What He Needs (What He Wants, Book Four) (An Alpha Billionaire Romance) Read Free Page B

fuck was what?”
    “The whole ‘Josh will behave
professionally’ bullshit.”
    I shook my head.   “I had to say that!   This is my job, Noah.   I can’t look bad in front of Professor
Worthington.”  
    “Well, maybe I’ll fire him, too, then,”
Noah seethed.   He turned and
started walking down the sidewalk, dodging in and out of the Sunday walkers,
who weren’t in a hurry to get anywhere.   They were strolling along, bags full of things from the farmer’s market,
coffees in hand, enjoying the day.   Noah almost ran into a man holding a box of doughnuts.
    “Noah!” I yelled.   “Noah, stop!”
    He slowed down, but just barely.
    “Noah,” I said.   “I understand you’re upset.   I would be, too.   Katie just died, which I’m sure has been traumatic.   And then you had to come and see Josh
there.   But firing Professor
Worthington isn’t the answer.   You’re going to need him, now more than ever.”
    Noah finally stopped in the middle of the
street, walked over to a bench and sat down.   He put his head in his hands and didn’t say anything for a
moment.   I sat down next to him and
waited.
    Finally, he rubbed his eyes and looked
up, his gaze fixating on something across the street.   “How did she die?” he asked softly.
    “She was strangled.”
    “Jesus.”   He dropped his head back into his hands.   I wanted to reach out, to touch his
shoulder, to comfort him in some way, but I had a feeling that would just make
him more upset.   I didn’t want to
risk the chance of him rejecting me, of him pushing me away, his walls coming
up and forcing that distance between us.   “When did it happen?”
    “I’m not sure,” I said.   “They’d just found her body when they
called me.”  
    He shook his head again.   “She was only twenty-two,” he
said.   “She wasn’t even… she still
lived with her parents.   She wasn’t
even done with school.”   Something
about the way he was talking about her betrayed a certain familiarity, more
than one would have with an employee.
    “Did you… did you have a relationship
with her?” I asked carefully.
    He shook his head.   “No.”
    I didn’t want to annoy him, or push him,
and I knew he was upset.   But what
I said next had to be said.   “Noah,
that won’t matter to the police.   They’re going to know you had a connection to her.   You shouldn’t have shown up at the
crime scene like that.   And you
shouldn’t have punched Josh.   You
were so lucky that the police weren’t closer.   Josh could still press charges, he could –”
    “Now you’re defending him?” Noah
asked.   He shook his head.   “After what he did to you?”
    “I’m not defending him,” I said.   “I’m just saying that you can’t let
what Josh did start to effect your case.   It looks really bad, Noah.”
    He turned to me.   “You think I did it?”
    “What?”
    “Do you think I murdered those women?”
    “What I think doesn’t matter.”   The last thing I wanted was for him to
think that my opinion had anything to do with his case.   No one’s opinion did, except for the
police and the jury, if it came to that.   And I was pretty sure it might be headed that way.   One woman dead, okay.   Two
women, awful.   But three women?   All connected to one
man?   It looked bad.   Really, really bad.   If he wasn’t arrested,
it would be a miracle.   And if he did get
arrested, he was going to need Professor Worthington.   In fact, he was probably going to need even more than that
-- he was going to need Professor Worthington to head a team of high-powered
lawyers, all working together.
    “I didn’t ask you if it mattered,” Noah
said.   “I asked if you thought I
did it.”
    I didn’t say anything for a moment, and
he turned to look at me.   His eyes
had softened, and it was that same expression I’d seen on him in the lobby
yesterday, the expression that made me feel like he did care about me,