Their first meeting.

Noah's POV

"Here comes the groom, here comes the groom!" Ethan yelled as I stepped out of my company's building. He stood beside my car, eyes glinting in mischief.

I punched him in the arm as soon as I reached him, annoyed at his antics. The jackass laughed his head off as if he enjoyed teasing the hell out of me. Oh, who was I kidding? It was Ethan. Of course, he enjoyed teasing me. At this rate, I was certain he had been sent to earth to torment the daylights out of me.

"You're crazy," I grumbled, pulling open the car door.

"I'm crazy?" He snorted. "Says the guy who got himself engaged. To a bitch no less!"

"Natalie is not a bitch!" I snapped, irritated at his words. He was talking about my fiance, dammit!

"Her name sounds like a bitch's name too!" He chuckled, slipping into the front seat of the car. I settled into the driver's seat and kick-started the engine.

It had been a month since I had met Natalie in person. When my private investigator had sent the address of the girl I had slept with, I was thrilled as hell. Thrilled to see her again.

But when I did see her, the excitement fizzled out rather quickly. I could have sworn that her hair had been a thousand shades lighter. Like chestnuts. And she had been curvy... Right? I had felt her supple body in my arms, yet the girl I had met was slender, her hair darker than I remembered and had the sharpest voice I'd ever heard. A contrast from the soft sounds and mewls she had made the night before.

It felt like I was staring at a completely different person. But the Morgans had claimed to have just one daughter. Natalie. And she had confirmed that I had slept with her that night.

I didn't know what to do. She hadn't been in her right senses, according to what she said. Someone had drugged her and dragged her to the room. And I had come along and taken advantage of her like a bumbling fool.

Worse, she confirmed that she was indeed a virgin as I thought. And then, she claimed that her boyfriend of five years had broken up with her because I defiled her. When I had tried to settle her off with money, she had threatened to kill herself as she was sure no one would ever want her again.

Her parents were not left out as they promised to report me to the police and sue me.

I had to make amendments. I had to take responsibility. And so I had done the only thing I could think of. I had announced that I would make her my fiancee. That seemed to calm her parents' nerves. A week later, I'd slipped a ring over her finger. She wasn't exactly how I remembered, but that didn't change the fact that I had slept with her. I would have to atone for that for the rest of my life.

"Will you tell Mom tonight?" Ethan asked and I sighed, shaking my head. "You've been engaged for three weeks, Noah. You have to tell mom!"

"I'll tell her later," I grumbled. "We haven't had dinner together with her in a long while, I'd rather not ruin tonight."

My mother would lose her marbles if she found out I got engaged out of obligation or duty. She could be strict all she wanted, but her mother was a fairytale addict. She believed all marriages ought to have a whirlwind romance. Like the one she had with Father. Telling her I'd slept with a girl and proposed to her because I felt like a jackass for sleeping with her without her consent would result in a whole load of repercussions that I wasn't ready to deal with.

The rest of the ride was filled with Ethan's chatter over his new Bentley. I swerved the car through the gates into Mom's garage, and we made our way into her mansion. The woman loved fairytales so damned much, our childhood home was large enough to be a fucking castle.

"Is it just me," Ethan muttered as we approached the living room. "or do you also expect to hear dancing and singing as soon as we open the door?"

"Probably," I chuckled and pushed open the door. Mother sat on one of the couches in the living room, doing something with a bunch of wool and thread. There was a maid with her. Sitting, teaching my mother knitting or whatever shit it was.

"Mother.”

She looked up at me and grinned but that wasn't what stopped me in my tracks. It was the maid. Hazel eyes. They blinked slowly, long lashes framing her face softly. Her skin was like ivory. Pale, creamy and there was a maddening itch to want to see her shoulders. To see the smooth skin that led the way down to places I shouldn't have dreamed of.

Fuck me! She was beautiful.

Her hair was held back with a headband, but they framed her graceful neck, Chestnut brown contrasting against her pale skin. I imagined winding them around my hands, to feel their lushness through my fingers.

And then there were her lips. Hell. A full bow, with a fuller bottom lip, pink and inviting. I could imagine tugging at her lips with my teeth. Tasting, plundering,... What the hell was wrong with me?!

"Well, look who finally decided to come see their mama?" Mother said, abandoning the threads and wool, her arms stretched wide.

Ethan jumped into her arms first like the attention seeker that he was. Mother laughed, shoved him aside, and hugged me instead.

"Aw, come on! Where is the love in this family?" He whined.

I wanted to tell him, he was being a whiny brat but my eyes were entirely trained on the maid. She had a wary look in her eyes as she watched us. Mother and Ethan chatted, but I couldn't hear a thing they said. I was too busy watching her.

Too busy taking in all of her. The maid uniform, a simple black gown with a white apron around her hips looked so damned sexy, I couldn't get the thought of ripping it off out of my head.

"Noah?" Mother's voice jolted me to the present.

"Excuse me," the maid muttered and walked out of the living room.

"Who is she?" I asked as soon as she was gone.

"Oh, that's Lily." Mother replied. "She's new. I would rather she didn't work as a maid but she insisted-"

"Lily," I rasped. Her name was perfect. She was perfect.