by Lily Harlem
“I just.” I didn’t know how to put it into words. But the nagging feeling in my chest was back.
“What, baby, what’s worrying you?”
I stayed silent.
“You spoke to the girls tonight, didn’t you? They’re fine?”
“Yes, yes.”
I didn’t want to give him a second’s worry about Rebecca or Sophie. They were great. They’d settled back into school life perfectly, so had their ponies. Lessons were going well on and off horseback and their dormitory sounded like an enormous amount of fun until the strict lights-off curfew at eight.
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“They’re fine,” I said. “Jasper had new road shoes because the Evenglade farrier didn’t do a very good job on his and Sophie got an A in her first French assessment.
She’s looking set to go up a year in that subject.”
“Great,” he said but his face didn’t relax. “So if the girls are fine, what is it? What’s worrying you?”
“It’s just…” I bit down on my lip. “I probably should be talking to Quinn, not you,” I said quietly.
“Baby, if something is upsetting you it has everything to do with me.” I glanced at him, surprised. Usually if we had issues with one another it was kept separate from whoever wasn’t involved.
“It’s Eve,” I said, grateful to be able to say it.
“Eve?”
“Didn’t you see the way she was with Quinn?”
Suddenly I felt stupid. Why the hell would Liam have noticed how Eve had been with Quinn? Liam lived in his own little world, a world that consisted of me, Quinn and the girls. Everyone else, as far as I could make out, was superfluous. Unless they were on the end of an email and could make him money, he didn’t have any interest in what other people were doing.
He took a slow sip of his wine then set it on the side of the bath. The steam had created a mist of condensation around the glass. “How Eve was with Quinn?” he repeated.
“Yes.” I gulped back two mouthfuls of wine, not savoring the light grapefruit hints the label had boasted. “She was all over him, chatting, touching his arm, making him laugh.” I stopped myself before I added how she’d salivated over him with her gaze as we left Hanrahan’s.
“Yeah,” he said on a sigh. “I did notice.”
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“You did?” I turned to face him. The last thing I wanted to do was treat Liam as if he were a girlfriend. I should really ring Hilary for a natter over guy problems but Liam was my husband, Quinn was my husband. There were already three of us in this relationship and we understood it in a way no one else ever would. We were unique, we knew that. Who else would understand? I gulped more wine. “So what did you think?”
Liam sought my hand beneath the bubbles, twined his fingers with mine. “I think she likes him.” He paused and lifted our joined hands above the surface, studied my short, neat fingernails. “I’ve seen it before, in New York. Women like Quinn, especially women who work with him. He gives off this aura of godliness. He saves lives, for heaven’s sake, all day, every day. I speak from personal experience and it’s easy to see why people think of him as superhuman. Those hands and that big brain of his. It’s amazing and he uses it to attain the ultimate result—he gives life.” He paused and traced the scar just back from the hairline on his forehead, the tip of his finger gliding from one ear right across to the other.
“Go on,” I said.
Liam dropped his hand and shrugged. “So Eve probably does like him. I’m guessing she admires him, wants to have a piece of his attention, but…” I hardly dared ask. A pinch of bile rose in my gullet. “But what?”
“But he’s in love with you, Ariane. He loves his wife, his family. He loves his life too much to risk anything.” He pressed my knuckles to his lips. “You have no need to worry about Quinn cheating on you, or even thinking about it.”
“She was touching him,” I squeaked. “His hand, his arm. She made him laugh.” I quieted and steadied my voice. “She had his undivided attention in a roomful of people. Quinn’s undivided attention is not easy to get.”
“But the second you arrived at his side, he only focused on you, baby.” Liam reached for his wine with his free hand. He held it to the light as if studying the clarity.
“Quinn loves you.”
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“I know he does, I’m being silly.”
“You’re not being silly, you can’t help your emotions.” He sipped his wine, set it back down then tucked a strand of hair behind my ear. “Talk to him about it over the weekend.”
