Page 86 of Savage Suit

She covered her face with her hands and sobbed a moment before looking at me. “Daddy cared, too. Daddy put her before himself. Mama wanted him to stay in the city, so he did and married her. Not caring what a slow death he’d condemned himself to.”

I clung to one truth. “We don’t know if her information is true.” Though deep down Iknew. Everything she said was factual.

“Fuck you,” Quinn cried. “Fuck you, Ryan. We know. You’re saying that for your benefit, not mine. I saw you. Your shock and pain. You were a moment away from fainting. One day, that’s going to fuck you in the ass. Everything, all you’ve ignored, is going to bubble over and leave you just like him.Them,” she snarled, tears pouring down her cheeks. “Dead!” she shouted, shoving my shoulder. “Dead like him. Then you’ll have left me too, goddamn you.”

She doubled over in pain, then fell to her knees, falling apart on live TV.

Before she ended up in a heap on the floor, I kneeled and hugged her to me. As much as I wanted to ignore them, my own tears were hot on my cheeks.

Quinn’s heart-wrenching sobs echoed through the lobby. I combed my fingers through her hair, singing a lullaby my mother sung to us. I was terribly off-key; Mama had a beautiful singing voice.

“Ryan?” Reid crouched behind Quinn. “Noah is fit to be tied. We managed to get him on the elevator.”

I continued singing.

“What can I do to help?”

“Kill that bitch,” I said with surprising swiftness and particular viciousness.

“I’m so happy your mic has been cut.”

I didn’t care.

“Noah wants to talk to you in his office.”

“I’m not leaving my sister.”

“I’ll look after her.”

I snorted.

“We will find the truth about your parents, but what she said about Quinn sleeping with me and Noah for you to get this job is bullshit. I can swear that she’s never slept with my cousin. She’s never met him.”

Quinn dragged herself out of my arms and sniffled. “Reid has never brought me to an event where I might meet any of his family,” she said hoarsely.

“I know,” I said truthfully, my sanity returning.

Reid got to his feet, leaned down, and scooped Quinn into his arms. Instead of protesting, she leaned her head against his shoulder. “I’m in excellent hands, Ryan,” she said tiredly. “You should see what your boss wants.”

As I stood and brushed off my dress, I saw that my borrowed bracelet lay in pieces on the floor. The day dawning with such promise had descended into madness.

Chapter Nineteen

“Get the fuck away from me,” I snarled, knocking away Nicholas’s hold on me the moment he and Nathaniel hustled me into my office. They’d refused to release me in the elevator and damned near dragged me off and down the hallway. At my door, Jose had been waiting to unlock it. Now, the three of them and a host of other men crowded me.

My reaction to Ryan’s pain and shock had been visceral. I hadn’t thought. I’d acted, until Reid and Nicholas intervened—interrupted—my fury, warning me to withdraw and reorganize before the press forgot Ryan and focused on me.

“They will tear her apart,” Reid had warned me, “if they note how you are reacting to a woman supposedly only your employee.”

“Now I understand all the allowances,” Nicholas cut in. “You want to fuck her. Congratulations. You’re human after all. But Reid is right. Further, the company will never recover from accusations of sexual misconduct.”

“And the world won’t appreciate her talents, Noah,” Reid added. “They’ll believe it was her skill on her back that won her place in KMG, answerable only to you.”

It was those words that had decided me, so with little ado, I’d allowed Nicholas and the security team to escort me to the elevator, vaguely aware of voices and sobbing.

After taking Nathaniel and Alessia to a lunch that lasted longer than expected, I’d arrived minutes after Ryan had taken her place at the podium and dove into her speech.

I’d had every intention of introducing her and standing at her side while she spoke. Instead, I’d taken the opportunity to get to know my brother’s fiancé. She had seemed so genuinely hurt by my accusations and Nathaniel had looked so crestfallen, I hadn’t been able to hurry back to the office. He had depended on me to serve as his witness, or else he wouldn’t have called me.