“Help me,” she begged the stranger.
Rose blinked the tears away. She stood outside of Quinn’s bedroom door on the second floor of the B&B, battling with herself. He deserved to know why she hadn’t come to him all these years and why she had faked her own death. It had been the only way to make sure he wouldn’t look for her.
She was done lying to him, hiding from him. And now that Quinn knew what was at stake if Keegan got his hands on the flash drive, she was certain he would continue protecting Blake even if he had to take his revenge on her for killing Wallace. Blake wouldn’t need her anymore. He would be taken care of.
Her heart beat into her throat, which was dry as sandpaper. Her pulse raced uncontrollably, and her palms were damp. A pearl of sweet made its way down her neck and into her cleavage.
Rose tried to raise her hand to knock at his door, but her body didn’t obey her mind. As much as she wanted to, she couldn’t move. She stood there like a frozen statue, her feet rooted to the floor, her body stiff with fear.
Yet, strangely enough, the sensation that filled her wasn’t fear of losing her life if she told him the truth about what she’d done, but of losing his love. It overrode everything else. The thought that wherever she was going, be it heaven or hell or any place in between, she would be going there without his love, was unbearable.
She was a coward and a wimp—simply not strong enough to do this—even less now than right after Wallace’s death. Because even after two hundred years, she loved Quinn with the same intensity as the night she’d given him her virginity. If anything, the years apart had cemented that love.
Disappointed in herself, she turned on her heels, and her heart stopped.
Only a few feet from her, Quinn stood watching her. Now he advanced on her, putting himself within arm’s length.
His hazel eyes shimmered golden as he ran them over her in slow motion. Then he locked eyes with her.
“I missed you, my love,” he murmured
No, if she told him the truth now, she would never see that look of love in his eyes again.
22
Quinn stroked his fingers over her cheek. He’d watched her as she’d stood in front of his door, clearly torn whether to enter or not. It told him everything he needed to know. Rose wanted a second chance. As did he.
He’d been angry with her only hours earlier when he’d found Keegan’s message and discovered her deception. But the longer he thought about it the more he understood why she’d hidden that fact from him. He hadn’t behaved like the man she knew back then. He’d coerced her into sleeping with him as payment for his services, and this display of power had given her the wrong impression. She’d had to assume that he had changed, so how could she trust that he would do the right thing and not try to steal the data from her to use it for his own purposes? He had given her no reason to trust him.
It would change now. He would set his pride aside, forget the last two hundred years and woo her again, just as he’d done in the ballrooms of London. Only this time his wooing would include passionate lovemaking of a more intense kind than he’d been allowed back then, when she’d been an innocent.
“I’m so sorry for the things I said to you,” he murmured.
“Quinn, I—”
He slid a finger over her lips. “Shh, my love. Hear me out. Whatever happened between us, I want us to forget about it. I want a fresh start. A clean slate. I know I’ve been acting like an ass. I was angry and hurt. But I’m also grateful, grateful that you’re alive. And that’s the only thing that counts. For whatever reason, I’ve got you back, and I’m not going to let this chance pass me by. Rose, please forgive me for whatever I’ve done. Just let me love you again.”
Seconds of silence passed.
“I’ve never stopped loving you,” she replied, her voice heavy with unshed tears. “But the things I’ve done . . .”
Her eyelids dropped to half-mast.
Sliding his fingers under her chin, he made her look at him. Was she alluding to the fact that she ran brothels? In his eyes she’d done an honorable thing by protecting those women even if others wouldn’t see it that way.
“I love you no matter what.”
Rose was still pure. To him she was still the young woman he’d left behind to go to war.
Reaching past her, he opened the door to his room and nudged her inside, following her closely. Once inside, he locked the door, making sure nobody could simply walk in and interrupt them.
Rose’s gaze snapped to the lock, then back to him; a second later it landed on the bed.