Trust No One - Keri Beevis Page 0,18

at her solemnly. ‘How do you know I don’t already have one?’

Olivia’s eyes widened momentarily, before the grin broke on his face and she realised he was joking. She couldn’t help smiling back as she went to join him on the sofa. ‘Clown. I told you not to wind Molly up.’

‘Sorry. She bites too easily.’

Perhaps she did, but Noah played on that. Had done ever since he had started picking up on Molly’s frostiness towards him, which had been worse since Olivia had become involved with him. Molly, for whatever reason, was put out and made continual digs at Noah, which led to Noah calling her the grim reaper, because she mostly wore black. She hadn’t forgiven him for that, and had made her feelings known to Olivia that she thought her friend had shitty taste in men.

It was an awkward position to be in and Olivia had tried to play peacemaker, but Molly and Noah were both strong-willed and she despaired of the pair of them.

‘Anyway, enough about Molly. How are you holding up?’ He smoothed a hand over her hair, lips curving as he pulled her close for a lingering kiss that completely scrambled her brain.

She had fancied Noah Keen the moment she had laid eyes on him, when he had shown up in the restaurant one day with Jamie. The pair of them were friends and Noah had done Jamie a deal on some new security cameras for the restaurant. He was six foot one of lean, tanned ruggedness with an infectious grin and sharp green eyes that didn’t miss a beat, and when Jamie had introduced them and Noah had smiled at her, he had sucker-punched her right in the gut.

Olivia had sworn off men. She had been with Toby for eleven years before he cheated on her and other than that, only had under her belt one disastrous alcohol-fuelled fail at a one-night stand. Both were enough to put her off. Noah had flipped her ideas of remaining celibate on its head, and she was both tongue-tied and flustered in his presence.

He was so easy-going that her initial awkwardness had quickly thawed, and they had eased into a steady friendship. Yes, she fancied him, thought she had given off enough signals, but he never once reciprocated. There was no wedding ring, no mention of girlfriends or boyfriends, yet he seemed to want to spend time in her company. That had changed about six weeks ago and although neither of them had yet defined what was going on between them, they had been fairly inseparable since.

He eased away from her now, his expression serious. ‘We need to talk about your message.’

‘Molly doesn’t know about the note or the photo.’ Olivia kept her tone down. ‘I’d rather keep it that way, okay?’

‘We can go down the pub if you want. Or upstairs.’

Olivia considered that. She wasn’t really up for the pub, but they could go upstairs. It would give Molly the living room back. Her friend had been so good to her these last few days. It would be a token gesture. ‘Okay, upstairs.’ Seeing the corner of Noah’s mouth curve into a grin, she added. ‘To talk, Romeo.’

‘Of course.’

‘Do you want a coffee?’

‘I could use a beer.’

‘There’s some bottles of Heineken in the fridge.’

‘Sold.’

‘Go upstairs. I’ll be up in a minute.’

Molly was in the kitchen loading the dishwasher and Olivia felt a pang of guilt as she topped up her wine glass and grabbed Noah’s beer. ‘Thank you for sorting dinner. We’re gonna go upstairs and get out of your way. Living room is all yours.’

Molly continued to rinse and stack the plates. She didn’t turn round. ‘No need to do that. It’s your house,’ she muttered stiffly.

‘It is, but you live here too. We’ll go upstairs. You can have Netflix if you want.’

‘Maybe.’

‘Give him a chance, Molly. Please, for me?’

Molly’s shoulders tensed as she stopped what she was doing. Still though she refused to turn. ‘Just be careful, Livvy.’

10

Noah had made himself comfortable on Olivia’s pretty lemon duvet, legs outstretched as he leant back against the mound of cushions on top of the pillows (what was the thing with women and cushions?) and was making a fuss of the cat, who was sprawled on his lap, when Olivia walked into the room. She used her foot to push the door shut, before passing him his beer, then set her glass of wine down on the bedside table and flopped down on her back beside him,