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I hurriedly dry myself off and tug on my clothes, minus panties, which are too embarrassingly damp to put back on. I snatch my phone from my purse, the keycard from the dresser, and leave the room. Besides the parlor, there are two more rooms—a small dining room and adjoining reading room. They’re both empty. I finger my phone, and am debating whether to call him, or go out and see if his car is still outside, when I hear a low, harsh curse.
I look through the dining room window. He’s outside. His phone is clamped to his ear and he’s pacing the lawn while frantically rubbing his temple.
“It’s been a goddamn week! You have everything you need. How fucking hard can it be? Never mind what I’m doing. Just do your goddamn job… Shit, I’m sorry…of course…I know that wasn’t part of the plan…no, everything is still going ahead…Wednesday is fine. Start with their email and phone contacts, as agreed. Send everything. Then as many networks as possible. Nothing has changed, you have my word. Just…I need this thing handled too.”
He stops and listens for a minute. My heart is racing like a wild mustang on crack and I don’t even know why. My whole body freezes when he lets out a blood-curdling laugh.
“My soul?” he seethes, before his shoulders hunch forward in abject, harrowing dejection. “Please don’t waste your time worrying about something you can’t change. Yeah…bye.”
He slides the phone onto his back pocket and balls his fists. He’s turned away from me so I can’t see his face, but his body language is chilling.
He must sense my regard, because he tenses and whirls. His gaze zeros in on where I’m standing at the window.
We stare at each other, the earth cracking beneath our feet, doom blasting its imminent arrival. Quinn slowly uncurls his fist and walks back inside. He finds me at the window, unmoving. Hands cup my shoulders and he slides his face next to mine.
“No questions. Please, Elyse.”
“It really is going to be a temporary thing for us, isn’t it?”
His breath locks, then he exhales in a rush. “Yes. I’m sorry.”
I nod calmly, even though my newly loved up heart is screaming. “Yeah. I’m sorry too.”
I let him lead me back upstairs. Undress me. Put me in bed and slide in next to me. This time our lovemaking is near silent, our only communication with our eyes. Afterward, he pulls me into his arms. And we sleep. I don’t dream. I don’t know if he does.
We end up staying two more days. When Quinn goes out to get toothbrushes and a few supplies, I text Fionnella. She comes back with a pass to live my life. The worry that Q may be done with me grows, but not enough to derail my time with Quinn.
For a hefty extra, the manager, Cindy, makes our meals and brings them up to the room. In between eating and sleeping, Quinn Blackwood fucks me like he’s a raging addict and I’m his last ever line of coke.
When we eventually leave the memorable B&B, my heart weeps all through the drive back to Manhattan. At one point, the pain gets so bad that I dig the hand I placed on Quinn’s thigh into his skin without conscious thought. That earns me a detour to a deserted lay-by and a quick, rabid fuck over the hood of the Mercedes with my jeans wrapped around my knees.
Worry and the afterglow of sex eventually lulls me into sleep. I wake up from a murky dream with my heart hammering. We’re a few blocks from the loft in Hell’s Kitchen.
A few blocks from possibly not seeing Quinn again.
I glance at him. His jaw is rigid, the hand over my own on his thigh gripping me tight. When we arrive, he turns the ignition off. I release my seatbelt and open the door, but he doesn’t let me go. He stays put, his hand still trapping my own. My searching glance meets turbulent silver blue eyes.
He opens his mouth. “Elly, I need to tell you—”
Something’s coming. Something bad. This might be the only chance I get, so I pre-empt him.
“Quinn.”
“Hmm?”
“I love you.”
His eyes flare wide. Wider than I’ve ever seen. His face loses all color and he starts to shake his head. “Elyse…Jesus—”
The mobile in the console blares through the car. We both look at it and freeze. Three rings. Four. He looks at me and shakes his head. But he picks up the phone.
The voice is female. And it’s agitated. Quinn’s eyes dart to mine and I read his icy trepidation. He throws his door open, then freezes.
“What are you talking about?” he fires. His eyes search the rearview mirror frantically before his head swivels round. The glance he throws at me is filled with dread and black fury. “No, dammit. Where are the damn bodyguards? I don’t see them. I don’t see anything. Are you sure?”
A different sort of fear grips me. Whereas I feared for my emotions a few seconds ago, now my terror is expanding. Sinister forces are looming large and unstoppable. What terrifies me more than anything is that all my senses are screaming that my already deeply precarious situation is about to get a whole lot worse. And that somehow Quinn is involved. I don’t want to believe it.
But…karma. And the look in his eyes leaves little room for ambivalence.