by Shannyn Leah
Was that what first attracted her to him? Her desire to fix him? No, it was his damn hot body first, and then along came her craving to be the woman to heal him...only to discover he was a giant ass who screwed with people’s lives just as ignorant as her father.
Quinn hadn’t denied it either. He’d admitted to working as head of security at the resort was a cover to his real job: Illegally investigating people’s lives for Robert. He’d given no remorse for his actions, leaving her decision to end things between them easy.
Now, wanting him to soothe her made her feel weak.
Soothe it yourself. Fix this yourself. Don’t rely on others.
Ugh.
Now here she was, two years later, and all she could think about was how much she missed Quinn.
What is wrong with you?
“I recall a time when you liked this position.”
Did he have to sound so damn sexy?
She wished every seductive word out of his mouth would make her angry rather than turn on.
You don’t have time for this.
“What do you want?” she snarled.
Quinn didn’t know her deep dark secret. She hadn’t told him about that night and she sure as hell wasn’t about to tell him now. He’d kept enough lies from her about himself and was thankful her father conveyed them with his last dying breath. Otherwise, who knew where they would have ended up?
His next sentence left her debating two possibilities. “The same thing as you...”
You? No, not him. Maybe a little him. Yeah, you need a little of him like you need another secret of your own.
Anya pushed away her current thoughts about him. None of it mattered anymore. Not who she was or what she wanted. She had an obligation to one person: Rebecca. An innocent person doomed by Robert’s wicked ways.
Anya breathed in her strength...but all she smelled was the distinct scent of all man that Quinn was and sent chills of desire through her.
Desire? Desire! Are you serious Anya?
“And that is?” She was thankful when her voice came out confident and not trembling like her body and her thoughts.
Quinn paused for a long moment, as if contemplating whether to admit the reason he was following her and restraining her on the bed.
Finally, he said in a low voice, “The file room.”
Anya stiffened.
How did he know? How did he know! Did he know everything?
Did he know what Anya had done? Did he know about Rebecca?
Calm down. Of course he doesn’t know about Rebecca.
But, then again, it was his job to keep tabs on things.
Was he keeping tabs on her? This entire time?
“So that is what you’re looking for,” he said, taking note of her rigid body and silence.
Darn it.
“You never were good at hiding your true feelings. You’re not like Violet,” Quinn said.
What did that mean? Did he know Anya had felt more for him? She’d never told him.
Anya had had enough of this game. It was far worse than the cat and mouse game earlier. This was lion versus zebra and her pretty stripes were a dead giveaway.
She wanted to push him off her and demand respect, but she knew that wiggling beneath him would be useless and humiliating. Quinn had her cornered, just as he always had. Just like her selfish heartless father.
If Quinn was after the file room it was for one file and that would be the one to save his hide. His own file.
Selfish prick, as usual.
“If you don’t get off me now, I will have you arrested and on top of assault I will add a shit load of your dealings with my dad to the record.”
He let her go, but she knew her threat fell on deaf ears. Quinn could protect himself from anything brought forward...or could he? Maybe that’s why he wanted the file.
The mattress shifted as his weight lifted.
Anya had to dig deep down and pull all the self control she could find inside her trembling body not to scramble to her feet and put distance between them.
Under the circumstances one might presume it was because he’d had her nailed to the bed against her will.
It was quite the opposite.
She feared her willpower would ignore the signs that Quinn was nothing but trouble, and nail him against the wall with her mouth.
Scary and mind blowing.
Anya stood at the end of her bed and resisted the urge to straighten the ponytail she’d pulled her medium blonde hair into, or smooth over her black tights and sweater. She’d tried to dress for rogue and camouflage in the shadows. Apparently, if one was watching and waiting−aka Quinn Barker−it wouldn’t have mattered what she wore.
Now Anya felt foolish, like a teenager sneaking around thinking she was so clever only to be busted by her parents. Only parents didn’t give her the smoky hot eyes of Quinn that bore straight into her soul.
Smoky hot eyes? After all these years? Really?
Swallowing hard, she knew if Quinn gave her the smallest hint that he was interested in more than arguing over a key, she would let him take her.
Right here. Right now.
She would tear every last piece of clothing off his body to feel his strong, flexing muscles beneath her fingertips.
Oh for crying out loud! Now you’re acting like a horny teenager.
Quinn’s dark eyes held hers for what felt like hours locked in a moment of sharing everything they’d done together, and that last night.
Anya’s body trembled remembering how cold he’d been after she confronted him in her suite...right here in her bedroom where they stood now. He’d shut down and detached from her, confirming everything her father had said about him was true.
Now his eyes slowly traveled down her body, in a slow way that perceived every part of her. It was part of his job to assess people, monitor them and then invade and dig into their personal lives, their decisions, their actions...anything to use against them.
Did he notice she’d lost weight?
