QUINN
I SPIN BACK toward my mom so fast I nearly fall, the angry stars at the sides of my vision, blurring and momentarily blinding me. "You wouldn't."
"To protect you? You have no idea the depths I'd go to."
"Protect me from who? Brock? Believe me, I've never needed protection from him. From Sawyer? Well…we've never even used protection, so I guess you're too late there."
She blanches and I smile because my misleading words hit the exact spot I was aiming for. Fury pummels through me, swift and loud until what she's saying barely comes through. "…better than this."
I don't know if she's talking about me, herself or someone else—or what I/she/they deserve better than.
"Tell me. What's a hundred thousand dollars to you?" I ask, honestly wondering. "All things considered." I wave to the room we're in. The ceiling's tall enough for three rooms. The bookshelves built into the walls are edged in marble. The furniture is leather—and switched out at least once a year for better models. The chandelier above us is crystal and likely weighs a ton. I could probably sell it and feed a small country.
"A huge sum of money."
"For some people."
"For any person."
"How much was that strand of pearls hanging around your neck?"
She runs the necklace through her fingers. "It was a gift from your father."
"Right. And he probably spent, what? At least a fifth of a hundred thousand dollars on it."
"I understand your point, Quinn. But what I own, what we choose to spend money on—it doesn't excuse what that man did."
Somewhere deep down I get it. She's right. But I don't want to let her win any points here because at the heart of it all she sits before me a shallow, bitter woman who doesn't deserve to be on the right side of anything. And she lied to me without blinking an eye.
"I have almost that much from Grandmother." It's in my savings account, just sitting there. I've worked really hard not to have to touch it. I wanted to use it someday to—actually, it doesn't matter. I'll make my own money. "It's yours. I'll put a check in the mail, and I'll make monthly payments for the last bit of it until the debt is paid off. And starting now, from the moment I set foot out the door, you stay out of my life and you certainly stay out of Brock's and Sawyer's."
"That's not—"
"If you press charges, I'll never speak to you again. I'll smear your name at your precious club. I'll… I'll sleep with the sons of every one of your friends and make sure they all know about it. I'll cover myself in tattoos. I've always wanted one anyway, but I'll go overboard and get all sorts of ink I'll end up regretting, but regret will never be stronger than the pleasure of your horror over my full tatted sleeves. I'll make you miserable, and I will hate you for the rest of my life."
"You can't mean that. I know you're upset, but I'm your mother."
I laugh, humorlessly. "There's not a word in the dictionary to describe what I am right now. But I can tell you this much: Upset? It's the understatement of the decade. Century. I'll never trust you again. Ever."
Her face just melts. Slides into sadness.
It's the first real emotion I've seen from her in years.
Maybe I should feel bad. Maybe I should try to see the situation from her point of view.
But screw that.
"Do we have an agreement?" I ask, staring at her until she meets my gaze.
"I don't want your money."
"Well, you know what I don't want? To find out how easily you lied to me. I don't want to be forced to spend four years away from the boy I love. I don't want his sweet and innocent twelve-year-old brother to grow into a miserable and troubled sixteen-year-old. But those things happened. So I guess we don't always get the things we want—or, in this case, what we don't want. You should have the check in a few days."
"I said I don't want your money."
"But what? You want Brock to keep suffering even though you have an opportunity to recoup what you lost?"
"I want him to face the consequence for what he did."
"He's been suffering for four years already. He can barely manage to walk through a damn surf shop without stumbling. Believe me. He's suffered. And so has everyone else. God, Mom. Jess is still just a kid and he's so messed up. Your punishment rocked the lives of innocent bystanders—myself included."
"You're far from innocent, as you've made abundantly clear here today."
"Ouch, burn, Mom. Wow. So painful to hear your judgment," I deadpan. "I'm leaving. If you set one foot in the direction of any one of the Carson family, I'll make every single thing I've threatened—and a whole lot worse—a reality." She opens her mouth, but I throw a hand up. "Hell. If you even say another word before I'm out of earshot, I'll do it."
