“I’m sorry,” he said again. “But it’s the truth. I know you don’t want to hear that about your brother. Why would I lie? Especially after all these years.”
There was that damn ‘but’ again. Suddenly the smell of the seafood caused my stomach to roil. I couldn’t breathe. The walls closed in on me. Quinn had accused my brother of doing something heinous. Griffin Jansen was no saint but he wasn’t a heathen either. He’d never do anything criminal, putting a loved one in jeopardy. And he’d loved Quinn like a brother.
I sucked in a ragged breath and threw my hands in the air. “I’ve got to go.”
“Please Ashton,” he pleaded, clutching at my top but finding thin air. “This is why I never said anything. I didn’t want to come between you and Griffin. I know how much you worshipped him. It was best that I left. My parents wanted a fresh start for me. And I got one.”
I speared him with a glare. “Do my parent’s know? Have you spat your venom at my mother?”
Quinn’s eyes widened at my verbal assault. I didn’t care. I wanted to hurt him like he’d continued to hurt me. Dig the knife in so deep I’d have to twist it to pull it out. “I would assume Griffin told them the same story he told everyone else.”
“I need to go,” I repeated. “Give me time to digest this, Quinn. Please respect my privacy and leave me alone. I’ll contact you when I’m ready to see you again.”
“We can talk tomorrow?” Quinn asked, hope still lighting his blue eyes.
“No, I’m going back to Atlanta. Everything is done here anyway. I need to get back to the office and start the ball rolling on this hotel deal.”
“Please, Ashton Just stay one more day. We can figure this out.”
I shook my head. “I can’t. I’m sorry.”
But I wasn’t. I wasn’t sorry at all.
“Will you call me when you arrive? At least let me know that you made it home okay?”
I conceded that small point with a nod.
And for the second time in twenty-four hours, I walked out on Quinn Andrews. Just like he’d done to me.
Chapter Fourteen
Quinn
“I messed up Nanna,” I said. Sitting by my grandmother’s bedside, I held her shaking hand. She’d been in and out of lucidity all evening, which wasn’t unusual for her. But it seemed worse somehow without Ashton to support me. After the long overdue confessions of the past. The night nurse had given her something to help her sleep and it made her woozy.
“Why?” Nanna asked. Her eyes fluttered open. And they seemed bright and curious with understanding of the question.
“Ashton doesn’t believe me,” I said, laying my head on the edge of her soft mattress. “She thinks I’m lying about the night I got arrested.”
“You’re a good boy,” Nanna said sleepily as she patted me on the head.
I tucked rose and tucked the blanket around her frail body. “Love you.”
A few minutes later she drifted off to sleep. As I watched her sleep, I thanked God for everything that my grandparent’s had done for me. After my arrest, I’d felt like I had embarrassed my family. A lot of people wouldn’t think it was a big deal, but to me it was. To my family it was. Especially, since I hadn’t divulged the whole story. I’d protected Griffin until the end and taken the high road. He’d taken the ditch.
I still let my parents think I was responsible for the weed. I should have told them the truth from the beginning. I was protecting the wrong person. I’d chosen Griffin over Ashton which had been my first mistake in a long line.
Now I may have lost her again.
Chapter Fifteen
Ashton
“How was the beach?” my best friend Courtney asked. “Did you recharge your batteries with a little sun and surf. See any hotties running on the white sand?”
If she only knew.
We sat at a cozy table for two at Canoe, our favorite restaurant, which overlooked the Chattahoochee River on the outskirts of Atlanta. Courtney and I had been besties since high school so I didn’t have to fill her in on the whole sordid history. Now, we worked together at the real estate firm together as well. Courtney knew me better than anyone else. We had been friends since we were in third grade when Courtney had pulled my pigtails and I’d lost a chunk of my hair to her aggressive yank. She’d apologized and we’d done a pinky swear. The unbreakable bond.
