Page 4 of Resisting You
My business was almost entirely referral based. But the problem with that was that you needed clients first to refer to others. My specialty was stress, anxiety, and social media dependency and I really hoped to eventually serve celebrities, politicians, and their impacted families.
Noah’s image filled my brain… I could ask him for help. I could ask him for referrals to his friends and colleagues on the hit vampire TV show he was on.
My stomach turned at the thought and I quickly shook the idea away.
Guys like Noah? They constantly had people hanging onto them. People trying to get a referral, an audition, a quick buck, or their five minutes of fame. The last thing I wanted to do was add to his stress. Or make him feel used.
I’d seen it first hand with Noah… the amount of people who always seemed to need something from him. And with Reid.Even with Hazel as she finally got her first leading role off-Broadway. And I’d seen it with my father, the senator, for years.
I wasn’t going to do that to Noah. I wasn’t going to use our friendship like that.
Nope. I didn’t need to. I was good at my job. My practice would take off on its own… eventually.
My feet ached from within the heels I wore and I shifted on the barstool, bending to massage away the pain spiking at the arch of my foot.
I smiled as crowds of dancing strangers surrounded my best friend and her new husband. They looked happy. Happier than I’d ever seen Hazel.
A pang of sadness edged against my heart, despite the loving, joyous day. It wasn’t that I didn’t want her to be married and in love. It was just… Hazel had found her person. Somehow, her unapologetic joy also highlighted how alone I felt.
I turned to Noah, staring at his gorgeously chiseled jaw. Noah, the man who had asked me out several times… and the man I said no to, time and time again.
He was easily the most handsome man I'd ever seen with hair so dark, it nearly looked blue in the moonlight. And eyes so piercing, that every time he stared at me with that glacial intensity, I worried that he might physically cut me open.
Only a crazy person would turn that man down, my mother had said to me. But she wasusedto being pictured in the media. Being covered on the nightly news was just an average day in our house… my mother had signed up for that life when she started acting. Then had set it in stone when she married my father.
I had not.
And my crazy, rebellious years had almost ruined my father’s political career. I wasn’t a media darling. I was the furthest thing from it.
I’d watched Noah date for two years. He’d find a new woman and within one or two dates with her, the tabloids would pounce, following him with their flashing cameras and speculations about who she was and how serious he was and if this was “the one.”
I couldn't be that person. I'd been lucky to be able to keep my name out of the press for as long as I had. A combination of living almost like a recluse for the years since I’d moved out of my parent’s house, moving to the other side of the country, and of course, the few favors I'd called in to friends in the media didn't hurt either.
Bottom line? For two years I had avoided this. Being alone with Noah in a situation like we were in right now… in a bar.
Getting drunk.
The tips of my breasts hardened, heavy and yearning for the feel of his capable hands.
I squeezed my eyes shut. See? I couldn't be trusted alone with Noah. My heart and my nether regions were both stupid bitches who made the worst decisions.
He glanced at me, a knowing smirk settling on those lush plump lips of his. Could he sense what I was thinking?
I opened my mouth, and before I could say anything, two young girls slid up beside him, clutching their phones eagerly in their hands.
"You’re Noah Blue, right?" the first one asked.
She looked really young and my eyes slid to the cocktail glass she held in her other hand. There was no way she was old enough to be drinking that legally.
The change in Noah was immediate and drastic. The vulnerable innocence with which he had been staring at me moments ago slid away behind the curtain, and in its place, he grinned a practiced smile at the girls, eyebrows arched. "I am. What's your name?"
"My name? Oh my God. Kelsey. It's Kelsey. Can we get a picture?"
"Of course." He slid in between the girls, his hands gently cradling their shoulders. His thumb stroked their bare flesh, skimming over the spaghetti straps of their tank tops.
My stomach roiled at the site. This was exactly what I've been avoiding for two years.
When dating a guy like Noah, how can you ever expect yourself to be enough? Especially when young, beautiful women threw themselves at him on a daily basis.
