Read Online What He Believes by Hannah Ford - Free Book Online Page A

a physical
sensation.   Almost like a
premonition or an urge.
    An
urge to what, though? I wondered.   Confide in this man I hardly knew?
    I swallowed my
uneasiness, and a second later, the moment passed.
    “Great,” Jason
said.   “Then I guess we’re finished.”
    “Great,” I said.
    But he didn’t
move.
    Finally, after
another long beat, I stood up and held my hand out to him.  
    “I will send an
email to the administration and cc you on it,” he said.   “And you’ll be all set to get back to your
classes.”
    “That’s great
news,” I said, nodding.   “It was
nice to meet you.”
    “Nice to meet you
too, Charlotte.”
    Once I was outside
of his office, I breathed a sigh of relief.
    I exited the
building, then sat down on a bench in the quad.   The morning was cool, but the sun was
shining down, its rays bouncing off what was left of the morning dew.
    I pulled out my
phone so I could call Noah and tell him I was done with my meeting, and that it
had gone well.
    “Charlotte?” he
demanded when he answered.   There
was brusque tone to his voice that instantly put me on edge.   “What’s wrong?”
    “Nothing,” I said.   “Sorry to make you nervous.     I just got out of my meeting and I wanted
to let you know it went well.   It
was just a formality.”
    “Good,” he said,
his tone clipped.   “Listen, we’ve
run into a bit of a roadblock with the Lilah Parks case.”
    “What?”
    “Lilah’s
disappeared.”
    “She’s
disappeared?”   I shook my head,
confused, trying to downshift from the relief I’d just felt from finishing my
meeting to the tension of working on a high-profile murder case.   “But how?”
    “I don’t know.”
Noah’s s voice became muffled as he began talking to someone in the
background.   It sounded like he said
something like, “ Go ahead, try whatever number you can find.”
    Then I heard the
murmured sounds of a female voice.
    “Where are you?” I
asked.
    “At Lilah’s
hotel.”
    “Wait, what?”   I had no idea what he was talking
about.   Lilah’s
hotel?   Wasn’t Lilah at the
hospital?
    “Yes.   I got an emergency injunction this
morning to get her arraigned and out on bail.   She had nowhere to go, so I was going to
put her up in a hotel.   But I left
her alone to get her some food and she took off.”
    Lilah and Noah had
been alone?   In a
hotel room?  
    “Why didn’t you
tell me?” I asked.
    “Tell you what?”
    “That you were
planning on bailing her out.”   Had
he put up the money himself?   How
much would that have cost? I wondered.  
    “I didn’t even
know it was a possibility until this morning.   I was waiting until you were done with
your meeting.   I didn’t want to
upset you.”
    I fought the wave
of annoyance that rose inside of me.   How could he say I was his business partner if he was always trying to
shield me from things?   If something
was going on with our case, I had a right to know.  
    “Can you get down
here?” he asked.   “To Loft 37?”
    Loft 37.   Why did Lilah have to be put up at one
of the most exclusive hotels in the city? After jail, you would have thought a
Red Roof Inn would have been fine.
    “Yes,” I
said.   “I’m heading back to the car
right now.”
    “Good.”
    I could still hear
a voice in the background.
    “Who’s there?”
    “Clementine,” he
said.   “I called her because of her
tracking skills.”
    Great.   Now not only had Noah been in a hotel
room with Lilah Parks, now he was there with Clementine, his ex-submissive.
    “I’ll be there
soon,” I said, and then I hung up.
    When I got to the
car, I didn’t even have to tell Jared where to go.   He already knew, guiding the car
smoothly onto the highway.
    I sat in the
backseat, my fingers tapping impatiently against the door handle as the car
inched its way slowly through the gridlocked Manhattan traffic.  
    I hated this.
    Just when
everything felt good and right between Noah and I, it had been