by Payne, Lyla
“I think so, yes.”
He was quiet for a while, clicking on web pages and jotting down notes. I followed suit. Focusing on the project helped slow the pounding of my heart. Toby was the first person I’d told besides Ruby.
I certainly hadn’t thought things would turn out this way. But Ana’s gap-toothed smile kept rising in my mind, and staying and doing what my father wanted meant breaking my promise to her. I couldn’t do that.
“I’ll miss you, Emilie.”
“You’re the only one. Maybe Ruby.” I regretted the suggestion of self-pity in the words the moment they left my mouth.
“You mean Quinn.” He pressed when silence answered him. “Tell me you’re not hung up on him.”
I sighed, tired of pretending all the time. “Maybe I am. It’s been weeks and things should be getting easier, but I miss him.”
“Miss him? You only knew him for a week.”
“I know. It’s dumb.”
Toby’s dark eyes flicked around the room as though he thought someone would be listening into our pathetic conversation. That would have been embarrassing, since I was being such a stupid girl. It had been weeks since I’d said anything about Quinn to Ruby, even. She hadn’t changed her mind about him, but avoided the topic like a box of grocery-store hair dye.
“Do you trust me, Emilie?” Toby’s eyes probed mine.
“With what? I mean, to do my homework, maybe. To take me rock climbing, probably not.”
“I’m serious.”
“Yes, I can see that.” My throat tightened in anticipation, sure I didn’t want to hear whatever was coming. “Just say it.”
“You can’t tell anyone I told you. I’ll get my ass kicked again, and this time it won’t be just my face and a few ribs.”
Oxygen sucked out of my lungs. If he was going to reveal something about Quinn, what would that have to do with his getting hurt? “Did Quinn do that to you?”
He shook his head. “I’m not going to talk about that. And I’m not going to give you any specifics about what goes on at SEA. I’m going to say this—the next time you talk to Annette, ask her to describe exactly how she met Quinn at the U.S. Open party.”
“Time’s up for today, class. I’ll see you after spring break!” Our prof clicked off the overhead and grabbed his briefcase and jacket, hitting the bricks like maybe he was late for a pub crawl of his own.
I turned to Toby as he dumped his notebook and pen into his messenger bag. “What do you mean? Why?”
“That’s all I’m saying. I only said that much because we’re friends. I like you. You should forget any fantasies you have about Quinn Rowland being a good guy behind the rep. Ask Annette. You’ll see.” He swept out of the classroom before I could move.
Talking to Annette didn’t hold any sort of appeal for me, since the last thing I wanted was to be lectured or commiserate with someone else Quinn had deemed unworthy. But my curiosity prickled. Not to mention I badly wanted to find a way to convince myself that I shouldn’t miss Quinn’s presence in my life. Maybe it had been under my nose all this time.
***
“Annette, are you busy?”
I found her in the Chapter Room, kind of like the common room in the sorority house, empty except for her. We held our meetings there, prepared skits and studied potential new members during Rush, and it offered a quiet place to study most weeknights.
Floral paper spackled the walls with creams, maroons, and navy blues—our sorority colors—and the frilly furniture all matched. A baby grand piano sat at one end, between the windows that faced the back lawn, and Annette sat curled up in a high-backed chair with a thick textbook on her lap, the television muted as some reality crap spun across the screen.
She looked up at the sound of my voice, sunny hair bouncing prettily around her round face. Her lips pursed. “What do you want?”
This wasn’t going to be easy, apparently. We hadn’t spoken except for meetings and committees since the eighties prom theme party. She had no idea that anything had been going on between Quinn and me, or that I’d had an experience similar to hers, and I preferred to keep it that way.
“I wanted to talk to you for a minute.” I took a deep breath. “About Quinn Rowland.”
“What about him?”
I hoped this conversation wasn’t about to undo months of therapy. The chair opposite her was empty and the soft maroon fabric sank gently under my weight. “I’m sorry I blindsided you by bringing him to the last theme party. It wasn’t planned or I would have told you ahead of time.”
