- -
- 100%
- +
He opened the door and it slammed directly into something, halting his forward march.
She stumbled out from behind the door, looking disoriented, but her stagger gave him room to enter and he took advantage of it, shutting the door directly behind him.
“Why were you standing there?”
“I was thinking about locking the door,” she said without preamble. Then, redirecting his question, “Why were you standing outside the door?”
“Anais, I’ve had a hell of a day. I paused because I wanted to make sure I had control of myself and didn’t come right in here and shake you hard enough to knock the brown off of you. What the hell are you playing at with this drab makeover and the name-change? Are you in the country illegally?”
She flinched, then shrugged back from him across the distance of her tiny office. He’d struck another nerve. That shouldn’t please him, but the pink that flashed in her artificially tanned cheeks and the way she smoothed her hair down felt almost like satisfaction. He had seven years of jabs in reserve and, by the look of things, it wasn’t going to get boring anytime soon.
“Of course I’m not here illegally. I had my name changed. Legally. Then I changed my appearance. My mother is getting older—she’s got diabetes and had a heart scare last summer, not that I should have to explain myself. This is my country too, and I shouldn’t have to lose it forever because I married poorly when I was young and naïve.”
A tic in his right eyelid flickered at her return volley.
Definitely different from the Anais he’d known.
“How...?”
“Your brother changed my name for me quietly.” She rubbed her cheek and he knew where the door had clocked her, but she stayed standing there, close enough—only because of the wall behind her—that he could reach out and touch her if he wanted to.
He did want to, so he shoved his hands into the well-worn fatigues he preferred these days, comfortable clothing he’d soon lose as he picked up a new mantle of duty.
“I went with Anna because it’s close enough to Anais for me to still save myself if I start to say my old name. Kincaid is my grandmother’s maiden name, so I have some attachment to it. Doctor, however, is legitimately mine.”
Softness had always abounded in Anais. Tender heart. Soft, free-flowing wavy strawberry-blonde hair. Curves that bewitched him. Gentle aqua eyes. Youthfully plump cheeks and lips... Soft.
A red mark darkened that formerly plump cheek, outside the blush that had already faded. She’d had her ear to the door listening when he’d slammed it open. Not locking it. Or maybe not locking it yet, whatever she’d claimed.
She made herself sound even harder than she appeared. That physical angularity was by far the biggest change, and the one that had momentarily thrown him when she’d come into Ben’s quarters. Not her hair color, her eye color, the glasses, or that suspicious tan... It was how square her jaw seemed now, the gauntness of her cheeks, and the now slender but apparently strong body supporting it all. Anna Kincaid was hard.
He didn’t know what else to say.
For seven years, he’d had a million questions for her—mostly in the first couple of years when everything was hardest. But now, standing here, he didn’t want to ask her why she’d gone. Those old wounds could pop back open with the slightest prod. His chest already ached just looking at this shadow of his brightly colored Anais.
“Are you living back in Easton?”
“No. Are you still at the penthouse?”
“Yes,” he answered. Why it had been so important to him to come find her after speaking with Ben? “Is there something you want to say to me?”
Like I’m sorry?
She shook her head, then seemed to change her mind as the shaking turned into a nod, her voice going quieter. “How do you know Lieutenant Nettle?”
“Served together. First tour,” Quinn answered again. Did she feel anything for him anymore? Besides anger? Somehow, he’d earned her anger? Her anger, and the fact that she wanted him gone was all he could make out. Her eyes used to sparkle when she saw him, even the last time she’d seen him—which she’d no doubt known would be the last time—they’d still sparkled. But with them hidden under those unremarkable brown contacts, he couldn’t see it. Or it wasn’t there. A wife who had feelings for her husband...her ex-husband even...wouldn’t look so hard when he’d never wronged her. Never done anything wrong but love her. Even a friend would look kindly upon a soldier returning home after seven years in a war zone, but she just wanted him gone.
Over the course of his tours, he’d learned to fight his way out of dodgy situations. Fight and survive first, complete the mission second. He couldn’t fight his way out of this. He didn’t even know where to start.
