Rather than explaining herself, Quinn’s eyes fill with tears before she climbs off me and starts for the bathroom. The door closes behind her, and a moment later I hear the spray of a shower. Anger flickers at the pit of my stomach, even though I have no right to be mad at her. She told me she doesn’t love my brother, but her blatant refusal to allow me to fight for her speaks volumes. So what the hell is her game?

Connecting with her sweet body was fucking amazing, even though I knew it may never happen again after what she said about nothing changing, and even though it brings back painful memories that I thought were buried too deep to resurface.

---

Two days before our graduation from high school, I knew that if I didn’t let her go, her life would be in danger. I had been avoiding it for as long as possible, knowing she wouldn’t understand and that it very well could break her heart. Mine was already shredded to pieces just seeing her enter my bedroom that night in torn jean shorts and a blue tank top that brought out the striking shade of her pale blue eyes. Blond hair framing her tanned face, lips curled with a beaming smile, she was so damn beautiful that it physically hurt to know she’d no longer be mine.

When she met my somber expression, the light left her eyes. She hurried over to where I was sitting on the edge of my bed, wrapping her hands around my bicep.

“Babe, what’s wrong?”

I glanced down on her, feeling whatever courage I had slip with the sight of her beautiful face. “I have to tell you something.”

She let out a nervous laugh. “You act like you’re breaking up with me or something.” When I didn’t return her smile, her hands fell into her lap. “Linc, this isn’t funny.”

I rubbed at my forehead, wishing there was some other way that we could be together. But the same reason we met was the same thing that was driving us apart, and I was helpless to change it.

“We always knew it wouldn’t last,” I blurted.

The way she looked at me just then, betrayal etched on her pretty face, broke me in two. “What are you talking about?”

“I don’t want to be tied down.” It was a blatant lie, but it was easier to tell than the truth. I already knew she’d hate me the way it was, but I wasn’t ready for her to despise me for everything I had done. “College is supposed to be about finding yourself. I can’t do that if I’m anchored to you.”

Once she realized I was dead serious, she folded her arms over her stomach and tears pooled in her eyes. I hated myself for putting them there. I just wanted to hold her, even though it wasn’t an option. “We’ve spent the last year planning out our future! What about Stanford?”

“We’ll both still go….just not together.” As my throat thickened, I looked away from her. “You can’t turn down the scholarship they’re offering.”

She shot up to her feet and crossed the room to my dresser with hurried steps. With her back facing me, she wrapped her arms around her waist. “I don’t understand why you’re doing this. Is there someone else?”

The instinct to comfort her was so great that I had to look away. It wasn’t fair to her that I wanted her for all eternity, but I still wanted it more than anything. I would’ve given up everything for her, and that’s essentially what I was doing.

“There’s nothing to understand,” I said in a flat tone. Then she turned around and I stared at her as I said something so cruel and heartless that I wouldn’t be able to sleep soundly for months after. But it had to be done. If I didn’t give her a reason to hate me, she’d never believe the lie. “Look where you came from, Quinn. Do you actually think someone who lives off the government and has a junkie for a mom was going to effortlessly fit in with a millionaire’s family? How do you think they’d look at you if you came to the country club? This could never work in the long run, Quinn. We weren’t meant to continue on together after high school.”

Her cheeks became wet with tears as she stood there, slowly shaking her head. “What happened to you? You’ve never talked to me this way before. Did your dad say something?”

“You think I’d actually listen to that asshole?” I snarled, even though she hit the nail on the head. My old man had come into my room the night before, delivering threats that I couldn’t live with. Channeling my anger for him was the only way I could look back at her without becoming too emotional to carry my plan all the way through to the end. “This is about me needing to make a change.”

Something clearly snapped when she balled her hands into fists at her sides and started for me. “You’re right, I am a junkie’s daughter, and I do come from the shittiest part of town, but you’re the one always saying that doesn’t define who I am! This doesn’t make any sense!” Nostrils flaring, she gave me a cold, loathsome look that I felt with every nerve in my body. “So you’ve stopped loving me, just like that, or was that a lie you told me so I’d sleep with you?”

I looked at her and shook my head. “I’m sorry.”

It was the only truthful thing I said to her that day.

---

Quinn exits the bathroom wearing the sweet little white dress I peeled off her not too long ago, hair wrapped in a towel. She inhales sharply when her eyes fall on my naked body and the rousing hard-on pulling at my dick. Looking away, she mutters, “You should really go now.”

“Seems you’re the one who regrets this.”

She scoops my cargo shorts off the floor and throws them at me, meeting my gaze. “I don’t. But I can’t be around you like this. Not the way things stand.”

“How do they stand, Quinn?” I scoot off the bed and stalk toward her. “Are you ready to tell me the real reason you’re with my brother, or did you come here to have sex with me simply as a way to piss him off?”

