Chapter Four

Five years ago:

Eva's POV:

"How long have you been waiting for me?" I asked Noah as I kept my bag down.

"Two hours may be. I didn’t keep track of time after the first hour passed." Noah replied shutting his laptop.

"Two hours? Noah I'm so sorry, I couldn’t leave earlier, you know as an intern-"

"You have a lot going on, I know. And as I said it was nothing. I brought my laptop with me, so my time wasn’t wasted. Don't worry."

"But still, you could've just gone home, and we could've met there."

"Look, you are really busy these days and it has been so long since we went on a date. Most importantly, it's our anniversary today. So, relax. I can wait a thousand years for you. 2 hours got nothing on that." Saying that he intertwined his fingers with mine.

"God, you are so cheesy." I said, but the twinkles in his eyes and his physical proximity gave me warmth, leaving me longing for more.

****

Present

I was waiting in the hotel's lobby, the one where Noah was currently staying, for 30 minutes now. But he was no see. I was losing my patience with time and decided that if he is no show in the next 10 minutes, I'm going to leave.

Time went by in the speed of a snail and I took my phone out to inform Sebastian that I could wait no more. But before I could, I felt the presence of someone taking a sit beside me. I looked to check and there, sitting beside me was none other than Noah.

"My apology to make you wait for so long. It must have been hard for you as you are not used to wait for me, are you?" There was hint of taunt mixed with his equally concerned voice which I decided to ignore.

"Yes, I don’t like to wait for anyone. You were supposed to be here at 5 but it is 5.48 now. You should learn to be more professional."

"Then no one can be better teacher than you, Eva. You even handle your personal life professionally. I guess you can teach me a thing or two?"

"Most surely, Mr. Martinez. Let's start with how we should address each other. It's Mrs. Angelos for you, not Eva. And most importantly you should not bring whatever happened in the past in a official meeting."

"So you are suggesting that we should meet personally to reminisce those all days we spent together? What do we talk about? The places we used to go, favourite foods, how good I used to make you feel when we made love?"

"Noah-"

"Ah it is Mr. Martinez for you. I thought we are being real professional here?" He taunted.

I was fuming in rage by then, and I didn’t see any way of we working like nothing ever happened between us. If that continued, everyone would've come to know there were more to us, not that it was a crime and I never told Sebastian that he was the only man in my life. The thing was I kept my mouth shut and I had already lost the chance to come clean. What I was even thinking?

Before I could replied to Noah, a man in his late thirties wearing a black suit came in the line of my vision.

"Hello, I'm Wilson Ford, Mr. Martinez's lawyer."

"Nice to meet you, I'm Eva Angelos. I brought the documents, you can go over them." I took out the file and handed him.

"Why don’t we take the meeting to a nice restaurant? I'm starving. I didn’t get to have any food the whole day except a cup of coffee." Noah asked out of nowhere.

"Actually, that would be wonderful if Mrs. Angelos do not have any issue with that." Mr. Ford said.

I didn’t want to prolong this, but I couldn’t say anything when they were both in an agreement and I didn’t want to be the odd one.

"I don’t have a problem with that. What would you like to have?" I asked.

"I'm craving sea food today." Mr. Ford gave out a gentle suggestion.

"No can do. Eva is horribly allergic to that." Noah said as I looked in shock at him then at Mr. Ford, he looked confused as I assumed.

"I was just telling him that the other day. It is kind of you to remember that, Mr. Martinez." I said in a hurry, giving Noah a forced smile.

"Oh, sorry for my negligence. I should've asked first." Mr. Ford said.

"Nothing to be sorry about. Does Italian works for everyone? There is a place nearby, called 'Alberto'. There food is to die for and they have some amazing sea food options too." I suggested.

"Let's go there then." Noah said and Mr. Ford politely agreed.

I offered a ride to the restaurant out of courtesy which Mr. Ford declined saying he has his car with him leaving Noah and me alone.

The silence was heavy in the car and getting uncomfortable with time.

"Would you like to listen to songs?" I asked breaking the silence but saw Noah was already asleep. How tired he must've been to fall asleep in the car?

It was not long before we reached there but Noah was still sleeping peacefully. I thought twice before gently waking him up.

"Are we already there?" Noah asked as he looked around.

"Yes, we are. We should go inside, Mr. Ford is already waiting at a table."

"Yeah, just give me a moment. I feel groggy."

I took out a bottle of water from the car compartment and offered him.

"Thanks, Eva."

I just smiled in response as we looked at each other before coming back to realization that we should not do that.

"Let's go." Saying that I stepped out of the car and Noah followed the suit. "Don't say anything like you did a while ago in front of Mr. Ford. He might find it odd for you to know so much about me."

"Well, I used to know a lot about you and no matter how much you change, may be there are things which are not changeable. But I will try my best to forget those, hell I already tried my best. But not everything can be forgotten even if that's what is best for everyone."

"Noah, look what happened-"

"Is not your fault. Not everyone can sign up for the struggle I was facing. I just counted on you. So it is on me." Noah sighed. "Well, lets have some food. I wasn’t lying when I said I was starving. I actually am."

I nodded and entered Alberto's. Mr. Ford waved for us and we went over to him.

An waitress approached us to offer us the menue card and once she looked at Noah, her expression changed. But she didn’t say anything and went near another waitress, told her something and they looked equally excited.

"What would you like to have?"

"Huh?" I was confused for a moment as my mind was somewhere else. "Oh, let me see."

Once we all decided, Mr. Ford called the waitress and gave her our order. She quietly noted them down, but I could see she was suppressing her emotional overflow of glee. Once done, she looked at Noah and said, "Sir, you are Noah, right?"

Upon Noah's confirmation, she asked, "If it doesn’t bother you, will you be willing to take a photo with the employees of Alberto?"

"Sure, not a problem." Noah offered her a smile.

She almost gave out a scream before collecting herself. "That’s very kind of you, thank you. I will bring the food as soon as possible."

"I would like that very much as I'm starving." Noah said and she left with a nod.

"I guess you are really famous." I said as I smiled.

"You could say that I'm exactly not not famous."

"You are though, Mr. Martinez. So shall we go over the documents as we wait for our food? Or should we do that after?" Mr. Ford asked.

"We can start now. What do you say Mrs. Angelos?" Noah asked.

"Yes, let's jump in to that."