Broken At Love (Whitman University) (17 page)

Angelica hadn’t changed a thing about my little hideaway on the back of the property. The place had been meant for staff or a gardener, but their numbers were too big and my father built an extra wing on the house instead.

The wooden walls were bare, unadorned. A quilt that Ang swore my mother had made while she was pregnant covered the bed, its swirl of blues and creams a comfort even now.

I stumbled to the window and stuck my head outside, wanting to smell the coming summer. The tangle of hibiscus and plumeria always felt sexual to me, even as a boy, as though their scents seduced me on the breeze. Jose—the gardener—had an eye for color and the grove of flowers and trees around this cottage boasted more than one gulmohar tree. The bright red flowers brushed vibrant green fronds; they granted the wind passage with a quiet rustle.

I’d seen most of the world, and Florida wasn’t even close to my favorite place. But it was home, and in the spring it at least managed to compete.

Three large, brown-paper-wrapped packages caught my eye when I headed back to the bed. Someone had leaned them against the wall. The only person who would have dared come in was Ang. I tugged the paper off the largest, revealing Emilie’s painting.

The black and blue one, the one that so perfectly represented the few days we’d spent together. Struggle and acquiescence. The color of a bruise, which is how I’d felt since I’d pushed her away. The undeniable attraction of the two halves at the center, coming together in a spectacular way but unable to maintain contact.

It hurt like a fucking bitch so I turned it around, took two more shots, and got back in bed. I had no idea what those paintings were doing here, except that some asshat had delivered them to this house instead of the beach house like I’d instructed. Hopefully Ang had brought them out here before my father found them.

Thinking I was hung up on some girl would cement his decision as the right one.

The fact that I couldn’t hold my shit together, that my life was one reeking pile of failure, proved I’d done the right thing for Emilie. She might have felt hurt or used or embarrassed.

That was good. It meant I’d be easier to forget.

Chapter Eighteen

Emilie

Summer had returned to Florida and I couldn’t be happier. Ruby perched on the kitchen counter in the sorority house, sucking on an orange Popsicle, bare legs and feet banging against the cabinets. “So Toby said what?”

“That no one has seen Quinn for weeks. He’s drinking himself into a coma or something, dropped out of school.” I licked my chapped lips. I’d been chewing on them, which was a disgusting habit my mother had broken in middle school. “His dad named his CFO his successor last week. I saw it on the news.”

“So?”

“So that’s why. He really wanted to prove to his dad that he could handle the responsibility. Quinn was even working on some project to pitch Teddy as his potential entry into Rowland.” The memory of him telling me about it while his fingers traced circles on my bare back in the loft zipped shivers down my spine. “It was a good idea.”

Ruby’s sharp gaze pinned me until I wiggled. “It’s not your problem, Em.”

“I know. Except whose problem is it? Does Quinn even have any friends?”

“If he doesn’t it’s probably because he likes it that way. He certainly went out of his way to make sure you stayed clear.”

“You’re right. It’s stupid of me to worry about him when he doesn’t give a shit about me. I just…I’ve never been so sure about someone and so completely fucking wrong.”

In spite of my anger, tears swelled and dripped down my cheeks. I rubbed them away in irritation, sinking into one of the hard chairs around the cheap IKEA table. The expensive furniture was in the Chapter Room where judgy people could see. The kitchen at the DE house was actually comfortable, even if no one ever used it.

“You weren’t wrong.” Ruby’s blue gaze found mine, softer now. The Popsicle was gone, the stick discarded on the counter.

“What do you mean? I told you what he said to me that day at the SEA house.” I swallowed more tears at the memory. “You should have seen his face. He doesn’t care about me at all.”

“He cares about you, Em. A lot. That day when I picked up your keys at The Grind he told me so himself. He made me promise not to tell you.” Guilt edged the words, making them almost incomprehensible.

“What? Why would you keep a secret for him, Ruby? And these past couple months, you’ve known how hard I’ve been struggling with this—the fact that my instincts were so off. How could you let me think that?” It was hurt more than anger that poured through me, but they stung similarly.

I wanted to cry all over again.

