Tit For Tat Chapter 09
After the formal meeting ended, Noah stayed behind.
I had my assistant close the door.
He stood by the floor-to-ceiling windows, silent for a long moment.
“I owed you an explanation three years ago.”
I looked at him.
“The project is the project. The past is the past.”
“I know.”
He turned around.
“Back then, Bennett Global had a massive capital shortfall on an acquisition in Canada. My father needed to secure a new alliance with another family fund. Ending the engagement wasn’t just my mother’s decision.”
“They took my phone and kept me in the family office. I knew you were outside, but I didn’t force my way out to see you.”
“Later, Adrian smashed the window and took you away. Everyone said he was braver than I was.”
Noah lowered his eyes.
“A part of me was even relieved. At least someone was willing to stand up for you.”
“Now it just looks like I outsourced my responsibility to another man.”
I held my coffee cup, my fingertips cold.
Three years ago, I had hated him.
I’d hated him for not coming out, for letting his mother use my family’s financial trouble as the public reason for the split, for leaving me in the rain to be treated like a failed investment no one wanted.
Then Adrian had swept into my life with such force.
He smashed glass, he bled, he knelt, he blocked every cruel word aimed at me. I’d forced myself to believe that drama meant devotion.
Now, hearing Noah’s explanation, my chest didn’t ache the way I’d always imagined it would.
The old wound was still there.
But it no longer made decisions for me.
“You did owe me,” I said.
Noah nodded.
“I know.”
“But not every debt can be folded into a new contract.”
“I know that too.”
I closed the file.
“Let’s stick to the project.”
“The past ends here.”
He watched me for a moment.
“All right.”