Chapter 36
Chapter Thirty-Six
I t was just sex. Two co nsenting adults. That was all. College students were having uncomplicated sex all over the place. We didn’t have to be any different. I didn’t need to overthink a moment of weakness.
Fuuuuck!
I’d had sex with Crew.
As if I’d be able to scrub the best damn sex of my life from existence. It was impossible to forget him if I kept falling into his bed. Sex wasn’t why I’d gone in search of Crew, but holy shit, it had been one hell of a way to release the tension compressing in my head.
Did I feel better?
Yes…and no.
Conflict warred inside me. One part of me was willing to forgive everything and give a relationship with Crew a chance. The other side, the more stubborn side, warned me that Crew was untrustworthy. That giving him a second shot would only cause me more pain and a broken heart.
Someone bumped my shoulder, and I whipped my head to the right, about to tell them to fuck off because that was my current mood—snappy and annoyed at everything but mostly myself .
“Whoa, don’t bite my head off.” Cole held up his hands like I was a cop about to shoot, and I didn’t blame him. If I had a gun, I might have accidentally discharged it and put a bullet in his foot.
“Go away,” I grumbled and began walking again, brushing him off.
Either he was horrible at taking a not so subtle hint or he ignored my wish to be left the fuck alone. “I take it things didn’t go well with my brother.”
“Depends on how you look at it.”
I wasn’t glancing at him, but I sensed his gaze on me…a little too intently. “You banged him,” Cole said.
“What?” I shrieked, my feet halting a second time. “Just because I was in his room doesn’t mean I couldn’t keep my hands off him.” The fact that I had indeed slept with Crew wasn’t relevant. I was more concerned with why Cole thought I’d had sex with his brother.
Cole cocked his brow, calling my bluff.
My jaw ticked, clearly expressing my annoyance. “Fuck. Fine. We might have unintentionally landed on his bed and our clothes came off. Why am I telling you this?” I shook my head.
He chuckled. “I know my brother. What I don’t understand is why you’re so turned up over it? Shouldn’t sex make you relaxed and happy? Like a love potion of oxytocin hormones?”
We were standing in the center of campus, no one paying us much attention, but that didn’t mean I wanted to discuss my private life where anyone could hear. Then again, I honestly didn’t give a rat’s ass what anyone else thought. “Maybe with the right person,” I retorted, my feet finally feeling the cold from the concrete.
“So, you're saying Crew isn’t your person?” His voice pitched lower.
Leaves above our heads shook from a crisp breeze whisking through campus, sending them dancing and twirling to the ground. “I don’t know what I’m saying, and that’s the problem. Did you know he wasn’t alone when you sent me to his room?” I sprang back to Cole, studying his expression for any signs he might lie. God knew he excelled at it.
He gave me a convincing blank stare. “I find that hard to believe. He hasn’t looked at another girl since you. Trust me, I’ve tried.”
I scrunched my nose. “Don’t give me details.” I didn’t want to hear how Cole flaunted other sluts in front of Crew to pull him out of the darkness I knew Crew was fond of. “You could have told me about Trish.” What did it say about me that I’d slept with him knowing he’d been with someone else?
“Trish?” Cole repeated, a familiar glow lighting his eyes. “Do you mean our cousin?”
“Trish is your cousin? For fuck’s sake, Cole.” I raked an aggravated hand through my messy hair. I’m sure Crew had quite the laugh at my expense. I thought she had been a girl he was hooking up with, and I’d been jealous—God had I been jealous.
“Yeah, she came down for the weekend.”
I groaned. That asshole let me think he was with another girl. Churning inside, I walked to a wooden bench that circled a tree trunk a few feet away and plunked down.
“You thought…” Cole couldn’t finish the sentence, not when he was laughing.
I frowned, feeling a bit foolish. “It’s your brother’s fault.”
“Always is,” Cole agreed, slipping the gym bag off his shoulders and dropping it to the ground. “Where are your shoes?” he asked.
“What?” I glanced up.
“Your shoes,” he repeated, eyes shifting down.
I followed, staring at my bare feet. “Shit,” I said under my breath. “I threw them at your brother.”