“He just accidentally showed up?” Sarcasm oozed but I deserved it.
I made fun of the whole sisterhood thing sometimes, but in truth, I loved being a part of DE. I couldn’t claim to be friends with all of the girls living under this roof, but I did care about them all. “My date was hospitalized and he asked Quinn to fill in at the last minute. I didn’t know until he showed up at the door, I swear.”
“I forgive you.” Annette sighed, closing her Bio textbook and dropping it on the carpeted floor with a thud. “Why did your date call Quinn? Are the two of you friends?”
“I’m not sure Quinn has any friends.”
The response wasn’t going to appease her, not after I’d sparked her curiosity by coming in here, but telling her everything was out of the question. For her sanity, but also for the sake of my poor aching heart, which had somehow gotten tangled up in this situation in spite of my best efforts to check it at the door.
It wasn’t even the sex that had drawn my feelings into this mess with Quinn. It was the guy hovering behind the playboy. The one who made me laugh, who made me believe in my ability as a painter and understood what it was like to have all the money in the world but an uncertain future.
Not to say my body didn’t ache to explode the way it did under his again, but that wasn’t what hurt. It wasn’t why I was here talking to Annette.
“We met at his Aussie Open party.” My eyes darted to hers. “I’m friends with this guy Toby and he invited me, so Ruby and I went but we didn’t tell anyone.”
“I already knew you were there. Brooke told me.”
Figured.
“Okay, well…that’s kind of what I wanted to talk to you about.”
“I don’t care if you went to the party. I would have done the same thing in your shoes.”
“No…” I hesitated one last time, unsure that asking her to relive what had clearly been a traumatizing night was the sisterly thing to do. But I had to know. “Would you tell me exactly how you met Quinn at the U.S. Open party?”
Storm clouds darkened Annette’s blue eyes. Her lips pursed again as she studied me, maybe trying to decide why I wanted to know.
“I wouldn’t ask if it wasn’t important.”
“I’m sorry I ever met him, Em. You know?”
I nodded but couldn’t meet her eye. I knew I should be sorry I met Quinn. But I wasn’t.
“I went with Suzie and Jo but they disappeared like, as soon as I walked in the door. Sebastian Blair—you know him?”
“Yes.” My brain felt numb after the opening sentence of her story.
“Anyway he showed up and said since I was wandering around alone maybe I’d like a drink. And you know his reputation as well as I did, but being alone in the middle of a crazy party sounded like a worse idea than having a drink with him. Oh! And I ran into Quinn on the way outside to the back deck.”
A sick feeling dropped into my stomach and roiled. “And?”
“He just…the way he looked at me like we had a connection stole my breath, you know? And everything that had ever been said about him started to fade away right then.” Tears filled her eyes but she blinked them away. “So Sebastian and I drank for a while, and we were shooting Irish Car Bombs—”
“Did you say Irish Car Bombs?” My voice whispered out, true horror dampening my ability to form words.
“Yeah, why?”
“Let me guess—you spilled it and Quinn took you
upstairs to change.”
Her cheeks grew red at the memory. I didn’t have to ask what happened after that.
“How did you guess that?”
Our gazes locked. Annette looked wrecked and embarrassed, used and discarded all over again. I imagined in my gaze she saw something like murderous intent. Betrayal. Indignation.
“Because it’s exactly what happened to me.”
***
My brain didn’t click back into coherence until I’d made it halfway to Quinn’s beach house.
That’s when I realized the next tennis major—the French Open—was still weeks away. I had no idea whether or not Quinn stayed at the house or on campus between massive bouts of debauchery. Confronting him probably wouldn’t accomplish anything—I hadn’t spoken to or seen him in weeks, so obviously I’d imagined everything between us. Or his desire to turn tail and run outstripped everything else.
