Page 46 of A Convenient Ring to Claim Her

“I can do that,” Quinn promised.

“But if he does want to meet, I would like that,” she hurried to say, brow crinkled with distress. “I shouldn’t put this on you. Honestly, when I realized you were still in Europe, my first thought was to ask if you want to get coffee sometime. I’m in Paris for a few weeks. Now I feel like I’ve dumped all over you. I’m sorry.”

“Don’t apologize! I want to help if I can.” Quinn lowered onto the edge of the bed, never wanting to be the one in need, but always a sucker for being needed. “I don’t want to speak for Micah or how he feels, but I’ll definitely tell him what you’ve told me. And I would love to get coffee. With or without him.”

“Thank you. I would love that.”

“I’ll get in touch once I’ve figured some things out.”

“Thank you.”

She was going to check flights?

Micah didn’t know who he was angrier with, Quinn or himself. He should have broached marriage as a discussion, not presented her with the rings. He knew she didn’t like people making decisions for her. He had thought it would be a romantic surprise, but now he wanted to throw the damned things out the window.

And she was up there talking to Yasmine? About him? He would never tell her who she could be friends with, but that was a slap in the face, it really was.

Not that he could avoid the reality of his secret half sister forever. He had shoved her into a file labeled “later” because it was too hard to look at. Micah’s father had been a master of dirty deals, building his fortune on exploited workers and intimidation tactics. He had deliberately taunted Lucille with her access to Micah, using him to punish her for leaving.

Then he’d lost his memory to all of that, succumbing to early onset dementia just as Micah was growing into a full awareness of his father’s character flaws.

Only nineteen and not even finished school, his father’s allies had thought they could turn Micah into their puppet and pressed him to step into his father’s shoes.

Micah hadn’t wanted to assume such a soiled heritage, but it was the only way to clean it. The moment he’d been given the seat at the head of the table, he’d begun what was now referred to as the Great Purge. He’d fired backstabbing cronies and put people like his aunt on notice. He had made clear they could follow him into the new way of doing things—with ethics and transparency—or strike out on their own.

Once everyone understood that he wielded power rather than being seduced by it, they began coming onto his side.

He probably would have fallen in with the old, corrupt ways if he hadn’t had his mother’s influence and—even more so—his sister’s. Lucille refused to come to Europe, but Eden had been Micah’s semiannual reward for wading through the muck. He would send for her on school holidays and her spritely energy would remind him there was good in the world. And that it was up to people like him to make sure people like her didn’t become cynical and disillusioned.

Then there was Quinn. Had she influenced him? Absolutely. Some of Eden’s friends had been the sort of opportunists he was all too familiar with. He’d vetted them and discouraged her from pursuing those friendships, but Quinn had been so ethically solid, she was almost annoying with it. Did she put him on notice every single time he slipped toward patriarchal attitudes? Hell, yes.

She had pushed him to be better. To walk the walk. Slowly, Micah had evolved into a man who was still jaded and cautious, but one who was honest and fair. He might have gone so far as to call himself honorable.

He had believed he had made up for his father’s worst transgressions.

Then he learned of Yasmine. She was proof that his father had sunk even lower than Micah could have imagined. How could he not feel the rot of it all over him?

How could he expect Quinn to attach herself to that? Was that the real source of her refusal to marry him?

“Micah?”

He stiffened and tried to curl his hand into a fist in his pocket, but the ring box prevented it. He turned.

She chewed the corner of her lip.

“Yes?” he prompted. If she was leaving, he wanted her to say it, not stand there blinking at him like she had a grim medical diagnosis to impart.

“Yasmine is in Paris. She asked me if I wanted to meet up with her. The invitation includes you.”

He snapped his head back, not expecting that.

“There’s no obligation,” she assured him.

“But you’ll meet with her regardless.” His sternum turned to rusty iron. He looked to the window again.

“Not necessarily. I wanted to see where your thoughts were.” She edged closer, brow pulled with consternation. “She said Eden mentioned introducing you two when you go for Lucille’s birthday.”

Micah choked out a curse, not ready to participate inthatfamily dinner. He loved Eden, he really did, but she was such a glass half-full. If he didn’t run through a meadow and catch his long-lost sister in his arms, Eden would be devastated.

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