Cole chuckled. “He probably deserved it.”
“I promise you he did.”
Cole unzippered his bag, pulling something out. “Here. Put these on,” he said, handing me a rolled-up pair of socks. “They’re clean. I promise,” he added with a smirk, leaning back against the bench.
I took them only because my toes were starting to turn blue. It was colder outside than it had been this morning, particularly with the sun dipping closer to the horizon. “Thanks,” I mumbled, unraveling the small bundle and slipping them onto my feet. The flood of warmth was instant.
I stopped the self-pitying for a moment and looked at Cole. Really looked at him. Something in his expression bugged me, but I couldn’t figure out what. Was it a tinge of sadness I detected under the Cole smirk? “Are you okay?” I asked, sitting straight .
“Why wouldn’t I be?” He shrugged off my genuine concern.
“I don’t know. That’s why I asked. What is it? What are you hiding from me now?”
He sat on the bench beside me. “Nothing, Quinn.”
“I don’t believe you. Is it your father?” I recalled the injunction his Mr. Riley had given Crew regarding the business deal he orchestrated between his family and Gianna’s.
His shoulders dipped and a long sigh left his chest. Such grimness shone in his eyes as he turned them on me. “If you don’t stop Crew, he’ll make the biggest mistake of your lives. You’ll lose him, Quinn. We both will.”
I swallowed, forcing the words out of my throat. “You mean he is going to marry Gianna.”
Cole nodded. “If it means getting my father off my back, yeah. I can’t let him do that. Crew’s sacrificed too much for me as it is.”
“There has to be a way out of it,” I fretted, tingles of panic circling my heart at the thought of Crew with someone else, particularly someone like Gianna.
“We can’t disgrace the good Riley name,” Cole mocked in what I recognized as his father’s gruff voice. I’d met the man only once, but it was enough to leave a lasting impression. And enough to know he wasn’t someone I wanted in my life. Nothing about Rowan Riley was trustworthy. “It’s our duty to uphold the family business, to make sacrifices as my grandfather had and his before him,” Cole continued muckily, his chest puffed out. “To Rowan Riley, marriage is just another legal contract, nothing more.”
“Your parents didn’t marry for love?”
Cole scoffed. “Hardly. My mother spends more time abroad than she does under the same roof with her husband. He gives her the luxury to live her life as she chooses, and she gave him heirs. She upheld her duty.”
I couldn’t imagine having my entire future dictated for me, driven by another man’s ambition and greed. “I don’t know what you think I can do to save Crew.”
He captured my gaze for a lengthy moment. “I think you do know.”
I swallowed. “You want me to marry him? ”
Cole caught a lock of my hair blowing in the wind, twirling it around his finger. “I’m betting he would give it all up for you.”
He was up to something, putting these ideas into my head, but it only confused me more. “And he could end up hating me for it.”
“Or he could be happier than he’s ever been,” Cole countered.
I shook the idea from my head, however tempting for selfish reasons. “I won’t trap him. How does it make me any better than Gianna?”
“Because he loves you.”
W hy did the thought of spending the rest of my life with Crew make my heart rate skyrocket? It had been five days, and my heart still went bonkers when I considered it. I had no doubt despite everything he put me through that I loved the fucker.
I was in love with Crew Riley, and despite what Cole said, I wasn’t as positive Crew returned those feelings of love.
For days, I went back and forth on whether dropping my heart at Crew’s feet was smart. It became clear my feelings couldn’t be ignored and wouldn’t fade. Ever.
That was a problem.
Perhaps in a few years, I might feel different, but I’d never been in love before, and it scared me.
“Did you see this?” Frankie asked, surging into the bedroom with her phone clutched in her hand. Her somber expression made my stomach pitch. Whatever she wanted to show me, it wasn’t good.
I sat up on my bed, tossing the book in my lap aside. Frankie handed me her phone. I glanced at the screen, the headline from an online article popping out.
A MATRIMONY DRIPPING IN MONEY
Today, Rowan and Krista Riley of Haven Ridge and Ryan and Lauren Rossi of Long Haven announce the upcoming wedding of their children .
