The Billionaire's Part Time Lover

NOELLEAutumn, winters, thanksgiving or Valentine if that counted weren’t my best moments but I never really had a reason for not loving it, except I was born in the holidays and named after it. Glad I wasn't named Valentine or Valerie, no disrespect there but I'd rather not.It was bad enough to be Noelle and Holly and my old man's dead jokes about decking halls with balls of Holly.None of that mattered now.It was Valentine's Day, our big day. I and the love of my life.I took a good look at my fingers, I had gotten them done earlier in the day and made sure not to smudge the pastel pink polish, the gloss glistened under the yellow candle glow.Clayton loved subtle colors.You know how I said I hated holidays or disliked? Valentine's day didn't count because I always wished to be proposed to on the day of love. Sounds cliche and could get swallowed up with the army of reds and whites in restaurants, people smooching and professing undying love.I know it could get swept under the b

EMERIC.I didn't work at the restaurant all the time but the few times I stood in for Ben, I had seen Noelle and this man. The same man proposing to another woman.Love was the most glaring thing ever, you could just see it between two people.It didn't hide but with this man, I never for once saw it. Noelle was always the excited one.My stomach churned.I observed her demeanor when she walked in. She was beaming, giddy and as always she walked straight to the counter asking for the chef to remind me of her special order and all that she had planned. She did that all the time and that was how I got to know her name.She always reserved a table in her name. Noelle Holly Roberts. I always thought it was a distinct name.She thought I was like some head waiter or something but I was the head chef on some days and I knew she couldn't eat anything with cloves in it.The few times I watched her converse with Ben, I just knew she was a sweet, kind woman. She smiled and gushed, her little

EMERIC She was looking around the bar while the server poured us our drink, she ordered the strongest scotch in the house and I had a bourbon.I didn't stop her from ordering high content alcohol, I would want to feel nothing but numbness at this time if I was in her shoesI felt like I understood her on a different level.The disappointment, the feeling of not being enough and taken for granted, you could just feel your self worth depreciating.I knew it all too well.I took a sip from my drink. “Are you looking for something?”She was stunned and blinked at me.“You keep looking around and I wonder what for”“No… no” She shook her head, “it's just been a long day.”She was thinking about it, it seemed so.I inched closer to her and our knees touched, she leaned in to sip her drink from the glass, rounding her lips over the rim of the glass and throwing it all back in one gulp. She cleared her throat afterwards.I corked my head, a light bulb had come on. “Tell me about your day.”

Noelle Gold and Cash sat wedged between a laundromat and a vape shop, its sign missing the LD in gold so it read GO AND CASH in flickering yellow letters, lopsided, felt about right for where my life currently was. I'd changed out of yesterday's shirt, at least. I showered, swallowed more water than I thought a human stomach could hold, hoping that the nauseating feeling would be drowned out, but bad idea because now my stomach made a sound when I moved too fast. My most nondescript hoodie was the outfit for the day, better to blend in while I attempted to offload evidence of my own personal crime scene. Because that's what this was, wasn't it. A crime scene. Exhibit A: one engagement ring, obtained under false pretenses, currently residing on the ring finger of a woman who had absolutely no business wearing it. Had Emeric stolen it? Or was it a mistake? Exhibit A? Nahhh, more like the victim in all this. A typical example of being in the wrong place at the wrong time. The

Noelle The GPS took me down roads that got me progressively less convinced of it ever leading to an office space.First it was the highway, easy. Then it narrowed into a two-lane road with actual trees crowding above it, the further I drove the more I left behind possible locations for an office, my GPS was leading me to one of the porshest residential areas. The tall trees blocked out the sun in patches so the whole drive strobed between light-dark-light-dark until you feel a a little dizzy. Then the houses started spacing out, further and further apart, until there weren't houses at all, no businesses at all, just long stretches of stone wall half-swallowed by ivy, the stonewall game way to a much more modern outlook."Your destination is on the left," my GPS announced, entirely too casual for what I was looking at.I slowed the car to a stop in front of a set of iron gates taller than my apartment building.No buzzer intercom with a company directory, no little sign that read Mil