Broken (42 page)

He touched her. Sam jumped as he brushed his fingers over her hip. Her heart skipped a few dozen beats, it seemed, and then settled down into a rapid-fire tango, beating madly against her rib cage. But he didn’t linger. All he did was push something into her pocket and then his hand fell away. Automatically, she reached down and patted her pocket, felt the familiar outline of her phone.

He brushed his lips over her cheek and murmured, “I know I fell in love with you . . . and I know I fucked things up. I’m sorry.”

Then he let go of the door.

Sam stood there, numb and frozen. Her mouth opened. “You can’t love me,” she said, her voice rusty.

“Not your call, Sam.”

She tried to force herself to talk, but she couldn’t get a damn thing out. Her throat was frozen. She couldn’t manage even a whisper as he gently nudged her out of the way and then slipped outside.

Frozen, she stood there and watched as he cut through the tangle of bodies and made for the elevator. Frozen, she stood there as he climbed on. Just before the doors closed, he turned and looked at her.

That look in his eyes—naked and bruised.

Hurt.

Broken.

“
D
EAD?” Quinn repeated, staring at the TV in his hotel room

without really seeing it.

“Yes.” It was Alison Mather on the other line. “He was found this morning by a member of his house staff. There’s nothing official yet, but from what I’ve heard, he put a bullet in his head. Since his crimes were all white-collar, he made bail.”

She paused then sighed. “The cops had a solid case against him. There was no way he’d go to prison, arrogant prick—should have known he’d try this.”

“Look at it this way . . . he saved the taxpayers some money.”

“Hmmm. True. Dad’s rather pleased with that part, I’ll say.”

Since he hadn’t gotten the name of the lawyer who had been there when James Morgan was arrested, Quinn had tracked down Alison Mather’s number, kept in contact with her.

It had been a week since he’d walked away from Sam, but he hadn’t left Chicago. He hadn’t been able to, not until he knew she’d be safe. Morgan had been released on bond—Quinn hoped he would try to disappear, because he wanted to get his hands on the bastard who had put Sam through such hell.

Hadn’t happened, though, and now Quinn knew why. The man had a serious, solid case against him and even if he didn’t do jail time for some of the more serious white-collar crimes, he’d be a long time in recovering, if it ever happened. A number of his employees had bailed on him, and several of the board members were also looking at charges.

James Morgan was an arrogant bastard—Quinn had known that the moment he saw the man. If he couldn’t live his life the way he wanted, he’d just end it.

“Does Sam know?” he asked.

“Yes. I spoke with her a little while ago.”

“And her sister . . . ?”

“Sam said she’d let Sarah know. I wouldn’t know how to reach her—Sam did a damn good job of putting her under.”

In the past week, Quinn had done everything he could to learn as much about Samantha McElyea as possible. She and Alison had actually known each other in college, and from what Quinn had been able to put together, they had done a number of charity-type things together over the years.

Sam was a nurse, a fact that didn’t surprise him. He’d suspected she had some sort of medical background the day he’d gotten that black eye. She worked with battered women and children at a shelter, and although nobody had really confirmed it, he suspected she was also responsible for helping abused women disappear.

Women like her sister.

It wasn’t any wonder that she’d managed to stay hidden for two years. She knew all the tricks.

“Are things with Sam going to be okay?”

“There are some issues, but I know some people.” Alison didn’t pretend ignorance. Disappearing came with consequences. Things like losing a home, possessions. She’d spent those two years getting paid under the table, which meant she could be looking at trouble with the IRS. “We’ll get things worked out.”

“Thanks.”

“Sam’s a friend of mine. No need to say thanks.” She hesitated and then asked, “Are you going to try to talk to her?”

It was the first time she’d asked, although Quinn wasn’t surprised. Since he’d been calling her every day to check on things about Morgan, it wasn’t like the woman could ignore the obvious. “There’s no reason to,” he said.

No reason. He’d told Sam he’d fallen in love with her, and her only response had been,
You can’t love me
.

When he’d walked away, she hadn’t stopped him. Hadn’t so much as said his name. And she hadn’t tried to call him, either.

Definitely no reason to try talking to her again.

Shoving a hand through his hair, he scanned the small hotel room where he’d been living for the past week. It was time to go home.

Morgan couldn’t hurt Sam now.

Her sister could come home.

No reason for him to talk to her . . . and no reason for him to stay.

“HE checked out?”

The woman behind the counter couldn’t have looked more bored. She sat with her feet propped up and a book in hand. So far, she hadn’t taken her nose out of that book to look at Sam even once.

“When did he check out?” Maybe he was still in Chicago—

“Yesterday.” She said it without even looking away from the book.

Waited too long . . .
Gritting her teeth, Sam barely managed to keep from grabbing the book and hurling it across the room. “You’re sure it was yesterday?”

“Positive.”

Sam left without another word, feeling oddly deflated. Up until she’d met Alison for coffee yesterday evening, Sam hadn’t even realized he was still here. He hadn’t left her—

But she’d waited too long. If she hadn’t spent the night replaying things through in her mind, if she’d just listened to her gut, she might have . . .

“Might have what?” she muttered as she made her way to her car. Well, not
hers
—her car had been repossessed. Fortunately her house hadn’t—she’d paid the house off with money she’d gotten after Mom died. She was borrowing one of Alison’s cars.

