Noah was the only man who made her explore the outer edges of love and despair, attraction and loathing. Kissing Noah made her feel sexy and feminine and powerful beyond measure. But his actions when they were younger made her feel insignificant and irrelevant. He’d hurtled her from nirvana into a hell she hadn’t been prepared for.
He’d dismissed her opinions, ignored her counsel, and those actions she could, maybe, forgive. But she’d never forgive him for destroying their friendship, for flicking her out of his life like she was a piece of filthy gum stuck to his shoe.
DJ clapped her hands, signaling that she was moving into work mode. Jules forced herself to think business. She had designs to draw up for a revamp to a historic bed-and-breakfast, craftspeople to meet to finalize the furnishings for a bar in Back Bay. Maybe she should stop dating for a while and immerse herself in work. They had enough of it to keep them all busy for months, if not years.
“Profit and loss, expense reports... I need your receipts,” DJ said, and Jules wrinkled her nose. “I need the cost estimates on the Duncan job.”
“Ack,” Jules said. She loved designing but hated the paperwork it generated. “Deadline?”
“Yesterday.”
“Hard-ass,” Jules muttered.
“I am,” DJ replied, not at all insulted. “That’s why we are in the black, darling. It’s all me.”
Darby and Jules laughed, knowing that DJ was joking. They were a team and each of them was an essential cog in the wheel. As always, they were stronger together.
Darby looked at her watch and stood up, nearly six feet of tall grace. Jules looked out of the window and lifted her hand to wave at Dani, the personal assistant they shared, Merry, their shop floor assistant and their two interns.
Her smiled faded when she saw who was standing behind them, six feet four inches of muscle wearing chinos, a blue oxford shirt and a darker blue jacket. His wavy hair was cut short and, like always, he was days beyond shaving that dark blond scruff off his face.
Through the display window, his eyes met hers and her stomach contracted, her heart flip-flopped and all the moisture in her mouth disappeared.
It seemed that Noah did indeed intend to talk.
Three
Jules...
Jules shoved her hands under her thighs and tingles ran up and down her spinal column. Darby and DJ turned in their seats to see who’d captured her attention and immediately jumped to their feet, their beautiful faces showing their delight at seeing him. Noah was, always had been, one of their favorite people.
Kisses and hugs were exchanged and while her sisters—one by blood and the other of the heart—and Noah did a quick catch-up, Jules allowed her eyes the rare pleasure to roam. Tall, broad, blond, hot...all the adjectives had been used in various ways to describe him, and Noah was all of those things. But Jules, because she’d once known him so well, could look beneath the hot, sexy veneer.
There were fine lines around those startling eyes and a tiny frown pulled his thick sandy brows together. He was smiling but it wasn’t the open, sunny smile from their childhoods, the one that could knock out nuclear reactors with one blinding flash. The muscles in his neck were tense and under the blond scruff, his jaw was rock hard.
Noah was not a happy camper.
Noah stepped away from Darby and DJ and their eyes met, the power of a thousand unsaid words flowing between them. Noah pushed back his navy jacket and jammed his hands into the pockets of his stone-colored pants, rocking on his feet. His eyes left hers, dropped to her mouth, down to her chest, over her hips and slowly meandered their way back up. Every inch he covered sent heat and lust coursing through her system, reminding her with crystal clear certainty what being held by him, kissed by him was like. Suddenly, she was eighteen again and willing to follow him wherever he led...
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