Chapter 197

Noah

And the day I kept saying would come but never really knew how I’d tackle was now right in my face—and thanks to Emily’s big mouth—it was looking like I didn’t have the balls to tell her sooner and she almost had to hear it from thirds. That sucked. It was… 70% true. Okay, 90%. But it still sucked.

Lexie wanted to talk.

Alone.

Somewhere her father wouldn’t have ears.

So we drove to a quiet spot near the lake, far enough from the mansion that I could finally breathe, far enough that if William had spies, they’d have to work hard to find us. She was already pale, fingers trembling on the steering wheel.

“Noah…what’s going on?” she asked the second the engine was off. “Emily said there was something serious you needed to tell me. I don’t understand. Why didn’t you just tell me?”

“Lex…” I reached for her hand, and she didn’t pull away, which somehow made it worse. “I’m sorry for the way I acted earlier. I wasn’t mad at you. I just… I’ve been trying to hold too many things together at once.”

“I know that, babe.” Her voice cracked. “But is it because of the wedding? Did I—do something wrong?”

“Listen to me, please. You haven’t done anything wrong, Lex, I swear, but—but there’s something I should’ve told you a long time ago…” I swallowed hard. “I just didn’t know how.”

Her eyes were already filling with panic. “How to tell me what?”

I took a breath that burned. “Lexie… I need you to listen. Really listen. None of this is your fault.”

She nodded—barely.

“And I swear I never meant to hurt you. Not ever.”

“Noah, you’re scaring me…”

I forced myself to look at her. “Lex, I’m bisexual.”

She stared. Blinked and then smiled with a hint of relief. “Oh…Was that it? We are in the twenty-first century, babe, I—”

“And I’m in love with someone else.”

Her breath hitched. “Someone else?”

I nodded once. Slow. Miserable. “A man.”

She covered her mouth with both hands, a sob tearing out of her. “Jesus… oh my God, Noah…”

“I never meant for this to happen,” I said quickly. “I never looked at a guy like that before. Not once. And we both—he and I—we fought it. Hard.”

Her voice shook violently. “Who is he?”

“Does that matter?” I tried sparing her the details.

“It does to me. Do I know him?”

I hesitated. “It’s Aiden—coach Aiden.”

Her face drained of color. “Oh, my God… him… I should’ve known. All those times you couldn’t see me because you were training with him…”

For a second I thought she was going to throw up and so was I. Reality was painting itself uglier than I had intended. “Lexie, I was truly training most of those times, and you and I weren’t really together. Not until much later.”

“But why the hell would you ever ask me out if you were with him? And why would you ask me to marry you!? Was it for money? For my father?”

Tears rolled down her face as she opened the door, stepping out of the car.

“God, no! Never for the money!” I followed her into the small clearing. “Yes, I did it because of your Dad, but not for the reasons you are thinking. Quiet the opposite, Lex—”

She turned to me in anger and confusion. “What do you mean? I don’t understand, Noah!”

“Your father…caught us, Lexie.”

“You mean… together?”

“Yeah.” My chest tightened. “He saw a video… on my phone. And he—he blackmailed us into getting engaged. Into this wedding.”

Her horror shifted—sudden and sharp. “My father did this?”

“Yes.”

She leaned back as if the air had been punched out of her. “He knew… He knew and he—he forced this on you? On me?”

I nodded again.

“And you didn’t tell me because…?”

“Because I didn’t want to destroy you with it. Because I didn’t want you to hate me. Because I didn’t want you hurt… And also because your father threatened to destroy us both if I ever did… If I jeopardized this.”

Lexie covered her face and sobbed. I pulled her into a hug, even though I wasn’t sure I had the right. She shook against me.

“I did care about you,” I whispered. “I still do. You’re my friend and I love you.”

She clutched my shirt. “But you’re not in love with me… you’re in love with a man. Your coach. Oh my God, Noah…”

“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I never wanted to hurt you.”

We talked—if you could call it that—through tears, disbelief, shock. She asked how I could hide something like this. How her father could be capable of it. How she could’ve been so blind. She cried more at the idea that she had been just another pawn to him.

And then she whispered the question I dreaded. “What happens now? You can’t marry me like this. You can’t.”

“I can’t get out of the agreement,” I said, voice cracking. “He also made me sign my career over. And my family’s safety… it’s tied to him too.”

She stared, horrified. “He tied your family into this?”

“Yeah. He also got us caught by the school and they fired Aiden privately, for sexual harassment—which is a lie—but if I tell the truth, he will destroy us both publicly, and my family as well.”

She wiped her cheeks. “He…he can’t do that. He can’t.”

“He already did.”

Lexie shook her head, still processing. “Noah…this is insane. This is… this is sick. I can’t believe he’d do this to us.”

“I know.” I closed my eyes. “And there’s nothing I can do. No lawyer will go against him. He has us by the throat.”

She cried harder, shoulders shaking. “I do love you, you know? And I was so happy. And now…” She stopped, pressing her fist to her mouth. “What are we going to do?”

“We’re trapped,” I whispered. “Both of us. If you tell him I told you, he’ll punish me.”

“And if I just tell him I don’t wanna marry you, after all he’s invested in this wedding already, he will punish me. You don’t know him… He won’t let us break the engagement. This is another business transaction to him. He doesn’t care whether I want to or not.” Her chin trembled. “So, we just…let it happen?”

“I don’t see another way.”

“And you won’t be able to see him again…” she whispered. “The man you actually love.”

That was it.

That was the moment I broke.

Tears blurred everything. “Lex… I don’t think I’ll even get to see him before the wedding. And I—I can’t do this without him. I’m trying, I swear, but I can’t.”

She wiped her cheeks, still crying—but looking at me with something fierce and protective beneath the grief.

And then she cupped my face in both hands.

“Listen to me,” she whispered through her tears. “This is a nightmare—but I’m not going to leave you in it. I’m going to help you. I swear…I’ll help you.”

Her voice cracked.

“And I might just know how, even if that means lying to my father.”