“You keep doing me favors, I might as well sign over my first-born to you
,” Sam had told her yesterday while they drank coffee and ate yummy cheesecake at a little café close to the Sears Tower.
“Hell, after what you’ve done the past few years, watching James and all, I probably already owe you my first-born. And a kidney.”

“My kidneys are good, thanks. As to the first-born, you might want to run that by the potential dad first.”
Then Alison had grinned at her.
“I’m curious who that might be . . . maybe Mr. Hot and Sexy that you still haven’t talked about?”

Hot and sexy
. . . yeah, that was Quinn. Hot and sexy and so much more. She couldn’t even begin to describe the complicated mess of Quinn Rafferty. And now she didn’t even have a chance to try and talk to him.

He was gone.

“
So you’re just going to let him
leave?”

Sam slumped against the car door, staring at the hotel without really seeing it. It was on the outskirts of Chicago, in a less-than-nice neighborhood. Not exactly the kind of place where she’d been nervous to go, but definitely not the sort of neighborhood where she’d feel safe walking alone at night.

He’d left.

But she could go after him.

Call—she could call him.

She started to reach for her phone, but then she stopped. No. She wasn’t going to try and have this conversation on the phone. She wanted to see him. Had to. Which meant she’d have to leave Chicago. She’d spent the past two years desperate to come home, come home and never leave again.

But if she was going to see Quinn, she’d have to do just that.

T
WO weeks.

It had been two weeks since Quinn had left Chicago.

Three weeks since she’d seen him—almost a month. It had been the longest month of her life.

It almost seemed like another lifetime, but at the same time, her memories of him still remained so vivid. And the dreams . . . man, those dreams were going to lay her low.

Sam smoothed a hand down her hair, staring into the mirror. It was black, midnight black and cut to chin length, framing her pale face. The cut made her eyes appear larger, and the dark color made her skin seem even paler.

But she found herself wondering what Quinn would think. Found herself wondering if she should have left it alone.

But . . . well, it hadn’t been
her
.
This
was her. And she’d missed it—missed looking in the mirror and seeing deep red hair . . . or black shot through with thick streaks of blue. Missed her poet blouses, her long skirts, black leather boots that went up over her knees and clung like a second skin. Missed half a dozen earrings in one ear and only one in the other. She’d missed her jewelry, her clothes, her makeup . . . her life.

She’d missed being herself.

Although she wasn’t so sure Quinn would like her like this. And she missed him so bad it was an ache in her chest.

“Stop stalling,” she muttered. Flipping up the visor, she turned off the ignition and climbed out of the car, staring up at Theresa’s old house.

She didn’t go to the front door. Instead, she headed toward the path alongside of the house, the one that would lead to his door.

He was still living there.

Sam had called Theresa back when she’d made the decision to come down and see him. She hadn’t called him, even though she’d longed to hear his voice. The things she had to say to him, she needed to say in person.

She wasn’t going to take the coward’s way out and—

Her heart bumped against her rib cage as she spotted a familiar head of hair. Golden blond, shot through with rich shades of brown, paler shades of gold. Wide shoulders, straining against the seams of a polo shirt.

Quinn—

And he had another woman in his arms.

Fury punched through her.

The echo of his voice rang through her ears—“
I know I fell in love with you . . .”

“You son of a bitch!”

He looked up just in time to see Sam’s fist flying at his face.

His head jerked back at the impact.

The woman yelped, startled.

But Sam was too busy staring into stunned gray eyes to pay the woman any attention.

Gray eyes—like Quinn’s . . . but not.

“Oh, shit,” she whispered, looking him over from head to toe.

The hair was the right color, but cut wrong. Quinn’s hair fell nearly to his shoulders. Body was right, but the clothes were wrong—she’d never seen Quinn in anything but faded jeans and equally faded T-shirts. The face was right—the eyes were wrong.

All wrong.

Swallowing, she fell back a step and stared at a complete stranger. “Uh . . . I’m sorry, I thought you were . . .”

The man grinned, despite the blood on his mouth. The woman at his side glared at Sam. She was shorter than Sam by maybe two inches, and reed slender, the kind of slender that probably defined the phrase
a stiff breeze could blow her over
. But Sam suspected it would take more than a stiff breeze. A lot more.

“What the hell is your problem?”

Sam licked her lips and tried to find her voice. Her hand was starting to hurt, the knuckles throbbing. “I’m sorry. I thought he was . . . uh . . . well . . .”

The man’s lips curled as he reached up, probing the area with his fingertips. He wiped the blood away and said, “You’ve got one hell of a right hook.”

God, just let the ground open up and swallow me. Please.
She swallowed and tore her eyes away from the man in front of her, although looking at the woman at his side didn’t help much. She was eying Sam with an awful lot of curiosity and slowly, the light of anger in her eyes bled away to amusement. “You’re looking for Quinn, aren’t you?”

Sam blushed and shifted from one foot to the other, then started to turn around. “Yeah. But I’ll talk to him later—”

“Oh, no, you won’t.” The woman placed her diminutive frame in front of Sam.

Sam decided she had a good twenty pounds on the other woman, easy. Two inches, twenty pounds, and she’d bet she had a longer reach, too. Although she was still trying to figure out how to remove her foot from her mouth with the man who was obviously Quinn’s brother, she sure as hell wasn’t letting some short, skinny woman keep her from Quinn. Narrowing her eyes, she said, “I beg your pardon?”

It was the tone she always used when she wanted to freeze somebody in their tracks. Wasn’t always effective, but for the most part, it did the job.