He could make her feel anger, maybe some polite curiosity, but nothing else. Touching her would just hurt him; there was no Braille hidden on her flesh that would tell him the truth, or what he wanted to hear: that she regretted leaving, that she’d suffered because of it, that she was sorry.
He forced his arms to relax, then thought better of it and wrenched his mangled left hand from his pocket to present to her.
“Ben was there to help when my fingers were shot off.” Seeing her blanch only emboldened him. With as much detail as he could summon from that day, he described the way the wedding band he’d still worn had become platinum shrapnel Ben had to pull from the remains of his palm. The way Ben had to cut away his dangling finger. “And that still hurt less than you.”
Her eyes went round, with his hand held up for her inspection, and her breathing increased in speed and force; soon the heated air fanned his hand across the distance. The two fingers, thumb, and partial palm felt the flutter like the barest breeze.
“Get used to seeing me around here. I’ll try to keep the cameras away, for Ben’s sake.”
Her open-mouthed breathing turned to choking, and he realized she was going to be sick a half-second before she turned and flung herself over her office trash bin and retched. Her whole body convulsed with the force of each spasm.
His stomach lurched too.
Damn.
They’d both changed. The last vestiges of the man who’d married her, who’d loved her, felt sick too, wanted to look away.
But the realist he’d had to become couldn’t feel too badly. What had even made her sick? Hearing how he’d lost his fingers, or the idea the cameras that invariably ended up following him might catch sight of her?
As if it mattered. He should leave her there, let her get on with it, savor the little thrill of revenge that had run through him at her visceral reaction.
He wouldn’t pull her hair aside and soothe her back. He wouldn’t apologize for not softening the brutality of that situation for her, the way he’d softened it for his family.
She wasn’t his family anymore. She’d been the one to leave. And he’d never gotten to say anything to her about it, since his family had shipped him off to boot camp directly afterward.
What was a little vomiting in that context?
CHAPTER TWO
NEVER BEFORE IN his homeland had Quinn felt so tense while riding in the back of a car. Every prior leave, he’d been able to disconnect that hyper-alert state traveling in a Humvee usually triggered while on duty.
First Ben, then Anais—both wrecked him. But going home for real—not just another leave—was the cherry on top of a terrible day.
Despite his late arrival—and he hadn’t missed the fact that it had grown dark—Quinn had been requested to arrive by the main entrance. Usually he’d have gone around to a smaller, more private entrance.
It was showtime for the press.
But it looked relatively empty now, only a few cameras lingering to the side.
If he had to climb the grand entrance to go inside, he’d let himself out of the car. Quinn jumped from the back as soon as it stopped, thanking the driver over the seats, closed the door and jogged up, waving in passing at the few tenacious photographers who’d waited. No talking. No posing. He barely smiled.
Once inside, he bypassed servants, ignoring the familiar opulence he’d been raised in, and hurried across the foyer to the King’s wing. Within two minutes, he knocked and opened the door to the King’s study, but found Philip sitting behind the desk.
“You’re not the King,” Quinn murmured, making sure to gently close that door too.
His youthful habit had always been to bound through doors and expect them to close behind him—the same tactic he’d used with nearly everything: bound through, expect it to get sorted out in his wake. A tactic his family had spent years trying to talk him out of, and which his divorce and sudden soldier status had actually accomplished. Now he paid attention to doors. It was something small he could always control, and doors often presented a hazard or added protection. Doors now mattered.
Philip rose, checking his watch, but smiling anyway. “And you’re not here at noon.”
“No, I’m not.” He should try to be amiable, but at that precise moment all he could hear was Anais’s confession that Philip had changed her name. “Why didn’t you tell me Anais was back in the country?”
He tried to sound calm, but even a dead man would’ve heard the bitterness in his voice.
Philip had rounded the desk, hand out to shake Quinn’s, but he dropped it to his side with the question. “I was going to tell you when you got here. It seemed like an in-person kind of conversation to have. You’ve seen her already?”
