Yours to Keep part 3: Billionaire CEO Romance (Captured and Claimed) (3 page)

“I wouldn’t miss it for the world,” Rebecca assured her.

“Don’t forget your plus one.”

“Plus one?”

“You get to bring a date.”

Rebecca shook her head. “I’m coming alone.”

“Have you heard from him?” Lilliana asked, turning the conversation back to Rebecca.

“He texts me every day to make sure I’m okay, but he hasn’t been by to see me, if that’s what you mean.”

“Maybe he’s giving you space,” Melanie suggested.

“Maybe.” She straightened in her chair and reached for her drink. “Or maybe we’re just finished and he’s only checking on me because he’s worried I’ll sue him after what happened. I mean, our firm did sue him last year and we won.”

Clearly not buying that, Sophie leaned toward her and placed her hand over Rebecca’s. “I have a question.”

“What?” Rebecca turned to her friend. She took in the seriousness on her friend’s face and braced herself. Sophie was about to challenge her.

“BDSM is about trust, right?”

“How do you know that?” Melanie asked, her brow wagging. Mel winked at Rebecca and Rebecca forced a smile. Each friend was dealing with this situation differently. While Sophie went the stern route, Melanie chose the playful. She loved her for that, but wasn’t in a laughing mood.

“I did a bit of research,” Sophie explained. As her friends continued to stare at her she took a sip of her drink and said, “What? I was curious.”

Rebecca eyed her friend. “What are you getting at?”

“Did you ever stop to think that maybe Quinn feels guilty?”

“Guilty?”

Sophie took a sip of her martini. “I only met him briefly, but he strikes me as the kind of guy who’d hold himself responsible for this.”

Rebecca recalled the rage in his eyes, and how he’d left Felix for dead. “Maybe, but it wasn’t his fault.”

“If you don’t hold him personally responsible, then why can’t you continue to have a relationship with him?”

“Because I’m done dabbling in that lifestyle.” Everyone at the table went silent, waiting for her to continue. “Look, it’s like this, a leopard can’t change its spots. Quinn is who he is and I would never ask him to change for me. I want him to be happy and he won’t be able to find that happiness with me.”

“You’re right,” Melanie said. “A leopard can’t change its spots.” She paused, jabbed her finger in the air toward Rebecca and added, “What you fail to see in that old adage is that it applies to you too.”

Rebecca eyed her over the rim of her martini glass. “What do you mean?”

“He introduced you to a world you liked, right?” Melanie said.

“Yeah, but—”

Melanie cut her off. “Do you think you can just go back to vanilla sex after that? You were so completely and utterly bored with the men in your life, Becs. Quinn changed that for you.”

She set her glass down. “I can’t.” The olives collided, splashing gin over the side. She grabbed a napkin and wiped her stemware before adding, “I can’t go back to that. Felix put a blindfold on me, Melanie. That was a hard limit for me.”

Lilliana squeezed her hand. “I’m sorry, honey. I really am. But it was Felix who did that, not Quinn.”

Rebecca blew out a breath. “I know but…” She knew her friends were trying to help, but what they failed to understand was the significance of the blindfold, or how her foster mother used the dark, rat-infested basement to punish an innocent child. If she stepped back into that lifestyle something horrible could happen again.

Her stomach knotted as she thought about the woman who claimed to be taking care of her because she cared about her well-being. What Dorothy Kean really cared about was the money she received in return for providing a roof over Rebecca’s head. The second Rebecca turned eighteen and Dorothy could no longer collect government funds, she’d tossed her out the door. Rebecca was glad to go. She’d never had any intention of staying in the abusive household once she was of legal age anyway. From that day forward she’d worked two jobs, sometimes three, to put herself through college. She’d met these three wonderful women she called her closest friends when she went to work at the firm a few years ago, and had never once revealed her abusive past. They had no idea how hard it was for her to be blindfolded, how the darkness had suffocated her, choked her until she couldn’t breathe.

Her hand went to her chest, and she could feel the room closing in on her as her heart pounded against her ribcage. She took another drink to wash away the anxiety rising in her throat.

“I think you should give him another chance,” Sophie said quietly.

“The only way I could do that is if he left that lifestyle behind, and like I already said, I would never ask that because I care about his happiness.”