“Do you think?”
“Yeah, it helps to talk through worries. That’s what we always tell the girls.”
“I suppose.”
Liam smiled gently. “He’ll put your mind at rest, you wait and see. There’s nothing between him and Eve.”
I sighed and reached for a thick white washcloth. “Okay, I’ll talk to him over the weekend.” I rubbed a bar of soap over the flannel and created a rich foam. “Sit up,” I said. “I’ll wash your back.”
Liam bent his knees and shifted forward in the water. I slipped in behind him, my legs on either side of his butt, and began to rub the washcloth over his wide shoulders.
As the suds spread across his perfect tan skin I thought of what he’d just said. “There’s nothing between Quinn and Eve.” I believed that. I didn’t think there was anything sexual going on between them. What worried me was that the seeds were there, the potential existed. Eve didn’t look like a woman who took no for an answer. In fact, the way Quinn had battled against her in management meetings about the new surgery schedules proved that. She’d been unwavering in her decisions. She’d wanted new timetables, new rotations and she’d gotten them.
I dipped the washcloth down to the water and smoothed it up over Liam’s back, in and out of the dip of his spine, over his thick lateral muscles that tapered down from his underarms.
Quinn had been so incensed by Eve’s arrival, her sweeping changes. He’d fumed and banged around the farm, snapping at the dogs and pacing the yard on his mobile phone, shouting at other senior members of hospital management. But now, and I could 67
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hardly believe it, he was laughing and chatting to her in a bar—familiar and comfortable. He’d come around to her ideas; he’d come around to “liking” her.
And what was not to like? She was clearly as committed to improving the standard of patient care as Quinn. A quality I knew he would admire. She was slim and pretty, with a sparkle in her eye and blonde hair that flowed like a luxurious curtain of water down her back. Whatever I’d seen her chatting to Quinn about had captured his attention. She was obviously intelligent and eloquent, able to hold her own in conversation. She also wasn’t scared of him, wasn’t in awe of him like so many people were.
I rinsed the last bubbles off Liam’s back and touched my lips to the side of his neck.
“There you go,” I said. “All clean.”
“Mm, thanks, that was nice.” He uncurled his shoulders. “You ready to get out? I’m beat.”
“Yes,” I said, standing. “Liam?”
“Yeah?”
“Do you think Quinn wanted to go to Hanrahan’s tonight because he knew Eve was going to be there?”
Liam stepped out of the bath and grabbed a fluffy white towel. He rubbed it over his chest and back then wrapped it around his waist. “No.” He frowned from beneath his damp fringe. “I think he wanted to dance with you, Ariane. That’s what he said, that’s why we went.”
I swallowed the last of my wine, unable to hold his stern gaze. “I know what he said.”
“We don’t lie to one another.”
“No, I know we don’t.” I paused. “I’m just tired. I guess my head got full of stuff from having a night somewhere new. It was like dipping into his world and we don’t usually do that.”
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Liam draped a big, warm towel around my shoulders. “Perhaps there’s a reason for keeping his work separate if you get all jumpy about dipping into it.” I opened my mouth to argue I wasn’t jumpy and I should be able to dip into Quinn’s world, but when I looked into Liam’s face I saw the dark circles were back under his eyes. He really was beat and I didn’t want to worry him with my insecurities anymore.
“Come on, let’s go to bed,” I said with a gentle smile. “It’s getting late.” Liam and I curled up under the duvet, our limbs tangled and my skin tingling from the hot bath. I rested my head in the crook of his shoulder and placed my hand on his chest. Let the small blond curls in the center of his sternum tickle my fingers. Within minutes his breathing turned slow and steady and his arm around my waist slackened.
Sleep took him from me.
I lay listening to the owl outside claiming its territory. My head was full of Quinn, Liam and the girls. The people in my life who I loved and could not live without.
In my dream, the hooting owl switched to a chattering song thrush. As I blinked open my eyes, I realized the song thrush wasn’t in my dream, he was sitting just outside our bedroom window. It was morning.
