Broken At Love (Whitman University) (9 page)

Sun streaked through the gauzy white curtains, illuminating specks of dust on the air like flecks of glitter as the two of us stared at one another. Finally he cleared his throat. “Um, Q, can I talk to you for a minute?”

“What about?”

“It’s about Emilie Swanson.”

Of course it was. What wasn’t these days? “What about her?”

Toby licked his lips and flicked an anxious glance toward Sebastian. My half-brother made most people nervous. Probably because he was a fucking lunatic one bad decision away from exile to Canada or death row, depending on what exactly went down. Toby would probably rather talk alone but I wasn’t really in the mood to be accommodating, especially with the guy who seemed intent on fucking with my Aussie Open top seed.

God help him if he was literally fucking her.

“I’m not going anywhere,” Sebastian drawled. “So talk to Quinn or don’t.”

“I wanted to know if there’s any chance of stopping this round. With Emilie.” He swallowed so many times in a row his Adam’s apple reminded me of a basketball.

“No.”

“I mean, what if we chose someone else and everyone agreed to the change so you guys wouldn’t lose any money, and…” He stopped, a defeated air crawling over him as he looked at my face, which probably appeared at least half as livid as I felt. “She’s a good girl, Quinn. Sweet and funny.”

“And you like her, is that it?”

He nodded, swallowing a few more times before raising his wary gaze to mine. “I agreed to go to this theme party with her tonight. Before Sebastian picked her. I want to go, but I know…she’s part of all this right now.”

Sebastian’s silence started to unnerve even me. I stood and crossed to Toby, patting his shoulder. “She’s a beautiful girl, Toby. I can see why you’re interested.”

Hope filled his face for a second before I leaned down to mutter in his ear.

“You stay the fuck away from her. Don’t look at her, don’t let her help you in class, and so help me Jesus, if you tell her anything about what’s going on here you’re going to regret it.”

Anticipation fell away from him like the discarded shell off a cracked nut. He nodded, keeping his eyes on the carpet, and turned to go.

“Oh, do stay a moment, Toby. Quinn has to be going, but I’d like to speak with you.” Sebastian turned his smile, the one that never reached his eyes, on me. “Grab Scott and Adam for me, will you?”

“Yeah.” A thought occurred to me, making me almost thankful for Toby and his ill-advised puppy crush on my opponent. “What’s the theme of the party tonight?”

His eyebrows shot up but he didn’t question me. “Eighties prom.”

Great. Fucking fantastic.

***

One blue tuxedo and pink ruffled shirt later, I stood on the steps of the Delta Epsilon house with my cell phone to my ear. Emilie’s number had been easy enough to find. I just hoped she’d get her sexy ass out here before Annette happened past.

“Hello?”

“Emilie? It’s Quinn.” I gobbled up the catch in her breath as proof that she didn’t mean it when she’d basically thrown me out of her studio earlier. “Can you come downstairs?”

“I’m waiting for my date.”

“He’s not going to make it.”

“What?”

“Would you please come downstairs? I hate talking on the phone and I don’t want to run into…anyone.”

“You mean Annette.”

I sighed. “Yes, I mean Annette.”

She paused longer than necessary, making me nervous for some reason.

“Fine, I’ll be right down.”

I hung up, fidgeting with the ridiculous collar on my getup. When she pushed open the door a moment later it brought an immediate smile to my face.

Emilie glanced down at her pile of hot pink ruffles, then pursed her lips at the sight of my stupid suit. “Why are you wearing that?”

“I told Toby I’d escort you in his place.” I stepped close to her, dying to run my hand over her bare shoulders but restraining myself. For now. “I don’t hate Whitman. I hate that my father refuses to let me be a part of the family business no matter what I do, and I’m admittedly a cliché. And I hate that, too.”

“You mean the way you act out so your dad will pay attention to you.”

“Maybe.” A shiver zipped down her spine, breaking goosebumps across her perfect skin, and I shrugged instinctively out of my powder blue coat, handing it over. “Or maybe now that there’s no more tennis, and my dad doesn’t think I’m worthy of his empire, I don’t know what to do with my life.”

