Chapter 23
“ W hy did you do that?” Dylan asked hollowly as he pulled her onto the dance floor.
“To end this,” Quinn said, pulling her into his arms.
“You do realize that Brooke is going to take this as a personal challenge to make our lives a living hell, right?” Dylan asked, worrying her bottom lip between her teeth as she glanced back at her sister.
“She can try,” Quinn said as he leaned down and kissed her, unable to help himself.
He loved falling asleep with her in his arms every night, but at some point over the past few months, he realized that it wasn’t enough. Not nearly fucking enough. He wanted to hold her, touch her, and kiss her anytime that he wanted and he couldn’t do that as long as they had this deal.
He-
“Are you toying with my emotions?” came the demand that had his wife’s lips twitching against his.
He reluctantly broke off the kiss to find his mother standing next to them, eyes narrowed dangerously as her gaze flickered between the two of them before he glanced to her left to find Dylan’s mother standing there, narrowing her eyes on them before his gaze shifted to find their fathers standing behind them, glaring at them.
“Explain,” her father bit out tightly with a pointed look at the black wedding band on his daughter’s finger.
“Tell me that you really didn’t marry my daughter to get your hands on a company,” her father bit out coldly.
Before he could reply, there was a long-suffering sigh that had his lips twitching, knowing that his wife was about to fuck him over for her own entertainment.
“I took one for the team,” Dylan said with a helpless shrug that had his eyes narrowing on the little brat.
“You really are a pain in the ass,” Quinn said as he glared down at the little brat only to feel his expression soften at her next words.
“A pain in the ass that you adore.”
“More than anything,” Quinn said, leaning down to kiss her forehead.
“Does he make you happy?” her father asked after a slight hesitation.
“He has his moments,” Dylan said, making him glare as her father stood there, watching them for another moment before he slowly nodded and held his hand out to her.
“Mind if I cut in?” her father asked, shoving him aside with a satisfied sigh before he pulled his daughter in his arms and-
“You son of a bitch!” her father snapped seconds later, watching as his father shot him a wink while he swept Dylan out of his reach only to have Dylan’s father steal her away a minute later.
“She’s my daughter-in-law, you son of a bitch!”
“She’s my little girl!”
“Mine now!”
“Welcome to the family,” his new mother-in-law said, leaning up to kiss his cheek only to sigh and make her way across the dance floor with his mother a minute later when her husband managed to get his father in a chokehold.
Wondering what happened to the little pain in the ass, Quinn glanced around the dance floor only to feel his lips twitch when he spotted her, nibbling on a cupcake while she critiqued their fathers’ moves as the struggle to put each other in a chokehold quickly turned into a bitch-slapping fight.
“Are you really going to let him get away with that?” Dylan asked, shaking her head in disgust.
“I can’t believe you fell for it,” Brooke said as she joined him.
“Go push your bullshit elsewhere,” Quinn said, in absolutely no mood for her bullshit.
Not tonight.
Tonight, he planned on making sure that this deal was the last thing that Dylan wanted. He-
“For what it’s worth, I don’t think she meant to hurt you,” Brooke said, sending him a pitying look that he ignored while he watched Dylan pluck a brownie off Nolan’s plate and devour it while his cousin glared down at her.
“Desperation isn’t a good look for you,” Quinn pointed out as he watched his father try to make a run for it only to get tackled by his best friend before he reached the door.
“Is that what I am?” Brooke asked, sounding curious.
“You lost. Accept it and move on,” Quinn said as he glanced back at her to find her frowning in confusion.
“You really don’t know, do you?” she asked after a slight hesitation.
“I’m immune to your bullshit, Brooke. Try it on someone else,” Quinn reminded her as he moved to go to his wife when her next words stopped him.
“Tell Dylan that we’re even,” Brooke said as she made a show of pulling off her engagement ring and handed it to him.
“What the hell are you talking about?” Quinn asked as he looked down at the engagement ring in his hand and-
“It’s fake,” Brooke said, shrugging it off as she gestured to the prick she was supposed to marry. “Dylan threatened to tell our parents that I’d been passing her designs off as mine after I refused to give her the money that she needed for Blackwood Manor.”