“She’s working at Almsford Castle with amputees. I went there to visit my friend, Ben Nettle; I told you about him. And that’s...a story I really would rather not get into right now. But you know she’s not fooling anyone by dipping herself in brown dye.”
“She fooled me.” Philip shrugged, and then reached out to grab Quinn by the back of the neck and pull him into a hug.
“That’s because you’re an idiot.” It didn’t feel like a time for hugging to Quinn, but he went along with it. A little brotherly ribbing was as playful as he could get right now. Clapping one another on the back a few times, they both retreated and Quinn went to help himself to a Scotch.
“She’s changed more than that. I was surprised when she told me where she was going to work. I don’t think she realized that the new facility was at Almsford Castle,” Philip said, returning to his seat. “How was it to see her?”
Quinn eyeballed three fingers of booze since he had two fingers on that hand to measure with, and took it to the front of the desk to sit. “I don’t know. Unpleasant. I guess. I don’t want to talk about Anais.”
“You brought her up.”
“I did. Now I’m bringing up Grandfather. Is he here or did he go off on vacation for his rest?”
“He’s here.” Philip sat up straighter suddenly, his voice growing suspiciously softer.
The hairs on the back of Quinn’s neck rose. This apprehension was more than he’d felt when deciding he needed to start serving the family and the people again as a prince. Something was wrong. “Where is he?”
“Sleeping. He spends most of the time sleeping now.”
Those words had never fit their grandfather. Despite his advancing age, he was a vibrant man, always on the move. But the sober tones in which Philip delivered the news gave them weight, gave them truth. And gave him that feeling in the pit of his stomach for the third time that day.
The heat returned and he knew it for what it was: helpless anger.
“Was that something else you wanted to tell me in person?” He truly hadn’t come home to fight with anyone, but it seemed to be all he’d been doing since he’d stepped foot into Almsford Castle.
The grimace that crossed Philip’s face confirmed his suspicions.
“He didn’t want you worrying when you were away,” Philip admitted, his voice trailing off.
Quinn noticed for the first time the three-day growth of beard his always immaculately groomed brother now wore.
“He has good days and bad days, but is usually awake for a few hours in the late morning, early afternoon.”
When Quinn had been supposed to come earlier.
“What’s wrong with him?”
“He’s an old man, Quinn. Time catches up to everyone.”
He felt his head shaking before words—demands—began pouring out. “How, specifically, has it caught up with him? Heart failure? Some kind of cancer? Stroke? What’s wrong? What happened?”
“Kidney failure is the big one right now. There are other more minor diagnoses, but his kidneys are the biggest worry. He’s on dialysis, but he’s too old for a transplant, and his body isn’t holding up well to dialysis.”
Quinn took a deep pull on the drink, considered draining it, then carefully placed it upon the desk.
“What does that mean?” He’d had training as an EMT in the military—hence Ben calling him Doc—but he wasn’t actually a doctor. He hadn’t dealt with dialysis in combat situations, so he didn’t know anything about it. If he’d never gone into the military, he would’ve been better equipped to understand, assuming he’d gotten into medical school as he’d—as they’d both—planned.
Another life. He’d enjoyed his life as a soldier; it was his life as a prince that was stressing him out.
“Some people live a lot of years on dialysis, but his body just isn’t strong enough. He’s had the access port moved twice now. Keeps getting infected and he’s running out of places to put it or the will to let them try another location. He’s already said he won’t be having another one placed.” Philip headed for the decanter and poured his own drink.
After their parents’ unexpected deaths when they were children, Grandfather had stepped up to fill the father role—even when he was busy running the country. Quinn just didn’t know how to process this information. One more thing. A third person to save.
Well, second. Ben and Grandfather. He wasn’t trying to save Anais, and what could he even save her from? Another bad spray tan?
“Not to put pressure on you, but I’m hoping that having you around will give him the urge to fight a little longer,” Philip muttered. “Then I wonder if that’s selfish of me, but I can’t help it. It’s not looking good. I’m glad you’re home. We need you. I need you here.”
“I want to see him,” he said, redirecting his thoughts to what mattered at this precise moment. He could only deal with what was before him.