Every word had to be chipped off and extracted with purpose. No personal confession came away without effort, or without discomfort, but I was running out of time. Emilie wanted to feel like she knew me better.

“No, that’s not it.” She pulled the jacket around her and stepped down off the porch. “You love it, I think. The idea of running Rowland Communications. So why not try to make him change his mind about you instead of acting like a guy who just got out of prison and found himself in the middle of spring break weekend?”

She waited for more discussion, but I’d already given up more than I wanted. Emilie was hesitant, but my innuendo on the beach the other night had gotten under her skin, and when I kissed her, she forgot everything. Being nice and trying to woo her had gotten me a little bit further, and it would have to be far enough.

No more feelings or secrets. I told her about my dad to erase the her perceived failure to get me to open up on the beach the other night, but now we would play more…physical games.

So I brushed my palm down her bare neck, over her shoulders, and finally pressed it into the small of her back. I led her to the party bus waiting in the parking lot, and decided tonight would be the night.

Chapter Nine

Emilie

Quinn obviously didn’t want to talk about his father or his future with Rowland Communications, but it meant a lot that he’d opened up to me about his lack of direction. The truth was, even though I’d found the strength to tell him we couldn’t be anything but friends earlier today, I hadn’t meant it. It had been a last-ditch effort to push him away.

But I was glad it was him and not Toby at the door tonight. I wanted him more than I’d ever wanted anyone in my life—it tugged at me like an insistent force until nothing mattered. The thought of tasting more than his lips spilled hot need down into my knees.

Maybe he wouldn’t try again, and then I would be spared the embarrassment of being another Quinn Rowland conquest. The bad part was, if he didn’t try again, I’d regret not seeing what would happen for the rest of my life.

That had been my promise to Anabel. She’d never grow up and kiss a boy that made her forget her name, fall in love, feel the delicious thrill of a man’s naked flesh against hers. Would never go to college and make mistakes, never defy our father, never lie to everyone about where that extra five hundred a month went.

So as my twelve-year-old sister lay dying, I’d promised her that I would live. I wouldn’t be fifty and married to a guy I could barely stand, with two kids and a golden retriever running in our cookie-cutter yard, regretting all of the things I didn’t do.

When I walked out the door tonight and saw Quinn in that silly blue suit, it became irreversibly clear that he would be a regret. And not only because of the crazy attraction, or because he was so handsome it made me want to squint.

Because I sensed the pain inside him since the first night we met, and today when his questions about my father and his praise of my art made me break down, I felt something break inside him, too. Quinn handled the changes in his life all wrong, but maybe I could help him.

If he’d let me.

“Oh, shit.” I dragged Quinn to a stop outside the party bus.

“What’s wrong?”

“Annette’s going to be here. On the bus. She’s going to see you. Us. Together.”

“We’re not together, I’m just filling in,” he said quickly.

“Yes, I realize that, dumbass. Thanks for the reminder, though.”

“Did you just call me a dumbass?”

“Shut up. There she is.”

Annette saw us at that exact moment and her jaw hit the ground. Tears filled her eyes and she turned, running up the steps of the party bus without getting her name checked off at the door. Guilt tugged at my belly, but it wasn’t like they’d dated or anything.

He’d just wrecked her emotionally for the last six months.

Dammit.

“Well, I think that went pretty well.” Quinn raised his eyebrows at me.

I whacked him in the shoulder. “Don’t say a single word on that bus or I swear you aren’t going to have sex for at least a week.”

“With you or anyone?”

“Anyone. Maybe two weeks.” I reached up to smooth the ruffles on his shirt that blew in the breeze unfettered since his coat wrapped my shoulders, smiling in spite of myself. It made me mad so I hit him again.

“Why do you keep hitting me?”

“You’re talking.”

“We’re not on the bus yet.”

“How is it possible for anyone to look hot in a powder blue leisure suit?” I murmured, almost to myself.

He winked. “You should see how hot I look out of it.”

“Good God. Just come on.”

We walked to the bus, his heavy arm settled around my waist, and I didn’t have the strength to move it. Poor Annette. But this was my chance to spend an evening with Quinn and I wouldn’t give it up because she’d slept with him five months ago.

