Page 83 of Love is a Harmony
Noah leaned back on his elbows and looked to the sky.
Jo scooted closer to him. “It used to just be the two of us around these fires on Christmas.”
“Are you sad it’s not?”
“No.” She shrugged in her noncommittal Jo way. “When you first told us about Stella, I wasn’t sure how things would go. I mean, Noah, you weren’t exactly father material.”
“Thanks?”
She nudged his shoulder. “But I see it now. Stella will be a permanent part of our lives just like this little alien.” A hand rested on her stomach.
“Who would have thought the two of us would ever raise kids?”
“Certainly not me. But then, I also never thought you’d be stupid enough to fall for Melanie.”
He scrubbed a hand across his face. “It’s not… we’re not…”
“Noah, I see the way you look at her. I hear the way Stella talks about her. You both love her, but I’m scared.”
“Of what?”
“Melanie isn’t like us. We live our emotions every day, putting them into our music. They’re always there. Sometimes, I’m not even sure she has them.”
Jo was wrong. Noah had seen Melanie at her most vulnerable talking about her husband, he’d watched her let him peek past the walls she kept around herself. But that wasn’t the emotion Jo meant, and Noah knew it.
Love.
Noah could fall in love with Melanie. Irreparably, inconceivably in love. He hadn’t thought it possible for him, not until he got fake married in a very real way.
But was she even capable of letting herself love someone again?
She’d said it plainly before she kissed him that night in his house. He wasn’t allowed to fall for her.
“She has them, Jo.” The Melanie he knew was all emotion, and it was beautiful. “Just maybe not like the rest of us.”
He hadn’t heard from Melanie all day, but it didn’t stop him from wishing she was there.
If not for him, for Stella.
“Be careful, Noah.” Jo leaned back beside him. “Love is for chumps, and I really don’t want you to be a chump.”
He couldn’t help smiling at her description. He’d pay good money to watch Jo fall in love with someone who turned her entire world upside down, someone who made her realize maybe the world wasn’t such a bad place after all.
He lay back on the sand, staring at the half-moon overhead. Dax and Stella’s shadows moved further down the beach, and the fire cast Jo in a glow.
“I have to go home in two weeks.” He hadn’t admitted it to anyone other than Melanie. Even Jo knew little about his family.
“Home? You mean London?” She leaned up on one elbow.
He nodded, not looking at her. “My mother is having a funeral for Carson.”
“That’s good, right? You didn’t make it in time to attend his funeral in France.”
He sighed. It was good, but… “I know my mother. There are things about my life in London I never told you. My father… he’s a member of the House of Lords.”
“Your dad is a Lord? That’s daft.”
He smiled at her attempt. “Jo—”
