by Cali MacKay
She immediately recognized the building as the one housing her restaurant, and if she’d had any doubt, the address on the corner of the plans verified it for her. The plans were impressive, and she couldn’t help but get excited at the thought that her restaurant would be in such a gorgeous building—once her restaurant was rebuilt.
Sneaking a peek at the next page, she forced herself to do a double take. It felt like someone had sucker-punched her. Surely these had to be the old plans—the original ones, before Quinn renewed her lease. Because the location where her restaurant currently stood? Well, that was marked on the plans as some sort of nightclub belonging to Sullivan Investments.
She scrambled to find the date on the plans, desperate to confirm that the plans weren’t recent, that her restaurant location was safe, and that Quinn hadn’t betrayed her. There, next to where the plans had been approved by the city, was the date.
It couldn’t be.
Tears escaped before she even fully realized that she was crying. It was as if her whole world had been tipped upside down, and she felt crushed by the weight of Quinn’s betrayal, leaving her unable to take a breath until her lungs burned from it.
The date on the plans was for just over a week ago—just before the fire. He’d lied about renewing her lease. Lied about letting her keep her restaurant.
He’d lied straight to her face—about the most important thing in her life, no less.
With her heart shattered, she bolted out of Quinn’s office, ignoring Nancy’s worried concerns as she repeatedly hit the button for the elevator, which mercifully was still there, so she didn’t have to wait.
She had to get to the lease…had to check it.
Except that she wasn’t sure she could. Crazy as that night had been with Capaldi and Quinn fighting, she couldn’t remember if she’d made a copy to take home with her, or if the only copy had just been burned in the fire—a fire set only days after Quinn had gotten the approval for his plans.
Did Quinn have something to do with the fire? Was it his way of getting rid of her restaurant without her being any the wiser? She couldn’t help but wonder—and that nearly killed her.
Chapter Eighteen
Quinn wasn’t sure what the hell had happened, but something had upset Nancy and she was now rambling. He caught Emma’s name in the jumble of words. “Nancy, slow down and tell me what happened to Emma. Where is she?”
“She left. Everything was fine. I let her into your office, since she had several bags of food and probably wanted to get things set up for you. She couldn’t have been more than five minutes when she ran out of here in tears. I tried to talk to her, but she got on the elevator before I had a chance to stop her. I’m so sorry, Mr. Ryker. I don’t know what happened.”
A sinking feeling overcame him as he went to his office. The plans…right there on his desk where he’d been working on them, out in plain view. He hadn’t taken the time to put them away when he’d realized he was running late for his appointment.
Fuck.
“How long ago did she leave, Nancy?” He all but shook her. “How long?”
“I don’t know. It had to be about twenty, twenty-five minutes ago. I’m so sorry. I didn’t think it would be a problem to put her in your office.”
Quinn was already heading for the elevator, his mind racing. Home. She’d go there. In the meantime, he pulled out his cell to call her, to try to explain. And yet, what the hell would he say? He’d screwed her over. Gone back on his promise to her. It may not have been his intention, and he may have tried to do right by her, but it didn’t change the fact that her restaurant space was going to another, and it was his fault. He’d made her a promise he couldn’t keep. And now, he didn’t know if she’d ever forgive him.
The call went straight to voicemail. Again. And again. He drove like a maniac, shifting from one gear to the next, forcing his car to hug the curves of the road, and flying around other drivers. She had to have gone to his place. And if she hadn’t, then where? Her apartment? Her brother’s? Or would she go to Jake’s?
He pounded the steering wheel in frustration, cursing and wanting to punch something, though he knew he had no one to blame but himself. Skidding down his drive, he was gutted with the realization that her car wasn’t there. He let himself in and was greeted by all the dogs, except Thor.
His world was crashing down around him.
Her drawers had been hastily emptied, some of them barely pushed shut, as though she’d only bothered with the necessities. He had to find her. Had to explain to her.
He raced around Portmore in a daze. She wasn’t at her apartment, and her friend and neighbor, Ivy, hadn’t seen her. That left her brother and Jake. He groaned. Neither of those were good options, though if he had to guess, she’d likely pick Jake, since Nate lived a half hour away.
The thought of her with Jake… It took all he had not to see red, especially when it was clear Jake was in love with her and would like nothing more than to be with her. A quick call to his assistant got him Jake’s address, which luckily had been listed. But he couldn’t get there fast enough, though he’d yet to figure out what the hell he was going to say to her.
Quinn half-expected Jake to live in some rundown shack or tiny apartment. Instead, he found himself pulling down the drive to a nice-looking log home nestled in the woods on the other side of Portmore. There—next to Jake’s car was Emma’s.
He warred with his anger as he pounded on Jake’s door, pissed off that Emma had turned to another man when she was upset. Pissed off that another man was there to comfort her—and pissed off with himself that he was the one who’d upset her.
It took Jake longer than expected to answer the door, and fuck, but he was pulling a t-shirt on and standing in the doorway, blocking his view and essentially refusing him passage. “What do you want, Ryker?”
“I need to talk to Emma.” Quinn was trying to keep his anger and jealousy in check but he was barely managing it, especially when Jake was playing gatekeeper.
