Page 25 of A Convenient Ring to Claim Her

She makes her own choices, he wanted to say, but his sister’s mouth clamped shut with such disapproval he locked his own teeth together.

“What’s between Quinn and me is between Quinn and me.”

“Go ahead and believe that, but wewillcome back to it,” Eden said sternly. “What you need to know right now is that she wasn’t protectingme, Micah. She was protecting...” She swallowed and glanced at Remy again before her expression became entreating. When she continued, her voice was very gentle. “She was protecting your other sister, Micah.”

“I don’t have—” Micah cut himself off as the pennies dropped. Hundreds of millions of them. They landed on him with hard, peppering weight until it was the volume of a mountainside avalanche.

Quinn’s shoulder was throbbing, pulling her from slumber. She released a discontented sob of frustration and was yanked fully awake by Micah’s rasped voice.

“Pain? I’ll get the nurse.”

His footsteps walked away while she blinked at the palatial room dimly lit by a single golden lamp and pale dawn light coming through the crack in the drapes.

Damn that man. She couldn’t afford this.

She looked down at the sling she wore. It wasn’t the simple kind she’d worn in the past, but a number of straps that tied a padded pillow to her hip. Her forearm rested upon it while her upper arm was snug against her rib cage. Wonderful. This was going to make life easy.

A night nurse came in to say, “The anesthetic from the surgery has worn off. I’ll adjust the drip with your pain medication.”

She checked Quinn’s pulse and temperature. Quinn was already arranged in a half-sitting position. She offered her a few sips of water before she helped her use the bathroom.

Micah was still there when she came out. He still wore his suit, minus the tie and jacket. His sleeves were pushed up his arms, but otherwise he was his commanding self.

She quickly averted her gaze, feeling weak and pitiful, shuffling around so shakily.

“What time is it?” Quinn asked as she carefully settled back on the bed.

“Four thirty-seven.” The nurse tucked the blankets around her. “You have lots of time to rest before the doctor does her rounds.” She nodded at Micah and left.

Micah continued to loom on the other side of the room. It didn’t make sense that he was here. It made her want to see significance in it when she already knew there wouldn’t be.

“Have you been here the whole time? Oh, God, did I say something stupid when they brought me in here?” She had no recollection of it, but did have a sudden flash of those emotional videos online of people coming out of anesthetic, crying and swearing and saying revealing things.

“You only woke up enough to help shift yourself onto that bed, then went right back to sleep. Eden was disappointed. She was hoping to talk to you.”

Eden. That was it. Despite what Quinn had said about how he was treating Eden, he loved his sister and, for her, would stay with her friend, even if he no longer liked said friend.

Quinn didn’t want to think about their argument or what she would owe him after this. Sometimes you had to accept help from people who held you in contempt. She had survived it before and would again. She would get through all if this and live to fight another day.

Maybe. Now that she was awake enough to assess it, she was dangerously close to crying over the mess she’d landed in. She was tired and hurting, broke, and a very long way from home. She didn’t have Micah as a lover anymore, or even as a friend. Her education, the one thing she had always told herself no one could take away from her, had been undermined, not just by him, but also by her own clumsiness in not looking properly before she had stepped off the curb. How was she supposed to continue her dissertation now?

She really didn’t need him watching her have an emotional breakdown on top of the rest of what he’d witnessed today. She opened her mouth to tell him to go home, but noticed how haggard he looked.

Maybe it was the pale light that made his expression seem so devastated, but his eyes seemed sunken into dark bruises. The lines bracketing his mouth were deeper than she’d ever seen them. Stubble shadowed his jaw and his hair was not the smooth cap he usually wore.

“Have you slept at all?” she asked, flickering a glance at the way he’d angled an armchair to use one of the other chairs as a footstool.

“No.”

“Why not?”Washe worried about her? Her heart lurched.

“What—” He cut himself off and ran his hand over his face, then gave his hair a disgruntled scrub. “What did she say to you? In Gibraltar. Yasmine,” he clarified.

“What?” Quinn’s heart lurched again.

His distress wasn’t about her, then. It was never about her. She should have realized that.

She ignored the squeeze that compressed her lungs and used the excuse of adjusting the sheet to avoid looking at him.

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