Anya knew she was stick and bones as a result of her appetite loss, struggling every day to push passed the sickness of her guilt and eat. Eat to survive.
Did he see the sadness in her eyes?
Her life was no longer her own and she was indebted to the life she’d ruined until she found Rebecca’s family and reunited them. Maybe afterwards Anya could resume her life.
Here? At the resort? With her family?
The notion was amazing, but how could Anya resume a normal life after everything that had happened? How could she smile, laugh and be happy? Deep down, she didn’t feel that was a possibility or something she even wanted.
Quinn saw all of it. It didn’t matter, because he didn’t care.
Anya could hardly stand still as Quinn finished his profile assessment of her and stopped at her eyes, forwarding his unmistakable disapproval in her appearance.
That made her angry.
He had no idea what she’d been through. Who the hell did he think he was giving her a disapproving look?
Without a better solution, she did exactly the same thing as him.
Standing only a few feet away, with her eyes adjusting to the darkness, she ran her eyes down the same dark colours he wore as her.
She might not be able to see the rippling muscles of the workout body she knew was under the clothes, but the width and height of him made her luxury bedroom seem like the size of a mouse hole.
“Marc asked me to find you.” His words came out strong and confident. She would have retaliated if panic hadn’t arose through her body.
Marc? Why?
“When I find you, I’m to report to him.”
Report to him? Clearly she was wrong about her brother.
Quinn pulled his cell phone out.
The thunderous sound of her own panic inside her head released a no that only she could hear, deafening her.
She wasn’t ready. She couldn’t face her family right now. But that was exactly what would
happen if Quinn phoned Marc.
The Caliendos were a close-knit family and although the bonds between them were amazing for support and love, they wouldn’t understand.
“Wait,” she said, as his finger’s touch lit the screen. “What do you want?”
The way his breath released told her he was bargaining for himself. “I want into the file room. Obviously you’ve lost the swipe card−”
“I didn’t lose it.”
Quinn didn’t bother arguing. His raised eyebrow was proof enough that he was fully aware she’d lost the key.
His perspective annoyed her.
“I didn’t lose it,” she repeated, losing her patience.
I left it in my desk, which is no longer there.
Anya didn’t tell Quinn this fact because then he would wonder why her family member had taken it. She wondered the same thing. Another reason not to confront them.
Did they know about the room hidden behind her father’s office? Until her father had passed away she’d been the only one with access to that room and knowledge of the files hidden behind the fake wall.
“How do you plan on getting in without the card?” he asked.
“I plan on finding the card.”
It had to be here somewhere. It had to be one of the damn maids cleaning up when really they should leave well enough alone.
“And asking your family about it...” he inquired, as if that was even an option.
Anya glared at him. “That is out of the question,” she said.
“What swipe card do you need?”
She was wary to answer, but what choice did she have? At least with Quinn on her side, she knew her presence would be left in the shadows.
“My dad’s office. The one just beyond the doors of the suites.”
He nodded.
And in that exact same know-it-all-tone he said, “Consider it done.”
That’s how sneaky this man was. Sneaky and successful with a one hundred percent rate of never getting caught.
“Meet me tomorrow. Same time as tonight, in your favorite hiding place...the bushes.”
He’d been watching her for days and she’d never noticed him.
“I will have the key and you will get us in.”
“How? There are cameras everywhere.”
He stepped toward her, the closeness shrinking the room. He always had this effect. He always left her body shivering with pleasure and fear and craving more.
How had two years not changed that?
Chapter Two
QUINN BARKER COULDN’T stop himself. He stepped toward Anya just so he could smell her again.
Yeah, smell her.
Her familiar vanilla scent brought back everything in their past.
Everything.
He’d hadn’t stopped thinking about this woman since the night he walked out of this suite. Not a day had gone by when he hadn’t reached for his phone to get the information on her whereabouts.
It wouldn’t have been hard. That was his job...or had been his job...when Robert was alive. A temporary position that he’d never imagined he’d undertake. Digging up the skeletons in people’s closets and handing the crucial information to a man who used it at his own discretion, for his own demented purposes, that no doubt put every last person that Quinn screwed into the exact bargaining situation Quinn had been in with Robert. It was amazing what people did to keep their secrets hidden.
Robert had destroyed people and families ruthlessly for his own gain: Money and power.
It made Quinn sick. The thought that Quinn had helped made him even sicker. But at the time, he hadn’t had a choice.
So when Anya confronted him about the truth of his job, he’d let her believe he was the jerk Robert had painted Quinn out to be.
Even on his death bed Robert was a greedy bastard and he took the one person in Quinn’s life that he’d started to like.
Anya wasn’t like her sister Violet who wore a mask and no one could figure out what the hell was going on in her head. Not even Quinn...and he knew how to read people.
Anya was different, transparent or as he liked to believe, real. When she was excited, her blue eyes lit up like sparkling beach glass glistening off the sandy beach under the bright sun. Her full lips, always painted a shade of glossy rose, except tonight, and pursed when she was angry. A pursed pout that he found absolutely adorable.
