Chapter 52

Chapter 52
DALIA
“He said he’s homeless. He was kicked out of where he was staying before, so he needs a place to stay and he wants that place to be Julie’s,” mum told dad over the phone while pulling a blue dress off a rack, and I clicked my tongue because I knew she was talking about Forrest. He had dropped by the house again today when mum, Hayley and I were about to leave, and he spoke to mum for quite a while. “Right,” she went on as she stared at the dress, narrowing her eyes. She then lifted her gaze to mine and gestured at the dress, silently asking what I thought of it, before I nodded.
“I like it.”
“Go try them on,” she said, stretching out the clothes we’d picked, and I groaned. I found trying clothes on in stores to be stressful and I hated it.
“Do I have to?”
“Give me a moment, love,” she told dad before giving me a serious look. “Sweetheart, they have changing rooms for a reason,” she replied and I heaved a sigh. I hated trying clothes on in stores, but what I hated more was having to return the clothes if they turned out to not be my size, so I collected them from her.
I headed to a dressing room and quickly took off my clothes before putting on the blue dress. A small smile crept onto my face while I checked it out in the mirror and when I was about to take it off, I received a call from Noah. My smile grew wider.
“Hey, handsome,” I said before he heaved a sigh, making me narrow my eyes. “If you’re calling to cancel our date, I’ll kill you,” I added and he let out a laugh.
“No mercy, huh?”
“I’ve run out of that… But, really, are we still on for tonight?”
“Yes, love. Will you spend the night?”
“Depends,” I muttered, tracing the pattern on the wallpaper in the room. “What will you do if I spend the night?”
“Anything you want me to,” he replied in a low voice, and I slowly took a deep breath just before a knock came on the door.
“Dalia?” mum’s voice came from outside, making me jerk my head towards the door.
“Oh, I’ll call you back,” I said in a rush and hung up before opening the door to see mum holding a couple of clothes. She slightly drew her brows together, staring at me for several moments without saying anything, before giving me a once over.
“That looks good.” She walked in and dropped the clothes she was holding next to the ones I had brought in. “You should try these on too.”
“Okay,” I muttered while she walked out of the room, but before I could close the door, she turned around.
“Dalia, are you… dating someone?” she asked and my brows shot up. Did she hear me on the phone?
The first thing that came to mind was to say ‘no’, but I had been keeping him a secret for so long and I hated keeping secrets from my parents. I wasn’t going to introduce them to him anytime soon though, seeing as they wouldn’t love the idea that I was dating a man that had been my professor up till a couple of weeks ago. “I… Maybe?”
Surprise washed over her face. “Oh! Uh, okay,” she said, bobbing her head, and it was my turn to be surprised because that wasn’t the response I expected. “Hurry up.”

NOAH
It had been a couple of days since Shane came to me to talk about the company and I had decided that his dual leadership idea was a good one. I had to talk to dad about it before saying anything to Shane though.
“Dad?” I called out after opening the door to his office and he looked up from the file in his hands. “Can we talk?”
“...Sure.” He dropped the file on his desk while I walked in and shut the door before heading towards him. “If this is about the girl, it was for the best,” he said when I took a seat and I furrowed my brows.
Why does he think it’s about Dalia?
“It’s not about her.”
He tipped his head to the side and nodded. “Okay. What then?” he asked and I cleared my throat, adjusting in my seat.
“What do you think about dual leadership?” I replied and he drew his brows together.
“I know that it takes a ton of trust for it to work.” He gave me a questioning look. “Why are you asking?”
“I think we should implement it.”
“Where is this coming from?”
I took in a sharp breath and rubbed my forehead. “I have little to no free time, dad. I need more than that,” I said. “Besides, it can help the company accomplish more,” I added and he hmmed, intertwining his fingers.
“Who do you have in mind for a co-CEO?” he asked and I pursed my lips.
“...Shane.”
His brows shot up in surprise. “Oh,” he blurted out and sat upright before narrowing his eyes. “Wait. Is he the one that told you to do this?”
“He suggested it, and it was a good suggestion,” I said and he heaved a sigh.
Shane had always had his eyes fixed on dad’s company and because he thought he would be the one to take over, he hadn’t been interested in anything else. Dad didn’t like that. A couple of years ago, dad had convinced him to start a startup company and he did after dad and dad’s friends invested in it, but because he had been so focused on dad’s company, he didn’t realize that Isaac, the ‘friend’ he started the business with, was stealing from it. He only found out after the friend swindled the business out of everything and disappeared, but he didn’t seem to care much about it and that made dad so pissed because he had warned him about Isaac. It also made dad finalize his decision about not letting him take over Goodmans.
“Noah, are you sure?”
“Shane has worked here for years. He understands the company better than I do.”
“I mean, are you sure you want to work with him?” he asked and I nodded because I didn’t have to be his friend to be able to work with him. The only topic of our conversations would be the company, so I didn’t have a problem with it. “...Okay,” he said several moments after staring at me in silence, and the corner of my mouth quirked up. “But he has to run everything by you first. I don’t want him to make decisions without you knowing beforehand.”
“Okay,” I replied, and he picked up the file he had been reading earlier.
“Have you spoken to Allison or her mother recently?” he asked and I frowned, shaking my head sideways.
“No. Why?” The last time I made contact with either of them was when I kicked them out of my place - the house I had lived in with Allison - a couple of days after she did that shit at Hartman University. They weren’t happy with that and they weren’t happy with the other things I did after that either, but I couldn’t bring myself to care.
He gave me a dismissive wave. “You haven’t, so don’t bother,” he stated and I nodded before getting to my feet. As I turned to leave, I remembered what he said when I came in, and I faced him again.
“What do you mean by ‘it was for the best’?” I asked and he looked up. “When I came in, you said that,” I added and he set his mouth in a hard line.
“It’s nothing,” he replied, but it didn’t sound like nothing, and I felt a bit uneasy as I stared at him.
What… What did he do?
He raised a brow, silently asking if there was anything else, and I slowly shook my head sideways before walking out of the office.