Read Online Leaving at Noon by Jess Dee - Free Book Online

here?”
    “ My wife left me.” His
gaze was unwavering. “I figured we had shit to sort
out.”
    Her belly lurched and she began to tremble
uncontrollably.
    Still grappling with the idea he was here,
in Noosa, a million other thoughts crowded her mind, starting with
the fact she hadn’t left him, she’d just needed space, and ending
with the awareness of a pulse beating frantically in her neck.
    She wanted to laugh and cry and shout and
whimper all in the same breath. She wanted to throw her arms around
her husband, hold him tight and never let him go—almost as much as
she wanted to get the hell away from him. Turn around and run for
her life.
    The need to yank him close, tear off those
boardies and fuck him until they were both too exhausted to move
wrestled with the equally demanding need to slam one fist in his
stomach and the other in his nose. If making love to Theo could
reel him in and bring him back to her, she’d do it, in a heartbeat.
Just like she’d punch him. Make him suffer like she’d suffered
these last nine days without him. And the last few months with
him.
    Bamboozled, she picked through every thought
and instinct until she found one she could express without falling
to pieces—or bursting into tears again. “But…but how did you get
inside the building?”
    Yes, it was arbitrary, but it was as much as
she could deal with right now.
    “ Fiona gave me a
key.”
    “ She knows you’re
here?”
    Theo hooked his elbow over the edge of the
glass railing behind him and nodded.
    “ She never told me you
were coming.”
    He shrugged.
    “ When did you
arrive?”
    “ Last night.”
    Oh. Wow.
    Okay, so maybe she hadn’t been hallucinating
when she thought she’d seen him in the bar and in the street. Maybe
the men she’d mistaken for Theo had, in fact, been…Theo.
    She narrowed down her question. “And the
pool? When did you get here?”
    “ An hour ago. Maybe
more.”
    He’d been there all this time, and she
hadn’t known?
    She’d phoned him, and he’d been sitting
behind her?
    She’d thought about him, and he’d been
meters away?
    She’d cried over him, and he’d been right
there?
    “ W-where are you
staying?”
    He lifted his face, pointing with his chin.
“French Quarter.”
    The furnished apartments a block away. “How
long are you staying?”
    “ As long as it
takes.”
    For what? Zoey pressed a trembling
hand to her chest, an ineffective attempt to slow her heart
rate.
    She picked through more thoughts, weeding
out the ones like, God, I love you and I’m so pissed at
you right now and I miss you so much, it hurts to the
less emotional and more easily voiced, “What about work?”
    “ My concentration is crap.
No one objected to my taking time off.”
    “ Your boss?”
    “ Didn’t have a problem. I
fucked up every deal I touched last week.”
    Zoey struggled to believe that. When it came
to the stock market, Theo’s instincts were too well honed to fuck
anything up.
    “ Lost money and pissed off
clients in the process.”
    “ I… I’m sorry.”
    He narrowed his eyes. “For what?”
    “ You had a bad
week.”
    “ That’s all you’re sorry
for?”
    Zoey shifted in her seat. Her skull seemed
to squeeze her brain until she thought it might burst from the
pressure. “No. I’m sorry you pissed off clients and lost money
too.”
    “ You’re not sorry for
coming here?”
    She couldn’t lie. “No.”
    Theo rubbed the scar on his wrist, something
he did when he was tense. Or worried. Or upset.
    Zoey inhaled deeply.
    Why? Would arming herself with oxygen
protect her heart? “We’re floundering, Theo. Drowning in our
marriage. I’m barely keeping my head above water. It was sink or
swim. I chose to swim.”
    “ And left me to
sink.”
    She closed her eyes momentarily against the
pain in his voice. “No. I left you in the hope we’d both find our
footing.”
    The pain changed to blame. “You ran
away.”
    “ Staying would have ruined
us.” Zoey believed this