Chapter 24
Quinn watched Knox head out and hurried inside the Rooneys’ house to find Helena.
She wasn’t hard to find. She was sipping a mimosa and telling a story to a large group of people.
Nolan, the very quiet and sweet fireman, had moved to the front.
Bless his heart, as they say down here, Quinn didn’t know if Nolan could handle Helena.
He was quiet, she was loud. He was calm, she was a firecracker.
He was beer, she was champagne. He was definitely nothing like any of Helena’s past dates.
Maybe that was a good thing since none of those dates had resulted in love.
Quinn snagged a mimosa and took a seat in the corner of the living room. Helena was the extrovert to her introvert. It didn’t take long though for someone to join her.
“Here you are,” Delaney said with a smile as she took a seat. “Your friend is making cartoon heart eyes pop out of Nolan’s face.”
Quinn chuckled at that. “I would love to see that work, but they’re quite opposites.”
Delaney shrugged as if that didn’t matter. “Kale is looking for Knox. We found out Karson is the one who sent the information to the gaming board.”
“That miserable little fucker.” Delaney looked up and smiled as Helena joined them. “Please tell me you’ll finally let me castrate him.” Helena turned and held out her hand to Delaney. “Hi. I’m Helena.”
“Delaney. I’ve been helping Quinn with this. Also, I’m in complete support of castration. We can do it at the security center. It’s technically on embassy land.”
“Oh my God, is that Princess Ariana, Prince Zain, and Prince Gabe Ali Rahman over there? I thought they looked familiar, but I thought surely a king and queen were enough. How does Keeneston have so much royalty?”
“Ari, Zain, and Gabe all grew up here. I’m married to Kale.
His father, Ahmed Mueez, was the head of security for the Ali Rahman family until his retirement.
When Draven became king and started messing up, Mo and his family brought him under their collective wing.
He came here for king lessons. I’m told he met Addison, fell in love, and the rest is history. ”
“My international law heart is going wild. Also, I learned an international warrant was out for Ahmed for overthrowing a country or something, but every country is too scared to go after him so they just dismissed it. Do you think I can meet him while I’m here?” Helena asked.
“Sure. You can find him at the training center. He might make you shoot a gun or crawl under barbed wire, but he’s happy to chat with you,” Delaney told them.
“Amazing. After we’re done with the important things, I have to introduce myself to Princess Ariana. I love her work at the UN. But now, to the important things. Holy crap, how did Knox get even hotter?”
Delaney laughed and so did Quinn. This was Helena in all her glory.
“Please tell me he knows how to give a woman an orgasm. Please? It would be such a shame if a man who looked like that didn’t know what he was doing.” Helena put her hands together as if begging.
The flush that took over Quinn’s cheeks answered the question. Helena flung herself at Quinn and hugged her. “Finally! Now, how is he as a boyfriend?”
“He’s amazing, Hel. I don’t even know if I can adequately explain the level of support, respect, kindness, consideration, and . . . chemistry between us.”
Helena slung her arm around Quinn’s shoulder and tapped their mimosa glasses together. “My girl is finally in love with someone deserving.”
“I don’t—”
Helena rolled her eyes. “Don’t even deny it. Tell that sexy footballer who leapt into the stands to put his name on your back that you love him already.”
Quinn glanced to see that Helena’s eyes had found their way to Nolan. Again. “I’ll make a deal with you,” Quinn said to Helena. “I’ll tell Knox I love him if you say yes to a date you’d normally not say yes to.”
Quinn held out her hand and Helena shook it. “Deal.”
“Great, come on. I’ll introduce you to the royal family. It’s weird calling them that,” Quinn told Helena as they walked across the living room. “They just introduce themselves by their first names.”
Mila was the first to see them coming and quickly wrapped Quinn up in a hug. “I am so sorry for everything that happened. Zain rushed over to try to get you out of custody as soon as we heard.”
“And I couldn’t be more grateful. I’d like to introduce my best friend, Helena Diakos,” Quinn said, but before she could finish the introductions, Ariana was already jumping into the conversation.
“You’re the international lawyer! I’m Ariana. I’ve been wanting to meet you ever since you won that women’s rights case for education.” And just like that, Helena was part of the group.
Quinn sat back, happy to have the conversation flow around her. She excused herself to get a refill. As she put the glass to her lips, she felt warm breath on her neck right before gentle lips pressed to her skin.
“I missed you.”
She smiled against the glass and turned as Knox wrapped his arms around her. “I missed you too.”
“Did Delaney tell you what they found?” Knox asked.
“Yes, but it honestly doesn’t sound like enough to clear my name.”
“That’s why Kale’s here. He wants to plot.”
It took several minutes, but eventually Knox got Kale, Delaney, Quinn, and Helena outside. “So, what are you thinking?” Quinn asked Kale.
“We know Karson is behind it. We just have to catch him in action so we can completely clear your name and get enough to arrest him,” Kale told her.
