Rivers end boxset volume.., p.26
River's End Boxset Volume 3, page 26
They were quiet on the way home. After the empowering and important appointment, Iris realized that every person she told and every step she took toward recovery exhausted her in a way that went far beyond tired eyes. Her soul was weary and she suffered from an inability to think or speak or process what was being said to her.
Her family, however, were amazing. Her mom and dad allowed her to be quiet as she explored her own thoughts for hours if needed. They didn’t bug her or check on her too often. They seemed to sense when she needed to talk and how to support her. Sometimes it was a hug and others, just a quiet place for Iris to meditate.
Or drift off to sleep.
Coming home from the doctor, she retired to her childhood bed.
CHAPTER 15
QUINN FLOPPED BEHIND HIS desk and glanced around his office. Everything was the same. Black furniture. Glass-topped desks. Papers, computers… all the necessary paraphernalia to allow him to run his little empire. A million-dollar view. His entire lifestyle could be just as lavish as he wanted. Always was. The same as it had been for years.
But nothing was the same now.
He rubbed the space between his eyes. A chronic headache lingered constantly of late. A sense of foreboding. Of failure.
With Iris.
All his thoughts and emotions stayed with her. About her. For her.
But what if he failed her?
It was terrifying. He never experienced this kind of intensity in his feelings towards anyone else. He certainly never pictured it would be for someone like Iris. Or the psychological nightmare and volatile issues she lived through.
He never dreamed she’d be raped. The night it happened, he tried to remember what he was doing? He had no idea. It was some random, forgotten night that would now haunt Iris, and him through her, for the rest of their lives.
He’d never known a rape victim before. None that he was aware of. He read about them in the newspapers and heard interviews from victims on TV. He never sought them out or tried to understand them. He acknowledged it happened. Once in a while, a particularly heinous rape caught the media’s attention and pierced his consciousness.
But he never really considered the issue. As for any concern regarding the safety of the women he dated and hung out with? He never observed any real precautions.
He’d never make that mistake again.
Not after witnessing its effects on the toughest woman, emotionally and physically, he’d ever known. He glanced up when his office manager walked in with his schedule and a list of items that needed his approval right now.
He ignored them. His brain was mush. Good for nothing. “Maddy?”
She looked up at his use of her name. “Yes, sir?”
She was older than him. He frowned and said, “Call me, Quinn. When you work late, do you go down to our parking garage alone?”
“Yes. Why?”
“Because I think we should establish a mandatory new rule that anyone leaving the office after hours must be escorted by a security guard. We’ll hire some more to fulfill the need.”
Her eyebrows jutted upwards. “You… you want me to put that into action? Or are you just bouncing an idea around?”
“No. I’m not just bouncing an idea. Do it. And I also want you to put together a survey, an anonymous one, to see if people feel safe in our work environment and why not if they don’t. We can ask for their advice and suggestions to address it.”
“Sir?”
“Quinn,” he said automatically. “And do you know any incidences of sexual harassment?”
“Um… maybe.”
“Yeah? That shit has to stop ASAP. Let’s put together an investigative panel to study the solutions from other corporations. We have to clamp down on it with increased reporting and handling of complaints as well as serious punishments. Okay? Can you handle all that?”
“Yes. But I have a lot to juggle…”
“Put everything else aside. This is number one priority.”
She nodded. “Did… is everything okay?”
He stared at her, shaking his head. “No.”
She nodded. “I’m sorry to hear that.”
“If you or any other employee has any ideas about improving the safety here and establishing zero tolerance for any kind of sexual harassment… or anything else, my door is open. In fact, I’ll write up a new memo to send out to everyone.”
Her eyes gleamed. “That would be most appreciated.”
He smiled but it was self-deprecating. “I’ve been an entitled asshole for most of my life. Kind of late to realize that, but better late than never, right?”
“Right, Quinn.” Her eyes shone with respect and admiration.
