Ignore the sarcasm. She had to stay focused on her goal.

  “Is Becca aware that you’re a member here?”

  “Kayla. That is absolutely none of your business.”

  “Okay, let me rephrase the question. From things you’ve said, I can only assume Becca does not know you’re a member. But she needs to.”

  “I beg your pardon. What she needs is also none of your business,” he answered.

  She was really, really disliking this version of him. So much so, she wanted him to put his mask back on.

  “This is where you’re wrong, Charles, where your ‘We’ll just mind our own business and pretend we don’t know the other is here’ approach breaks down. Becca is my business, too. As is Jonathan. Both of them would be destroyed if they discovered we were keeping this kind of secret from them. And it’s only a matter of time until that discovery.”

  His head jerked. “Is that a threat?”

  “It’s not meant to be a threat, no. But I can’t keep your double life from the two of them. I’m asking you—begging you—to tell her, and also to let me tell Jonathan. Please, Charles. We have too many connections. Especially now that you’re investing in his company—you’ve bound the four of us even closer.”

  He smirked. “Interesting word choice. But that’s neither here nor there. I invested because Jonathan has a compelling business idea and he’s one of the few people with the personality, talent, and connections to pull it off.” He paced a few steps away, then turned on his heel back toward her, hands on his hips. “But that any of this—my business decisions, my personal life—has to do with you . . . How you put yourself in the center of the universe is absolutely amazing.”

  Her chest squeezed so tight, it was hard to take the breath she needed.

  “You’re right, Charles—what you do is none of my business. Except where it intersects my life. Except that I know something about you that the people you and I are closest to—including your wife—do not. And I, we, can’t be a party to your deception.”

  “Just who do you mean by ‘we’?”

  “Jonathan and me.”

  He cocked an eyebrow. “So you’re speaking for him?”

  “Of course not. But if he knew you were lying to Becca, he would say the same thing.”

  He scoffed and shook his head, his eyes widening. “Would he, now?”

  “As a member, I need to keep your information confidential, but by doing that I’m betraying everyone in our lives. All I’m asking is for you to . . .”

  “I’m aware of what you’ve asked”—he cut her off—“and my answer is no. What I can do is pull my promised investment if that helps loosen our ties and ease your Girl Scout conscience. Would you like that?”

  What? She just stared at him. Their web of friendship and secrets and, as a result, lies, was tangling by the second.

  And then she realized what she was feeling—the sense of a subtle shift, the certainty that it would set off the avalanche, that something stable was about to give way.

  “Seriously, Kayla? You would ask me to pull my investment from your partner’s project?” Now he was the one staring in disbelief and, she realized, he had not used his fake accent in a while.

  His face, his expression, changed from the confident, arrogant countenance of Maximillian to something else.

  Pain? And the averted gaze, his pressed lips, the angled downward tilt of his head. Shame?

  Perhaps she had finally reached the real man. The man who must have very powerful reasons for deceiving the woman he loved, and likely many other people as well. What had happened to him to make him do this? If she were writing him as a character in a novel, that was the question she would explore. There was an anguished story there, of that she was now sure.

  He inhaled to speak just as his phone sounded from inside his suit jacket—a few notes from the opening theme of Jonathan’s show. She could easily identify those notes; she had binged episode after episode, a continuous stream of him over the summer when they were out of touch.

  “Speak of the devil,” Charles said, taking out the phone, his index finger hovering over the green answer icon. “Now is your opportunity, Kayla. I can tell him Demeleo Investment Group is backing out. I’m sure he would prefer to know sooner rather than later.” His glower dared her. “What will it be?”

  “No, no. Don’t back out. Don’t pull your investment,” she stammered.

  She pictured the spark in Jonathan’s eyes when he talked about getting to work on his own shows, for his own company. She was so proud of him for taking a risk, for not waiting for a network to offer him something but to take charge of his career and do what he dreamed of. All the traits that made him successful—his talent, his intelligence, his curiosity, his way with people, his openness to new experiences—also made him a wonderful friend and partner, not to mention an incredibly passionate, creative lover.

  She would let him go before she took this opportunity away from him.

  “I thought you might say that. My advice to you then, Kayla, is to stay in your lane, especially where Becca and I are concerned. Go to another club if you want distance, but stop judging and second-guessing what I do.”

  And with that, he tapped the screen to answer Jonathan’s call, but it had already gone to voicemail.

  Jonathan hung up at the too-familiar start of Charles’s voicemail. He continued to wait across the street from Octavia’s for a few more beats, gazing at a shop window so he could scan the surrounding area in the reflection. Today every jackass with a smart phone was a risk.

  Being caught at Octavia’s would be hard to explain to Charles. And if he told Charles he was there to pick up Quinn, well, then he was outing her.

  But maybe his dilemma was solved. A narrow door underneath the club’s regal front staircase opened.

  It wasn’t Quinn, but a tall guy in a long coat, turning back as if to say one last thing to whoever he was talking to inside. But then he emerged from the club, his stride familiar as he hurried toward the street, his arm raised to hail a cab.

