together so tightly I can barely see them as I shut the door behind us, to give Tinsley a proper goodbye.

  “Well, now that Athena hates me,” Tinsley crosses her arms over her chest.

  “It's me she will hate, babe” I say to her.

  I kiss her on the cheek.

  “It has nothing do with you. I'll see you tomorrow night?” I ask.

  “Yeah.”

  Tinsley nods, but whatever spell came over us when we were alone?

  That's all gone now.

  She disappears into the elevator as it dings without another word and I'm left feeling unsatisfied, a large hole where she was.

  My sister is waiting inside to scold me.

  Her lips are still pressed together as I pull my shirt back on.

  “What are you thinking Noah?” she demands.

  I don't speak, because with Tinsley and I, when it is just the two of us, in our world, the propriety of the situation does not come into play.

  “Noah, answer me,” she insists.

  Athena is waiting for me.

  “I don't have an answer.”

  “Cheating on your wife, will not help matters, Noah,” she says.

  “I'm getting a divorce, Athena,” I tell her.

&
nbsp; My announcement isn’t a shocking one.

  Silence settles over us.

  The Stone family.

  We are notoriously unlucky in love, and thus Athena isn't surprised.

  “Is she divorcing you?” she asks.

  The cold tone of her voice suggests that she would understand if Olivia left me.

  “Tinsley is off limits. Married, divorced, or not.” Athena's voice is flat.

  “You know what?” I say, collapsing against the couch, exasperated. “I don't care.”

  “Well, you'd better. I'd better not witness another situation like that again, or I'm going to Gianna Whittaker, and I will tell her everything,” she hisses at me.

  The threat isn't an idle one; I know Athena will follow through to protect Tinsley from me.

  I believe my sister is probably doing us both a favor.

  However, that only means I'm locking the door from now on.

  Heaven only knows why I didn’t.

  Oh right, the immediate kissing that took over my whole body and made my cock demand Tinsley.

  “I mean it Leviathan,” Athena calls me by my middle name, a trick my mother used when she was angry, screaming at the top of her lungs in a firm British accent, even though we don't scream.

  “Stay away from her. I'll make you if you don't,” she says.

  “Fine.”

  The lie runs across my lips smoothly.

  Athena's lips form a smirk, sitting across from me, crossing her legs. “I know when you're lying. I see you.”

  Once again, the Stones are at odds.

  September 11, 2009

  Friday morning I want to see Tinsley.

  The thought occurs that every time we are alone, we cannot help ourselves, so I send her a quick text around seven to go for a run.

  I suspect she is up, possibly waiting for my text message because she replies almost instantly.

  Half an hour later we meet at Centre Drive, as usual, Tinsley in a pair of black running shorts and a long sleeve form fitting shirt that seems to be almost sheer.

  I can see her bright yellow sports bra underneath.

  “Hey, Old Man!” she smiles brightly.

  “Are you ready to get beat by a woman again?” she says, challenging me.

  “Not a chance,” I wink at her.

  I don't know why I've done that.

  This is, understandably, leading us both down a disastrous path, yet I can't bring myself to do anything to stop it.

  The point of a run together was doing something friendly again, not sexual at all.

  But, the aura between us is nowhere near as innocent as it was as we start our race towards the reservoir path.