The line her lips make when they press together is the most satisfying thing I've seen all day.
I walk away from her, down the stairs, and almost out the door. Then I remember the roses Chase gave me those weeks ago, and I go back for them first, before leaving the house for good.
I'm done with this family. Who needs them? I'll have my own with Sawyer. And Gianna. And Cassidy.
And I'm starting with Sawyer right now. I'm not leaving his shop again until Rajesh tells me where to find him. I'd hate to have to hurt Rajesh for it, especially since he's a friend of Sawyer's, which means maybe he'll be a part of my new family, too. But if he refuses again, he may end up with a bloodied lip, with the mood I'm in.
I make it just past my own apartment on my way to the shop when I nearly crash into a car braking in front of me, because I almost don't see it.
Turns out those stars in my vision? They weren't there because I was so angry. They were the start, I discover as pain slices through my head so bad I nearly lose my vision, of a migraine.
I manage to get my car to the side of the road.
I manage to call Gianna and beg her to come get me.
I manage (swear to God it feels like a close call) not to die by the time she arrives with Chase.
They manage to get me home, and by the time Gianna's tucking me into bed, I'm shaking from how bad my head hurts.
"Are you sure I shouldn't call an ambulance?" she asks, dropping to a whisper when I wince.
"No," I whisper, too. "Not much they can do for a migraine."
I used to have a prescription, which I'm sure expired a couple years ago, but Gianna promises to call my doctor and get one faxed to the closest pharmacy.
She does it, sending Chase to pick up the pills. I take one, curling into myself in pain and waiting for it to kick in. At some point, I pass out.
And sleep for a day and a half.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
QUINN
"A DAY AND a half?" I sit up, throwing off my covers when Gianna tells me how long I've been out for. "I thought I was dozing for, like, a few hours." I stand, shoving my shirt off my head and searching for my towel. I need to shower away the sleep still hanging on to my brain.
But my legs have different ideas. They think I should tremble all over and sink back to my bed. "Damn it."
"Q, you haven't eaten more than a few sips of soup the past day. Let's start with baby steps."
"I need to find Sawyer."
"I know." Gianna sits gingerly beside me. "I can't believe it. All this time I've spent hating Sawyer—like wishing I was magic and could plaster his skin with warts and boils and gaping wounds that never scab over and… And the whole time, he was protecting his family."
"While my own family was full of shit."
"Hey." She grabs my hand, waiting for me to slowly turn my head toward her. "I'm your family. And you know I'm not full of shit."
"Most of the time." I smile at her, squeezing her fingers.
"That," she says, smiling back, "gets a pass because I've spent the last day taking care of your pansy ass, and I know if you were thinking straight right now you'd never make such a claim. Otherwise you might wake up tomorrow with warts. And boils…"
; I laugh, but sober up a moment later, repeating, "I need to find Sawyer."
"You are really going to love me in a second."
"Why? Is he sitting out there waiting for me?" I mean, I doubt it—but the way Gi's eyes are dancing, it almost seems like a possibility.
"Do you really want him to see you like this?" she asks, side-eyeing me with a lifted brow.
"Wow. You missed your calling as a life coach."
"Oh, please. You need a shower before you go to Sawyer. He's spending the day surfing in Duck by the pier."
"How do you know?"
She shrugs. "Chase flirted it out of one of his coworkers."
"You didn't mind him flirting with Brandy?" I can't imagine it. Not the hands off everything I have, including my last damn bite of pizza Gianna I know. "She's really pretty."
Gi rolls her eyes. "Nah, he flirted with some dude Rajesh."
This I can imagine—and it's both funny and awful. "Oh, God. That's wrong, Gi."
"It worked." Her grin stretches to Cheshire proportions. "So you can either stay on your high horse about flirting for information being morally questionable—even though we both know you've done it a thousand times—or you can thank me for telling you where to find Sawyer."
Pretty sure there's no question about which option I choose here.