  No fucking way. Charles.

  And the woman behind him, rushing to catch up, who put her hand on his back as soon as she reached him? Jonathan felt sucker-punched, a left hook to the gut.

  Quinn.

  The two of them stood together at the curb. They finally must have seen their messages, because they both wore worried expressions.

  A taxi pulled up and they got in, oblivious to Jonathan’s presence. When it squealed away, he crossed the street and hailed his own cab.

  “New York General. As fast as you can, please.” He pulled the door closed and fell back against the vinyl seat.

  Quinn and Charles.

  Jonathan’s Quinn and Charles who just married Becca. At a dungeon. Was this really happening?

  His phone vibrated in his jacket pocket and his hand felt heavy as he reached for it, like he was moving through water. A text from her slid across his screen.

  Don’t wait for me. Meet you at hospital.

  As the cab neared the building, he asked the driver to hang back until the two of them got out of their car in front of him. Charles jogged to the hospital doors, while Quinn stayed out front and looked at her phone, then typed something.

  His phone signaled another text. It was her.

  I’m here.

  The urge to turn around and go back to his apartment, or anywhere else but here, was so strong, it forced his fingers into a tight fist.

  But he had to make sure Becca was okay and to be there for Leigh. He also had to see what kind of bullshit story Quinn and Charles were going to feed him.

  Quinn and Charles. At Octavia’s.

  He typed back furiously.

  I or We?????!!!

  . . .

  Don’t make assumptions

  . . .

  Where are you?

  It began to make sense—the tension he sensed in her recently, missing half of their date day. Man. He was such an idiot, and karma was a bitch. Didn’t he deserve this, to be cheated on? To have the other shoe drop just as he started to believe that things might work out—with Quinn, with his new venture, with Charles as an investor?

  Damn it. He felt so fucking, fucking stupid. Their relationship had seemed so strong, so close, so solid—so much so that he had quelled the voices of the devilish assholes on his shoulder, whispering that what he did for her, to her, wouldn’t be enough. He had upped his game—yanked her hair hard, caned her ass until welts rose, made her come again and again and again, fucked her with a plug inside her, outfitted his spare room as a goddamn dungeon.

  But apparently he had been right. It, he, was not enough. That familiar sense of inadequacy reared. She needed more, and she had gone elsewhere—not just to the club but to someone else. Of all people, to Charles.

  What a great effing judge of character he was—of Quinn and of Charles, too.

  When the light changed, he stormed across the street straight toward her. “So he was the big important issue?”

  “Jonathan, let me explain. It’s not what you think.”

  It’s not what you think.

  Hadn’t he said the exact same thing to Delphine? Only “it” was exactly what she thought, and he had lied through his teeth that it wasn’t.

  “Oh? It wasn’t you? At Octavia’s? With Charles?”

  She held his gaze, steady. “Yes, it was all of that, but . . .”

  He thought of the times they had gotten together as a foursome the last couple of weeks. He didn’t want to hear her excuses. “How long has it been going on?” he interrupted.

  “We have not been having a . . . relationship, an affair, if that’s what you’re implying.”

  “Well then, let me be more precise for the wordsmith. How long have you been going to the club together?”

  As if that didn’t count as an affair.

  She shook her head at him. “We have not been going to the club together. We have not done anything together. I asked him if we could talk, and today was the only day he was available. He met me at the club a little while ago to have that conversation.”

  He was pacing again, back and forth only a few feet in front of the woman he thought he was in love with, the one he thought he knew. Inside and out.

  How could he have missed this?

  He so wanted to believe it wasn’t true, that she hadn’t been lying, that she hadn’t cheated on him. But that still left the matter of her and Charles at Octavia’s.

  “Just the fact that you two were meeting at Octavia’s and not mentioning it and not answering your phones when people were trying to reach you about Becca, who’s lying in a hospital bed, not playing at the club with you and her husband . . . What do you call that?” People were watching them, but he did not care. “Because to me, it sounds a lot like cheating.”

  “How dare you.” Her hands tensed at her sides. “Don’t project your guilty conscience onto me,” she spat, lips and skin tight around her mouth. “I, we, did not cheat. I realized at the wedding reception that I had seen him at the club, but he always wore a mask. A full face mask. He has a scar on his arm. That’s what I recognized when he made that bonfire with his friends and I brought them marshmallows, alright?”

  Her eyes blazed. “At first, I assumed Becca must know he went to the club but as time went on, it became clear she didn’t. You know I can’t talk about members, but I also couldn’t keep his secret from Becca and especially from you. That’s why I arranged to talk to him today, to try to reason with him, to get him to tell Becca—and let him know I had to tell you.”

  Was she seriously handing him this crock of shit?

  “So you knew—since he married Becca—that he was a member at Octavia’s, and you didn’t think you should have mentioned it to me right away? Let alone to his wife?” His voice was loud now, and she led him to a quieter spot away from the people lingering near the hospital entrance, smoking, pacing, waiting for news.

  “You know why I couldn’t tell you. You or Becca.” Her voice quieted, but he was not near done.

