Page 32 of Six of Hearts
She'd been nervous—I could see it in the way she held herself, all that energy contained but visible, like tension in a cable bridge. But there'd been something else too. A warmth. A genuine quality that you couldn't fake, couldn't design into existence.
I'd wanted her from that first moment. Not just physically, though Christ, she was beautiful. But I wanted her in my life, in my home, with my boys. I wanted her in a way that felt structural, essential, like she was a piece that had always been missing from the blueprint.
And now she was sleeping with Ronan. And Liam. And Julian.
The thought should have bothered me more than it did. Maybe it would have, if we hadn't all agreed to this arrangement. If I hadn't seen how happy she made them, how they made her happy. But there was still that competitive edge, that need to prove something. I was the one who'd found her. I'd wanted her longest.
I needed my turn.
"Noah?" Mark's voice cut through my thoughts. My assistant stood in the doorway, his usual professional demeanour in place. "There's someone here to see you."
I glanced at my watch. Quarter past noon. I didn't have any appointments scheduled. "Who is it?"
"Aria." Mark's expression didn't change, but I caught the slight uptick at the corner of his mouth. "Should I tell her you're busy?"
"No." The word came out faster than I'd intended, more forceful. I cleared my throat, tried for something more measured. "No, she's always allowed in. Send her back."
Mark nodded and disappeared. I stood, automatically straightening my tie, running a hand through my hair. Ridiculous. I was a grown man, a successful architect, and I was primping like a teenager before prom.
Then she appeared in my doorway, and every carefully constructed thought in my head scattered like loose papers in the wind.
She wore jeans and a simple sweater, nothing fancy, but the way the fabric draped over her curves made my mouth go dry. Her hair was pulled back in a ponytail, a few strands escaping to frame her face. She held a paper bag in one hand, and she wassmiling at me with that smile that made me want to redesign my entire life around making her happy.
"Hey," she said. "I hope I'm not interrupting."
"Never." I moved around my desk, closing the distance between us. "What brings you by?"
She held up the bag. "Have you eaten lunch?"
The question was simple, straightforward. Straightforward. But something about it hit me sideways, like a force I hadn't accounted for in my calculations.
"I... no. I haven't."
"I figured." She moved past me into the office, setting the bag on my desk. "You get so focused on work that you forget to take care of yourself. I brought sandwiches from that deli you mentioned liking."
I stood there, watching her unpack the bag with efficient movements, and felt something crack in my chest. A fissure in the walls I'd built so carefully over the past six years.
When was the last time someone had done this? Brought me lunch. Worried about whether I'd eaten. Thought about me at all, beyond what I could provide or organise or fix.
My ex-wife certainly never had. In the five years we'd been married, I couldn't remember a single instance of her showing up at my office with food, asking if I'd taken care of myself. It had always been the other way around.
I was the one who remembered appointments, who made sure bills were paid, who kept the household running like a well-designed machine. I was the architect of our life together, andshe'd been content to live in the structure I'd built without ever thinking about its maintenance.
After she left—after she'd decided that being a mother was too hard, that our life together was too boring, that she needed something more—I'd become even more rigid in my routines. I had to be. I had two six-year-old boys depending on me. I had a business to run. I had four other single fathers looking to me as the organised one, the one with the plan, the one who had his shit together.
I'd been the caretaker for so long that I'd forgotten what it felt like to be cared for.
And now here was Aria, unpacking club sandwiches and looking at me with those warm eyes, and I felt like I was standing on unstable ground for the first time in years.
"Noah?" She tilted her head, concern flickering across her features. "You okay?"
"Yeah." I cleared my throat. "Yeah, I'm just... thank you. For this."
"Of course." She handed me a sandwich, her fingers brushing mine. The contact was brief but electric, a current running through the connection point. "I figured we could eat together. If you have time."
"I'll make time."
We ended up at a family diner a few blocks from my office, the kind of place with red vinyl booths and laminated menus that hadn't changed since the eighties. It wasn't fancy, but it felt right somehow. Comfortable. Real.
