Chapter 6

CHAPTER SIX

H E'D TOLD HER THAT having sex wouldn't change anything at work, but that had clearly been a fool's hope. Because sitting at the boardroom table as Louisa went through her team's vision—a team she'd assembled incredibly quickly, and well—he couldn't help but find it difficult to focus.

He was grateful Rose was sitting to his left. Ostensibly, she was there to take minutes, but she'd been with him a long time and was both relied upon and confident enough to pick up his evident slack.

"When can you get this moving?" she asked. It was something he obviously should have wanted to know. He looked at Louisa and her brow quirked in silent enquiry, whilst her boss fielded the question. He felt Louisa's teasing, and his temperature rose. So did his anticipation.

It was only lunchtime, though. There was a full afternoon to get through, plus his time with Taylor. She had netball training, and he made a point of going to watch, even though, at fifteen, she told him that was embarrassing. Only he'd had the benefit of parents who'd been involved in his life; he wasn't going to drop the ball with her.

Except, he had dropped the ball. When they were in LA, he'd done his best, but he'd presumed, for a long time, that Amy was on top of this stuff. He'd focused on his work, partly to escape his unhappy marriage. And in the process, he'd escaped his daughter and let her down.

Well, never again.

But after netball, and Taylor's dinner, he would go straight back to Louisa's, and he almost couldn't wait.

"Noah?" Stuart Conroy asked, so he cursed inwardly.

"Yeah?"

"Sound good?"

He looked at Louisa who gave a very subtle nod. "Sure. Sounds cool," he said, unable to resist seeing the effect it had on her.

She rolled her eyes almost imperceivably, then took her seat to Stuart's left.

"Great. The digital assets are already being prepared by our in-house team, and we've booked the New Year's filming for later this week?—,"

"No felons, this time around?" he couldn't resist asking.

"I'm personally overseeing casting," Louisa interjected. "Though we are getting a couple of influencers on board, however, they've been thoroughly vetted."

Her confidence, and thoroughness, were incredibly hot.

He leaned back in his chair as the meeting continued, aware that Rose would take such detailed notes he could review them later. Because his mind was focused on something else.

On imagining Louisa as Queen of Moricosia.

She'd dated the King for years, and it sounded as though an engagement had been in the offing. He couldn't say why that hadn't happened, but he could easily imagine Louisa in that role. She was so dignified and classy, so beautiful and kind. She was exactly the kind of woman any man would be proud to be with. But a King? That was a whole other level, and Noah imagined that Ares had known he would need a Queen with all the traits Louisa possessed in abundance.

Was that why they'd started dating? Had it been more about her suitability to take her place at his side, rather than her as a person? She'd said they loved one another as friends, but she'd also said she might have married him, had it not been for the whole fishbowl experience of being with someone so famous.

Either way, it was easy to imagine her married to King Ares, easy to imagine that side of her, and he acknowledged, with a small hint of concern, that he didn't like it.

Because he'd seen another side of her.

While she was all those things—contained, confident, carefully spoken, polite—she was also funny and silly, and he loved those parts of her. He liked the way she teased him, the way she challenged him, the way she spoke to him so directly. He imagined how much of her life she would have had to re-shape if she had married the King, and it left him with an unpleasant taste in his mouth.

He was glad she'd escaped that.

Glad she'd run away to Australia.

And gladder still that she'd run right into his arms. It was easy and casual, but that didn't mean they couldn't throw themselves fully into the business of pleasing, and being pleasured by, one another.

"Do you have a moment?" Noah asked, as the others filed from the room, the question directed at Louisa.

Louisa's eyes met his and her cheeks flushed pink. Her discomfort was adorable.

"I—,"

"Do you need me, too?" Stuart Conroy asked from the door, which he'd been just about to walk through.

"Louisa should be able to handle this," Noah responded, with a curt shake of his head, dismissing the older advertising executive.

"Do you need something, Mr Fox?" she purred, leaving him in little doubt that the last hour had played havoc with her senses just as much as it had his.

He prowled towards his closed office door and clicked the lock in place. "Whatever could you mean?"

"Well," she said, walking towards him, the glint in her eyes unmistakable. "You see, part of my job is client management," she said, her fingers reaching for his belt, without moving her eyes from his face. "And I wasn't sure you were absolutely as happy as you could have been in that meeting."

Holy shit.

This was not going where he'd expected.

Not even a little bit. He'd meant to flirt with her, maybe kiss her. But this was…next level.

She dropped his belt to the floor and then took a step backward. "So, if you'd like to take your seat, maybe we can see what I can do to improve things for you."

"Louisa." Was that his voice? It was so hoarse. Thick with desire. More desire than he'd ever felt. He was about to come, then and there. "I thought we agreed to keep work and this separate."

Her lips flickered with amusement. Light-hearted amusement, just as they'd promised each other.