Her expression becomes heavy with pain. “That’s not fair.”

“You want to talk about what’s fair?” I snarl, grabbing onto her arms. “You should try walking in my shoes. I can’t imagine anything fucking worse than returning from a dangerous mission on the other side of the world to discover my girl is getting married to the brother I’ve hated all my life!”

Tilting her head back, she pulls away from me and shuffles over to the bed, dropping down to the mattress with her head held in her hands. I hold my breath when she looks up and begins to speak.

“After you left, I missed you so damn much that I wanted to die. I kept hoping you didn’t mean it when you told me we were done.” Her captivating gaze meets mine before she throws out another one of those plastic smiles. “But when you never called, never messaged me, I decided you must’ve hated me for getting you shipped off like that. So I started hating myself too until I was numb and didn’t care about anything. I don’t even know how I finished college and got a job because I merely existed. Then one day Kellen walked into the office where I was interning, glaring at me like he was furious that I dared to come back into his life, and all the memories of him being a jerk in high school came rushing back. It felt good to be hated. It was the first real emotion I had felt in years.”

“Christ, Quinn.” Regret spirals through my chest with the force of a tsunami. I sit down beside her and squeeze my twitching fingers into fists. “I hate myself for making you feel that way and driving you into that bastard’s arms. But I’ve never spent a second of my life hating you.”

“Those things you said…that night in your room before graduation…it felt pretty hateful to me.”

“I didn’t mean a word of it.” I turn to her, taking her face in my hands. “One day I hope to tell you why I left, but first I have to know that you’re completely invested in you and me, no matter the cost. Because the shit I’m forced to keep from you isn’t only to protect you, but to save us from being destroyed as a couple. And you have to promise that you’ll break this bogus engagement with Kellen when you return to San Francisco. I won’t stand by and watch you continue with this self-torture bullshit.”

She pushes my hands away. “Do you really think it’s as easy as telling Kellen that I’m still in love with you so the two of us can ride off together into the sunset? We’ve only been back in each other’s lives for a few days, and it sounds like we’re both holding onto pretty big secrets that could have the power to drive us apart a second time. How am I supposed to prove that I’m ‘fully invested in us’ when I have no idea what you’re offering?”

I lean my twitching fingers back against the bed, trying my damnedest not to scowl. “I’m offering to love you unconditionally, Quinn. It’s as simple as that. Everything else will eventually fall into place. We’ll survive whatever shit-storm life throws at us as long as we’re together.”

“You can’t expect me to accept your offer on blind faith. I need time to think this over. I can’t run back to you just because the sex is still good.”

“It was ‘good’, huh?” Shaking my head, I chuckle. “Sweetheart, from my end it was better than ‘good’. Being inside you after all this time was fucking phenomenal. I’d go so far as to say that was the best sex of my life.”

Eyes flickering away, she stands to unwind the towel from her head, letting her damp golden hair fall over her bare shoulders. I can sense her battling reluctance when she sighs, her eyes sliding back over to meet mine. “I’m going to grab something to eat from the restaurant downstairs. I expect you to be gone by the time I come back. I’ll let you know in the morning if I’m up for breakfast before I head out.”

“So that’s it? You drove all this way for a casual fuck?”

“It’s not like that, and you know it.”

“Unacceptable,” I grumble, standing at her side. “I’m at least buying you dinner before I go.”

Her jaw slacks, but she snaps it shut when she sees the determination in my eyes. I reach for my shirt, grunting to myself.

That’s right, baby. This time I’m not walking away without fighting for you with everything I have.

The hotel’s restaurant is intimately small and provides an excellent view of the moonlight stretching across the dark ocean. The kitchen was about to close when we showed up, so it’s not surprising that we’re the only customers. The idea of her leaving in the morning has made me so uneasy that I decided not to order anything. Maybe there’s a way I can convince her to spend another day with me so we can hang out on the beach like back in the old days.

After making love to her, it feels like she’s back to being my girl more than ever. I’m unable to look away from her as she swirls her glass of wine by its stem while waiting for her linguini. She’s so damn beautiful in the soft glow of the candle between us that I can’t say what’s stopping me from throwing her over my shoulder and taking her up to the room so I can get to know her new and improved body even more. She’s small enough that it wouldn’t be too hard of a task.

I set my elbows on the little round table between us. “How’s your mom?”

A small, reluctant smile curls at the edge of her lips. “She’s…better, I guess you could say. She’s finally able to talk about my dad’s death without having a breakdown. Most days she’s still focused on herself, but she’s been sober for three years, and she’s actually seeing some guy she met at an NA meeting.”

I inwardly wince, but force myself to appear unaffected. “She still live in San Jose?”