He leaned back as she smiled before she turned and left. She responded in a genuinely receptive manner to a few simple words that captured the truth while caring. What if that were the key to success? What if that increased his workers’ productivity? Instead of demanding things from them as if they owed him, he could give them increased respect and possibly empower them. It was a daring new thought.
He rose to his feet. Fine. He’d grown a conscience. Now it was time to make some real actionable changes and improvements. Overdue. He didn’t deserve any medal for doing what was right, and many years overdue.
He was addled by the thoughts that kept swirling through his brain. He cared about Iris to the point that his heart hurt. Having to witness her pain, and her helplessness was heartbreaking. He needed to help her… He had to do something. But there was nothing he could do but listen and hold her and care.
Fuck.
He swept a hand across his desk, and all the stuff on it scattered or broke. It symbolized the swirling, frustrated rage in his guts. Staring at the clutter he created on the office floor, he shook his head with a sigh. If Iris were standing there, she’d roll her eyes and scoff at him. She’d tell him to clean it up as his staff shouldn’t have to clean up his childish tantrum. He smiled imagining it. Leaning over, he methodically picked it all up and set everything on his desk until it was right.
This wasn’t helping.
Work wasn’t helping either. He was all but useless. Even in the ordinary running of things.
He’d returned mainly to institute the safety changes, but also because his parents were still in town. Maybe he could reach out and try to connect with them. Find some kind of bond. He hadn’t seen them since that night. That horrifying, pivotal, forever-altering-his-life night.
With no announcement, Quinn showed up at his parents’ apartment. Had it really been only three days since their dinner with Iris and him? He walked in after his dad answered the door. “Is Mom here?”
“No. Out shopping. I thought we were meeting at four at your office to go over last quarter’s earnings?”
“I didn’t come here about that.”
“Oh.” His dad turned, his dark hair barely white at the edges, hinting at his advanced age. He was thin, trim and looked like the mogul he was. “Drink?”
“Sure.”
Quinn flopped on the couch, glancing around at the standard signs of success he so long took for granted. He accepted the whiskey which his dad knew was his favorite brand.
“So your little country girl is quite the prize. Did you really have to introduce her to your mother? I nearly had to fetch the smelling salts. Keep your rebellion to yourself. No one denies the thrills found on the rougher side of life, I get that. I remember it. Just don’t bring it to your mother again.”
Quinn tensed. His neck stiffened and his back went taut. He stared at the drink in his hand. Swirling it anxiously, he appeared stoic and unmoved. But inside, everything twisted and churned.
“How in this day and age can you and Mom be so damn stereotypical when it comes to spoiled, rich assholes?” he snorted. “Then again, I guess it explains why you raised such an asshole for a son.”
“What? Oh, crap, is she pregnant, Quinn?”
Sighing, Quinn set the drink down, his stomach souring, along with the conversation with his dad. He didn’t care about seeing his dad again.
“No. Her name is Iris. And I am in love with her. And she loves me back in a way neither you nor Mom ever loved me or showed me. Unconditionally. Just for being. She asks me for nothing.”
His father laughed, tilting his head back before a cynical, sharp snort followed the bitter laugh. “Oh, is that right? And your net worth of over hundreds of millions of dollars is irrelevant to her? Sure, I’ll just bet the little, ugly tomboy wants nothing from you but love. So sweet.”
“She was raped, Dad. Violently raped. I don’t know how to help her. Does that create any empathy in you? What would make you care about others? Life isn’t all games, maneuvers and motives. Does it matter at all to you that I hurt too?”
His dad’s eyebrows rose and lowered. His mouth twisted in a strange way. What? Was he looking for the humanity inside himself? Trying to relocate his cold, dead heart? Trying to imagine how a human being would answer?
“Forget it. You were never capable. Not even towards me, your own son.”
Quinn couldn’t take it any longer and jolted to his feet just as his mom walked in. She was followed by one of the bellhops who carried her numerous packages behind her.