“He’s sleeping.”
“And I want to see him. I can sit quietly at his bedside, Philip. I will be here tomorrow when he wakes, but I want to see him now. Let me prepare myself so I don’t go in looking at him like he’s a dying man when he sees me for the first time.” He added, more quietly, “Let my first shock be when he can’t see it. I’ve already had two shocks since I got home. I don’t think I can look a third person I love in the eye like that.”
A third person he loved. God help him, he’d done it again.
“Loved. Someone I loved. You know what I mean.”
“Who was the second?”
Not Anais.
“Ben. I should feel bad that I didn’t come here first and see Grandfather, but if I had Ben would be dead. He tried to hang himself in his room this afternoon, and I got there in time to stop him, get help, get him cut down... Which is why I have to see Anais again tomorrow, because I need to go back for Ben.”
And he needed to make those calls still. God, this day really sucked.
His brother nodded to the nearly empty second tumbler. “Drink the rest first. Sounds like you’re going to need it. Will you be staying here tonight?”
“No,” he said first and then, after finishing his drink, shrugged. “I don’t know. Should I? I was going to go to my flat. Unless you think I should stay to see when he wakes?”
Philip shook his head. “You don’t need to stay, but you look rough, Quinn. Your room is prepared if you want to stay. Might do you good.”
Sleep would do him good. He stood again, but it took all the strength in him to follow his brother down the hallways to the King’s suite.
Before they’d even entered, he heard the soft hums and beeps of life-saving equipment and knew Philip had been trying to soften the blow.
But Quinn smelled death. He knew the scent of it by now.
* * *
Anais stood at her favorite treadmill—the one she hadn’t been on since Quinn’s terrible cry for help had shattered her will to hide and sent her running toward him for the first time in years.
Her work day had ended over an hour ago, and Quinn was still on site, still with Benjamin Nettle as far as she knew—as far as everyone knew. A prince couldn’t spend hours a day for three days straight in the building without word getting around.
What she didn’t want to get around? That she’d been waiting for him today. Was still waiting for him. That knowledge would trigger too many questions and the conclusions she needed no one to reach if she wanted to stay. And she had to stay. Her departure from Corrachlean had meant leaving Mom, and they’d spent seven years apart. Visits had been impossible before Anna Kincaid had been born.
Quinn hated her Anna look—she could tell by the way he’d looked at her, as if she’d sprouted some horrifying, self-induced deformity. But she liked it in a way. It made her feel invisible. After fitting in—which she’d never truly done anywhere—being invisible was the next best thing.
But he hated more than her new look. He hated her.
And, really, what could she expect? Aside from expecting to not see him for a long, long time—or ever, if she’d had her way.
The treadmill whirred beneath her feet, and she took one of the safety bars to steady herself as she inched up the speed and the incline. Maybe exercise could wipe her mind, help her zone out and forget she was waiting for him.
The only way she’d kept going after they’d fallen apart was to practice willful amnesia. Not letting herself wonder about him or how he was doing, never thinking about how he felt or if he ever thought of her. She couldn’t do that and keep going. Which probably made her the second person who hadn’t been thinking about how Quinn felt—he never dwelt on anything that hurt. Not for himself. Not for her. Not for anyone, at least when they’d been married. She’d spent darned near a year trying to work him out, and all she had was: he liked sex with her and hated responsibility.
Then, two days ago, she’d learned something else—something that took her breath every time it replayed in her head, hundreds of times per day: losing his fingers hurt him less than she had.
Was he still suffering in the way she never let herself wonder if he was suffering?
She didn’t want to believe it was true. His hatred was real, and he’d definitely wanted to hurt her, so it would be better if she could stop lingering over it. No matter what, her leaving had been kinder to both of them in the long run. If she’d stayed with Quinn until Wayne had followed through with his threats, Corrachlean’s people wouldn’t have been the only ones to think terribly of her; Quinn’s opinion would’ve plummeted into earth too. At least he hated her now for something that was ultimately kinder. Even if she never wanted him to know that.