Liam was curled around me, snoring quietly. I stretched out my arm and a leg, hoping to find Quinn’s warm body in the bed but it was empty. He hadn’t come home. I glanced at the clock. Seven. There was still a chance. If he showed in the next hour he would have time for a shower and breakfast before going back for a day of clinics and ward rounds.
Carefully I lifted Liam’s arm from my waist and shifted away from him. I wanted him to sleep as long as possible. Sliding to the edge of the bed, I quickly reached for my thick dressing gown and shoved my feet into slippers.
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Betsy greeted me as I went down the stairs and I plucked her into my arms to stop her going and jumping all over Liam. “Come on, let’s get you a saucer of milk,” I whispered.
At the sound of my footsteps and voice, the dogs wandered from the living room, stretching and yawning. I opened the kitchen door to let them outside. There was a light mist hanging over the stables and I could hardly make out the paddock through the fog.
Quickly I shut the door. The kitchen was cozy and warm, the Aga on constantly this time of year.
I flicked on the coffee machine and set about cracking an egg. I would have to nip to the coop for more if Quinn did show up.
Quinn didn’t appear and, after I’d made Liam a late breakfast in bed, I spent the morning in my studio. It was a small room but wonderful and bright during the day owing to the enormous arched window that used to be a hay door. I’d sponged the cream walls with gold and the magnolia carpet, though thick and luxurious, was peppered with multicolored dabs of paint I’d spilled over the years.
After a couple of hours finishing a painting of a local lake at sunset that I’d photographed at the end of the summer, I stood and wandered to the window.
Stretching out my stiff shoulders and aching back, I spotted Liam letting himself through the gate to the paddock, the dogs bouncing excitedly at his side. He wore soft gray joggers, a pale yellow t-shirt and black running shoes. He picked up a stick, threw it for the dogs then broke into a jog. I was about to turn away, get back to my painting, when I saw him pause. He rubbed his hand over his forehead and swept his palm over the back of his head to his neck before setting off at a jog.
I hoped this Yoni deal would soon be over. It was making him tired and I sensed he was worried about it too. It was important and complex and he had no one to help him with it. Liam, like Quinn, was at the top of his game, which meant everyone emailed him with their technology problems, leaving him alone when he had a gremlin of his own to deal with.
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*
The cottage pie I’d cooked had dried to nothing with each passing hour it sat in the warmer. Liam had been shut in his office since his run and barely even looked up when I took him coffee. He hadn’t appeared at dinnertime and I knew better than to hassle him.
Quinn was still not back. It was nearly twenty-four hours since he’d dashed off and I hadn’t heard from him. Nothing unusual about that but I was getting anxious to have him home. I wanted to talk.
I finished parceling up a box of treats for the girls and placed it by the door.
Suddenly the dogs barked wildly in the yard. I dashed to the window. Quinn’s sleek car with its dazzling headlights pulled up next to my Range Rover.
“At last,” I said, grabbing oven mitts and retrieving the pie.
“Stay out.” Quinn’s deep voice filled the kitchen as he maneuvered through the kitchen door and around the dogs’ eager bodies.
“Hello.” I turned to face him.
“Hey.” He walked to the table and dropped his keys and pager on it. He looked exhausted, his chin thick with stubble and his eyelids heavy. His hair was messy and I guessed he’d spent the day in his surgeon’s cap.
“Are you all right?” I asked, placing the oven mitts on the stove by the pie and walking over to him. “You look like you need a hug.” I smiled and wrapped my arms around his waist.
His palms spread over my shoulders and he smoothed down my arms to my elbows before encircling me in a tight, needy embrace.
I didn’t speak and I wouldn’t question him about his patients because I could sense something had gone wrong. Something had happened that he had no control over and could do nothing about. People died in hospitals, it was a fact of life. It was a fact of Quinn’s life.