M y eyes snapped up, and I dropped Frankie’s phone on the bed. “He’s marrying her?” I whispered. I couldn’t believe it. I hadn’t wanted to believe Crew would give up and yield to his father’s demands, especially when I knew how much he hated Gianna.
Why would he go through with it?
What happened to changing his mind? For him to surrender?
Stomach churning, I felt on the edge of a panic attack. It hit me that I waited too long. I should have told Crew how I felt the night I went to his dorm—the night we slept together. Why hadn’t I had the courage to tell him? In every other aspect of my life I could be a badass. I snubbed my nose at gossip. I was so damn driven when it came to school. Yet when it came to my heart, nothing scared me more.
“It appears so,” Frankie said dryly, plopping on the bed next to me. “What are you going to do about it?”
I blinked, meeting my best friend’s gaze. “What can I do?”
“That’s not the Arie I know. Are you really going to let your man marry a woman he doesn’t love?”
“He’s not mine.”
“He could be. You love him. He loves you. It’s that simple. Don’t let yourself get in the way. I understand you’re scared. You don’t want to be hurt. But if you don’t take chances, Arie, you could be missing out on the best parts of love. Money isn’t everything. No one knows that better than us, but you don’t have to prove yourself worthy to someone like Cole or Crew. You know you’re damn worthy of a hundred Rileys. Don’t let insecurities stand in your way.”
“I don’t know that he loves me.”
“And you won’t find out unless you take the risk. Go, Arie. No regrets.” She squeezed my hand.
I stared at her, my mind spinning. She was right. “No regrets,” I echoed.
“What are you waiting for?” she asked when I just sat, suddenly overwhelmed to the point my brain stopped functioning.
I couldn’t figure out what to do first. Or where to start. Getting off the bed and putting on some clothes was probably a good place to begin. I inched to the edge of the mattress and headed to the bathroom. One look in the mirror and I cringed. It would take more than some deodor ant and a hairbrush to make me look presentable. Impatience made me want to bolt from the room. I had this feeling I needed to see Crew now. Not tomorrow. Not in an hour. I needed to do this before I lost my gumption, but I was just vain enough to want to look less like a hag when I told the guy I was in love with not to marry someone else.
I hoped it wasn’t too late.
“Do you know where he is?” I asked as Frankie tossed me a shirt from the closet. I’d put some product in my hair, giving it a refresh, brushed my teeth, and applied enough makeup to make me look like I hadn’t been in bed all day.
Frankie flashed a grin like she was damn proud of me. “As a matter of fact, I do.”
O f course, they were throwing a party. Why wouldn’t they be? They needed little reason to celebrate at Kappa Chi, but an engagement of a fraternity brother had to be a bash deserving of being shut down.
I was jumping to conclusions. The party probably had nothing to do with the engagement. It was a Friday night and a tradition at this point to throw a bash.
Chewing on my lip, I stared at the house swelling with people. This was so not how I pictured telling Crew about my feelings. There was no sandy beach between our toes. No lulling roll of the ocean’s waves. No squawking of seagulls. At least the moon shone full in the star-strewn sky, illuminating the house. One out of four conditions. It would have to do. Perhaps I could get Crew to go on a walk, lure him away from the party, somewhere more private.
I just hoped Gianna wasn’t inside.
But my first obstacle was finding Crew, and it took a minute of me battling against the sea of bodies in every room to realize it was no easy task. I pulled out my phone, thinking it might be easier to send a damn text when I spotted them through the open doors leading out to the back patio.
They stood side by side. Firelight highlighted their faces, and embers danced in the air surrounding them from the bonfire. Cole threw his head back and laughed, but Crew only scowled, shrouded in a bit more darkness than Cole who was closer to the fire. How very appropriate.
I stood there studying them. How hadn’t I seen it before? How hadn’t I been able to tell they were two different people? As I looked at them now, it was so clear. Yes, they shared the same face, but each had telling signs and mannerisms that allowed me to identify who was who easily.
Cole’s smile was infectious. He had a boyish charm about him, and it drew people to him.