"I expect a phone call later," she says before I leave. "Tomorrow, at least, since I'm pretty sure you'll be…busy tonight. But I have some gossip for you, too—the cops busted the circuit again the other night and, get this: they arrested Danny again. I wasn't there, but I heard it was a total scene."
"Really?" I try to sound interested, but I don't care about the circuit right now. And I especially don't care about Danny. I don't care about anything other than finding Sawyer.
"Plus, before that, a bunch of high school kids showed up, apparently. Which is strike two for the bonfires. We need to do some major reorganizing or the circuit's going to fizzle out." She pauses, laughing. "Get it? Fizzle out? Fires?"
I smile at her.
She sighs. "Fine. Whatever. Go get Sawyer back."
This time, my smile is genuine. And then I'm out the door.
When I get to the beach, even though the sun is blinding across the water and the sand is crowded, I find him almost immediately. Out on his board bobbing over waves which, unfortunately for him, aren't very rough. I drop my stuff and strip down to my suit and jog toward the shore, watching him the entire time. He's just sitting on his board though, staring into the distance.
So Rajesh totally lied to me.
I've never been so happy to have been lied to before. Because it means Sawyer didn't leave for good. It means I have a chance to make everything right.
I dive into the water and when I come up for air, he's staring straight at me. My stomach launches itself into my throat and I raise a tentative hand in the air, scissor-kicking my legs underneath me. He hesitates, and then waves back.
I swim toward him, my strokes steadier than I feel and when I reach him, I hang on to his board, squinting up at him. Wish I brought my shades.
"You found me," he says.
"I did." I try to match my tone to his, which is hard to read.
"How?"
"Rajesh."
"Of course."
"Don't be mad at him. Chase pretended he was looking for you…and he might've flirted a little…and Rajesh might've succumbed. And I'm really sorry about that. I'll apologize to Rajesh as soon as I can."
But instead of looking pissed, Sawyer's smirking. "Guarantee you Rajesh milked that flirting for all he could. He's not an idiot."
I start to smile, because I can picture it so clearly. Straight as an arrow Chase—complete with a bruised eye from the fight last night—trying so hard to flirt with Rajesh, probably bright freaking red the whole time. And Rajesh secretly laughing so hard on the inside. But…then Sawyer continues and my smile falls away. "And don't be mad at Rajesh, either. He wasn't lying—I told him to tell you I wasn't coming back. Because I wasn't planning to. Then he called me and told me what you said…"
"Are you still leaving?"
"I'm not sure." He watches me so intensely, I can tell he's dying to ask what I know now. Because I understand, finally, why he can't tell me himself.
And I'm dying to tell him. First, though, "If you didn't mind me knowing where you are now—why did you wait for me to find you, instead of coming to find me?"
"I thought it should be your call if you wanted to see me again, after speaking with your mom." He holds my gaze.
I stare at him. Hard. Harder. Waiting for his words to make sense, but they never do. "Why the hell wouldn't I want to see you, Sawyer? I owe you a huge apology. And a million kisses—if you'll still take them."
His expression's wary. "What exactly do you know?"
"Everything," I say. "About Brock. About my mother's ultimatum. That you couldn't ever talk to me again or she'd press charges against your dad… I get it, Sawyer. God, I get it."
"What my dad did was—"
"Wait," I interrupt him. Because I've been thinking about this from the moment I stepped out of my house. Cassidy said something that stuck with me the other night: sometimes people we love make really stupid decisions, and we have to find ways to forgive them.
And it's easy to try with Brock. Because no matter what he did, he loved me.
And I love him.
So I keep my eyes on Sawyer's, and I say, simply, "What your dad did was forgivable."
Breath shutters out of his mouth, like maybe he's been holding it in for four years. "I can't believe that's the word you'd use."
"Well, believe it. And you know what else? My mom's backing down." I smile and expect one in return, but he disappoints me, frowning instead.
