Dirty Rogue: A Bad Boy Billionaire Romance(47)

“What—” The word comes out as a croaking whisper, and I have to try again. “What are you doing?”

Quinn’s hand falls from her mouth, but the expression on her face doesn’t change at all. “Tell me this is some crazy teenage bullshit that you wrote when you were having a bad day ten years ago.”

Her voice is sharp and cold, and I know that she’s using everything in her power to protect herself from me in this moment. I want so badly to lie to her, to reassure her that of course it’s just the ramblings of a dumbass teenage kid, some idiotic nonsense that you scrawl late at night when you’re drunk and rich and stupid.

But I can’t.

Because it’s not.

I take in a shaky breath and open my mouth to tell her the truth, but I can’t force the words out.

She sees it in my eyes.

“What the hell does this mean?” she says, standing. She thrusts the journal at me so I can read the words on the page. I don’t need to read them. I know them by heart. Then she throws it back into the chair. “What does it mean?”

“I—”

The words stick in my throat. This is not how I wanted this to play out. This is not how I wanted her to discover the worst thing I’ve done, the secret that I’ve been keeping from everyone for the past ten years of my life.

Quinn narrows her eyes, straightens her back, and crosses her arms over her chest.

Steps toward me.

Her voice is soft, deadly.

“Let me see your tattoo.”

My heart is in my throat. It’s going to burst out and splatter all over the ground.

This is it.

This is it.

I reach up and grab the collar of my t-shirt in one of my fists, then yank it down so that my tattoo is visible.

Her eyes go instantly to it, and she steps forward another few inches.

She looks harder.

Her eyes dart to my face.

Back at the tattoo.

Then she reaches out with one finger and traces the E hidden in the design with her fingernail.

“E. For Elijah.”

Her voice is soft, but it carries a punch of disappointment that almost brings me to my knees.

Then she jerks back, putting several feet between us, her eyes horrified again.

“Why?”

I’m back in that bedroom again, kneeling by my brother’s lifeless body, consumed with the knowledge that I will live the rest of my days with my father’s disapproval. Every time he looks at me, he will wish my brother was still alive. He would rather have his infectious energy in his life than my unassuming presence. And so, before I dial 9-1-1, before I summon the police, before I break down in front of them, screaming, sobbing, pleading—I take my brother’s wallet from his pocket, and I replace it with my own.

“I couldn’t—I couldn’t face it,” I say, my voice strangled from the pain. “He was my father’s favorite. I couldn’t be the one to keep living with that. So when the cops came—my dad was out of the goddamn country, he didn’t even show up for another twenty-four hours—I said I was him. It was easy to switch our I.D.s. We’d never been fingerprinted. We were identical twins. No one could ever tell us apart. Nobody ever—nobody ever questioned me.”

“What the f*ck,” Quinn says, shaking her head. “Who are you?”

The question hangs in the air between us, and I give her the only answer I can think to give.

“Elijah Pierce.”

She puts both of her hands up, palms toward me, and lets out a sharp breath. “I don’t even want to know why. I don’t even want to know.”

Then she reaches behind her, snatches her phone from the chair, and looks at me one last time.

“Just so we’re clear—we’re over…Elijah.”

Quinn shoves past me and hurries out into the dark hallway.

There is a faint rustling as she collects her clothes, and then I hear her running footsteps as she makes her way to the bedroom door and flees.

She’s gone from this part of my life.

Forever.





Chapter 37

Quinn





Oh, my God.

Oh, my God.

Oh my God.

What the f*ck just happened?

Mind reeling, I run back to Christian’s bedroom and scoop up my clothes and shoes into my arms. My heart is in my throat and my breath ragged, and not in a fun, sexy way, but in a terrified, get-me-away-from-this-psycho way.

Who the f*ck have I been sleeping with?

Not Christian Pierce.

His reactions keep tumbling over and over in my mind, all of them suddenly clicking into place like a child’s puzzle, so f*cking easy once you have all the pieces.

Holy shit.

I knew there were things he didn’t like to talk about, his brother being first on the list. I knew that certain things people said set him off, even if they seemed innocuous. I just never imagined that he was hiding something of this magnitude.

You did imagine it.

The elevator seems to be descending in slow motion to the lobby. I’m so panicked that I don’t care about my outfit—being dressed in Christian’s too-large lounge clothes is the least of my worries right now.

The voice in the back of my mind is right.

There was a moment, back in the car, when I thought there was something beneath the surface of Christian’s mood, his movements, his expressions, but it was so fleeting that I forgot about it until right now.