Page 7 of Quentin
Quentin watched her walk away, noting the sway of her hips, the slight jiggle of her generously curved ass. God, was there anything sexier? She looked good coming and going.
“She catches you watching her ass that way, and she’ll make the beating I gave you look like a love tap.”
Quentin turned back to his half brother. He was surprised the guy had shown, honestly. If the tables had been turned, he wasn’t sure he would have, and that made him uncomfortable. “So you’re in?”
“I’ll help,” Ciaran said. “I’ll pay a little visit to your darling’s ex and see if I can’t be a bit persuasive.”
“He’s probably laying low after yesterday,” Quentin offered. It was the most civil comment he’d offered from the beginning.
Ciaran grinned. “I find people, Quentin. That’s what I do. You might want to get those ribs looked at. Those bruises have turned nasty.”
Quentin watched him walking out and muttered under his breath, “Dickhead.”
Gulping the coffee and ignoring the burn, he crossed to the bedroom door and knocked. “We have to go into Lexington.”
She opened the door, and while she was technically covered, he knew her body well enough to know exactly what was hidden beneath that slinky robe.
“You have to go to Lexington,” she said.
“Until Barnes is back in jail or fearful enough of it to behave, you go where I go,” he said.
“You’re not exactly in any condition to protect me, Quentin. You can barely stand up,” she snapped.
“Then you’re going with me so that I won’t have to drive myself in my present compromised state,” he replied evenly. He wasn’t leaving her there alone, and he had a meeting that couldn’t be rescheduled.
Caught by her own argument, she just glared at him. Finally, after the tension in the silence built to an uncomfortable level, she relented. “I can be ready in half an hour.”
“Don’t use all the hot water,” he said.
She glanced down at him, her eyes traveling over his body until she reached the unmistakable evidence of exactly how she affected him. “It looks like you could use a cold shower anyway!”
Quentin shook his head, even as he stepped closer to her and whispered in her ear, “I could dip my whole body inice water. and it wouldn’t make a damn bit of difference…but you keep looking at me like that, Lowey, and you’re not gonna be in that shower alone.”
The door slammed in his face as she retreated, the sound of it echoing through the room. Quentin dropped his chin to his chest and mentally went down the list of why it would be a disaster to go after her. Pushing Lowey was a necessity. Pushing her too far would destroy any chance of finally getting it right. It was that thought that prompted him to walk away and to sink down onto the couch and ignore just how much he wanted her.
Five
Ciaran knocked on the door of the Darcy house. He held a bouquet and a box of chocolates and tried for an expression of contrition. He wasn’t sorry that he’d beat the shit out of Quentin. He’d deserved it. But he was sorry that by losing his temper, by letting the asshole get under his skin, he’d ruined the holiday for Mia. He truly did want to build a relationship with his siblings, and he’d put that on the line because he couldn’t control his temper.
It was Bennett who answered the door. He looked at the flowers and the box of candy and grinned. “You’re not getting off that easy.”
“It’s an expression of goodwill,” Ciaran replied. “I fully intend to grovel along with it.”
Bennet shook his head and stepped back. “She’s pissed, man. Likereallypissed. I thought I was the only one who could make her that mad…but you and Quentin—dude.”
Given that she was already ticked, Ciaran decided to come clean. “I am here to apologize, but I’m also here to get some information from the two of you. I’d have asked Quentin, but frankly he’s in no condition to talk. I might have overdone it a bit yesterday.”
“Just a bit? Really?”
That voice coming from deep within the house was Mia’s, and she sounded not just angry, but cold. If there was one thing Ciaran had learned in his life, when women sounded like that, he’d be paying for a while.
Bennett stepped aside and let him in. Mia was in the study just off the foyer, the room having long been converted into a room for her mother, Patricia. It made Ciaran instantly uncomfortable to walk into that room. Death he could deal with, but what had happened to Patricia Darcy was his definition of hell. Being confronted with the sad and horrible condition of a woman he’d secretly hated, secretly blamed for years, was a grim reminder that there were things far worse than death.
As a child, he’d built a hundred fantasies to explain why his father was not there, was not a part of his life. For years, he’d laid the blame squarely on the shoulders of the broken woman now lying in that bed. Guilt wasn’t something he was accustomed to. He’d done a lot of horrible things in his life, but recalling the times he’d wished her dead so his father would be free, even if those wishes had been made in ignorance, they dug at him.
He placed the flowers and the chocolates on the table near Mia and settled onto one of the chairs scattered about the room. “I am sorry. I let my temper get the better of me…but if it helps at all, I’m here asking questions because I’m trying to help Quentin with a problem he has.”
“What?” Mia asked sarcastically, her eyebrows raised and her tone impossibly sharp. “You’re driving him to the emergency room?”
