After Seven Empty Chairs, I Took My Daughter and Left Chapter 07

After Seven Empty Chairs, I Took My Daughter and Left Chapter 07

The wind over the Charles River filled the sails with a sharp, snapping sound. The two boats ran side by side along the narrow course, but Zack’s boat always cut in at more difficult angles, forcing Noah to adjust his direction in a humiliating scramble.

It was a race with no suspense at all.

Zack even had time to look back and whistle contemptuously at Noah, drawing a burst of laughter from his friends on shore.

Noah’s face was tight as stone. The elegant composure that usually belonged to the Whitaker heir was gone. He stared fixedly at the finish line, as if this were not an amateur race, but a duel that would decide life and death.

Everyone thought Noah was certain to lose. I could already imagine the mockery he would face when he returned to shore, and the disappointment in Sloane’s eyes.

Then, on the final lap, when everyone believed the outcome was decided, a terrified scream erupted from the crowd behind me.

I whipped around and saw Noah’s sailboat, like an out-of-control bull, abandon all technique and charge straight toward the side of Zack’s boat.

Bang.

The huge impact tore through the wind over the river.

To avoid capsizing, Zack had no choice but to turn sharply. His bow instantly veered off course. Noah seized that fatal fraction of a second and shot across the finish line like an arrow loosed from a bow.

The price of victory was that his boat, now out of control, slammed hard into the concrete piling of the dock. The bow shattered with a crack, splinters flying.

The entire dock drew in a collective breath.

No one had expected this man, who usually wore suits in the Financial District, to win a meaningless race in such a brutal, almost self-destructive way.

Sloane screamed, lifted her skirt, and rushed toward the dock like a butterfly.

Noah staggered off the broken boat. A long gash had opened on his arm, blood dripping from his fingertips. He didn’t care. He grabbed Sloane as she ran toward him and pulled her to face Zack’s immobilized boat.

He raised his bleeding arm high, like a bloodstained champion emerging from the arena.

“You lost,” he declared to Zack, whose face had turned ashen. “For the rest of your life, you will never come near her again.”

Thunderous cheers and whistles instantly swallowed the dock.

In the nine years I had known him, he had always been cool, refined, steady, and restrained. For the first time, I saw Noah like this: high-spirited, sharp-edged, like a street thug.

It was also the last time.

While Sloane looked at him in worship and his friends surrounded him in a frenzy, I silently turned and withdrew from the celebration being held in his honor.

This time, I would hold on to nothing.

At dawn, Noah didn’t come home. He only sent a text saying the company had an urgent project in Delaware and that he needed to go handle it for a week.

A few minutes later, Sloane’s “battle report” arrived right on schedule.

It was a photo of Noah popping champagne in a nightclub. The background was crowded and roaring, and he was smiling with Sloane in his arms. The caption read: “Noah said winning this time felt incredible, so he’s taking me to St. Barts in the Caribbean to celebrate. He said he needs a real adventure.”

I replied with only an OK emoji.

Then I opened my MacBook.

I stopped looking at Beacon Hill real estate and focused instead on apartments along the Charles River. For Lily, I needed a quieter, more stable environment. I carefully filtered for communities with children’s play areas and good security. I even began planning the layout of a small children’s art studio online.

When I typed the name “Ava Reed” into the contract template, an unprecedented calm settled over me.

A week later, in the evening, Noah came home early.

I was sitting on the living room sofa, studying an apartment lease, when the sound of the door opening startled me.

“What are you looking at?” He walked over, his gaze falling on the papers in my lap.

“Apartments on the west bank of the Charles,” I said calmly, closing the file and looking up at him. “Lily starts school in September. That area is closer to school and quieter.”

He didn’t seem to take it seriously. He nodded and took a small, dark green box from his luggage, handing it to me.

“This is for you.”

It was a Van Cleef & Arpels Alhambra necklace. Classic, expensive, and utterly unimaginative. Compensation.

I accepted it without opening it and casually placed it on the coffee table.

“Thank you.”

My flat, almost indifferent reaction made Noah frown. He took off his coat and sat down beside me, his gaze carrying a hint of scrutiny.

“Ava, what’s wrong with you lately?” he finally asked. “While I was in Delaware, you didn’t send me a single message. Is it because of the sailing race?”

I looked at him and suddenly found it almost funny.

He thought I was still angry because he had fought another man over a woman. He had no idea that when he crashed that broken boat into his opponent, he had shattered the last illusion I had about him.

What he noticed was not my emotions, but my abnormal silence. Like someone used to getting the weather report every day who suddenly realizes the service has stopped. What he felt was not concern, only discomfort.

“No,” I said, shaking my head. “I’ve just been busy with Lily’s school things.”

Seeing that I was still “considerate and understanding,” Noah seemed relieved. He reached out and pulled me into his arms, his chin resting on the top of my head. His tone carried a weary tenderness.

“I know a lot has happened recently. I’ve put you through a lot.”

His embrace carried the familiar scent of expensive cologne, but my body stiffened in an instant.

I had once been so infatuated with this embrace, believing it was my safe harbor. Now I understood that the person creating the storm was none other than the owner of the harbor.

Noah took my silence as acceptance. He lowered his head, his warm lips searching for mine.

Just before he could kiss me, I turned my face away and pushed him aside without making it obvious.

“I’m a little tired. I want to rest early.”

I stood and walked straight to the bedroom without looking back at him.

Noah’s outstretched hand froze in midair. Watching my back, his handsome face showed complete astonishment and confusion for the first time.

Perhaps he was just now realizing I had been rather strange lately.