“Quinn?” She walked over and took his hand. He stood there for a moment, waiting for her purchases, a useless shopping spree to stock more stuff in her closets, to be put down and the man tipped. The bellhop left after glancing around and sensing the tension in the space. When Quinn didn’t respond to his mother’s proffered hand or lean in for a kiss, she frowned. “What are you two arguing about?”
“My girlfriend. Rape. Love.” He stared hard into his mother’s eyes. He was picturing Allison Rydell’s tears when she’d gathered Iris against her. Or Shane’s fisting hands in his passion to avenge his wronged daughter. Quinn recalled the anguish in his tears, streaming down his cheeks for his daughter’s pain. And their common goal and desire to do anything to fix it.
His parents shed no tears for him. They showed him no passion. No one cared when he got hurt. They never did. Not as a boy. A teen. A youth. He’d been a shit in his youth. Well beyond the age of acceptability. He’d raced and stole, acting flippant and awful to everyone. From their household help to the employees. He and his friends were pricks. Entitled, elite assholes whom Iris would have shunned without another glance, and rightfully so.
His mom’s gaze and mouth narrowed. “What girlfriend?”
“Iris.”
“The one with the fuck you tattoo on her arm? Charming, Quinn. I suppose you’re saying fuck you to us by picking her, perhaps. But aren’t you a bit old for the crybaby ritual? For rebelling by dating the girl from the wrong side of the tracks?” His mother all but yawned in her bored opinion of his choice.
“She got the tattoo after being violently raped a few weeks ago. She was rebelling over what she could not tell anyone. Does that change anything for you?”
His mom smirked but it swiftly faded into a shaking head and sad look. Her tone was both sympathetic and condescending as she said, “Son, look at your wallet. Your big, soft heart… and she’s brilliant.”
He kept his gaze neutral as he stared at her, and then his dad. His big, soft heart? Perhaps no one but Iris even knew he had one. He’d never felt it with anyone because of his shit-ass attitude. He didn’t even know he had one. He certainly never spent two seconds thinking about it.
Until Iris.
The woman his parents were tossing out with the trash.
The woman who saved him from becoming them. The sad part was, Iris was almost too late for his sorry ass.
He didn’t answer or try to defend Iris or himself. He just forgave them and vowed he’d never be their son. He was no more than their heir. Which meant nothing to him. There was nothing here for him. No anger. No hope. No revenge. No money. There was nothing but pity for their pathetic, shallow lives and losing the son they never knew or wanted to be a family with.
The opposite of how he was with Iris.
He was at home wherever Iris was. She was his home now. Which meant River’s End.
Disgusted and resigned, he walked out on his parents. He filled a suitcase full of clothes and work and his computer, telling Maddy to forward everything to him. He took a helicopter to River’s End and got into the car he’d left there. He drove to Shane and Allison’s house, the only true parents he ever met and in whose home he’d been comfortable.
Shane was sitting on his back deck when Quinn got there. Quinn rubbed his tired eyes as he walked up the steps. Shane was drinking a beer and he silently handed Quinn one. Quinn stared at it, took it and asked, “Did you bring this out here for me?”
“Sure. I knew you’d be here about now. Whenever you flew your helicopter over.” He shook his head. “You’re like a breed I know nothin’ about.”
“Can I sit?” It was so odd for him to ask. And not assume things. Shane nodded and invited him with a tip of his beer bottle.
Quinn gratefully flopped down beside Shane and stared out.
“How… I don’t know how to ask. It sounds so trite, but how is she?”
“She’s okay. Sleeping. Doc was good, according to Allison. She said all the right things. Explained it to Iris so she could get it. Said it’s a physical reaction her brain can’t control, like how much you sweat. Or if she got tickled and laughed but she really wanted the person to stop it, her laughing is absolutely no indication of her liking or consenting to it; the laughing is an uncontrollable body reflex.”