I didn’t care. He deserved to know we knew his game. That he wasn’t getting away with it anymore. Maybe this would be the thing that finally let me get over him.
I yanked the wheel around and sped back toward campus, taking the turns as tight as my black Mercedes would let me, and slammed it into park in front of the Sigma Epsilon Alpha house. After almost two years at Whitman I knew my way around most of the frat houses, given that they took turns hosting after bar parties. This was where Toby and I had become friends.
The three-story house towered at the end of a long, winding drive, surrounded by a manicured lawn and trimmed landscaping trying to distract from the disgusting hovel created by a hundred guys living in one place. Tall trees shrouded the house from sight, at least from the road, but over a hill the Beta Kappa house sat within striking distance of a golf ball and a strong swing.
Which I happened to know from experience.
The bare floor inside stuck to the soles of my flats, making sucking noises as I crossed the empty front room. All of the furniture had been shoved to the edges to make room for more people and a makeshift dance floor. End tables and lamps piled atop couches and chairs in the dining room to my right, as well, but the place was dead.
Saint Patrick’s Day was tomorrow, which meant most of the guys were probably out getting an early start, but someone would be here.
And they would tell me where I could find Quinn.
I looked like a stalker but my anger had barely faded during the fifteen minutes it had taken me to get here. A setup. Meeting me, trying to sleep with me, had all been a setup.
How much of our interaction had been tainted by his falsehoods? Had everything he said, every glimpse into his so-called inner self, been a carefully manufactured lie intended to soften me up? How many of the guys were in on it?
Betrayal over Toby’s complicit involvement burned in my stomach. It eased only a little at the reminder that he cared enough to make sure I found out the truth, even if his invitation had set the entire thing in motion.
The SEA house had a game room toward the back, between the kitchen and a shared bathroom I’d rather die than use. Fifteen guys lounged on mismatched couches and cloth tailgate chairs, cradling beers, playing foosball, and watching March Madness basketball. Silence swept the room as one-by-one they noticed me standing in the doorway. They all just stared until Trent, a guy I recognized as a friend of Toby’s, stepped forward.
His dark eyes were hesitant. “Hey, it’s Emilie, right? Swanson?”
“Please. Cut the bullshit. I’m willing to bet you all know my name, along with plenty more details I’d rather you didn’t. Where’s Quinn?” My teeth ground together and my throat burned with the effort of not shouting.
Trent’s gaze flicked over his friends, then he licked his lips. “Why?”
“Because I want to talk to him. You all helped me fuck him, the least you can do is help me talk to him for two minutes.”
The surprise on their faces had nothing to do with them not understanding my statement. It was that I had figured out whatever fucked-up game they were playing around here.
“I, um. Well…”
“Trent. I don’t give a shit about you little flunkies. Where. Is. Quinn. Rowland.”
Despite the fact that he was at least six feet tall and towered over me by six-plus inches, he took a step back from my advance. “Let me text him, okay? He doesn’t…no one goes in his room here.”
“Fine.”
Quinn stumbled into the doorway less than three minutes later, looking disheveled and heartbreakingly handsome. His sleep tired eyes cleared quickly at the sight of me, flicking through unease and wariness before landing on his trademark disinterest. “Emilie? What are you doing here?”
“I have a question to ask you.”
He crossed his arms in front of his threadbare Adidas t-shirt and stared down at his bare feet. It made me stare too, and I hated the jump in my pulse at the image of him curled up in bed.
“Well, ask.”
All of the sudden, talking about this in front of ten other people sounded like a bad idea. Heat rose in my face. I looked like a crazy person.
No. Quinn was the crazy person. But still.
“Can we go somewhere private?”
He smirked. “I thought I made it clear that I was done with that.”
My anger returned with the haughty statement, erasing any temporary embarrassment. I willed my heart to slow down. I wanted to match his too-cool ass point for point. “I had an interesting chat with Annette Davis today.”
“Oh?” The question emerged lazily but a flicker of apprehension appeared in his beautiful gaze.
