if The Consortium’s still on it and he might be able to plead with them.
Painful as it is, Cole reminds himself this is a good thing. He’s getting the reaction he sought in flying Noah halfway across the world.
“This can’t . . .” It’s the first time Cole can remember Noah being rendered speechless.
“This is exactly what you asked for when you showed up on my doorstep out of nowhere after years and said ‘activate The Consortium’ like you were suggesting I turn on the burglar alarm at my house.”
“You cannot agree to this, Cole.”
“You’re not listening. I didn’t agree, because I don’t have the option to disagree. And that’s how I got your labs back. I can’t fund this on my own, Noah. I’ve already hidden all I can from my board.”
“Yeah, but you’ve got something they don’t and never will.”
“What?”
“Charlotte!”
“Don’t overstate my hold on her. We’ve got a mutually beneficial relationship. That’s all.”
“I didn’t say you were best friends. I’m saying you’ve built something with her and if you order her to stand down now, you’ll destroy it in an instant.”
“Got it, thanks.”
Cole goes for the door, a deliberate tactic that he’s pretty sure will garner some sort of revealing response from Noah. But he’s not prepared for how swift and severe that response is.
Noah grabs his shoulder so hard Cole’s jerked backward. No one’s touched Cole with this kind of anger for years, not since he was a child and several young men dragged him into a woodshed, violating him with a viciousness and hate that had nothing to do with actual sexual desire. There have been times when Cole invited Noah to treat his body with force, but those moments were negotiated, almost scripted, two consenting adults choreographing a dance that drew a strange heat from Cole’s old wounds without pulling the scabs away. The word that comes from Cole’s mouth now sounds like a yelp. “Don’t!” Pathetic, childlike. Not a counterattack, but a plea.
Noah’s so shocked by Cole’s reaction, a new set of emotions muddy the anger in his expression. He doesn’t know what Cole suffered that long-ago summer afternoon. True, he’s always suspected, sometimes with brazen, insensitive language, that some past trauma has shaped the outer contours of Cole’s sexual desires in ways that occasionally spike his desire with bits of shame. But very few people know about the abuse he suffered, or how his father responded to it.
Charlotte knows.
Charlotte knows things about Cole the man across from him doesn’t.
And that only serves to prove Noah’s point. Cole shares a connection with her that might be holding this project together.
But in this moment, despite all that’s taking place around them, his focus isn’t Charley.
It’s Noah.
He realizes he’s done it; part of it anyway. Coaxed a version of Noah out of hiding. A version that cares about Charlotte in a way that transcends the end goals of this operation. Noah, always so damn composed, always so vain, looks downright desperate. And if this Noah is truly authentic, he will be more loyal to Cole than to The Consortium, no matter what lies ahead.
“I’m trying to do what you asked me to do,” Noah says.
“How?”
“This is what I learned about her in Arizona. Every moment of her life—every waking moment, Cole—her mind goes back to that root cellar on the Bannings’ farm, to what she imagines it was like for her mom. Do you know she carved a message on the wall?”
“Her mother?”
“Let me hold her please. That’s what it said. When Charlotte got away from her father and went to live with her grandmother, they gave her a computer for the first time and she Googled her mom’s name. And she found that story. From that moment on, she’s never been the same. The trauma of discovering that was worse than anything else she went through before then. Her every thought, Cole. Whenever her mind’s at rest. No matter what happiness she’s experiencing, her mind goes back to that cellar. It goes back to her mother’s final hours. When I learned that about her, I knew, I knew, that eventually she would open up to what my drug could do for her, for the world.”
And yet you tricked her into taking it.
But there’s a sheen in Noah’s eyes that might be tears, so Cole measures his next words carefully. What Noah just said might not be accurate, but he’s pretty sure Noah believes it. He’s also pretty damn sure Noah’s so disconnected from his grief