“Buddy…you fucked up, big time. And you have some nerve to come here looking for her after what you did.” Jake shook his head and leaned against the doorjamb, stuffing his hands in his pockets. “She wants nothing to do with you—not right now, at any rate.”
“Then I want to hear it from her—not you—and I’m not taking no for an answer. I’m not going anywhere until I get to speak to her.” He was going to fucking lose it if he didn’t get to see Emma.
Jake scoffed with a shake of his head. “That’s not going to happen, so I suggest you go. If she wants to speak to you, she knows where to find you.”
Thor came trotting past Jake to greet him, his tail wagging. He reached down to pet him, but his focus was on the space just beyond Jake, hoping that the reason Thor had come out was that Emma wasn’t far behind. “Emma! Please…”
She put a hand on Jake’s waist as she slipped by him, clearly still upset, her eyes red from crying. And damn, but the familiarity between her and Jake, the fact that she would so casually touch him as if she’d done it a million times, nearly killed him. “It’s okay.”
“Em—you don’t need to talk to him if you don’t want to.” Jake glared at Quinn, but he took a step back when she leaned in and said something to him.
Again, the level of comfort between them made him want to go over there and punch Jake. She was his, damn it. His and his alone. He loved her…loved her more than he could have ever imagined loving anyone.
Jake gave them some privacy, but when Quinn tried to close the distance between them, she put a hand up to stop him and took a step back. “Don’t, Quinn. Unless you can tell me that I’m somehow mistaken about you giving my restaurant space to someone else.”
“Emma… It’s not like that.” He didn’t care that she wanted him to stay away; he couldn’t help himself. It was killing him that she was angry with him—killing him that he’d fucked things up between them. “When I promised you I’d renew your lease, I was under the impressio
n that I still had a month to make whatever changes I wanted. I didn’t realize that the signing got bumped up. I’d made you that promise thinking I could still alter the deal, but it was too late. Gabe had met with the investors and the contract was signed. I tried to get the investor to take a different space, but he wouldn’t budge. I tried, love. I swear it.”
Close as she was, he couldn’t help but reach out and touch her, cupping her face in his hand. Her eyes closed for a moment, but then she pulled away. “Don’t touch me, Quinn. Because you know what? I saw the date on those plans—and they’re dated days before we made our agreement. Fuck, Quinn…you even dropped off my new lease after it’d gone through—a lease that conveniently went up in flames, mind you. Except that I made a copy.” She pulled out a piece of paper from her back pocket and unfolded it. “I wasn’t sure I had, since I was rattled by your fight with Capaldi, but there it was sitting in my purse—a copy of my lease that didn’t end up as ashes.”
It felt like she’d just ripped his heart out. “You don’t mean…you can’t actually think I had anything to do with the fire?” She couldn’t possibly… He felt gutted. “Emma—I had nothing to do with it. And I swear, I tried to renegotiate the contract so you could keep your current location. I never meant to hurt you.”
“But you did. You not only hurt me, but you lied to me, Quinn—after you swore we’d be nothing but honest with each other.” Her eyes shimmered with tears as she turned to go. He grabbed her hand, but she shrugged free of his grasp, turning back to face him with tears streaming down her cheeks. “I can’t do this. You made me think I could trust you—you made me fall in love with you… And don’t tell me that you didn’t know about the plans because my lease has a goddamned fucking loophole in it that allows you to take over my space at your discretion.”
He wanted to groan. It was the final nail in his coffin. Clearly he hadn’t buried that clause deep enough in the contract or wrapped it up in enough legalese. “But only if a better location is made available to you at no additional cost, with all your expenses taken care of. Emma, my brother told me about the contract going through that very day, and though I was hoping to find a way out of it, I knew that I might not be able to. At least this way, the loophole allows you the freedom to move your restaurant without incurring any expenses and without having to wait for the insurance to cough up the money.”
“So you decided to cover your ass, legally. Nice, Quinn. That’s really fucking nice.” She swiped at her tears and looked away, as if the very sight of him was too much for her to bear in that moment. “Well, I don’t want you or your fucking money.”
“It wasn’t like that. I swear. Just come back home, love—I’ll explain everything. And I swear, I’ll do everything I can to make things right between us. It’s killing me to see you cry.” He refused to let her go. He needed her—needed her in his life, and he’d be damned if he was going to let her walk out on him, on what they had. “I love you, Emma.”
“Well, you should have thought of that before you lied straight to my face. The only reason I started dating you was because of that lease—and then you made me fall for you. But you lied, Quinn. Instead of coming clean, you lied to me, after you promised never to do such a thing.”
“I was trying to fix things. You need to believe me.”
But she didn’t. And before he had the chance to convince her otherwise, she was bolting up the steps, leaving him to call out after her.
***
Quinn went over the signed contract, trying to find a way out of it. There had to be a way.
“You already have our lawyers trying to find a way out of the deal, but it’s not looking good. Not to mention, it’s going to tarnish our reputation if you back out of this deal.” Gabe shook his head with a weary sigh. “I know you like Emma—and I like her too—but, Quinn…she’s just going to have to deal with it. It’s not like her lease wasn’t up anyway.”