"There's no statute of limitations on embezzlement in North Carolina. She could turn around anytime she wants and destroy him. Destroy my entire family." He drags a hand through his waterlogged hair, sending trails of water down his face. "I love you, Quinn. Always will. But I can't let that keep me from protecting my family. I'm sorry."
I love you, Quinn.
I want to bask in the three words he put in front of my name so much it hurts, but I'm not even sure he's realized he said them. "Listen to me, Sawyer. She's not going to do anything."
"I'll never be good enough for you—and she'll do whatever she can to keep us apart. God, it's half my fault she came down so hard on my dad. She was looking for things because she didn't want us to be together. If I wasn't in your life maybe—"
"Stop thinking like that," I beg. "Sawyer, let it go."
"How? What my dad did was wrong." Sawyer frowns, looking away from me.
I want to ask him if he knows why his father did it. But he won't tell me even if he does. Sawyer's good like that. He's protective of the people he loves. We'll have the conversation someday, probably soon. But for now…for now we get to talk about anything we want. Freely. In the open. And I want to do so much more than that.
I grab his knee (oh God finally contact finally finally finally), and I press as much of what I'm feeling as I can through my fingers. Love; so, so much love. "He must've been desperate. Okay? I told you it's forgivable."
"Not for me." When Sawyer looks at me again, his eyes are full of pain. "I can't forgive him. Sometimes I even hate him."
"Sawyer…"
"You said it yourself. He broke the law. He ruined what we had. And Jess? Jesus, Jess has been so fucked up these years. I can barely stomach looking at my dad."
"But you love him."
He nods. "I can't be with you if it puts him at risk."
I grip him tighter. "It doesn't. Not anymore. Now that I know everything? My mom's got her own ultimatum to deal with. Trust me. She won't turn him in. It doesn't matter that we're talking…or doing anything else we feel like doing."
But he's not ready to take the bait I'm trying so hard to entice him with. He's still frowning. "What if she—"
"I told her I'd slee
p with every one of the sons of her country club friends if she presses charges." I laugh, but he continues to frown. "Not that I'd really do it, but she doesn't know that. I told her I'd never speak to her again. I'd cover myself in tattoos. I'd marry a homeless man. If her point is to keep us apart because she wants to protect me, she now understands what I'll do with that sort of protection. And…the financial aspect is being taken care of."
His expression sharpens. "What does that mean?"
"Just that she'll have the money back and there'll be no more complaining about it."
"Don't bother." He shakes his head. "I offered it to her. A year ago. She turned me down."
"Excuse me?"
"I… Right after graduation, Rajesh and I sold a set of designs for a process we'd been outlining. Made a decent chunk of change." His cheeks redden in the most adorable way. "The first thing I did was try to give it to Lillian. But she told me it'd be making you a prostitute. That if I paid off my father's debt to have a chance to see you, it'd be like you were a whore, bought and paid for."
"She is such a bitch." I'm surprised the heat in my blood isn't causing the ocean to boil over right now.
"She wouldn't take it even if I promised never to see you again anyway."
"Because she couldn't ensure it. She couldn't believe you'd keep good on your word. It wasn't ever even about the money. It was about trying to control my life. Control who I loved." I submerge completely, holding my breath until I feel like I might burst. But when I come back up, I'm smiling.
His frown turns to confusion. "What?"
I smile wider. "I was just remembering a few minutes ago when you… When you said you loved me."
"I do, but—"
I shove a wave of water at his face. "Don't you dare follow up with a but. You know how I feel about that. There shouldn't be a condition on love." Then I smile wider. "You said you do. So, basically, that's twice you've told me you love me."
He's fighting a smile now; maybe it's not quite sinking in for him the way it did for me. So I push against his knee—and, in turn, I shove him right off his board into the ocean. He comes up sputtering, reaching for his board. When he grabs it, I duck under it and resurface between his arms, wrapping my legs around his waist. "Come on, Sawyer. Catch up." And then… "Oh, wait. You are up." I wink at him and swish my hips back and forth, gently rocking myself against the start of his erection.
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