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He let out a long, low sigh and I pulled back to look into his face. “I made dinner. It should be okay with a little gravy.” I touched his thick, dark brows and slid my fingertip to the sharp bristles of his chin, down his neck and traced around his collar.
Suddenly my heart stuttered. My stomach clenched. My hand started shaking.
“What?” I managed, staring at a long, thin pink smudge spreading over the white of his checked shirt. “What’s that?”
He creased his forehead and reached for my fingers. I snapped away, stepped back, my knees weak. Quinn had lipstick on his collar, lipstick that was the exact same shade of candy pink Eve had been wearing the night before.
“Ariane,” he said, reaching forward.
“No, don’t come near me.” I held out my palms to stop him. “Don’t come near me.”
“But, Ariane, what is―?”
“What is it?” I finished for him. “What the hell is it? Quinn, you have lipstick on your damn collar.”
“I have?” He tipped his head as if trying to look at it.
“Yes.” My muscles began to tremble. Starting in my belly and working outwards.
“Yes and it’s pink.” I clenched my fists. “But you know that, right?”
“No, no I didn’t know I had lipstick on my collar. Ariane, calm down, nothing much happened.”
“Nothing much happened? What the hell is that supposed to mean? How can you expect me to calm down when nothing much happened?” He came toward me again and I backed up until my butt hit the table.
“Just listen, will you,” he said in a firm voice.
“Listen. I’m listening, but it better be good, Quinn, it better be really bloody good.” I looked up at him as my mind swirled with a sickening sense of triumph. I’d been right. There was something between Quinn and Eve. My instincts hadn’t let me down.
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But I didn’t want to be right. I wanted to be paranoid and overpossessive. Not one tiny scrap of me had wanted to be proven right.
Quinn shoved his hand through his hair and it stuck up wilder than before. His dark gaze caught mine.
“Take it off,” I said, curling my fingers under the tabletop I was gripping.
“What?”
“The shirt. I can’t talk to you while you’re wearing it. Take it off.” His jaw clenched as he undid the top button.
He lifted his hand over his head and fisted the shirt between his shoulder blades, dragged it off and dropped it to the floor in a fast flourish. “Better?”
“Yes.” I adored Quinn’s chest and would usually drink up the sight of his dark hairs and small nipples. But not today. Right now I was as furious as I was hurt. I actually felt as if my blood was boiling.
“I was in surgery all night and half the morning,” he said slowly, as if trying to be patient and precise. “With the kid. It was touch-and-go but he should be okay.” He paused and swallowed tightly. “Then I did clinic. I was running three hours late—not good. I managed to fit in a ward round and do a consult in cardiothoracic. I had a conference call with my research team, which I made by the skin of my teeth.”
“Why are you telling me this?” I asked stiffly.
“Because just as I was changing out of scrubs to come home, Eve appeared.” I pursed my lips and tilted my head. “And?”
Quinn sighed. “She came to the changing room. It was quiet, everyone had left the department.”
“So then what?”
“I was tired, tired and hungry. I was thinking of coming home to you in your boots and…”
“Go on.”
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“And suddenly we were kissing. She started it. I remember her sliding her hands around my neck, but after that it all went a bit crazy. I was lost to it…” I flattened my palm, reached up and slapped his face. Slapped him so hard the stinging snap of flesh on flesh sliced around the kitchen. She’d kissed him, he’d let her.
He’d been thinking of me and he’d kissed someone else, crazily, lost to it. I felt sick.
Quinn’s face jerked to the side. He sucked in a breath and turned slowly back to me, his lips tight and a muscle flexing in his cheek.
I raised my hand. I wanted to slap him some more. Slap him until he took it back and said it hadn’t happened. But as I went to strike again a big hand caught my wrist.
“No,” Liam ordered over my shoulder in a steady, deep voice.
I yanked my arm against his grip, incensed. “Get off!”
“Don’t hit him again,” Liam said, still holding me tight.
“Well, did you hear what happened?” I pointed at Quinn with my other hand.