by Natalie Wrye
But it isn’t Sophia.
Blonde hair sways where there should be brown, and I glance up into expected hazel eyes finding green ones instead. A ghost from my past stares back at me in the present, her red lips spreading into a smile.
Ainsley smirks. “Hello, Noah. It’s been too long.”
I stumble back as if burned, rage squeezing my words into a rasp. I can barely speak. “What the fuck are you doing here?”
“I thought you’d be happy to see me.”
“Happy to see you?” The words come out on a croak. I’d laugh but disbelief is stuck in my throat. “Are you talking about before or after you tried to screw my brother? In our apartment?” My voice lowers to a subtle growl. “In our bed? Or do you not remember that part either?”
But I know she does.
Because there’s no forgetting something that changed the course of my life, my relationships forever.
My ex-fiancée stares at me in my own family’s home as if not a day has passed. And yet through the anger I can only think of one person. The only person I care to wrap my arms around at this very moment. The person who tore my shields down and finally revealed the actual man that was inside.
I look over Ainsley’s shoulder. “Where’s Sophia?”
She scoffs. “Oh, you mean that little brunette? The one with the tattoos?” She hitches a shoulder. “I think the trash took herself out, actually. A neat trick. She could show my garbage men a thing or two.”
I spin on my heel. “I have to find her.”
But Ainsley grabs my wrist and I’m two seconds from snatching it away. Her emerald eyes burn into mine.
“Noah, you can’t be serious. I came here today, looking for you, to tell you that we made a mistake. I know that now.”
I glare back at her, my skin heating under her touch. I can barely breathe. “The only mistake I made was you, Ainsley. I see that now.”
“Come on,” she whines. “Nothing happened between Jase and me. We didn’t take off our clothes. We didn’t sleep together. Hell, we barely kissed!”
“Not for your lack of trying.”
“And even if we did…” she runs right over my words, ever the spoiled snob used to getting her way. And I was the man who used to give it to her. She saunters closer. “It wouldn’t matter now, Noah. You’re the head of Quinn Real Estate Group now. You’re the CEO.”
As if sleeping with Jase was a consolation prize now, since the power structure had shifted.
Which is all Ainsley obviously ever gave a shit about.
As if it weren’t abundantly clear.
Ainsley had never been the woman for me. She’d never been the woman for anyone.
A private school grad more concerned about the couture she was wearing than the soul beneath it, she’d seem sweet when we first met at the tender age of eighteen at a college business school mixer. Smart, even.
And she sure knew how to handle her scotch.
But I’d mistaken her calculations for sophistication, had erred in believing that the sweet blonde affection was more than an act.
It was evident as I stare at her now that she’d been planning to sleep her way to the top of a real estate empire all along.
Because women like Ainsley wanted to eat at the top of the food chain, and in her mind, Jase had been the fucking filet mignon when Grandfather Quinn had passed away two years after our relationship started.
Only once my brother had lost the head position of our real estate company to me, he’d lost his appeal to Ainsley.
Her being here solidified that fact.
I’d been around rich people all my life. Had lived among the liars. Hell, I’d been one of the best of them.
But for the first time in my life, I wasn’t content being one of them anymore. As with scotch, I’d lost the taste for lying. Especially to myself.
Reaching out, I grab Ainsley’s shoulders, shaking them softly, finding the truth hard to keep in.
“Is that what you want, Ainsley?” I hiss into her face, pressing even closer, my fingers clasped around her small arms. “You want to root the CEO? Fuck the man on top? Will that make you feel like a winner? A queen Bee?” I stare into a face I’d once believed was pretty, now grotesque from the inside out.
“How’s it feel now? To come back to nothing, crash a wedding all to get back into the good graces of the head of a failing company?” Her green eyes widen and I keep going. “How’s it feel to fish for a man on a sinking ship?”
But her eyes no longer look at me. They shoot over my shoulder.
I turn at the sound of a footstep to find Jase, fully dressed in his midnight-black tuxedo, a deep frown printed on his normally stoic face. He gazes at me.
“Noah.” His voice is silk over stone, rough underneath a veneer of composure. “Can I talk to you?” He glances at Ainsley. “Alone?”
His tone leaves no room for questions to be asked, and I let Ainsley go, releasing each finger one by one until she’s out from my grasp.
The ghost that’d been haunting every relationship I’ve had for seven years strolls towards the bedroom door, bypassing Jase along the way. She smiles up into his face, but his expression is stone.
With nothing but ice and indifference left for her, Ainsley casts a backward glance over her shoulder before heading out, and I know it will be the last time I hear from the woman who’d stolen my heart.
Problem is? She never gave it back.
I’d left it with her those seven years ago.
But with Sophia in my life, I was starting to grow a new one. I just don’t know if it’s big enough to face Jase right now, and I turn, gathering myself by the window, my hair in my hands as I wring my fingers through the strands, a futile attempt to calm my frustration.
I leave my back to my brother, not turning. “Jase, I’d rather not talk right now. You can go back to your people. I’ll be out in a minute.”
“Tough.” I hear behind me, his footsteps closing in. “You’re my people. And we’re going to have this out right now. You. And me.” He scoffs. “Something we should have done a hell of a long time ago.”