“Because Quinn said he wasn’t good for you and I agreed. I thought you’d forget him and move on—it was only a fucking week, how was I supposed to know you wouldn’t shake it off? Or that he wouldn’t?” She paused, seeming unsure of whether or not to say more.

“You may as well spill it all now, Rubes.”

“He bought your paintings. He doesn’t just care about you, Em. I think he was totally falling in love with you.” She bit her lip. “Please don’t hate me. I thought I was doing to best thing for you. He’s got problems. Big ones.”

Quinn bought my paintings.

Shock numbed my limbs, making me feel weightless, like I was sitting in a tide pool. “Why would he do that?”

It should have made me feel like a loser. It meant none of my art had sold that night at all. But ever since an anonymous donor had funded an art scholarship that I’d been awarded, my future felt light, buoyed by possibilities. I could continue to study graphic design, which I’d decided I liked, and paint in my spare time.

“He said he saw you that night at the museum, and you were sad. He wanted you to be happy.”

We sat in silence for several minutes before I got up, nearly knocking the chair into the wall. Pleasure and lust, sweet love, swam through my blood. He cared about me. I cared about him, and he was in trouble.

He called you pathetic
, a voice whispered.
This changes nothing. He’ll do it again
.

The voice gave me pause, but only for another couple of seconds. He made me feel—whether good or bad—with more intensity than anyone else in my entire life. If he didn’t want to be with me, I needed to know. If he cared, but had some ridiculous medieval conviction that he was doing the right thing by staying away, we could work it out.

“Where are you going?”

“To see Quinn.”

***

With the French Open—my favorite tennis major—looming, Quinn would probably be at the beach and not at the frat. Especially since, if what Toby relayed was true, he hadn’t been to class in weeks.

The gorgeous house on the beach felt empty, my sandals clicking on the hardwood floor when a servant let me in. The elderly man had excused himself when I’d asked for Quinn, leaving me in a formal living room.

Cream-colored couches, cleaner than they should be after the number of people who probably spilled heaven knew what on them for days at a time, rimmed the walls. A stunning Degas hung above the fireplace. It had to be an original, and though he’d never been my favorite—I preferred more abstract minds—it impressed me all the same. The entire house was tastefully decorated, if a little formal, which was exactly the kind of home I’d grown up in.

“Emilie.”

The voice was smooth like Quinn’s but not warm or playful. Sebastian smiled when I turned around, his grin reminding me again of a predator. An alligator. The Cheshire Cat.

“Sebastian.”

“Jeeves said you were here to see Quinn.”

“Your butler’s name is Jeeves?”

“No. I just like to call him that.” He winked at me. “Would you like a drink?”

I felt my lips purse in distaste but tried to twist it into a smile. “No, thank you.”

“Fine. Quinn isn’t here. Perhaps I can fill in for him.” His eyes roamed my body and I wished suddenly I’d worn something other than shorts and a tank top. “There are a great many parts of you I’d relish filling on his behalf.”

Disgust and a tinge of fear crept over my skin, cold and slimy, like getting caught in seaweed. He seemed to know his effect on me and enjoy it. Guys like him were a dime a dozen, especially among privileged white males, and I’d dealt with them on other occasions.

The trick was to act as though they’d merely commented on the weather.

“That won’t be necessary. I only want to talk to him, so if you could tell me where he is, I’ll be on my way.”

“I believe Quinn made his feelings on seeing you abundantly clear the last time you sought him out, did he not? But perhaps you’re the type of girl who enjoys a little abuse.” He licked his lips.

“Sebastian, I’d love to stay here and spar with you all day—”

“—would you, now?” He took a step toward me.

I swallowed hard, concentrating on not backing up. “Quinn’s in trouble. I’d like to talk to him. As a friend.”

“As a friend,” he echoed. “You’re holding rather tight to that delusion about his being broken, aren’t you? Let me clear something up. Quinn’s a bastard, and he’s good at it. He had a momentary slip where you’re concerned, but once I reminded him the game never changed once it had begun, he followed through.”

Quinn had wanted to change the game
before
we’d slept together?

