Noah drove back home with a smile on his face.It spread across his face, unbidden and uncontrollable.He hoped she liked her present. He had chosen the delicate bracelet himself and had made sure to have it delivered when they was already on the road so she would find it when she stepped in. The note had been a spur of the moment addition which he had written and rewritten a dozen times before finally settling on something simple and honest. He wondered if she had read it yet. He wondered if she liked it.He hoped she did.Noah shook his head, the smile still playing at the corners of his lips. He felt lighter than he had in days, the weight of his worries temporarily lifted. The paranoia was still there, a faint echo in the back of his mind, but it had faded. He realized now that maybe it had been a side effect of his time with his grandfather, of the oppressive atmosphere of the manor, of the old man's obsessive suspicion. Nathaniel Hawthorne saw threats everywhere, trusted n

He had to use every morsel of restraint he could muster in his body because he really liked this, liked the way she fit against him and he didn't want to make it awkward over not being able to control himself because a beautiful woman he liked was sitting on him."I can't believe you did that to your boss," she was saying, still laughing. "To his face?""To his face." Noah grinned, reaching for a grape from the fruit salad she had brought. "He deserved it. The man had been insufferable for weeks."He frowned, making his voice sound nasally and high-pitched, as he said, “Noah yer bumblin’ buffoon! I can't believe you tore up all m’ work sheets!" He mocked in a portrayal of his boss from two years ago.Evelyn giggled, nearly snorting as she covered her mouth with her hands."You're terrible." She managed to gasp out as she shook against him, her eyes bright with hysteria. "I love it."He leaned down, pressing a kiss to her temple. She smelled like jasmine and something sweet, a combinat

Rebecca took a breath, the sound crackling through the speaker. "I've been digging into the shell company, trying to trace its origins. It was slow going at first, dead end after dead end, false trail after false trail. Whoever set this up knew what they were doing. They covered their tracks with a kind of zeal that borders on being obsessive.""But you found something," Noah prompted."I did." Rebecca's voice carried a note of satisfaction. "It turns out the shell company is just an SPE. A special purpose entity. The kind of legal structure that corporations use for specific projects or investments. It's designed to be opaque, to keep the parent company's involvement hidden from public view.""So it's a subsidiary," Noah said. "Owned by a larger company that we haven't identified yet.""Not exactly." Rebecca paused, and he could hear her shuffling papers in the background. "The SPE wasn't set up by some external entity trying to hide their involvement. It was set up by someone inside

Noah didn't press. He knew that look, the look of old pain and old memories. The kind of look that spoke of things better left unspoken, of history that wasn't his to excavate. He had even seen that same expression on his own face too many times to count in the mirror when he dwelled too long on his lost memories.He took a sip of his wine and waited."If you need to talk to him," Evelyn said, steering the conversation back to the matter at hand, "you need to approach him carefully. From the many interactions I've had with Uncle Michael, he responds to respect and to flattery the most He wants to feel important and wants to feel needed.""I don't want to make him feel needed," Noah said, his voice carrying a note of resentment. "I want him gone.""I know." Evelyn reached across the table, her hand resting on his. Her touch was warm and steady, grounding him in the present. "But you can't always get what you want. Sometimes you have to compromise." Her lips quirked up, and he could s

Dawn came slowly, the first rays of light seeping through the curtains and painting the room in shades of gold and amber. Noah woke to the sound of birds chirping on the windowsill, their songs bright and cheerful, a stark contrast to the weight that settled into his chest the moment he remembered what day it was.He lay there for a moment, staring at the ceiling, gathering himself.Today was the day.He got up, showered again, and dressed with deliberate care. He chose a dark suit, conservative but not too formal and he tied his tie carefully, checking his reflection in the mirror so no hair was out of place.He had to looked good regardless of his feelings for the person he was about to go negotiate (aka grovel) with.The apartment was quiet as he moved through it, the only sound the soft hum of the refrigerator and the distant rumble of traffic from the streets below.Adjusting his cufflinks, he grabbed his keys and left.***The drive to the office was quiet.The streets were bus