The obvious identifier for Crew was the lip ring. He drew it into his mouth now, my eyes devouring the movement, remembering what it was like to be kissed by those lips, the cool steel of his piercing pressed against mine.
Crew rarely smiled.
Taking a breath, I braced myself for what I came to do. Cole and Crew both turned toward me at my approach. Crew’s eyes darkened, the gold flecks in his irises nearly winking out entirely. He rubbed his chin, his eyes remaining intent on me.
“Quinn!” Cole hooted, moving toward me, and the next thing I knew, he was lifting me off my feet, spinning me around. He gave me his signature killer smile, happiness twinkling in his eyes. “You’re here.”
I got a whiff of booze. Okay, it was more than a whiff. “Cole, are you drunk?”
“It’s a party, Quinn.”
He had a point. I’d just never seen him like this. Not this drunk. Something was wrong.
With my feet dangling in the air, I glanced at Crew. He scoffed, a deep scowl carving on his lips, and started to move away. I squirmed in Cole’s grasp, hoping he would get the hint and put me down.
He didn’t.
“Crew!” I called after him.
He halted, eyes like granite glancing at me with such disdain I recoiled. He was pissed, and my confidence was knocked down a peg.
“Don’t leave. ”
Crew said nothing, only stared at me as if were the cause of all his misery. He started to turn away.
“Crew.” I tried again. “Please stay. I want to talk to you,” I pleaded as Cole jostled me around. I lost sight of Crew, my hair like a screen in front of my face. “Cole, put me the fuck down,” I hissed, my fingers pressing into his broad-ass shoulders. Cole finally got a clue, lowering me down his chest.
By the time my feet touched the ground, Crew was gone.
“Fuck,” I muttered under my breath, lifting on my toes to see if I could spot him among the crowd.
“Are you mad?” Cole asked, wobbling slightly on his feet. I was half afraid if I left him alone, he would stumble into the fire.
Guilt stabbed me, and I whirled toward Cole, frustration evident in my features. “Yes and no. It’s conflicting. I’m not upset with you but myself. I need to find your brother.”
A sloppy yet still flirtatious smile lifted his lips. “About damn time, Quinn. Finally came to your senses, I see.”
“I just hope I’m not too late.”
“Shit,” he cursed, his slightly glazed gaze moving over my head as if he just noticed his brother was gone and it sobered him some. “I’d suggest you go after him before he gets to his car.”
“He left?” Dread coated my words.
Cole nodded, a sadness to his expression. “It’s Crew. Did you think he was going to stick around?”
Torn between wanting to ask Cole what was wrong and running after Crew, I glanced toward the side of the house. “For once, I hoped he would. For me.”
I heard the rumble of an engine roar to life. If I’d been inside, the music and chatter would have drowned the sound, but in the backyard, it echoed through the trees.
“Go,” Cole urged, his hands pushing at the small of my back with slight encouragement. “I’ll be fine.”
Giving Cole one last glance, I turned and dashed off, weaving through the patio to the side of the house. It would be quicker than going through the party. My heart accelerated in my chest, and I picked up my pace, sprinting to the front, nearly tripping on some asshole puking a gallon of alcohol into the bushes.
I didn’t stop but went to the street, desperately searching through a sea of vehicles, looking for the Crew’s steel-gray Porsche.
Come on, where are you? Don’t do this to me.
Of course, he would make me chase him down. This was Crew.
My boots slapped on the concrete as I raced down the road, my pulse hammering in my veins and adrenaline pumping. The streetlights flickered and hummed above my head, and a string of worry grew in my stomach. Am I too late? Did he leave? If I call him, will he turn around?
And then my heart stuttered as I spotted a pair of headlights beaming ahead. They were pulling onto the road and about to drive right past me. I couldn’t let that happen.
The car started to roll forward, engine purring, and I jumped into its path. I couldn’t see through the windshield, not with the headlights blaring into my eyes. This was probably a stupid idea, but it was the first thing that popped into my head.
Would he stop?
The brakes engaged, swinging the car’s tail end left and right before the car came to a jerky halt at my feet. I slammed my hands onto the hot hood, staring through the window at Crew.