“You must be a disappointment in the sack. Once he got between those pretty little thighs he seemed to be cured of your minimal magic.”

What. An. Ass.

“I don’t have any delusions where Quinn is concerned, Sebastian.”

“Yes, you do. Do yourself a favor and hear this, though. Quinn will never change. He’s never been loved so he has no idea how to love anyone, least of all himself. Which means while he may be broken, he isn’t sad. He is the perfect compliment to my particular brand of debauchery, and I’m not losing him to a barely average spic bitch who thinks her pussy’s sweeter than the rest.” He watched me like a hawk stalking a mouse scurrying through the grass.

The reaction he wanted boiled in my gut and clenched in my hands, which longed to smack the smug smile off his face. It wouldn’t get me to Quinn, though, and I couldn’t find him on my own. “You want Quinn back. I can help. He’s tired of listening to you, but if he has—
had
,” I corrected, “feelings for me, I could convince him to shape up. I did it once.”

Please
, I begged silently.
He needs a friend. No one cares
.

Sebastian considered for several moments, smoothing imaginary out of place strands in his perfectly coiffed blond hair. The ice cracked and melted in his drink, and finally he shrugged. “I don’t think it will work. And just to be sure you lose those ideas in your head, let me show you how I can be so positive Quinn will never change.”

He left the room and I sank down on the couch on shaking legs. Even though I’d been spoken to that way before, and though I thought my outward reaction had been up to snuff, inside my organs never failed to liquefy. This was Quinn’s family. What if he thought the same way about me?

No. Ruby wouldn’t lie, and she wouldn’t have told me that Quinn had feelings for me unless she was convinced. Heaven forbid anyone judge me after meeting
my
family.

The thought of what Sebastian had gone to retrieve dropped dread into my stomach. When he returned with a computer and memory stick, the dread snaked lower.

“Just some pictures. No need to look so ill. I’m not going to make you watch him fucking other girls or anything.” He nudged me like we were best friends. “I mean, I have those, too. But they are less sensational.”

Nausea foamed acid up my throat. It hurt because it was Quinn, but I lived in the same world they did. I’d gone to one of the most prestigious preparatory schools on the Eastern seaboard and had seen more than one scandal go down due to sex pictures and drugs. My friends’ parents, girls at my school with poor decision-making skills, men who thought money and power meant they were above the law. Shit, some guy in my class had been caught with his mother’s best friend—on video.

So if Sebastian thought he’d shock the poor innocent rich girl, he had another thing coming. And he really didn’t understand the lives of rich people. Which was possible, considering I knew he hadn’t joined the Rowland family until high school.

Pictures popped up on the laptop. Quinn, passed out and disheveled, tie undone, shirt rolled to his sleeves. Needles hung out of his arms in some of them. In others, he was grinning but obviously incoherent, leaning down to snort glittering white powder off a bar or a coffee table. There were nude or scantily clad ladies in some of them, all older than us and looking considerably more experienced—I’d guess escorts of some kind, not street hookers. Their hands were all over him, their asses teasing his lap. I wanted to tear their hair out, paid or not.

I let all of the images fall into my heart. These blended with the Quinn I knew, attached themselves to him as another facet of the boy I’d somehow come to love. Sweet and flirtatious. Self-destructive. Wildly inappropriate. Mean. Sexy without trying. Careless with people. The boy that wanted to make me happy but not take the credit.

It was all part of what made him Quinn.

“Is that all?”

If my lack of surprise shocked Sebastian, he didn’t show it. Merely nodded. “This is Quinn. When you find him, he’ll be similarly fucked up. Good luck.”

He snapped the laptop closed, handed me a slip of paper with an address printed on it, and left the room. Once oxygen filled my body at a normal rate again I followed suit, stepping out into the twilight.

Chapter Nineteen

The drive to the secluded suburbs took about half an hour, but thanks to the magic of GPS there weren’t any wrong turns. The houses grew further and further apart, palm trees lining the sides and center of the road, until the rest of the houses disappeared as well.

When the digital voice told me to turn left I thought it was wrong. Then a wrought-iron gate peeked through the climbing ivy. A security booth sat to the left and I pulled up, rolling down my window.