Broken At Love (Whitman University) (16 page)

“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 last 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.

I wanted to be better. I wanted to find a place in my father’s company. Maybe if I did that, some day I could prove that I was good enough for Emilie, too.

“I’m bored, Seb. There are plenty of ways to make money.” I gritted my teeth and played a wild card. “Plus, you’re not going to show my father those pictures. We both know it.”

“
Our
father. And of course I will.”

“No, you won’t. We both know he’ll never leave Rowland Comm to you. He probably isn’t going to leave it to me, either, but that’s your only shot. To ride my coattails and pull my strings from the shadows like a spider. You expose me now and he’ll leave it all to Rick.” My father’s CFO was as big a jackass as Teddy, but he was smart. He wanted the company as badly as either of us.

“So what if you’re right? You know I don’t really give a shit about running Rowland. I prefer to operate in the background. You’ll do what I say, or you’ll lose any scrap of a chance you have left as far as your father is concerned.” He threw back his drink and went for another. “And if he sees the pictures, Teddy could very well disinherit you all together. Who might benefit from that, I wonder?”

I shook my head when he offered me a glass. It would have settled my nerves but going to the meeting with booze on my breath would have been counterproductive. “You’re the boss, Seb.”

At least for now.

On the drive to my father’s, I brainstormed ways to escape Sebastian. It had never occurred to me before with any real urgency, because as long as I enjoyed helping him spin his webs and collect his cash it hadn’t mattered. It mattered to me now, though, and there had to be a way to manipulate my way out of this mess.

My half-brother slipped from my mind as I turned onto the long drive, waving at an unfamiliar security guard on my way past. The crunch of asphalt and gravel vibrated into my spine, pinging off the undercarriage and tweaking my nerves. Shadows danced off the trees like pixies intent on putting on a show, and I couldn’t remember the last time I’d taken the time to appreciate the magnificence of the place I grew up.

The bricked front mansion with black accents rose in front of me like a mountain and I stepped out of my dark green Jag, straightening my jacket and tie before picking up the briefcase holding my presentation.

Angelica opened the door and took my jacket, smoothing the wrinkles on my shirt. “Mr. Rowland’s waiting in his office.”

“Thanks, Ang.” Anxiety tightened my stomach.

My idea was a good one. I’d pitched it to the Dean of the College of Communications and he’d thought it would be a great augmentation to Rowland’s Eastern European expansion. My father had to see reason, whether he hated me or not. I was better than Rick. I was family.

Teddy’s stood staring out the window, rolling a cigar between his fingers, but turned at the sound of my footsteps. “Ah, Quinn. Right on time.”

He motioned for me to sit, but I shook my head. “I’d like to go to the conference room, if you don’t mind. The presentation looks better on a big screen.”

“You don’t need bells and whistles if it’s a solid business plan.”

Heat grabbed the back of my neck. “Whatever you want.”

Teddy settled behind his desk, the sunlight catching the grays in his thick auburn hair that neither Sebastian nor I had inherited. With fingers steepled under his chin, Teddy gave me the
go ahead
eyebrow raise.

I took a deep breath and dove in, feeling unsettled and less prepared without my notes and organized visuals, knowing that’s exactly what he wanted. It wouldn’t throw me off.

“I know you and the board have been discussing the best way to expand our reach farther east, and it would be a mistake not to use the resource you have in me. I’ve traveled extensively and I speak several languages, not to mention I have a plethora of broadcasting contacts. More importantly, I grasp something about working east of Europe that many of our competitors can’t—that those audiences won’t be wooed the same way as Americans.”

Teddy remained silent, which felt like a good sign, so I kept going.

“Americans don’t love tennis—you delighted in reminding me of that fact over the years—they haven’t since Agassi, Evert, and Sampras retired. But the rest of the world loves tennis. They also love cricket, soccer, and a few other immensely popular sports that Americans have no time for because there isn’t blood and violence.”

“I hope that’s not your marketing plan.”

“Not exactly, no, although I think class would definitely be a hook we could use.”

“You want to start the expansion by buying sports rights that no other American communications business is interested in.” The tone of his voice betrayed interest.

It encouraged me. “Yes. And I think it could be the best opportunity for me to start a brand of my own, within Rowland Communications, to prove I have what it takes to innovate and learn. The board will appreciate that, when it comes time for me to take over.”

“Take over?”

“Yes. I know we’ve had our differences, but I’m your son. Rowland doesn’t belong with anyone else.”

“Sebastian is also my family, which means he will never want for a thing. But that sick little peckerwood won’t have a breath of control over the company I’ve built.” My father’s contemptuous gaze landed on me. “Your proposal is interesting. I may consider having Rick tweak it and take it to the board.”

I shot to my feet. My mouth felt dry, my hands shaking. “What? It’s my idea. I’m the one with the contacts and experience to pull it off right, not Rick. You can’t be serious.”

“Quinn, you should know that I’ve decided Rick will inherit control of Rowland Communications when I’m gone. Roger drew up the papers several weeks ago. “

Disbelief burned in my gut. He was going to steal my idea.

“Now, if you finish school and need a job, I have no plans to allow the appearance that my son is floundering. You’ll have a title at Rowland but we both know you don’t have the backbone or the cunning to run a Fortune 500 company. You’re embarrassing us both with these little exercises in futility.”

Silence lasted another minute while my voice tried to find the words. Any words. Nothing came. There wasn’t anything to say. He’d made up his mind, which was something Teddy Rowland never changed.

I should have known. Listening to Emilie was a mistake, and so was thinking I could ever be the kind of man she deserved. I would be what I knew I would become the day I announced my retirement from tennis.

A worthless rich boy surrounded by paper dolls. Because I was one, too.

“That will be all, Quinn.” My father sighed as though exhausted. “You can go.”

***

Something hot vibrated against my cheek.

My fucking head felt like jackhammers drilled into it and swallowing around dirty cottonmouth made me nauseous. The buzzing turned out to be the goddamn cell phone, which I thought had died days ago. I must have plugged it in at some point.

I got up to take a piss and make myself a Bloody Mary before flopping back into bed, peering at the phone through blurry eyes.

Snap the fuck out of it. French Open starts in less than a week.

I squinted one eye, and it still took me three tries to type a response.

Kiss my ass.

Sebastian wouldn’t appreciate the reply but it didn’t matter. What did I care if he showed pictures of me to the whole world now? My father all but disowned me professionally and he’d never wanted me privately. Not since the day my mother ran out of her hospital bed onto the nearest plane.

I tossed back two more drinks. The headache went away and my brain swam pleasantly again. The phone vibrated incessantly.

You have three days, then I’m coming to get you.

“Pfft. Come and get it, you sick fuck,” I muttered to the empty room.