“Don’t do this,” I growl. “Not unless you want to fight.”
“Then let’s fight.” I hear rustling behind me and still I don’t spin to face him. “Come on. Let’s go…” I hear him exhale, the sound hard. “Because I’ve had enough with the secrets. The lying. The pretending. Ignoring the issues and bullshit right in front of us.”
I release my hair from beneath my fingers, pivoting towards my older sibling. His tuxedo jacket’s off, his hair newly mussed. He stands there, unhooking the cuffs of his collared shirt, and seconds later, he pushes the crisp white fabric up to his elbows, revealing ready fists.
His forearms pulse as he plants himself inside the bedroom, staring at me. His face is full of barely contained rage, and I glance into his simmering brown eyes so much like mine.
Where Lachlan and Jase had brown eyes and sandy-colored hair, my locks were dark and thick, my irises dark blue.
The difference between us was palpable—if anyone cared to look, but it was everything else: the way we stood, the furrow in our brows when we were angry, that same never-back-down Quinn energy that made us brothers more than anything else, of the same blood above all.
After Grandfather Quinn’s confession about my mother’s affair and my father, I never thought I’d see myself in my siblings again. But as Jase confronts me, angry and outraged, I realize that my brothers and I are exactly alike…
Hardheaded.
I’d projected perfection because all my life I felt I didn’t belong and it isn’t until now, standing here hours before Jase’s wedding, that I realize I’ve been staring into a mirror all along.
My shoulders slump, one hand going to my hip. “Is that your solution?” I wave towards Jase’s balled-up fist. “You’re going to fight me to get me to talk?’
My brother nods. “If that’s what it takes.”
“You’ve never won a figh
t between us and you never will.”
“At least I can say I’ve tried. Mindy knows a lot of tricks to get spots out of clothing; I’ll have to ask about blood. But we’re not going to do this anymore… Leave this tension.” He inhales loudly, letting go of the same breath. “We’ve been leaving it for too long, and I’m done, Noah. I’m done.” His eyes gloss over, a renewed sheen shining in their chocolate-covered depths. His jaw ticks. “I want my fucking brother back. And I don’t care how.”
I want to tell him that he’s always had him. But that would be a lie.
What my brother had from me for the last seven years was nothing but a shell, a husk of a man—a Stepford person, whose entire focus lie on some misguided idea of excellence.
My past was catching up with me, but I was no longer trying to hide it. I was letting it strengthen me, empower me—make me more of the man I was trying to be.
I take a step closer to Jase, sliding one hand into the pocket of my slacks. I sigh. “So, do what you have to do.”
“I will.”
Another step. “Put your hands on me, if you have to.”
“You think I won’t?”
Another step. This one draws me to toe-to-toe with Jase and I face him, fists and all. Our jaws are unmoving, nerves made of steel. The same Quinn DNA keeps either of us from looking away and at the same time, at the exact same moment, both of us go for it, reaching out for one another…gripping each other close in a hug.
It’s a touch I didn’t know I needed. Not until now.
Jase has heard everything I told Ainsley. He knows everything.
And the secrets disappear between us as if disintegrated into thin air.
I wrap my eldest brother close, holding tight.
Cyn was right…
I was jealous of him.
Jealous that he found the love I’d secretly craved for. Jealous that he’d found the woman to complement him, complete him.
But things were different now. Because I’d found that woman for me.
There’s so much left to say to Jase, but I back out of our hard embrace, a knot twisting in my stomach as I realize that I still haven’t found Sophia.
Where is she?
Jase steps back, seeing the fear in my eyes.
“What’s wrong?” He asks.
“What’s wrong?” I hear Lachlan comment from the corner of the room, now watching us. “What’s wrong is that I wasn’t a part of this hug. Why didn’t you tossers call me?”
We laugh, reaching out for baby bro, but like the youngest, he backs up, stepping away just out of reach. “Whoa, wait. I didn’t come here for affection just yet. I’m getting plenty of that from the bridesmaids downstairs.” He grins. “But I did come because it looks like we’ve got an escapee.” He looks at me. “Hazel eyes. Dark and ombre hair… Someone saw a woman who looks like that getting into a cab and leaving.”
The information makes my heart thump.
Because it’s not just any woman getting into a cab.
It’s the woman who should still be in this bed, in this room.
My woman.
And I was going to get her back, no matter what it took.
Chapter 26
SOPHIA
The rain is torrential by the time my cab makes it back to New York. Traffic is overwhelming, the streets swarmed for an early Sunday afternoon, and soon anticipation gets the best of me, not to mention the meter.
The damned thing is running like a racehorse, over eighty dollars now, and instead of running it up all the way home, I hand over my credit card to the driver, hoping it’s not maxed, hopping out into the rain.
Horns honk in the congested street. Yellow taxis clog the avenues. The sound of jackhammers still plows away in the distance. And all of it—all of the noise, the discord, the turmoil of the City? It all mimics the inside of my mind, and I’m once again faced with the reality that I could leave.
Run from New York. Run from the city.
Run to a quieter place, one with more peace. Away from the sirens and the smell of wet concrete.