When she was angry, she was angry.
When she was sad, she was sad.
And when she’d looked at him two years ago with betrayal in her eyes, he’d known there was nothing left for him to do except let her believe that he was the man she thought he was: a heartless asshole.
That had been his plan before Anya reminded him he had heart, even after all the trauma in his life.
Quinn had been that heartless asshole when he’d used the attraction he saw in her eyes against her. Anya had put the idea in his head, after they bumped, literally, right into one another sending her notes fluttering across the hallway like leaves falling from a tree.
Quinn had been left with no other alternative...his family depended on him...his dead father expected Quinn to get that file.
This time around he was not going to let his feelings get involved and hurt her. He wouldn’t hurt her again.
No, you’re going to blackmail her instead. Just like Robert did with you.
“I will get you in and out undetected.” He didn’t mean for his voice to come out so gruff, but battling the desire to ask if she was alright was destroying his insides.
He couldn’t fight all his desires. His hand moved without permission.
Put it down.
Quinn didn’t listen and gently touched Anya’s delicate cheek. Her skin was chilled from waiting outside in the cool summer night.
His voice softened as he said, “I’m glad you’re okay.” His hand lingered for a heartbeat too long.
Anya’s face was haunted, her eyes shadowed with darkness, guilt and fear he recognized mirrored his own reflection.
What could make this woman feel and display these feelings so forthright? What had happened to her? Where has she been?
Quinn assumed when she left the day after their fight that it was to escape him and start her life over somewhere else. Only, he’d heard the whispers through the resort. You could only believe half the gossip traveling through the grapevine of stories created by the employees. Quinn had listened to stories about Anya being missing, or disappearing without a trace. But when Marc had approached Quinn a few days earlier, he’d realized what a fool he’d been for believing the stories.
If what Marc had told him about Anya’s few short, lacking of details, phone calls to Eliza in the last two years and the sneaking around hadn’t been an indicator, then her appearance now did.
Anya hadn’t left to start a happy new life.
Quinn recognized the signs in her easily readable face: Regret, worry, and guilt.
What was she doing back now? Whose file did she want?
Anya’s eyes glazed over in a frigid way that Quinn had never seen before. She stepped back and hit his arm away at the same time, then snarled, “Don’t act like you care about me. Pin me to a bed, twist my arm and show me the real Quinn Barker, but don’t play another game with me. I am not up for round two.”
He should have remained silent and let her vision of him remain intact, but the words stumbled out of his mouth. “I’m not playing a game with you.”
Luckily, Anya didn’t fall for his words. “All you do is play games with your career and life. Just like this blackmailing game. Two years later and you’re worse then you were when my dad was alive.”
Two years later and he was worse than before?
That statement was inaccurate. Two years ago he’d had hope when now hopelessness consumed his every hour. Until Marc asked him to find Anya.
Coincidentally, he’d found her sneaking back into her suite. He’d hoped it meant one thing: she was looking for the same thing he was, t
he files.
Turns out he was spot on. Now, he had to keep his boundaries...apparently he was lacking in self control but this woman wasn’t. Which was perfect.
“Let’s go, before you get caught,” he snarled and turned stalking out of the bedroom. He was angry at himself for being so weak. This woman had no idea what she did to him.
“Me?” she called after him. He could hear her running shoes stomping behind him like an infuriated child.
Yeah her. Why was she surprised?
“What are you going to tell Marc?” she asked.
Quinn should tell Marc that he found Anya. It was clear by her skeleton body and the sneaking around that she needed her family more now than ever.
Where have you been? What happened? How do I fix it?
He bit back everything and said, “I’m not going to contact him until I have something to give.”
“What does that mean?” He heard the accusation in her voice.
He continued to the door. They had to get out. They’d already been in there long enough.
Anya grabbed the sleeve of his jacket and tried to yank his arm. He didn’t budge but turned around as she accused, “Are you going to tell him where I am once I get you the file? That’s not part of the deal, Barker.”
Barker. Distant and hateful.
Keep yourself distant. “Once I have the file, I will disappear...without a word to any of your family.”
Anya’s lips pursed that luscious way they did when she was confused. “You’re leaving? Willow Valley?”
What did it matter to her?
“Let’s go,” he said, grabbing her upper arm and pulling her against him as he scanned the property and led her outside. They walked across the damp grass to the outskirts of the bushes.
When they were hidden in the shadows, he let her go.
“Tomorrow. Right here. Same time,” he repeated.
He knew her path was back out the bushes to the road. His path was the opposite direction, through the resorts property. He had a ten to fifteen minute walk while hers would be almost an hour.
“Come on. I will drive you to your car,” he said.
Anya folded her arms across her chest and those lips pursed again as her eyes narrowed on him. “Why?”