Page 30 of A Convenient Ring to Claim Her

“You love me. Don’t you? Or are you mad about—?”

“I’m not mad at you for sleeping with my brother. I’m mad at him for taking advantage of you.”

Micah’s throat tightened with affront.

“I am not that vulnerable,” Quinn grumbled.

“From where I’m sitting, you damned well are,” Eden shot back.

Micah saw it now, too. He’d always let himself be blinded by Quinn’s confidence and saucy comebacks. She was so ferociously independent he’d been fooled into believing she had her entire life under control.

She had very few resources, though. She had health, which had been compromised with this injury, and her education, which he had also impacted.

“Would youpleasestay out of it?” Quinn pleaded.

“Fine.” Eden wouldn’t. He could already hear the lecture she was planning on giving him. “But Remy is sending you a voucher that will basically get you on any available flight to Montreal. You can stay with us as long as you need. Or use my place in Toronto. I haven’t sold it yet.”

“I’ll bring her home when I come for Mom’s birthday,” Micah said, striding into the room.

Quinn’s gaze whirled up to his, surprise and self-consciousness in the blue depths.

Yes, he transmitted with his steady stare.I was listening.

“Quinn wants to do some research in Vienna,” Micah stated. “Don’t you?”

Her face twisted with indecision.

“You’re not a quitter, Quinn. Finish what you started,” he pressed.

Another flash of startlement struck her expression. Something that dipped her chin as she tried to read what he meant by that. He wasn’t sure what to make of his double entendre, either.

“We have to say goodbye, Eden,” he said. “Lunch is ready on the terrace.”

Quinn had stayed with Micah in the past. She knew how he lived, so she shouldn’t have been surprised at the fine cuisine that was placed before her: handmade tortellini stuffed with crab coated in a saffron sauce. It was accented with olives, bocconcini balls and roasted cherry tomatoes in three colors. The final touch was a sprig of fragrant basil.

Maybe what surprised her was that it was all easy to eat with one hand. Had that been Micah’s instruction? Or was his housekeeper that attentive?

“You’re not eating?” she asked.

“I ate earlier.” He sipped what looked like a Bloody Mary and sat with his introspective profile aimed at the lake.

She wasn’t allowed alcohol while she was on the prescription-strength painkillers, but she sure would love some, especially now when she was so disconcerted. Any other time she had been in one of his homes, she’d been more Eden’s guest than his and her friend had provided a buffer between them. Even when they’d been sneaking around, having sex, Eden had been a convenient excuse to maintain some boundaries.

She reached for her friend again, purely because she didn’t know what else to say.

“I’m glad you and Eden are speaking again.”

“Me, too.” His tone dripped sarcasm, probably because he was still coming to terms with the Yasmine news. He snapped his head around, pinning her with one of his most penetrating stares. “Do you think that’s why she married him? Because of—”

“No. Wipe that from your mind. Eden loves Remy.” A little schism in her chest felt offset by that fact, but it didn’t change the veracity of it. “I know it seems fast and very... Eden. She sees the world through rose-colored glasses, absolutely. But she was eating her heart out for five years after meeting Remy in Paris. It’s the same for him.”

“That’s lust. You and I had that, but we didn’t make any hot runs to Gibraltar.”

Had.

Quinn subtly breathed past the hard lump that lodged in her throat. She looked at her plate, but her appetite was gone.

“We only wanted to share our bodies, not our lives,” she pointed out quietly. “What they have is different. It was love at first sight.”

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