***

The bus ride was uneventful, but my shoulders were bunched and tense by the time we arrived at the hotel. This was a serious breach of the bullshit sorority sister code. Everyone was going to hate me. There would probably be an ethics meeting with our alumni or some crap, where I’d have to explain how Quinn hadn’t been my date and no, we hadn’t slept together. As if the fact that a bunch of old ladies decided who was too fat to recruit new members wasn’t bad enough.

Annette stayed away from us as everyone climbed off the bus and made their way inside the Ritz-Carlton. The ballroom left something to be desired—the only decorations were some pink and silver streamers around the chairs and on the front of the DJ and punch tables, along with a disco ball in the center of every empty table. Décor wasn’t really the point of these parties. It was more to be able to invite guys on dates without inviting guys on actual dates.

It mostly just looked like a ballroom. White tablecloths on round tables. An oak dance floor, already crowded, tables lined with spiked punch and snacks that cost too much. There had been a flask on the bus, so we’d already gotten a head start.

Ruby had no intention of keeping her mouth shut now that we were free of a confined space. Her blonde hair spun down her back in fat sausage curls and she had bangs hairsprayed to the ceiling. The silver dress barely covered her ass and tulle spiked out from under the silk. Eighties punk, or some other such nonsense, but she looked better than most.

She raced up to the two of us at the edge of the dance floor, talking loud enough to be heard over the music but pretending Quinn didn’t exist.

“What are you doing here with
him
? You made me promise we wouldn’t even tell anyone we went to his party, then you kissed him and went
back
to his house and kissed him again, and then—”

“Hey, it was more than kissing,” Quinn interrupted. When I gave him a look he shrugged. “What? You’re not telling it right. It was hot, Ruby.
Hot
.”

She shook her head at him. “You are annoying and strange. It’s weird that I want to rip your clothes off and slap you at the same time.”

“I get that a lot.”

Ruby snorted. “I’ve heard.”

I snapped my fingers in my best friend’s face. “Focus. Ignore him. You can’t win, he has a sexy comeback for everything.”

She crossed her arms, still eyeing my date. “I’m waiting.”

“Toby bailed and Quinn agreed to take his place. End of story.”

Her eyes grew wide. “I forgot you were coming with Toby. I saw him at the hospital tonight—somebody kicked the shit out of him.”

“What?” I turned to Quinn. “Is that why he couldn’t come? Why didn’t you tell me? I should have gone to see him!”

“First of all, I didn’t know. He just called and said since you and I were friends, would I mind taking you tonight. He didn’t say why. Second, I didn’t know you two were so close.” His jaw tightened and those blue eyes hardened the way they did when he didn’t want to continue a discussion.

If Quinn were a normal guy I would have thought he was jealous.

“We’re not. I mean, we’ve had a bunch of classes together—he’s a television major and we do design stuff for them all the time—and we hang out sometimes. Still, he agreed to come tonight and now I’m having fun with you and he’s…what happened to him, Ruby?”

“Why were you at the hospital?” Quinn asked.

“Her mother’s on the board,” I explained before demanding that Ruby give us details.

“I don’t know. They were stitching him up when I left but I don’t think they’re keeping him overnight. Some of your goon brothers were waiting to take him home.”

“I have a problem,” Quinn announced.

“What now?”

He leaned down, his hot breath tickling my neck. “You said we’re having fun. But you’re not having fun at all.”

Before I could protest he swept me onto the dance floor just in time for a slow power ballad, the kind they played in movies my babysitters used to make fun of when I was a kid, and tightened his arms around me.

They were strong and he smelled good. When I tipped my face up to say something, the strength of the desire in his eyes punched me in the gut, tightening my fingers in the curls on the back of his neck. He leaned down in front of everyone and pressed his lips against mine, softly, then pulled back and kissed my nose.

“That’s just a kiss. That’s not what happened on the beach.”

“Got it,” I said, barely recognizing the breathy voice as my own.

“I want you to forget about your dad and the art show, and Toby, and Annette. Let’s pretend we’re the only ones here.” His husky voice shuddered into my heart, pushing it into a gallop and making my legs shake.