Page 94 of Off Her Game
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Tori hadn’t stolen the code.
Sam’s admission to both he and Jake of the deception ricocheted around inside Noah’s brain. Sam had needed time to find the culprit loyal to Symphis. An entry-level programmer who’d started six months ago had been identified as the spy. It still hurt that neither of them had trusted him, but deep down he understood everything could’ve been monitored on video.
Noah needed to see Tori. To apologize. To praise her courage. No, all that was great, but he needed to be honest with her and himself. He was shitfaced drunk in love with her.
Jake’s words about crippling Tori’s reputation and hindering her professional development held him in limbo. He didn’t want to be the reason Tori lost her dreams.
Altruism aside, he couldn’t survive much longer without righting everything with her. He didn’t know if seeing her would improve anything interpersonally between them. It was a first step. It might put an end to the absurd stress dreams. They hadn’t surfaced in over a year, only torturing him when under duress. The dreams always featured a college class he’d signed up for but couldn’t find where the class took place. The dream had nothing to do with reality. He even recognized the dream as ludicrous while having it, but he couldn’t escape the angst of needing to find the class.
He ran his hand along his rough jaw, staring at himself in his office bathroom mirror. His eyes were reddened from insomnia. The last time he looked this bad had been the morning after an all night Vegas bachelor party a few years ago. He’d consumed too much vodka and awoken naked and hugging a stuffed tiger with no memory. Jake offered to tell him the story many times. Noah didn’t want to know. What happened in Vegas…and all that shit.
This probably wasn’t the best time to hunt down Tori.
Certainty of his feelings toward Tori pushed him to action. Amazing how he’d gone thirty years and never truly fallen in love—until now. Now that he had, he was in a rush to let her know. To fight for her and for them. He might even step down as CEO, maybe go back to designing instead of running things, if that’s what it took to make this work. It didn’t matter. He wasn’t willing to let her go without a fight to figure out how he fit into her life.
Maybe they could figure out how to pause their relationship until she had a solid grip on her career. Based on experience that might take a year, maybe even two. He didn’t think he could wait that long to be with her again.
The only way to resolve this was to find her.
He glanced at his watch, wondering if she’d still be in the building at eight thirty p.m. It was Friday. She might have plans. He was willing to kiss Emma’s ass to get info on Tori’s plans, if needed. It just might come to that.
He rounded the corner out of the bathroom into his office and slid to a halt. His jaw dropped.
There she stood. Next to his desk, so damned sexy in jeans and a dark T-shirt that molded her chest in all the right places. And those boots…
Her dark hair was pulled up into a messy bun. He swallowed past the dryness in his throat. “Tori?”
“I’m sorry to bother you like this. I know you’re super busy. That you prefer not to have a one-on-one conversation with me, but we need to talk.” The soft pitch of her voice triggered a montage of memories in his brain. Her taste, her smell and how perfect she felt surrounding him.
“You look like you’re leaving but…” The glassiness of her eyes suggested frustration close to tears. Tori crying?
He pulled her into his arms, feeling the rightness of her there. “What’s wrong?”
Her arms wrapped around him. “I’m sorry. I just…he told me you didn’t want anything to do with me. Then Leo couldn’t get through him, either. So, I knew it wasn’t only me. Then Quan called about Martin. Crap, I shouldn’t be here when I’m this worked up.”
“One thing at a time. Who said I didn’t want to see you and blocked Leo?” His tone came out harsher than intended. He’d crush the asshole who’d kept her from him.
She buried her face against him for a few seconds before rolling outwards with her ear to his chest, but she didn’t release him from her hug. “Josh…and then Jake pretty much banned me from being near you. I probably shouldn’t be here. If you’re trying to get on with your life, then I don’t want to ruin that for you.”
Assholes. Both of them.
She pushed out of his arms and wiped her eyes. “This is very unprofessional of me. I’m sorry. Jake is right that maybe I was itching to have some sort of confrontation with you. I’ll go through Jake to speak with you in the future like you both want. I hate being the clingy psychotic girl who you probably consider an in-the-past one-nighter. Okay, maybe a time beyond one night, but you get the idea.” She rolled her eyes upward. “This is so embarrassing, especially since you have a new girlfriend.”
“I’m not dating anyone else. There’s no one else.”
“What?” He found her baffled uncertainty cute, especially on a girl who usually had all her confidence chips in a row.
“We’re sure as hell not resolved or over. From a professional respect, Jake’s trying to do the right thing to protect you. I don’t want to mess up your chance to make it big by throwing a relationship into the mix. This is your moment, but if your reputation is damaged because of me or what people perceive about us, then you might get hurt by what people say. It might damage your career. You’re too talented for that.”
“Then why was I banned by your assistant?”
“I don’t know what Josh said, but he’s a temp. I never told him I didn’t want to see you. Maybe Jake said something to him.”
“Josh was a hard-ass all day about me not seeing you. Then Jake pretty much laid down the law against me seeking you out.”
“Were you trying to talk business or was your visit personal?”