“I guess you could say that,” I answered. Recharging my batteries was one way of looking at toe-curling sex. The torrents of raw emotion? Not so much. “I ran into someone from our past, actually.”
“Really? Who?” Courtney edged closer, eagerness causing her brown eyes to widen and twinkle in anticipation.
“You aren’t going to believe me when I tell you.”
Courtney stuffed a piece of lobster roll in her mouth and rolled her eyes. “Don’t be such a tease. Spill girlfriend.”
“Quinn Andrews,” I offered without missing a beat, making sure she had her mouth full when I laid it down. The news of the decade.
She swallowed the big lump of lobster in her mouth, almost choking. “No way! How is that even possible?” She asked through watery eyes.
“He was the lawyer that worked for the developer, Mr. Albertson.”
“Oh my god!” she wiped her mouth on the paper napkin and shook her finger in my face. “And you never called to tell me this? How could you keep this a secret for so long?”
I shrugged. “It was a busy week. We had a snafu with the deal. Honestly, the time went by so fast, I didn’t even think of it.”
“Bullshit. Tell me everything that happened. And don’t leave out one gory detail.”
I gave the short version of the story. How I was surprised to see Quinn in the boardroom that first morning. How his boss bamboozled us into having dinner. How I managed to close the deal in the end. I just couldn’t bring myself to tell her about the sex part. Because I knew what she’d say and I didn’t want to hear an I told you so. She couldn’t berate me anymore ferociously than I did to myself the entire flight home.
Courtney studied me with her big, brown eyes, similar to how my mother would when I was fibbing about something and didn’t want to get into trouble. “You’re not telling me everything.”
I sighed. It was no use. She would get it out of me eventually. I finally gave her what she wanted, probably already knew, but forced me to verbalize. “We had sex.”
She snapped her fingers and grinned from ear to ear. “I knew it! Deets, please.”
Lowering my voice a few octaves I said, “I’m not giving you any details. Those are private.”
Courtney motioned for the waiter to bring us another bottle of wine. “You know I’ll get it out of you. Even if I have to ply you with cheap red wine. Come on,” she said, topping off my wine glass with the last few drops of our first bottle.
So, I gave in and when I was done, tears pooled in my eyes. I couldn’t stop them. And now that I’d opened the floodgates, I was afraid this was going to turn into the ugly cry.
Courtney handed me a fresh napkin and took my hand in hers.
“If you had so much fun with him then why the waterworks now?”
My best friend didn’t miss a thing.
“My last day in Destin, I talked to his grandmother,” I managed to get out between great, heaving sobs. A couple two tables over started staring and whispering behind their hands. Courtney motioned to the server to bring another bottle of Cabernet.
“Oh, yeah,” Courtney nodded. “I’d heard that she had gotten worse over the years. So sad. Remember she used to make us the best cookies? And those mini pizzas were to die for.”
“Well, she was pretty lucid when she told me that Quinn had left soon after he’d been arrested for felony possession of marijuana. That’s why he was sent away the summer after graduation. To Florida.”
Courtney rolled her eyes. “We knew loads of kids that got in trouble during and after high school, doing stupid shit they’d later regret. Are you really going to
hold that over his head? He’s a successful attorney now, right? Graduated Harvard Law?”
“It’s not about the arrest itself. It’s about the fact that he’s now trying to pin it on my brother.”
“How so?” Courtney asked, still unimpressed.
“He said that Griffin set him up,” I’d stopped sobbing and one lonely tear remained. I captured it with the napkin and set the white paper down on the table.
“What?” she gasped, leaning back in her chair. “No way.”
“Apparently, Griffin heard us that night. You know …”
“Yeah, when Quinn stamped your v-card. So what?”
“Anyway, Griffin went bananas according to Quinn, and planted the weed in his car. The cops were called and they pulled Quinn over. When they found the drugs, Quinn went to jail.”
“Pretty elaborate plan just to get back at someone,” she said, still unimpressed.