"Play along, Mr Fox. A little fun never killed anyone…"

She took his hand and tugged on it, walking ahead of him to the boardroom table and waiting for him to sit down. He hesitated for the briefest moment then returned to his seat.

He swore as she undid his pants, and then again as she freed his rock-hard arousal from his boxers. But when she knelt between his legs and took him deep in her mouth, all the way to the back of her throat, her name was the only word in his mind, and the only word he said, for several minutes.

In those moments of blazing euphoria, her name was both a lifeline and a swan song; her name was everything.

From the sublime, Noah thought, to the most definitely not sublime.

That scene in his office, which had most definitely not been PG, had replayed in his mind about a hundred times throughout the afternoon, right up until the moment he'd crashed headlong into the reality of his life and wanted to do a little running away of his own.

Taylor, never really much fun to be around at the moment, was in an even worse mood than usual. She slammed the door after climbing into his car, glared instead of saying hello, and finally grunted, as they drove down the driveway, "You're late. I could have just gotten an Uber."

He ground his teeth. "I am two minutes late."

"Yeah, well, at least I can track Ubers."

"You can track me, too," he pointed out. He'd read in one of the copious parenting books he'd devoured that if you wanted to be able to trace your child's phones, you should offer a reciprocal right. He wasn't sure if he agreed with that. Being a parent was different to being a child. He paid the bills, so surely he had some increased rights?

But he didn't particularly care if she wanted to know where he was and what he was doing, so he'd left it.

"I've got better things to do with my time."

He let the insult slide. "How was your day?"

She made a grunting noise.

"School good?"

She looked out the window.

"What homework do you have tonight?"

"Why? Are you going to help me with it?"

He compressed his lips. Her resentment of him had gone on long enough. "Do you need help?"

She grunted.

"Listen, Tay," he said, gripping the steering wheel until his knuckles glowed white, trying to get a grip on his temper. Don't react when you're angry, he reminded himself. It was a cardinal rule. Just let it go.

"What?"

"I get that you're pissed with me?—,"

She snorted.

"But I would like to know how long I can expect this to last?"

"Oh, gee, I don't know. How's forever?"

His fingers tightened on the steering wheel. Tell her about Amy. Tell her about the booze. The pills. Tell her how unsafe it had been for her.

And wreck her relationship with her mother?

No way.

Even when he was furious, he wouldn't go down that path.

"Okay, fine," he shrugged, as though he didn't care. "We'll play it your way."

She whipped her head around to his, perhaps because she'd expected to argue, and then crossed her arms abruptly over her chest. "Whatever."

He pulled up at the netball courts and the car had barely slowed to a stop when she pushed open her door.

"Jesus, Taylor. Can you wait just a second?"

She glared at him again and then stalked away, but he could have sworn he saw a tear running down her cheek as she turned the corner.

His heart sunk and he felt, in this one aspect of his life, like an utter and complete failure.

"She hates me." His voice was blanked of emotion with apparent care, but his eyes showed the depths of his pain. "I don't mean that like she's going through a phase. She actively hates me. She seethes with rage. And I keep looking at her, and trying to work out where my little girl went? When did this happen? And why can't I fix it?"

"Start at the beginning," she said, reusing his turn of phrase from the night before. Louisa sat cross-legged on the floor, across from Noah, in the comfort of her lounge room. The day had been warm, and even though the sun had gone down more than an hour earlier, it was still warm in her apartment, but not overbearingly so.

He curled his hands around the mug of coffee and cradled it thoughtfully before taking a sip.

"She was the most beautiful kid," he said with a shake of his head. "Beautiful despite her home life," he added with a look of shame. "Amy and I were not that happy, most of the time. We fought in front of her. I mean, Amy had a temper, but I didn't de-escalate it like I should have. I was angry. I felt trapped if I'm honest."

Louisa's brows shot up. She remembered saying exactly that to Ares, though she'd been referring to the paparazzi, and the features of his royal life. But the sentiment had been similar, so too her desperation.

"I had never planned to have children at that age, nor to get married, but one thing followed the other, and there we were. I tried to make the best of it, but Amy and I were never really well-suited. It should have just been a stupid summer romance. A fling, at best."

She nodded sympathetically, encouraging him silently to continue.

"I don't know when things went off the rails for her." He drank his coffee. "She always liked to party. We both did, at that age. But Taylor sobered me up. I grew up. Suddenly, we had this perfect, fragile baby, and I would have done anything for her. Given up anything."

"But Amy didn't?"

He frowned. "I thought she just liked to party, but I think she's probably always been an addict. Her behaviour got more and more reckless. Stupid. She made a lot of dumb mistakes."

Louisa leaned forward unconsciously.

"She doted on Tay, though. That was all that mattered. I knew we weren't that happy, as a couple, but so long as we both loved Tay, I thought it would be okay. Honestly, I don't know how we made it work for as long as we did."