  “You chose to protect Charles over Becca, and over me. What am I supposed to do with that?”

  “I had, have, an obligation to the community—”

  “Oh, save the bullshit, Quinn! Obligation to The Community, my ass. Becca is not The Community. I am not The Community.” He wiped a spray of wayward spit from the side of his mouth. “You should have told Becca. And you should have told me!”

  She jabbed her index finger toward his chest, her eyes once again fiery. “Don’t be so self-righteous—”

  He jerked back while shoving her hand away. “It’s not that, it’s—”

  “It’s that you would have gone to Becca and told her,” she interrupted. “For what? So you could redeem yourself? So you could use their situation to make up for your lack of honesty, your ruined marriage? They’re happy together.”

  His mind flashed to Delphine. “How can she be happy when she doesn’t know what he’s doing behind her back?”

  “You and I might not like that she doesn’t know he belongs to Octavia’s, but it’s not our place to tell her. Especially now.”

  Her voice slowed, like she caught herself about to say something she didn’t want to. How had he not noticed this before, the withholding?

  “Becca is going to need support from us,” she went on, “not you tearing her life apart with information that isn’t yours, or mine, to divulge.”

  She spoke as if she knew what was happening with Becca.

  “Is she okay—why is she here?” he asked Quinn, pointing toward the building.

  “She’s pregnant. But she’s had trouble in the past, so I hope she still is.”

  He felt his eyes widen. “How long have you known?”

  “A few days. She told me in confidence and asked me not to tell you until she told Charles. Which she hasn’t yet. She was waiting until after her next doctor’s appointment this week to surprise him.”

  She took a step away from him toward the hospital doors. “We’ve all kept secrets, Jonathan. Some potentially more dangerous than others, but secrets nonetheless. I am truly sorry I didn’t tell you about Charles, but I couldn’t. I hope you can . . .” She reached for his hand, but he shoved it away again, bewildered by all of this.

  There was no way he was going through those doors with her or standing around Becca’s bed while he watched Charles lie to his wife.

  Instead, he would call Becca later. Right now he was not going to participate in this clusterfuck, thank you very much.

  As he turned to leave, he had only one thing left to say. “I thought I knew you, Quinn, but I realize now I don’t have any clue who you are.”

  12

  Ignore

  His words cut like a dull blade, ragged, deep, and aching. How he knew her, from that very first night when she somehow had found the boldness to send his driver away, was the most precious thing between them. To hear him say she was a stranger to him? She didn’t dare watch him walk away. Instead, she sat at the end of the bench by the sliding doors; she felt like if she didn’t, she might actually lose her balance.

  But even hearing him say those words didn’t hurt as much as seeing the shock and betrayal on his face when he crossed the street toward her. Of course he assumed she was cheating; from his perspective, it all pointed to that. And although she had good reasons, she had betrayed his trust. He expected, as had she, that there were no secrets between them.

  For a man who had once betrayed his partner’s trust, for a man who never would fully forgive himself for what he did, trust was everything.

  Everything.

  Sadness tugged, and she rubbed her chest absentmindedly. He would be the last man she would ever let herself love like this, and she hated that she hadn’t gotten the chance to tell him how she felt. Their relationship would end with him feeling deceived and discounted, not adored and understood the way he had, until a few moments ago, adored and understood her.

  She would have to live with that, the saddest truth of all.

  A pigeon squawked at a man sitting on another bench nearby, his eyes vacant with grief. Her sadness would have to wait; she was here because of Becca. Although she should prepare herself to lose Becca, too.

  Quinn’s life was different than before. She was different than before. Not everyone would accept her now.

  Harris was gone. Octavia, her friendship, and her club had shown Quinn an unfamiliar world, one she was now a part of, and that world came with a code of conduct.

  Quinn had choices to make about how she would live the rest of her life because the old one was gone; she could not go back.

  At the reception desk inside the hospital lobby, she got directions to Becca’s room and took the elevator to the eighth floor. The doors opened and she turned left, as instructed. As she continued down the long corridor, Leigh came out of one of the rooms. Quinn sped up, and Leigh turned just as she caught up.

  “How is she?” Quinn blurted.

  “She’s okay.” Leigh’s eyes glistened with relief. “And the doctor thinks she should still be able to have a healthy pregnancy.”

  “Oh, thank goodness.” Quinn reached for Leigh and held her.

  “She’ll be on bedrest for a few weeks, and the doctor’s going to watch her like a hawk, but she’s okay.” Quinn held onto her as she spoke, Leigh’s exhaustion and relief palpable. “Where’s Jonathan?” she asked. “He said he was picking you up from a meeting or something?”

  Yeah, something. “He, um . . . I think he’s going to come back later.”

  “Oh.” Leigh looked puzzled. If she weren’t so flustered, she would have asked Quinn a lot more questions. “You look . . . worn out. Is everything okay?”

  “Everything’s fine,” she flat-out lied.

  “Okay, good. Let’s have a nice, long catch-up once Becca’s home and settled.”

 

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