Sadie Ryan looked up at Quin Holt and still couldn’t quite believe that she was standing here in front of him. And that she was still breathing, that she hadn’t fallen into a mass of emotion and overwhelm at his feet. Blood was pounding through her body, drowning out the strains of music and muted chatter of people coming from the party.
He looked…as amazing as she remembered. More. Short, dark blond hair. Dark eyes. Stubbled jaw. Classically handsome but with an edge that elevated him to truly gorgeous. Charisma oozed from every pore. As did pure, raw sex appeal.
Past and present seemed to blur into one another as the memory of seeing him for the first time flashed back into her head. He’d been standing against one of the wooden pillars on the porch that had wrapped around the little beach house in Brazil, drinking from a beer bottle. He’d been wearing nothing but long board – shorts. Bare – chested. Utterly gorgeous. And then as if feeling her gaze on him he’d looked at her and she’d felt the electric zing from him to her as if connected by a wire.
Sadie forced her mind back to the present. She couldn’t get lost in memories now. Her mouth was dry from nerves. She tried to swallow, to lick her lips but her tongue and mouth wouldn’t function. She’d dreamed of this moment for so long that it didn’t feel real.
Emotions churned in her gut and moved upwards making her chest swell. Finally, finally she would get to see –
‘I said, what the hell are you doing here?’
Quin’s question cut through the emotion. Sadie realised that he looked angry. No. Livid. A muscle was popping at his jaw reminding her of when she’d been in the hospital four years ago in intense pain and no – one had seemed to be listening to her. His jaw had popped like that when he’d been talking to the staff.
She concentrated on the present moment even as the past threatened to drown her in images and memories.
But, instead of the rehearsed speech she’d been practicing – I know this must be a shock…she heard herself blurting out emotionally, ‘I’m so happy to see you.’
Quin frowned. Sadie had only barely taken in the dark suit and light blue shirt. The way that his clothes molded to his tall powerful body. She’d never seen him so formally dressed. When she’d known him he’d worn a uniform of t – shirts and faded jeans or board shorts, and more often than not he’d spent his time bare – chested. Or, naked. Heat flooded her body at that memory.
‘You’re so happy to see me?’ Quin’s voice was incredulous. ‘What is this, some kind of sick joke?’
Sadie shook her head. She cursed her naivety. Of course he wasn’t going to be overjoyed to see her. She’d walked out without any explanation. Vanished into thin air. Left him and –
‘You were not invited to this party. You should leave.’
The hostility radiating from the man in front of her made Sadie shiver. ‘I tried calling you, a couple of times recently but your number must have changed…or maybe you blocked me.’
Quin was silent for a moment and then he said tautly, ‘I had the same number for a year after you left…when you didn’t use it, I didn’t see any point in keeping it operational. You’re not welcome here.’
She said, ‘I know I wasn’t invited but I saw in the press that you were due to be here and so I took my chances and they let me in when I said I knew you.’
Quin’s dark gaze swept her up and down, nothing warm in it at all. He looked at her and said, ‘You knew me a long time ago.’
Sadie’s heart shrank inside her chest. He was looking at her as if she was a stranger and she knew she couldn’t blame him.
‘Four years isn’t that long,’ she said weakly, but the lie tasted like acid on her tongue. The last four years had felt like a lifetime. Each hour crawling past torturously. Each day taking a little bit more of her heart and soul and crushing them to pieces. Until the glorious moment only a few weeks ago when she’d got the news that she could start living again.
Quin shook his head. ‘You have some nerve showing up like this. What do you want?’
‘We need to talk.’ Surely he couldn’t deny that?
Quin folded his arms across his chest and Sadie hated how aware of his biceps she was, bulging against the expensive fabric.
‘Talk about what? How you disappeared without a trace? Leaving behind only a note with no explanation. How did it go again?’ Quin pretended to think for a second and Sadie wanted to beg him not to say those hateful words that were engraved into her soul, but it was too late, he was biting them out with caustic relish, ‘Oh yes, that was it: ‘Please believe me when I say I don’t want to leave but I have to. Don’t try to find me. Take care of Sol, I love you.’
The fact that he remembered the exact wording was little comfort. ‘Quin,’ she tried to appeal to the side of him that didn’t want to vapourise her on the spot. ‘We need to talk, we need to talk about – ‘
‘We have nothing to talk about,’ he cut her off brutally. ‘You need to turn around and leave right now, or I’ll have you thrown out.’
Panic clutched at Sadie’s gut. He couldn’t do this. But her limbs were turning to jelly at the thought that he might very well have her unceremoniously thrown out onto the streets, that she might not get to see – she forced air to her panicking brain. She had to be rational and remember she had rights.
She forced herself to stand tall in the face of his white – hot anger and clear rejection of her presence. ‘I’m not going anywhere, Quin. I’ve come here because I want to see my son. Our son, Quin. I want to see Sol.’