Quinn’s stomach knotted yet again as he pictured the trauma that Iris was forced to endure. He imagined the mental knots her brain was tied up in since. He was surprised by how simply and honestly he and Iris’s dad discussed the problem. Her orgasming under any circumstances. “Fuck,” Quinn muttered, unsure of what else to say.
Shane ran a hand over his face. “Yeah. Fuck.” His stricken expression said more than words. Then he added, “As a little girl, Iris was fearless. I couldn’t restrain her. No one could. Her mama would put her in the playpen, and hell, Rose was still in it but Iris figured out how to climb out of it. One time, we caught her just as she started rolling herself towards the damn bank. We grabbed her and Allison started crying and all I knew was damn! This little girl of mine! So full of adventure, fearlessness, and attitude. The world better watch out.”
Quinn’s heart clenched as Shane so clearly remembered her. “I think much of what drew me to her now is that unique quality.”
Shane eyed Quinn and Quinn winced. “Sorry. That’s a little weird?” He didn’t know. He didn’t hang and talk with his parents. Ever. He had no idea how to do it. No one taught him. He was also trying something new: honesty. “I’m sorry. I don’t know what’s weird or right. My parents never raised me. They left me with hired staff. I wish I’d had some fantastic nanny who made me her own, but I didn’t. I was allowed to address them however I wanted.” He snorted, shaking his head. “Imagine a ten-year-old yelling at his chef for putting peppers in chili when he didn’t want them? I screamed and belittled and demanded whatever and whenever I wanted to adults. And they all hopped to it, so anxious to fix or change whatever I insisted on. They existed simply to serve me. Can you imagine? I didn’t know any better because no one taught me. Growing up, my sense of entitlement only got worse.”
“Where were your folks?”
He took a large swig of beer. “Everywhere but home. They traveled all over and never came home.”
“That’s a tough message for a kid to get.” Shane’s tone was gentle and crap, if Quinn didn’t respond to it.
“I can assure you they have no memories to share of me as a kid or even how I am now. They can’t reminisce over nostalgia from our family past. I doubt they have any fond memories to recall.”
“That’s gotta feel bad.”
He stared down at his feet, crossing his arms over his middle and resting his elbows on his knees. He realized he was unconsciously curling into a protective ball. “I visited them this afternoon.”
“They live in town?”
“They met Iris the night when it all came out. She’d just got her tattoo. She was wearing a sweatshirt so I didn’t realize it was there until she took it off in front of my parents. She was looking for a reaction. And obviously, that didn’t go over well.”
“No. I mean, well, I might have even questioned that.” Shane shook his head. “My poor baby. Thinking that tattoo would help her heal.”
“Iris could never be good enough for them. She’s so far out of their league, how dare they comment on her.”
“What did they say, Quinn?”
He didn’t know why he was telling Shane any of this. “I told them I loved her and that she was raped. And that they are the assholes who made me an asshole.” He shrugged. “That’s the general gist.”
“What did they say?”
Quinn’s shoulders ballooned up and down with his deep breath. “Basically? That I was a sucker falling for her act and she pretended to get raped in order to get my money.”
“That can’t feel too good.”
“Fuck them.”
“Yeah. I agree. But they’re still your parents.”
He turned his gaze on Shane for just a second, then looked forward. “You should have hated me. I was just like them when I first met you.”
Shane tipped his bottle back, letting the foamy liquid slide down his throat. He wiped his mouth when he was done, and a small smile appeared on his lips. “Oh, I did hate you, Quinn. I knew what you were all about. But you changed. You were what she needed before. And after it happened? I think you’re the one who has helped her the most.”
“How can you say that? She’s a full decade younger than me, and I’m clueless about family and what constitutes normal interacting. I didn’t even know how to be faithful at first.”
“I know. She told me. You learned really quick, right?”
“I did. I was never told or shown anything. I didn’t care about anything but myself.”
“And I imagine that coming out of that and suddenly dealing with all of us and now, what Iris is facing, must be pretty confusing.”