“That’s what I thought,” I wailed. “Now, I don’t know who or what to believe.”
“Why would Quinn lie about it? Seems strange he would hold so tightly to a lie for ten years.”
“No idea. But I can’t see Griffin setting up his best friend like that. I mean, you and I have been best friends since grade school. If you royally pissed me off, I certainly wouldn’t set you up for a drug bust or anything that like. That’s taking it pretty far. Don’t you think?”
“Did you ask Griffin about this?”
“Not yet,” I said. “And I’m not going to. It’s his wedding this weekend. I know he’s stressing about a lot of things right now and I’m not going to pile it on because I want closure. That’s a selfish agenda that I won’t adhere to. The last thing he needs is his younger sister accusing him of doing something that happened over ten years ago.”
“True. But you do need to ask him,” she insisted. “Eventually.”
“I plan on talking to my mother on Friday,” I said. “I’m sure she knows the particulars. You’ll be at the rehearsal dinner, right? For moral support. In case I break down again and need to high tail it to the Ladies.”
“Of course,” she reassured me with a pat to my hand. “I’ll even open the stall door for you. I wouldn’t miss the blessed event.”
I took a bite of the delicious rainbow trout. Now that I’d unloaded on Courtney, my appetite had returned. “Well, thanks again for dinner, Court.”
“It’s my pleasure,” she smiled. “You deserve it after your big promotion today.”
“I’m still pinching myself.”
“I heard Henri was really impressed with your closing skills. I can’t wait to get my hands on the new place,” she lamented.
Courtney worked as an interior designer at the firm. She would be the one doing all the work on the new hotel and restaurant. Her work had been featured in the all the top designer magazines. Now if I could only get her to help with my cluttered apartment.
I pushed my empty plate away. “What am I going to do?”
I realized the question was more for me to answer than it was for Courtney. I’d had Quinn cemented in my brain since I’d left Destin. I really hoped that we had a chance at a relationship but I didn’t hold out much hope. After my text to let him know I’d arrived home safely, he’d respected my request to be left alone to think.
“First thing you need to do is find out the truth. If your brother did set him up, then it seems to me you have an apology to make,” she said matter-of-factly. “If Quinn is lying to you, then it’s just time to move on. You don’t want to start off a relationship built on lies, Ashton. The real estate mogul in you should know that any building erected on sand crumbles.”
Exactly what I’d been thinking. It just made my logic solid hearing it from my best friend. “You’re right.”
“I do have another option, though,” she suggested. “Something to get your mind off all this unwelcome drama from the past. Jeez, it’s like Quinn Andrews rode back into your life in Dr. Emmett Brown’s DeLorean.
“What’s could possibly pull my sexual fantasies away from Quinn?” I asked. “He’s the man on which naughty fantasies were built.”
“Beckham has a friend coming into town this weekend. He thinks his buddy is the perfect match for you. We could double date to your brother’s wedding?” Courtney batted her eyelashes at me in a hopeful way. I understood her plan of attack. She didn’t want me being a spinster at my brother’s wedding. Or the third wheel at the head table.
Beckham was Courtney’s boyfriend of two years. He was a good-looking guy and an accountant who worked with our company. I wasn’t so sure about his matchmaking skills, though. “What does this guy look like?”
Courtney scrolled through her cell phone. “I happen to have his picture right here. He’s friends with me on Facebook.”
I peered at the picture on her screen. He was cute. He had dark blonde hair, blue eyes, and a gorgeous smile with dimples and everything. “He has some potential,” I agreed. “But I’m not sure I’m ready to throw in the towel with Quinn just yet.”
“He can tag along to the wedding with us, at least. I’m sure your parent’s won’t mind another guest. You never put down your plus one anyway,” Courtney reminded me.
My mother had been hounding me lately, wondering who I was going to bring to the wedding. With work being so busy, I hadn’t had time to think about a date.
“Okay, on one condition. This is just a friendly date. No strings attached kind of a thing.”