Just then, her cell phone pinged. She swiped her thumb over the screen and her pulse leapt when she read the message.

“Is it Quinn?” Sophie asked.

She nodded. “Yeah.”

“What does he want?”

“To see me.”

“Don’t you think you should at least talk to him, see what he wants?” Melanie asked. “Maybe he’s ready to give it all up for you.”

“I told you, I’d never want him to do that…”

Melanie looked past her shoulder, and when her eyes went big, Rebecca’s words fell off. She didn’t need to turn around to know Quinn was standing there. She could feel him long before she could see him. A beat passed, then she pushed from the table. The scraping sound her chair made as she turned broke the sudden, uneasy silence of her friends, and when she twisted and caught the uncertainly in the eyes of the masterful Dom, the world around her went a little fuzzy around the edges.

“Quinn,” she managed to get out past the lump in her throat. Her glance left his face to take in his rumpled shirt and the wrinkles in his pants. How long had he been sleeping in them? She took in the deep lines around his eyes, the scruff on his chin. Her heart squeezed with the need to go to him and make it better. But she rooted herself, forcing herself not to smooth the worry from his brow, kiss away the grim line of dejection on his mouth. Reaching out to him meant going back to his lifestyle, and that was out of the question. “You shouldn’t be here.”

“Rebecca,” he whispered, his voice cracked and raspy, like he’d just swallowed a handful of nails. “This is exactly where I should be.”

“Quinn, no…”

The tender way he looked at her dissolved her words. He dropped to his knees beside her, and she took in the tension in his body as he cupped her face. His fingers tightened with care. “I need you to come with me. We need to talk.”

Quinn took Rebecca’s hand in his, ignoring the buzzing phone in his pocket. His brother had been calling for days, but Quinn was in no shape to talk to him. The only one he wanted to speak with was Rebecca. He was desperate to make things right between them.

He turned to her friends. “You ladies don’t mind if I steal Rebecca away for a few minutes, do you?”

“No,” they all said in unison. He nodded, feeling a degree of relief. At least her friends weren’t trying to convince her to stay away from him. Although, after what she’d been through at the resort, he wouldn’t blame them if they were.

Rebecca opened her mouth to speak, but he put his finger to her lips. “I’m sorry, Rebecca. I’m so goddamn sorry. You have to believe me.”

She shifted in her chair. “Quinn…” Her voice sounded different, defeated.

Refusing to let her push him from her life without at least hearing him out, he rushed out with, “I take all the blame, and if you’ll give me a chance I’ll make this right between us. No matter what it takes, I’ll make it right.”

Her face softened. “It’s not your fault, Quinn. Felix tricked me into going to the castle. Neither of us could have known what he had planned.”

The world crushed in on him, his thoughts reeling from the emotional whiplash he’d been suffering since finding her blindfolded and tied to that fucking cross. He brought her hand to his mouth and just held it there as he worked to pull himself together. He squeezed slightly, and said, “It
is
my fault. I’m a man of my word and I asked for your trust. I promised I’d respect it. You gave it to me freely, and I let you down.” He breathed deep, his nostrils flaring as he pulled in the warm, sweet scent of her skin. “I let both of us down.”

Her friends pushed away from the table. “We’ll leave you two alone,” Sophie said.

Rebecca held her hand up to stop them and Quinn’s heart sank. She was a strong-willed woman—it was one of the things he loved about her—but she needed to hear him out. She’d come to mean so much to him and if she pushed him out of her life now, Quinn had no idea what he’d do.

“You three stay. We’ll go.”

Overwhelmed with relief, his knees gave a little as he stood and pulled her up with him. “My driver’s waiting. We can go anywhere you want. Anywhere you feel safe.”

She nodded and when they turned to go, she banged into some guy looking at her in a lewd way that fired Quinn’s blood.

“Rebecca,” the guy said, putting his hand on her shoulder. “I finished my meeting early and thought I’d come see if you changed your mind.”

Quinn put his arm around her waist and pulled her to him to lay claim. The guy’s hand fell from her shoulder and his eyes narrowed.

“Rick,” she said, “This is Quinn. Quinn, this is Rick. He’s my…an old friend.”

A half smirk lingered on Rick’s face. “An old friend?”

When she didn’t respond, he stuck his hand out and met Quinn’s glance. “Are you an old friend too?” he asked.