“You’re lying,” Quinn bit out, knowing Dylan better than anyone. She would never-
“March twenty-sixth,” Brooke said, cutting him off. “That was the day that you met with Dylan at the courthouse and got married.”
“You could have found that out through public records,” he said, telling himself that she was lying.
“True, but I also know that she’s been living with you and that she came to tell you that she was pregnant when I tried to serve that injunction to stop you from working on Blackwood Manor,” Brooke said, shrugging it off.
“Because you wanted the land,” Quinn said, calling out her bullshit only to watch as she frowned in confusion.
“Why would I want Blackwood Manor?” Brooke asked, looking at him as though he were crazy. “It’s a dump and it’s draining B.T. Construction dry. We’ve had to delay two projects because of it.”
“To build condos,” Quinn said, watching her frown deepen at that.
“What the hell are you talking about?” she demanded.
“You planned on building luxury condos after you took over B.T. Construction,” Quinn bit out coldly.
“Is that what she told you?” Brooke asked, shaking her head in wonder as she glanced at Dylan, who was now dancing with his father, saying something that had his father smiling down at her.
“Yes,” he said, only to watch as she opened her mouth and sighed, truly looking at a loss for words.
“B.T. Construction isn’t equipped to build condos, Quinn.
You of all people should know that. We’d go bankrupt in the first year and if we were lucky, we’d break even in ten years.
I have no plans of changing B.T. Construction,” Brooke said, making everything inside him go still as she repeated back almost word for word the argument that he made when Dylan first told him about Brooke’s plans.
“You’re lying,” Quinn said even as he found himself wondering about a few things that she said.
“I don’t have a reason to lie anymore. To be honest, I never thought that she’d be able to pull this off.
I figured that either our parents would change their minds in five years or I’d be looking for a new job.
But it looks like B.T. Construction is yours and I’m out of a job, which is fine with me. ”
“You’re really going to try to make me believe that you’re giving up that easily?” Quinn asked, watching as she shrugged it off while she finished her glass of champagne.
“I honestly don’t care what you believe,” she said, placing her glass on the table behind her. “I already have a job lined up.”
“She didn’t have to marry me,” Quinn pointed out.
“She did if she wanted access to B.T. Construction,” Brooke said, making him chuckle darkly because now he knew without a doubt that she was lying.
“She’s never been interested in B.T. Construction,” he reminded her.
“Not until she realized that she was in over her head with Blackwood Manor. She really didn’t have a choice, which is why she made that deal with you.”
“And what deal would that be?” Quinn drawled.
“That your marriage was nothing more than a deal. You both agreed to keep it a secret so that you wouldn’t tip me off and leave me with no choice but to elope.
As long as I thought that neither one of you would get married, I would stretch it out with a long engagement, lavish parties, and a huge wedding that would most likely bankrupt my parents,” Brooke said dryly, making his stomach turn.
“Sex was a necessary part of the deal and was supposed to end when she got pregnant, but she just wanted you so much that she couldn’t seem to stay away,” Brooke whispered mockingly, making him swallow hard.
“What’s the plan?” he asked hoarsely.
“To either force you to buy her out of B.T. Construction or find a buyer that could buy her out,” Brooke said, shrugging it off as she reached into her purse and pulled out her phone, and after a few swipes, handed it to him.
“She realized that she would never be able to renovate a house like Blackwood Manor on her own, so she settled for the next big thing, modern homes designed to look historical,” Brooke explained while Quinn stared at the model of what appeared to be an eighteenth-century Victorian house.
“From the looks of it, she’s doing well for herself,” she said as Quinn swiped through the designs, his stomach dropping as he took in the “Sold” under each design. “Her plan is to build the houses eventually, but she’s going to need money to pull it off, which is where B.T. Construction comes in.”
“Why tell me?” Quinn asked as she took her phone back.
“I wanted you to know what you got yourself into,” Brooke explained only to end up pursing her lips as she thought it over before shrugging it off as she added, “And I hate you,” before walking away, leaving him standing there as realization slammed into him.
He never loved Jenn because losing her never hurt this much, Quinn thought, swallowing hard as he glanced back at his wife and-
She’d played him so fucking well.