“How are we going to do that?” Quinn asked.
“We honeypot him.”
“You’re going to send in a female spy to seduce him?” Helena asked. “That would work. He’s dumb enough to fall for it.”
“True, but our honeypot will be digital. Quinn’s going to send an email to her team telling them she’s been given one more chance to prove she didn’t rig the system.
She’s going to hand over all the passwords to the system and tell them they’ll get to work on it on Monday.
She’ll tell them on Sunday that she’ll be leaving her computer hooked up to the system to run another test for them to review on Monday. ”
“They could crash the whole system!” Quinn did not like this idea.
“I’m not giving them access to the real system, but a mirror one. However, we’ll record everything Karson does so that we can prove it’s him,” Kale explained. “I just need to borrow your computer.”
“For that you need to call Agent Warner,” Quinn said with a sigh.
“I already did. He’s bringing it over right now.
He’ll be undercover along with Detective Braxton.
They think I’m the stadium’s head of IT.
They won’t have access to our internal communication devices, but they’ll have access to the mirror program and cameras I’m setting up tomorrow.
That way the evidence can come straight from them against Karson. We won’t even be involved.”
“That’s genius,” Helena said with a smirk. “But I still vote for castration.”
“We can make that happen,” Kale told her.
Quinn wasn’t sure if he was joking, because he sure didn’t appear to be.
“Now that we have that settled,” Knox told the group. “How about dinner at the café?”
“Thanks, but I have to work on the program,” Kale told them.
“I’d love to third wheel,” Helena told him with a smile.
“Do you need a place to stay tonight?” Knox asked her.
Helena shook her head. “I’m staying at a local bed and breakfast.”
“Great. You’ll meet the women who run it at the café. Ladies, shall we?”
Quinn laced her fingers with his as they did a lap around the house saying goodbye to everyone before heading to the café.
Knox sat, watching Quinn’s tension melt away as she and Helena told him stories about each other. Helena met Aniyah and the two might be in cahoots to take over the world.
“Do you need any help on Sunday?” Talon, Zinnia’s husband, asked. He was FBI hostage rescue so he could be helpful. Same with his partner, Lucas, who was married to Poppy. Jackson Davies was their team leader.
Currently Lucas was showing Quinn and Helena pictures of Bertha, the polar bear that had just had a cub. Lucas was from northern Alaska. While everyone else wore warm clothes, he was still in shorts and flip-flops.
“Ask Kale if he needs anything. I’m leaving this in his hands,” Knox told him. Talon nodded and headed back to the kitchen to see if his wife needed any help.
“I can take you to the bed and breakfast and get you checked in,” Knox heard Lucas telling Helena.
“That would be great.” Helena stood and kissed Quinn on the top of the head. “Love ya, sis.”
“Love you too. Thank you for coming.”
“I’ll see you all tomorrow at the shindig. And then it’s castration day.”
Helena winked at him and Knox fought the urge to cross his legs.
“How are you feeling?” Knox asked Quinn as he placed his hand on the small of her back and escorted her to his car.
“I feel ready for this to be over. I want to clear my name once and for all.”
“Did you notice Detective Braxton came with Agent Warner to bring you your laptop?”
Quinn laughed. “Let me guess, you’ve already put a bet on them.”
“Maybe.”
Quinn laughed again and Knox smiled. He loved nothing more than being able to make the woman he loved laugh.
Love. The word fit and felt oh, so right.
He took Quinn to their home, and yes, in just a short time it had become theirs.
She might not realize it, but he’d already asked her opinion on multiple things to make it more theirs.
“I have team meetings in the morning for a couple of hours, then we’ll all go to Founder’s Day. I’ll have someone pick you and Helena up in the morning and I’ll meet you downtown. Does that work?” Knox asked as they headed to his bedroom.
“Yes. I want to spend as much time with Hel as I can. Both of us are only children, so we consider each other sisters. I’ve missed her so much since I moved to Kentucky.”
“I’m glad you have someone like that. I always liked Helena. Even from the few times I met her in college,” Knox said as they got ready for an early evening in. They were both exhausted and all he wanted was to hold her in his arms.
Although Quinn had other ideas. Cuddling turned into petting, which turned into Knox making love to her slowly. They were so close that they didn’t need words to communicate. He felt her body and soul.
Nothing had ever felt more right than falling asleep with her in his arms except waking up with her there too.
Knox slid from the bed trying not to wake Quinn. He dressed for practice then bent over the bed and placed a soft kiss on her forehead. “I’m leaving for practice, Q. I love you.”
Quinn’s chin moved upward so her lips could kiss his. “I love you too, Knox.”
Knox’s heart exploded, but then he worried she was still asleep and only said it automatically. When he pulled back enough to see her face, he saw that Quinn was wide awake and staring at him with such love that for the first time since joining the team, he was late to practice.