Broken At Love (Whitman University) (15 page)

“Because she’ll make the wrong one. Trust me. And she won’t realize until it’s too late.”

“I never thought I’d say this, but I’m not sure you’re right.” She shook her head. “I guess it’s not really my business. It was nice of you to buy the canvases—she was thrilled. But her dad’s pulling her tuition and freezing her trust fund anyway unless she switches majors.” Ruby turned and left, but the air of sorrow remained.

The news didn’t surprise me. Mr. Swanson had only been using the show as an excuse and had probably planned on putting his foot down, regardless. I only hoped she felt validated for a few precious moments.

Chapter Sixteen

Emilie

Toby and I partnered in Marketing for our latest web design assignment, creating a logo for a Saint Patrick’s Day charity pub crawl in town. If I didn’t make it as an artist, designing pretty things for other people might not be the worst way to go.

Better than becoming a lawyer, which was my father’s latest suggestion. I’d finally convinced him that someone who grew queasy at the sight of blood shouldn’t go into medicine. My father wouldn’t let up, but the euphoria of selling paintings at the show had proven to me that I couldn’t imagine working in a different field.

Tuition or not, I would find a way to do it. For me and for Anabel.

“Are you going to this pub crawl?” Toby glanced at me sideways, the bruises around his eyes and jaw long faded. He’d acquired a bend in his nose that hadn’t been there before several weeks ago, though.

“I don’t know.” I hadn’t felt much like going out lately. I blamed my lack of interest on the constant battle with my parents, refusing to even think Quinn’s name.

He shot me another look that said he knew what I was thinking, so I changed the subject. “You’re going to have to find someone else to cheat off of next semester.”

“What? Why?”

“My father’s pulling my tuition unless I change to pre-law or business. For a while I thought I would do it to make him happy, because if it’s not art, what do I care what I end up doing?”

“But…”

“But I do care. It’s my life. It might be his money but it’s my life.”

“True.”

“But…” I replied, teasing him with his own trick.

A piece of brown hair fell in front of his soft, kind eyes and he brushed it back, studying me. “Don’t get mad. But what are you going to do? Get a job?”

“I could.” I sighed. “I made a good bit of cash at the art show. Not enough to afford Whitman, though.”

“You’re leaving?”

“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?”