“No,” was all Quinn said as he gave the man’s hand a hard shake.

“So I guess you really are seeing someone,” Rick said. “My loss.”

Quinn pulled her closer, ready to piss a circle around Rebecca if Rick didn’t back the fuck off.

Rick smiled at Rebecca, like Quinn was of no importance, and touched a loose tendril of her hair when he said, “I guess I’ll see you here Friday night then.”

Quinn’s jaw seesawed from side to side, ready to tell Rick to stop fucking touching her, but the last thing Rebecca needed was more violence, or for him to make a scene.

Rebecca frowned and went quiet for a moment. A second later, she glanced back up at Rick, her eyes wide like a light bulb had gone off. “Right, Sophie’s party.”

Struggling to keep his anger in check as the asshole blatantly made a play for Rebecca in front of him, Quinn sucked in a quick breath to keep his shit together. He looked Rebecca over and read her body language: lashes blinking rapidly, weight shifting from one foot to the other, body far too tense. As unease poured off her in waves, his protective instincts kicked in. He put his hand on the small of her back to remove her from the situation. Whether she wanted to be with him or not, it wasn’t going to stop him from taking care of her.

“Ready?” he asked. She nodded and grabbed her purse and umbrella. Quinn maneuvered them around Rick and made their way to the front door. Once outside he called for his car and stood under the awning with her as the rain pounded the pavement.

She didn’t have to answer, and he wasn’t going to push, but he couldn’t help but ask, “Who’s Rick and what’s going on Friday night?”

“He’s a friend, and Friday night is a celebration. Sophie made partner.”

“Good for her. Why does Rick make you uncomfortable?”

Her lips thinned and she folded her arms across her chest. “You didn’t have to go all alpha on him.”

Did she have no idea how protective he was of her or the measures he’d take to ensure her safety? “You think that was going alpha?”

“Yes.”

Quinn put his hands on her shoulders and looked deep into her eyes. Behind the blue he saw that wall again. One she’d put up for protection and he couldn’t get past.

“Let me just say this. If he ever touches you again, you’ll really see me go alpha.”

“Actually, I already have,” she said so quietly he had to strain to hear her.

Her body visually shivered as she looked away. “Look at me,” he said. She instantly obliged, the sweet submissive in her responding to his command. He cupped her face. “I’m sorry. I promised you I’d always see to your safety, and I failed.” He looked back into the lounge, watching Rick from afar. “I won’t fail again.”

“Quinn…”

His car pulled up to the curb and he stepped to the sidewalk to open the door. She hesitated for a moment and rain poured down his face as he waited. “All I want to do is talk. Any time you say you want to leave, my driver will take you home. I promise you that.”

She nodded and he let loose a breath of relief as she slid in. His phone buzzed again as he slipped in next to her. He ignored it and asked, “Where to?”

“My place.”

She gave the driver the address, then sank back next to him. Quinn took her hand and shifted to face her. The unsure look in her eyes gave him pause. If he wanted her to trust him, he’d have to change tactics.

“How about we start again.”

“Quinn, I’m not interested in playing in that lifestyle again,” she said quickly, a slight quiver to her voice.

“I know,” he said in a bid to relax her. “I’m not asking you to. What I’m asking is for you to be my friend.”

Her head came back with a start. “Friend? After what we’ve done, you think we can just forget it all and be friends?”

“Sure.”

“You mean friends with benefits, right?”

“Of course I want sex, Rebecca, but I want to give you space, start fresh. I want everything that happens to be your choice, your call. I want you, and will do whatever it takes to have you, but every choice has to be yours, every single move is based on your terms this time.”

She went quiet for a long time, and then said, “My terms mean doing things the way I normally would. Like hanging out, going to the movies, eating dinner. And when it comes to sex…well, I guess that would mean vanilla, no dungeon.”

No BDSM. He got it. “I can do all that.”

She shook her head. “But I’d never ask you to change. I’d never want you to. You deserve to have the things you want.”

“You’re not asking, I’m offering. It’s what I want.”

She turned and stared out the window. He watched her, letting her digest what he was asking. It’d kill him to be around her without dominating her, but he’d have to find a way. She needed that from him. If giving up the lifestyle was what it took to gain her trust and show her how much he cared about her and her needs, then he’d damn well do it.