Brutal Vows (Queens & Monsters #4)(41)

I throw my hands in the air. “Will you please stop calling me woman like it’s a bad word? I hate that!”

His piercing gaze on mine, he replies softly, “I’ve never said it like it’s a bad word. It’s the most beautiful word in the language.”

Then he stands and walks out of the kitchen, leaving me staring after him in stunned silence.





An hour later, I’ve fed the men, checked on a still-sleeping Lili, and splashed enough cold water on my face to cool it from scorching to merely warm.

No such luck with my panties. They’re still on fire.

Quinn called me beautiful.

I mean, I think he did. In a roundabout sort of way.

Didn’t he? Or am I making it up in my head? Has my vagina hijacked my intellect and held it hostage so that it makes everything the man says now sound suggestive?

I hate myself for not knowing. I hate myself even more for wanting to know.

I hate myself most of all for hoping I’m right.

When Quinn reappears in the kitchen in a fresh shirt and says he’s ready to leave, I can’t look him in the eye. I just nod and keep rinsing dishes.

He stands there vibrating tension until he growls, “Any time this century.”

I turn off the water, dry my hands, and walk past him, out of the kitchen.

“Where are you going?”

“To get my handbag, if that’s all right with you, Prince Charmless.”

He grumbles something under his breath that I ignore. Ten minutes later, we’re in his big black Escalade, headed into the city.

The silence in the car is deafening.

When I can’t take it anymore, I try to make polite conversation. “So where will you honeymoon?”

He looks at me as if he’s unfamiliar with the word.

“Don’t tell me you’re not taking her on a honeymoon!”

He glares at the windshield, gripping the steering wheel so hard, I’m sure he’s wishing it were my neck. Through clenched teeth, he says, “I really can’t wait until I never see you again.”

I stare at his stupid, handsome profile, forcing myself to refrain from dragging my nails down the side of his cheek. I don’t want Lili to have to look at his gouged face during her wedding vows.

“You should take her to Ireland,” I pronounce, then stare out the passenger window because I can’t look at him one second longer.

After a while, he says gruffly, “Why Ireland?”

Resisting the urge to make a crack about the joys of drunken pub yodeling, I say instead, “So she can see where you were born, Quinn. Get to know you better. You know, meet all your relatives from the motherland and whatnot.”

“I don’t have any relatives left in Ireland.”

The dark way he says it makes me glance over at him. His jaw is hard and his thunderclouds are gathering, but I have to ask.

“Because they’re all in the States now?”

“Because they’re all dead.”

“Oh. I’m sorry to hear that.”

Don’t ask. Don’t say it, Reyna. Be smart and leave it alone.

Into my ambivalent silence, he says, “Aye, lass, all of them. And no, I don’t have anyone here, either.”

“So it’s just you?”

“Aye.”

“No parents? Siblings? Cousins? No one?”

“No one,” he repeats gruffly, then sends me a pointed look. “And that’s the truth.”

“You’re the last Quinn?”

“There are a million Quinns,” he says with a flick of his fingers. “Just not any I’m directly related to.” After a pregnant pause, he adds, “Which was the point.”

That sounds ominous. But he doesn’t offer any further explanation, so I say, “I don’t understand.”

He closes his eyes briefly, shakes his head as if he’s regretting the entire conversation, then heaves a sigh. “In the Old World, when someone really wants to send a message, they wipe out an entire family tree, top to bottom. Grandparents, parents, children, husbands, wives…every living generation related by blood or marriage to the one who caused the offense.”

And here I thought the Cosa Nostra was brutal.

“That’s what happened to your family?”

Instead of answering, he switches on the radio.

I reach over and switch it off. “How did you survive?”

He glances at the tattoo on my left ring finger. “How did you survive?”

I look out the window again, at the passing suburban landscape creeping toward the city. “Day by day. Any way I could.”

“Then you already know. The details don’t matter.”

He switches on the radio again, ending the conversation.

I close my eyes and allow the sudden and intense longing to get to the dark heart of this strange changeling of a man to pass through me until it’s only a faint, bittersweet taste on my tongue.

The wedding can’t come soon enough.

He’s a riptide and I’m swimming far out in dangerous waters, getting pulled under fast no matter how hard I fight to stay afloat.





16





Spider





It becomes clear I made a massive mistake ordering Reyna to accompany me on the ring-buying excursion the moment we walk into the Cartier store in Manhattan and the store manager greets us with a big smile, open arms, and an enthusiastic, “Congratulations on your engagement!”