God, sometimes running away feels like the only option. Especially on a day like today.
And still I stay.
Heading up the block, hunched against the winter rain, my long coat wrapped around my shoulders, bag held tight, I lose myself in the pandemonium that is Manhattan.
Because New York is in my blood.
It’s a city that’s toughened me in unimaginable ways, pieced together the beautiful mess that I am.
If there’s only one place that I feel comfortable, that feels like home, it’s here.
And as I settle in against the set of double doors I’d been searching for on the street, I realize that this damn city is my security, my safety.
New York is my home.
I’d lied, begged and borrowed all to live here.
I’d searched for safety all my life, a real home. But there was no home like the one I’d been born in…or the one I found for a few beautiful moments in Noah Quinn’s muscular arms.
I try to shake off the feeling of being with Noah, however, even as I shake off the rain.
Under the awning of The Alchemist’s front door, I sigh, finally having reached the restaurant-pub when I remember, reaching for the door, that it’s Sunday…of all days.
A day where the doors don’t open until mid-afternoon. And I stand there, dumbfounded, soaking wet, ready to dive back onto the wet street when the double doors open behind me, and Rick, prick that he is, pops his head out, his blond hair shiny and pale as he looks at me.
“What the hell?” He glances up at the sky and down at me. “Somerset, what the hell are you doing here?”
“Currently? Wondering how to swim home.” I sniff back rainwater. “You?”
“Running the books a bit. We don’t officially open up for another two hours.”
I stare back, my voice deadpan. “Gee, I hadn’t noticed, Rick. I’ll see ya.”
But the overly primped manager reaches for me, his fingers locking around my wrist. He’s never touched me like this before. He’s never touched me at all. And I have to fight back a shiver, suppress a small chill that runs down my spine as he looks at me, his cocoa-colored eyes almost black underneath the dark sky.
He finally lets me go.
“We might not be open for another two hours. But that doesn’t mean you can’t wait inside.” He straightens to his full height. “Are you on shift today?”
“Not officially.”
“Why don’t you come on for work then? I know you could use the extra money…”
It’s a comment laced with latent curiosity. But I step inside anyway.
As I cross the threshold, I wonder quietly to myself why I can’t shake the cold settling on my skin, the silent frigidity seeping into my bones as I walk inside with Rick alone.
I inhale a deep breath, shrugging the feeling off, and for the first time I can remember, notice that Rick actually looks happy to see me.
The bar manager smiles.
NOAH
“Can we push this piece of shit car any faster?”
Jase rolls his eyes. “For Christ’s sake, it’s only a Ferrari, Noah. And the answer to your question is: Yes, we could. If we want to end up on the side of the goddamned highway in a ditch.”
Lachlan adds in. “Grandfather always did warn us about those ditches. At least we’d be the best dressed corpses anyone’s ever seen.”
He’s right, you know. We would be in our three-piece tuxedos.
Crammed in what should be a two-seater for Jase and Mindy’s honeymoon trip, we’re instead heading back on the highway to New York. The thought of me loving anyone this much has my brothers sent into overdrive to help, but their commentary on the ride over is the last thing I need, each brother voicing his own opinion as we drive into the city to find the woman I love.
And Lachlan’s the worst. He pipes up for unprompted advice number fifty-seven, his bowtie crooked as he cocks his head from what sho
uld be the Ferrari’s trunk.
“And where exactly are we driving to so fast? At these speeds, it’d better be food since I missed brunch. That is, if we don’t hydroplane and end up on the side of the road?”
Jase calls over his shoulder from the driver’s seat. “We’re almost in the city. You can eat once we’re there.”
“Please, tell me it won’t be that soil-serving restaurant near the gallery…”
I glance back at him. “We’re headed to Sophia’s apartment. It’s the only place I can think to go.”
“Now let me get this straight. This is a woman who stole from you, correct?”
I suddenly regret telling him the truth back at the house. “Yes.”
“And then you blackmailed her with a note confessing to the crime?”
I swallow. “Yes.”
“And then you fell in love with her?”
“Once again, Lachlan…for the fiftieth time, yes.”
“And you think that Hepatitis A ran her off?”
Shaking my head, I wonder why I tell my little brother anything at all. I resist the urge to nod. “Yes, I’m sure Ainsley said something to scare her away.”
“Well, I’ll say this: You sure know how to pick up them, bro. Between your beloved thief and—What’s her name, Alzheimers? You’ve got an array of women who would scare off the strongest of men.”
“I don’t have an array of women anymore, Lach. Just one. And if we don’t find her, I’m afraid she’ll run.” I glance out the rainy window. “You don’t know Sophia. What that woman wants, she gets. And if she wants to get far away from me, that’s exactly what she’ll do.”
I peek up at a sign that says we’ve entered the city limits. “Let’s just make sure to get to her before she does.”
And soon Jase’s little Ferrari careens into the Bronx, speeding fast amidst the slush. We cross over the bridge, heading into Manhattan. Soon as we enter Harlem, the wind picks up, slamming against the tiny car.
Nearly tossed off the road by a slew of other cabs and buses, we actually make it in one piece to Sophia’s apartment building’s door.
