“I’m not buying it, Lanie. You can lie to Noah, or even to yourself for that matter, but I don’t believe it,” she said, calling me out. “I heard you. Before I woke you up. You were talking in your sleep, and from the sounds of it, you’ve got it bad for the boss man, sister.”
“Goddamnit, Polly! Is there ever a time when you’re not being nosy?” I asked, offended by the invasion of privacy.
“Hey! Don’t you use the Lord’s name in vain with me!” she chastised me, her finger wagging.
I put my elbows on the table and ran my hands through my hair in frustration. “I’m sorry, Polly. Look, this isn’t exactly an ideal situation for me. I’m falling for the man who paid enough money to feed a starving village for longer than I have any knowledge of, just so he can get in my pants anytime he wants with no strings attached. And try as I might to hate him, I can’t! What’s wrong with me? It’s not Stockholm syndrome, because I haven’t exactly been kidnapped and I’m not being kept here against my will. I signed on for this, but it’s getting to be too real. You know?”
Polly nodded with a sincere look on her face as I continued to ramble on. “And with all the stuff I have going on back home, all I can do is throw up my hands and say, ‘Jesus, please take the wheel’—which isn’t going to do me a whole hell of a lot of good, because the life I’m living isn’t exactly saintly—but I have no clue what I’m doing here. And I seem to be digging myself in further and further. I mean, I know I’m just a whore to him, and that he could never feel anything for me that’s even remotely close to the mad crush I have on him, but … ugh!”
I took a deep breath. My face was flaming hot and I thought I might start crying at any moment. No way was I going to do that because it would make me look weak and even more vulnerable. But I was thankful that I could get at least some of it off my chest before a complete and total mental breakdown crept up on me. Because I was seriously close to that happening.
Polly seemed to really get me, though, and contrary to her usual manner, she simply listened and let me vent without trying to force me to go into any more detail. There were no words to describe my gratitude.
She stretched an arm across the counter and took my hand in hers with a comforting smile. “You’re carrying a pretty big burden, huh?”
“I don’t want to talk about it.”
Polly and I both started laughing at the same time. Not a full-on belly laugh, one of those laughs where we both recognized how ridiculous my statement sounded after the huge load I had just dumped.
“Don’t worry, sweetie. You’re going to get through this. And you never know what might happen. I mean, Noah isn’t incapable of having feelings. At least, I don’t think he is. I’m sure that nasty little debacle with Julie was only a minor setback and not something that will leave him emotionally scarred for the rest of his life.”
“Yeah, you were going to tell me about that. What’s the deal with him and that chick?”
“Well, she’s a total bitch, for one,” she started with a disgruntled sneer. “Noah dated her for two years, give or take a lifetime. Her father, Dr. Everett Frost, is a really close friend of the family and that’s pretty much how they hooked up.”
“I, um, I met Dr. Frost,” I said, remembering his name from the appointment.
“Yeah, Everett’s a good guy. I don’t judge him by his offspring,” she said. “Anyway, Noah went away on a business trip, but he’d decided—against all better judgment—to propose to her when he got back. For some unknown reason, he thought he loved her. I’m not so sure he really knew what love was, and I’m still not convinced that he does even now. But anyway, he came home only to find his beloved Julie getting rammed in the ass by his best friend.”
I gasped and put my hand over my heart. I wasn’t doing it for dramatic effect; it was a completely natural reaction to my shock. “Oh, no …”
“Yeah, ‘oh, no’ is putting it mildly,” Polly said. “Needless to say, Noah’s heart was crushed, or maybe it was just his ego, but either way, he was devastated.” She paused and looked at me with this fearsome, overprotective mother-bear expression in her eyes. “And Lanie, I simply don’t know if he can take any more. So if this thing between you two really does advance to another level, you keep that in mind. We clear?”
How sweet was that? She was about as big as a mosquito and every bit as annoying, and there she was, sounding all authoritative and issuing a thug’s warning. Somehow, though, I didn’t put it past her to follow through. Not that it was anything she’d have to be concerned about, because Noah Crawford didn’t feel that way about me and I was going to fight against every urge I had to make sure I didn’t put myself in front of that train either. Any type of feeling I was developing for him would have to be buried somewhere deep inside, lest my heart get ripped to shreds in the hands of the one man with enough power over me to do so.
“Perfectly clear, Polly. No worries. Although I really don’t think Noah is the one you’re going to have to worry about getting hurt in this equation.”
“Yeah, I get that. I know he seems like a hard-ass on the outside, but when he lets the real him shine through …” She sighed. “He’s got some real potential to be all that and a bag of chips. So I can absolutely see where there’s cause for worry.”
“Ah, don’t say that, Polly,” I whined, and put my head in my hands.
“Sorry, babe.” She stood and patted my shoulder. “Keep your chin up, and believe for all you’re worth that what’s meant to be will be.” She winked at me before grabbing her clutch and tucking it under her arm. “I have errands to run. I’ll talk to you later.”
She gave me a chaste kiss on the cheek, and then all I heard was the clip-clop sound of her heels as she walked away, leaving me there to dwell on all my issues. The funny thing was that I didn’t dwell on it. I was more concerned about Noah and the horrible stuff he’d been through.
Yeah, my problems were probably tons more pressing, what with my mother dying a little more each day, but it was the nurturing side of me—and probably my perpetual state of denial—that made me push that aside for the time being and just feel for him. I couldn’t imagine walking in on my best friend and my guy going at it like that.