Courtney laughed. “I’ll think you’ll change your mind once you see him in person. But whatever you say. At least agree to a slow dance and a stolen kiss behind the potted plants after too many champagne toasts.”
The thought of kissing another man made me physically ill. Because I felt like I already belonged to Quinn Andrews. And I already had. For the past ten years. He’d been my one and only.
The waiter dropped off the check as we finished the second bottle of wine. Courtney swiped the check before I could even reach for it. “Remember…this is my treat Ivanka Trump. You’ll be running the place someday and I’ll be reporting to you.”
Tonight hadn’t been the time to spring the news about Quinn and my move to Florida on Courtney. Guilt riddled my insides. I hated hiding things from her.
“Now that I’m head of acquisitions, I can pay for both of us,” I offered.
“Pish posh, Ashton Jansen. You can get the movie,” Courtney said, laying down two hundred-dollar bills in the black leather check case.
Checking my watch I realized we only had a few minutes before our show began. It was the newest rom-com featuring Cameron Diaz and Tina Fey – perfect for a girl’s night. “Sounds like a plan. We’ll need to leave now or we’ll miss the showing.”
Chapter Sixteen
Quinn
I fingered the creamy white invitation with its raised silver lettering, and unfolded the contents. A paper thin piece of vellum escaped the embossed envelope and floated to the floor when I opened the folded invite.
You are cordially invited to celebrate
the wedding of
Sara Elizabeth Gillies
and
Griffin William Jansen
On Saturday evening
June the 2nd
at six o’clock in the evening
Roswell on the Green
Followed by a reception
The invitation had arrived a few weeks earlier but I hadn’t seen it until now. Way too late to RSVP. Just another nail in my coffin with Ashton’s parents. Now, they could add rude to the top of their long list of my faults. Deflowering only daughter was right up there too.
Nanna had the expensive paper buried in a pile of old mail. As I sat in her living room, sipping a cup of hot tea and watching her work on her adult coloring book, I contemplated going even though I hadn’t sent back my card in the stamped envelope to Mrs. Jansen. Today had been a good day for Nanna. She was the most lucid I had seen her in a very long time. I could leave. If I wanted to.
“Are y
ou going to keep staring at that thing all day?” Nanna asked without looking up from her coloring book. One of her favorite nurses, Madeline, had given Nanna the adult coloring book for her birthday along with a tray of one hundred colors of gel pens. It was the perfect gift for keeping her mind busy.
“I don’t know what to do,” I answered truthfully. Part of me wanted to put the past behind me and move on. The other part wanted to confront my issue with Griffin because it was the only way I was going to have a shot at a relationship with Ashton. Was she worth it? I thought so. But his wedding wasn’t the venue for an age-old confrontation.
“What does your heart tell you?” she asked, just like pre-dementia Nanna would have done.
“Go to the wedding,” I answered without hesitation.
And punch him in his smug face, then his cowardly balls.
“You should go,” she said simply.
“I don’t want to leave you,” I said.
“I’ll go with you,” she said with a smile as she colored Snoopy’s head bright read. “It’s been awhile since I’ve been back home, after all.”
“Do you really feel up to it?” I asked, concern dripping from my tone. Just because she was having a good day didn’t mean she was up to a flight to Atlanta.
If I took Nanna, we would have to drive. It would be a long six hours and I was concerned about that. What if she had a meltdown in the car? Got violent and caused an accident?
Nanna stopped coloring. She ran a hand through her dull grey hair. “I’ll be fine, Quinn. Don’t worry about me. I’m sure your mother would love the chance to babysit me all weekend while you attend the festivities.”
Actually, it was my mother’s idea to bring Nanna with me to the wedding. We didn’t know how much time with still had with her, and my mother thought it would be good to have the whole family together one last time. They were still close with Griffin’s family and everyone would be in town for the wedding.
“Okay, I’ll have Madeline help pack your bags. We can leave Thursday morning.”
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