“Yeah, but she moved closer to downtown. She’s working as a secretary in a law firm and makes enough to rent an apartment that’s rat-free in a neighborhood where not everyone is carrying a piece.”

There’s a pang in my chest with the reference to her old life. I should’ve tried harder to get her out of there. I should’ve done more. “I’d love to see her again sometime.”

Quinn looks down at her fingers still playing with her glass of wine. “She probably wouldn’t remember you. She doesn’t remember a whole lot from the days she spent doped up.”

“I think you’d be surprised.” I clear my throat, wanting to revisit one of many subjects that she most likely wants to forget, but not sure how to approach it without upsetting her. Still, I feel like it’s imperative for us to address the issue if there’s any chance of us moving forward. “I, uh, know the real reason you broke into my father’s office after graduation…I know about the money she owed her drug dealer.”

Her eyes snap onto mine, wide with shock.

“You could’ve just asked me for it,” I add. “I would’ve given you as much as you needed.”

“Are we really going to do this?” she whispers in a clipped tone. “Here? Right now?”

“We don’t have to if you’re not ready, but it’s unavoidable. At some point we have to talk about what happened.”

She slumps down in her chair, closing her eyes. “Why would I ask for your help? We weren’t together anymore.”

“I was still your friend.”

“My friend?” she repeats with a snort. Her eyelids flip open as her eyebrows lower and pinch together. “Apparently we have different ideas of what it means to be a friend. You made it clear you didn’t want to be seen with the poor girl from the wrong side of the tracks.”

“I already told you I didn’t mean those things. I only said them to protect you. I needed to convince you that it was over between us.”

Tears fill her eyes. “Protect me from what?”

Blowing out a deep breath, I scoot my chair over next to hers and pull her hand into mine. “That night when you asked me if I had stopped loving you, or if I only told you that I did so you’d have sex with me, neither one was the truth. I’ve always loved you—as much as fucking possible. If you had told me someone was threatening to hurt your mom, I would’ve helped you, no questions asked.”

“Instead you told your dad that you were the one who broke into his office that night.” Chin quivering, more tears leak down her face, one after the other. “You should’ve told him the truth.”

Fuck, I hate seeing her cry like this. Collecting her tears with my knuckle, I grunt. “No way in hell I was letting him send you to jail. I knew there was only one reason you’d be desperate for that kind of money. So before I left for boot camp, I paid your mom a visit…made arrangements to pay off that Johnny guy.”

Quinn’s back stiffens. “Wait. That was you? She told me a friend loaned her the money.”

A smirk slides across my lips. “Told you I was still your friend.”

“Where’d you get that kind of cash?”

“It was just a fraction of a trust fund that went into effect when I turned eighteen. My old man didn’t find out that I had withdrawn the money until after I left, and there wasn’t a paper trail for him to find out how I spent it. So there really wasn’t anything he could do.”

“I can’t believe you did that.” More tears flow down her cheeks as she noticeably pales. “I’m going to pay you back. Every last penny. You can’t lose a chunk of your savings and be forced to join the military all because of me.”

“I wasn’t exactly forced,” I say, once again wiping her tears away. “The judge on my case was a Desert Storm Vet. He said I could either spend two years in jail, or willingly enlist and serve my country. I realized that if I joined the service, I’d have less of a chance growing up to be like my father. Once I made up my mind, I knew I was on the right path. I’d do it again in a heartbeat, even if it was for any reason other than saving my girl.” I cup her wet cheek, meeting her tortured expression with a smile. “This weekend I finally realized why I could never make a relationship work with any other woman. It’s because I never stopped loving you, Quinn. You’ve never stopped being mine all these years.”

“How can you say that?” she cries, shaking her head against my hand. “I was convinced your dad somehow blackmailed you into breaking up with me. I was so damn angry at him. I wanted to make him pay. Then I found out Johnny had pulled a gun on my mom, threatened to kill us both if we didn’t come up with the four grand she owed, and I knew I’d be able to find something valuable in your house. It was easy enough to get in since your parents hadn’t changed the security code, and I remembered you saying that autographed baseball jersey on display in his office was worth more than your car.” With a sudden sob, she wraps her fingers around my hand. “You should hate me after what I did.”

“And you have every right to hate me after I left you.” I bend in to press my lips against hers before backing away. “So I guess that makes us even.”

Suddenly she’s pulling me back to her, sealing our mouths together and licking her tongue along mine. I savor the taste of her wine mixed with salty tears, knowing the kiss probably won’t change anything, and it’s probably just her way of thanking me.

So it surprises the shit out of me when she breaks away, her watery eyes meeting mine, and says, “I’ve always loved you too. And I want to be yours again.”

Relief rushes through me, pulling my lips into a wide smile.

Halle-fuckin’-lujah.