“I never see you in here,”she continued, talking to Quinn.
“We were early this morning,”Quinn explained. “Fox dragged me over.”
Lucy chuckled. She seemedall right. A competent professional, concerned with Quinn’s wellbeing.
I also liked her huge flashyearrings, especially since I was fairly sure they’d gone out of style yearsago. The fact that she still wore them spoke to her character. She knew whatshe liked, and nothing so petty asfashionwas going to change hermind.
That was a good attitude tohave.
“There are worse people tohave drag you into a darkened coffee shop,” Lucy said casually.Toocasually.
I wasn’t doing as gooda job of hiding my hopeless crush on Quinn as I’d imagined. She’d noticed.
“I’m not interrupting, am I?Just thought I’d come over and say hi,” she continued.
“Not interrupting at all,” Isaid, not wanting Quinn to have to field that question. She was interrupting,but nothing that couldn’t afford to be interrupted.
Quinn needed time to thinkabout his life and what he wanted to do with it, and there was no point inpushing him one way or another now. He was hardly going to walk away in the middleof a project. Stressed as he was, there was a determined streak in there. Hewouldn’tlet other people down. Regardless of whether or not they deserved the benefitof all his hard work.
“We were just waiting forthe studio to open,” Quinn agreed. “And Fox was force-feeding me pastries.”
“Kinky, but I’m into it,”Lucy said. “I also have keys, so if you wanted to follow me over…”
I swallowed down theremainder of my tea in three huge gulps, waiting for Quinn to do the same. Nopoint in delaying the inevitable any further.
We could talk again later.
ELEVEN
QUINN
I walked across the streetwith my arm brushing against Fox’s, a tight bubble of hope sitting under my heart.
He was being sweet thismorning. Which meant he wasn’t mad at me for kissing him last night.
Hell, he’d bought mebreakfastandgiven me half ofhis. Maybe that meant… he liked me? At least a little?
Thatwas an excitingthought. Fox liked me. Fox likedme.
My good mood vanished assoon as I saw Dwayne—my main contact at Harmony—and a man I didn’t recognizewaiting in the lobby of the recording studio. The look the stranger gave memade my stomach twist.
“Hello, Quinn,” he said,smiling a huge, fake smile. “We haven’t met yet. I’m John Collins, from legal.”
Legal.
I shook the hand he offeredand nearly got my own crushed as a result. John was a big guy.
To be fair, compared to me,almost everyone was a big guy.
Except, somehow, Fox. He wastall and perfectly-muscled but he didn’t make me feel small. Not in the way menlike John and my uncle did.
Fox moved to stand at myshoulder, so close his jacket brushed against my back. My stomach relaxed atiny bit.
John Collins had the look ofa man who wastrouble. Especially if he was from the legal department.
“And you must be RupertFaulks. I hear people call you Fox?” John asked.
“Mr. Faulks is fine,” Foxsaid, in the polite tone I was starting to understand meantgo fuck yourself.