Quinn was so frustrated, he wanted to punch something. Wanted to go back to Jake’s and drag Emma back to his house. Wanted to remind her why they were so good together.
“Her lease wasn’t up, because I had already agreed to renew it, thinking I still had another month before that contract was finalized. I thought I could still make changes to it, not realizing the meeting got moved and you’d pushed forward with the deal.” He ran a rough hand down his face, wanting to scream. “You don’t get it, Gabe. I love her. And I’ve taken away the one thing that was important to her.”
“Whoa…” Gabe threw up his hands. “I did not just hear that. You can’t possibly be in love with her, Quinn. It’s one thing to hear that sort of nonsense from her, but from you? Are you fucking kidding me? It’s been like two dates or something. Have you lost your mind?”
Quinn glared at his brother and forced himself not to do something rash. “Are you sure you want to question me about that right now? ’Cause I’ll give you fair warning, Gabe—I’m in no fucking mood.”
“Well, whether you love her or not, it makes little difference. That space is still going to Sullivan, because that man’s as stubborn and proud as you are, and he’s not backing down. Not for all the money in the world.” Gabe paced Quinn’s office floor, looking every bit as annoyed as Quinn felt.
“That other retail space by the water…we’ll move her restaurant there.” It would have to work. That was all there was to it. “I’ll handle this one personally. And it’ll just have to blow away the original space.”
Gabe looked at him like he was insane—and maybe he was, at this point. “And what if she still doesn’t forgive you and take you back? Huh? What the fuck are you going to do then?”
“That’s not an option.”
Chapter Nineteen
“I don’t want to talk about it, Jake.” Emma hated crying. And yet she couldn’t stop the goddamned waterworks. All because of Quinn.
She didn’t know what the hell to believe anymore. It certainly could have happened as he said, though it hadn’t kept him from lying to her, trying to strike one deal after another until he’d gotten her in his bed.
With his face lined with worry, Jake focused on petting Thor as if he couldn’t bear to see her crying. “Do you think it was intentional on his part—telling you he’d renew the lease when he couldn’t?”
“He clearly knew there were issues since he put a goddamned clause in the lease, but…I don’t know. Maybe he was just hopeful that he could get things ironed out.” And maybe she was a stupid fool, since she’d not only fallen for him, but was trying to make excuses for him.
“I suppose that if you hadn’t found the plans, and he did manage to fix things, you’d have been none the wiser. I doubt he’d have bothered admitting to his lies.” Jake shook his head, looking pissed off enough to have her thinking that it was a good thing Quinn wasn’t around.
She swiped at her tears, though they kept coming. “That’s what hurts the most. The entire time, he’d been talking about honesty, and how I could trust him. How he’d never lie to me or hurt me. And like a fucking fool, I believed him. One lie after another.”
How could she have been so stupid? So naïve. He must have thought her such an easy target to manipulate. She felt like such an idiot. And one would think that given her past, with her ex lying and cheating his way through their whole relationship, that she’d be more cautious, more leery of handsome men making promises they had no intention of keeping. Quinn might be different than her ex, but the results were the same. She’d still had her heart trounced.
Jake ran a hand down her arm, his touch gentle and caring. “What are you going to do, Em?”
“It’s not like I have many options. He even owns my apartment building at this point.” How the hell was she supposed to try to get over Quinn when he’d imbedded himself in the most important parts of her life?
Jake gave her a big shrug and waved away her last concern. “You know I have plenty of room here. Move in with me. That’ll be one less thing you have to worry about and I’d
love to have the company.”
It’s not as though she had a whole lot of options at this point. “If you’re sure…”
“I am. This place has far too many bedrooms, including the second master suite you’re currently staying in. It’s too big for it to just be me rattling around the place.” He cupped her face and wiped her cheeks dry. “I’m here for you, Em. I always will be—no matter what you need. You’ll get through this.”
She nodded, though with her heart still shredded into a million little pieces, she didn’t know how she’d get through it.
Her phone buzzed. The police department. With her heart racing, she took the call and listened as the police detective rattled through their findings. By the time she hung up, she felt even worse. “They found out who’d been sabotaging us at the restaurant. Fucking Tony. Not only was he missing his shifts, he was the one responsible for causing us all that grief.”
Jake shook his head, anger pouring off him in waves. “Are you fucking kidding me? I’m going to murder that lazy bastard. So did they arrest him?”
“Not for the fire. They don’t think he was the one who set it.” And that left her thinking of Capaldi again. “He said they don’t have many other leads.”
“If it wasn’t Tony, then it has to be Capaldi.”
“They’re looking into it, but as of yet there’s no evidence pointing in his direction.”
***
“I don’t want to go anywhere, Jake.” Emma felt like an empty shell. Her restaurant, her entire purpose in life, was gone, and with Quinn’s betrayal only adding to her grief, she’d never felt such heartache. She could barely muster the energy to pull herself up off Jake’s sofa, Thor at her feet keeping vigil. Quinn came by every single day, though Jake never let him in, knowing it’d do nothing but upset her further.