Noah placed his coffee cup on the tray between them.

"Anyway, a couple of years ago, I came home late, and the house was filled with smoke. Amy was passed out. Drunk. High. Both. Taylor was up in her room, thank God. She was fine. But if I'd been an hour later, I can't even imagine what would have happened."

Louisa gasped.

"So, I finally left her and brought Taylor with me."

"That's when you moved here?"

"No. First I tried to live in LA, around the corner from her. I still wanted her to be a part of Taylor's life. I made her rehab a part of our custody deal, but she just couldn't stick at it."

Sympathy stirred inside Louisa. "I did some work with a rehab charity in Moricosia. Alcoholism is such an awful disease."

"Yes," his eyes sparked to hers. "And it tore Amy apart. But it was starting to get to Taylor, too. Amy drove her to my place one day and I swear she was drunk. She denied it, and I didn't want to make a scene in front of Tay, but I could just tell. God. What a mess."

"It sounds like you tried everything you could to help her."

"I'm still trying. I want her to be in Taylor's life. I have no interest in ruining their relationship. But I need to know my daughter's safe. And I don't just mean physically."

Louisa waited for him to keep going.

"Amy's online, posting the most ridiculous stuff. Dressing inappropriately, making out with random guys, clearly hammered. Taylor wants social media desperately, and her mother's let her go on Instagram, despite me telling her again and again it's not a good idea. I had to delete the app off Tay's phone, so yet again, I'm the bad guy. I just want to shield her from this."

Louisa sipped her drink again. "Why?" She asked after she'd made sure she was trying to see it from every angle.

"Because it's her mother."

"Yes, but this is who Amy is. She's an addict. That's going to be a lifelong struggle. Do you really think it's right to hide that from Taylor?"

His brow furrowed. "You think I made the wrong choice?"

She moved closer, putting her hand on his. "I think you made the loving choice, but I presume Taylor's not an idiot. She must have seen things, noticed things, that made her wonder. So why not be open with her? You can keep it age-appropriate and respectful. You can tell her you're trying to help Amy get better, but that until Amy is better, she's not a safe person for Taylor to be with."

"I just don't want either of them to accuse me of trying to wreck their bond or whatever."

"You're not doing that, Amy's alcoholism is. You're trying to keep your daughter safe and get Amy the help she needs. The rest is out of your hands."

He sighed. "You might have a different perspective on these things than my adolescent daughter."

"Undoubtedly," she said with a half-smile. "But that doesn't mean you shouldn't explain it to her."

He stared at her intently.

"She might say that she hates you, she might rail against you, but she'll still be listening. She'll still hear your words, and eventually, she'll understand."

"You seem to know a lot about this stuff. Is this all because of your sister?"

"She was a handful, for sure. But I'm also close to Ares's siblings—he has three—and so I've kind of seen everything."

He scanned her face in a way that made her blood simmer. "Who's he marrying?"

It was not a question she was prepared for. "Oh." She looked down quickly, to gather her thoughts, before she felt able to meet his eyes again. "Someone he met through a friend. Someone who was doing some work for him, actually," she couldn't help adding with a wry smile.

"Tsk, tsk. A workplace romance. What a silly idea."

"Terrible," Louisa agreed, moving closer so she could sit beside him, instead of opposite. She liked being close. She liked feeling his warmth, having him within easy touching distance.

"You're not jealous?"

She pulled a face. "I'm grateful," she responded. "I felt so much guilt for leaving him as I did. If the speculation was bad for me, it must have been dreadful for him. But I had to get away. It wasn't an option. I know I let him down, in some ways. So, I was glad when he told me he'd met someone else. Especially glad because when I looked her up online, she looks to be a really great person."

"Who is she?"

"Part of the Santoro family, sort of obliquely."

"No kidding? I've worked with them before."

Her eyes widened. "You have?"

"Yeah, they built our Dubai hotel."

Her eyes swept shut. "Well, that's weird."

"Is it? Why?"

She frowned. "I don't know. Maybe it's more just…random."

He lifted a shoulder. "I've never met her, though."

"She's way too young for you," Louisa teased, relieved to move the conversation to lighter ground.

He nudged her with his shoulder. "The same could be said for you."

"Hey, I'm twenty-six," she replied. "Perfectly old enough to have a casual thing with."

"I'm glad you think so. Because I'm becoming kind of attached to this casual thing."

"Our two-night stand?" she suggested, batting her lashes.

"You say that like I'm not going to be back here tomorrow night."

Her breath caught in her throat. "Aren't you being just a little presumptuous?"

He moved forward then, kissing her thoroughly and desperately. "Would you rather I not come?"

"On the contrary…I want you to come," she said, sliding her hand down his pants until she connected with his arousal. "Tonight, tomorrow night, and if you're a very good boy, even the night after that."