Maybe that was why, despite knowing he’d been at the facility the past two days, she hadn’t been able to drag herself to Ben’s room to ask him to speak with her. Or maybe it was something more cowardly. Maybe she was afraid that Ben would know who she was now, and she couldn’t blame Quinn if he’d told him. He’d never promised to keep her secrets, and what loyalty did he owe her? Sharing something that was going on in your own life could be a kind of currency to get your friends to talk when they needed to.
“You’re leaving notes for me now?” Quinn’s voice cut across the cavernous ballroom-gymnasium, jolting her from her thoughts so that she had to grab the safety bars again to steady herself.
Would his voice always jolt her?
Heart hammering, she shut off the machine. At least she had the exercise to blame for the way her words came out, breathy and with effort. “I waited for an hour in the foyer, long past the time it started to look weird that I waited for you. Then I decided to write a note. The envelope was sealed, the front was as formal as could be.”
Grabbing a towel, she dried herself off as she walked to meet him, pretending her legs wobbled because of the running too.
* * *
“I noticed.” Quinn thrust the envelope back at her, and looked around the ballroom to make certain they were alone. The last thing he needed this week was to have to explain why he was ogling the doctor or being overly familiar. “And I’m here. What do you want?”
The nod to revenge he’d felt on leaving her there bent over the trash bin hadn’t even lasted until he’d gotten out the door—and that hadn’t even been a version of Anais who looked like his wife. While her hair and eyes remained the wrong color, her glasses were now gone and the hair pulled back from her face let him almost see her. Almost.
Her hand shook a touch when she took the envelope, and he swallowed the urge to lash out at her again, to shock her with some other brutality from the frontline—he had a thousand such story grenades to hurl.
“I just want to talk to you about something. Will you come to my office?”
“Why not here?”
“It’s private.”
Their last conversation had been on repeat in his head since it had ended. While he’d met with his brother. While he’d found out the new family secret: the King was dying. Even sitting by his grandfather’s bed, he’d had her on repeat, enough to riddle out what had set her off.
She’d paled before he’d even mentioned the cameras. She’d been sick about him, not about herself. She still felt something, no matter what she pretended.
It would’ve been so easy to tell her to go to hell, ignore her, as he’d been more or less doing since that first day. To come when she was at lunch, leave when she’d gone home, and continue driving Ben up the wall by refusing to leave him alone in his misery.
But she wanted to talk. And, God help him, he still wanted to talk to her. Maybe this was his opening. Apologies started with regret and, whether she’d admit it or not, he could see she had regrets.
Quinn waved a hand for her to lead the way, and the relief on her face notched his hope higher. He had to pick up his usual leisurely pace to keep up with her and, directly in her wake, her scent channeled to him.
Sweaty, but she still smelled fantastic. Clean, but sweet. Sexy.
Her long, heavy locks had been pulled up high on her head, and the straightening she’d inflicted on it had come undone in the dampness. Waves stretched up from the bottom, where the mass had brushed against her bare back, gathering sweat. A shiver racked his body, raising chills all over him, and Quinn had to thank fate he was walking behind her rather than in her line of sight.
Getting wrapped up in hormones wasn’t the right tack for this conversation—whatever it was going to be about. Before she’d left him, he could’ve easily made any private conversation with her about what his body wanted.
He pulled his gaze to her feet, which seemed safest. Only feet attached to slender ankles, and then his eyes tracked up over the soft skin covering the newly acquired definition in her calves. Her thighs. Her rear...
The shorts she wore clung in a fantastically distracting manner and, just below, he could see the dark little mole that always wanted to be kissed, peeking and retreating from the hem of her shorts on the right as her clothing moved with each step.
By the time they reached her office he had to keep reminding himself of the objective, but every reminder was a little quieter than the hunger for her that had him shaking.
“It’s hot in here,” he muttered, dragging his jacket off and tossing it onto the back of one of the guest chairs.
“It gets warmer in here at night. Sorry. Would you like something to drink first?”
“I’m fine.” He dragged the chair back and sat down, nodding for her to do the same. Hopefully outside of his reach. “But take out the contacts first.”