“Yes, quite. And as we were comparing notes about your grossly exaggerated sexual performance,” I smirked back, “something else came up.”
The silence at my back had jaws and teeth, nipping at my bravado—my fury-heightened senses heard each member of our audience breathing separately. No one made a sound or went to leave. Quinn didn’t respond to my jab. The small smile playing on his lips said he knew good and well how much I’d enjoyed the few hours we’d spent on that couch.
“It was a setup. All of it. Her. Me. The parties at the beach.”
“What’s your point, Emilie?” The absolute void of emotion in his face chilled me.
“How many times have you done it? Was I the first one to say no?”
“No isn’t the word I recall you saying.”
Despite my best efforts, tears welled up in my eyes. He saw them and his jaw tightened. Anger lit his electric eyes on fire. “Nothing I do is any of your business. You had your fun, and so did Annette. Now, I think it would be best if you left. You look upset.”
My throat throbbed; sobs threatened to well up and over. My heart was breaking and my head was screaming at the rest of me for being so stupid.
The dumbest thing of all was the small voice insisting he was lying even now.
I stepped toward him, trying to erase the space between us so we couldn’t be overheard, but the warning in his face made me stop. “It was all part of some game? Sebastian gets me to drink too much, a conveniently timed bump spills a nasty smelling drink, Quinn the white knight appears to save the day?”
“That pretty much sums it up.”
“What about the rest of it? The beach and the party and the loft?”
Quinn re-crossed his muscled arms and leaned against the door jamb. “I told you the truth on the beach about never losing. And in this particular game, I don’t win until I fuck you.” His smiled mocked me. “You fell for it so easily. Poor, misunderstood Quinn Rowland.”
My hands curled into fists. “A game. I don’t believe you.”
And I didn’t. He was trying a little too hard to convince me and everyone else in this room that nothing that had transpired between us had been real. But I’d been there. I’d heard his voice and felt the gentle reverence in his touch, had woken up with him cradling me close. “You liked being with me, too.”
“It was all about winning the game, Emilie. Every word I said. Every smile. Every touch. Every l
ast moment.” His hard, emotionless gaze found mine. It was like his soul had been sucked away, like he was the eye of a hurricane and the winds funneled away feelings. “You’re being pathetic.”
Every ounce of self-preservation begged me to run. I didn’t. I walked deliberately to the doorway and paused next to him, close enough to smell his sweet saltiness, and looked him straight in the eye. “No. You’re being pathetic.”
I left with as much dignity as I could muster. Once I was back in my car, I cried. All the way home.
Chapter Seventeen
Quinn
“I don’t understand what the problem is, Q.” Sebastian dropped a handful of ice into a tumbler and poured whiskey over it. “We cashed in with Emilie Swanson. And after that display at the frat house over Saint Patrick’s Day, everyone’s half convinced you’re losing your touch. People will bet against you this time and we’ll clean up.”
I frowned at his drink. “Why are you putting ice in your whiskey?”
“It’s morning.”
The answer was as ridiculous as my question, I supposed. “No problem. I’m just weary of this game. It’s too easy. I need a new challenge.”
“Unfortunately, you’re not good at anything other than bedding women.”
The comment rankled—he meant it to—but I merely smiled. Sebastian didn’t know I’d been going above and beyond with my multimedia project. My father and I had a meeting this afternoon and I planned to pitch him what I hoped would be my opportunity to build my own brand within Rowland Communications. Prove myself to him.
He might hate me but he was a businessman first. And I was an asset.
Those damned pictures meant I couldn’t get out from under Seb’s thumb, but I could try to convince him to change things up. My heart wasn’t in this anymore. I didn’t care what Alexandria did or how many tournaments she won. After I’d spent a week with alive, driven, good-hearted Emilie, Alexandria seemed like a paper doll. A pale copy of every other girl I’d met until last January, when the most unexpected one had walked into my house and woken me up.
