Dirty Rogue: A Bad Boy Billionaire Romance(30)

This is probably some kind of sign that I should take a minute—a day, even—and get my mind right about this situation before I f*ck up my entire life. “Okay.”

Disappointment flickers across her eyes, but then she gives me a sultry smile. “Tomorrow, maybe?”

“We need to drop Quinn off at her place, Louis,” I say. He gives me a jaunty salute in the rearview mirror and takes the next left.





Two hours later, I’m eating alone at the Purple Swan.

It’s something I rarely allow myself to do. I’m already off-script for a Friday night. Instead of hosting a table full of loud *s and gorgeous women in the main room, I’m seated in the smaller, more formal private dining room at a table for one.

All I can think about is Quinn.

All I can think about is how this ends.

All I can think about is how to get around having to end it, but there’s no way to avoid it.

“Chris!” a voice booms behind me, and I turn to see my best friend in the city, Jax Hunter. He’s been a busy guy lately now that he’s married, and we haven’t seen each other in a while. His wife, Cate, is on his arm. They’re both beaming.

“Buddy!” I say, standing up and clapping him on the back. “How’ve you been? Where the hell are you these days?”

He and Cate share a conspiratorial look.

I don’t get it at first, and then Jax gives Cate’s still-flat belly a pointed look and raises his eyebrows at me.

“Are you kidding me?” I say with a big smile. Jax shakes his head. “Oh, my God—that’s f*cking incredible news.” I reach around Jax and give Cate a hug.

“What about you? You got that promotion, I see! Nice work.”

“Oh, it was nothing,” I joke. I’d love to sit down with Jax and tell him about Quinn, but he’s already moving on.

“We’ll see you around the club. Maybe not quite so often, though!” he tells me, and then I’m looking at their backs as they make their way to a round table next to the picture window at the back of the room.

My heart twists with jealousy.

Then at least one thing seems crystal clear: I could have what they have, and I could have it with Quinn.

I just have to figure out how.





Chapter 23

Quinn





Something changes between us. It’s like Christian is trying to make up his mind about something, but I don’t know what it is.

Maybe it’s me.

After the Bowery appearance, Christian starts texting me—and not quick and dirty notes to plan our next rendezvous. In fact, he doesn’t ask me to come to his apartment, not on Saturday, not even on Sunday.

At first, when the messages start coming in, I’m not sure what the hell is going on at all.

Tell me about you. How many siblings do you have?

None!

Only child?

Only child.

Must have been lonely.

When you’re an only, your birthday budget is huge :) You want a big birthday budget? ;) I want a lot of things…I’m greedy.

The tone always turns flirty, with a strong undercurrent of desire, but he makes no indication that he wants me to come over. Sunday night goes by, and Monday, and Tuesday. Carolyn tells me he’s at the Swan most nights, but she can’t tell if he’s taking a date with him or not. The woman I met that first time, Melody, is in some photos with him in the tabloids, but they’re never touching—Christian walks ahead of her like he doesn’t even see her.

Well, he’s a grown man. He can do whatever the f*ck he wants, as much as it stings.

Meanwhile, the messages keep coming.

Where are your parents from?

Michigan

Is that where you grew up?

Yeah, right in the middle.

What’s it like there?

It’s a few bigger cities surrounded by farmland. Everyone vacations up north Should I go?

With me or alone?

Haha

It’s not that he’s disappeared. In fact, he does the opposite. He leans into my PR plan so aggressively that he even starts coming up with events to attend without me.

It makes me a little nervous that I don’t have control over all of his appearances, but what can I do about it? Nothing. His free time belongs to him.

I wish more of it belonged to me. Then again…

I see him just about every other day for our scheduled planning meetings. He sits across the desk from me, his eyes loitering over the curves of my body beneath the suit, the same smoldering half-smile on his face, but he doesn’t lean over to whisper something filthy in my ear to make me wet right to the core. Then, on the way out, he’ll catch me at the door, press me up against the wall, and kiss me like it’s going to save him from drowning.

It’s like we’ve gone back to the 1950s, but with cell phones. Suddenly, sex at his apartment is off the table completely—at least, he never mentions it. Suddenly, we’re stealing kisses in the back of the Town Car, but when we reach our destination, he’s distracted, disengaged.

I so badly want to ask him what the f*ck is going on, but I can’t. I can handle it if he’s not into me anymore—if all of that was just a fling, a fun distraction from real life—but I don’t want to hear it. Not yet.

I decide to give myself until the house sells. When I’m finally free of it, I’ll ask Christian what’s going on.