His Blackmailed Bride

‘We… Alan and I didn’t…’ Paige looked up from her plate. ‘You and he really were close, weren’t you?’

Quinn nodded. ‘Maybe it was the age difference—I used to take him places, play games with him. God knows, our father never did. I taught him to ride a bike and to play chess.’ Memory darkened his eyes. ‘I’d thought about leaving that house for years. I used to tell myself I couldn’t because I couldn’t leave Alan alone. But the truth was that I knew how badly I’d miss him.’

Paige put down her fork. ‘That’s not what people think.’

He laughed. ‘Yes, I know. The proverbial black sheep, that was supposed to be me.’ He raised his champagne glass and watched the bubbles rise. ‘I suppose I was, in a way. In the Fowler house, you did as you were told. No questions asked, ever.’

‘Yes,’ she said softly, thinking of Mrs Fowler’s wedding plans and Mr Fowler’s decision to send Alan to South America. ‘Yes, I know.’

Quinn nodded. ‘Alan got the hang of it early. I—I never managed.’ He stared into the distance and then took a sip of champagne. ‘Look, that’s all water under the bridge. I made a lot of mistakes.’

‘What mistakes?’

He looked at her through narrowed eyes. ‘Do you really want to hear all this?’

She did, she thought suddenly. She wanted to know more about this forceful, mysterious man who had turned her life upside down.

‘Yes,’ she said simply.

Quinn stared at her and then he nodded. ‘OK,’ he said, getting to his feet. ‘Why not?’ He laughed, but it was less a laugh than a sound of bitter reflection. ‘Husbands and wives shouldn’t have secrets from each other, should they?’ Paige said nothing, and he walked to the French doors and peered into the darkness. ‘It’s not the world’s worst story,’ he said. ‘I guess I always gave my parents a hard time. My father enrolled me in his preparatory school the day I was born. When I was seventeen, I was politely asked to leave. You can imagine how he loved that. And then I dropped out of college—his alma mater, of course. When I asked him to enrol me in a school that offered computer studies, he told me not to be stupid, that there was no future in computers.’

Paige shook her head. ‘But you own a computer firm. You said…’

‘Yes,’ he said softly, ‘I certainly do.’

‘Then, he changed his mind? He agreed to send you to another school?’

‘My father and I never agreed about anything,’ Quinn said, resting his hands on the mantel and staring into the coals. ‘He told me to go back to school and stop making trouble if I wanted his support. Otherwise…’

‘Otherwise?’ she prompted.

He shrugged. ‘Otherwise, I was on my own. So I found a job—hauling bags of cement,’ he said with a quick smile. ‘It paid pretty well, for a guy with no training in anything but which fork to use at dinner. And it drove my old man crazy.’ The smile came again. ‘God, how he hated having me go in and out of that house dressed as a labourer. And my mother… “What will people think?” she said. Hell, by the time Alan got himself smashed, I knew I’d been pushing my luck. I should have been long gone by then.’

‘Did they really accuse you of getting Alan drunk?’

‘Yes. They said I’d always been a bad influence on him.’ His eyes darkened. ‘Alan cried—he was only a kid. And I… I packed a toothbrush and an extra pair of jeans and took off.’

‘But—to where? How did you live?’

‘It wasn’t as bad as it sounds, Paige. I wasn’t a baby—I was almost twenty-one. The way I figured it, independence day was long overdue.’ He bent and added a log to the fire. ‘I must have sent Alan postcards from a hundred different places over the next two years. I worked anywhere they’d have me, at anything they asked.’ He grinned. ‘The muscles I’d grown working as a labourer grew new muscles. I found out it was tougher to make a living with your hands than your head.’

Paige’s gaze moved over his shoulders and arms, lingering on the ridged muscles visible beneath his jacket. Yes, she thought, that explained a lot. Everything he’d told her explained a lot. He wasn’t a man who had walked out; he was a man who shouldered responsibility, not as a burden but as a mark of pride.

‘But you found a way to study computer science,’ she said, watching his face.

He nodded. ‘I saved every cent I earned. It took me two years, but finally I had enough for a year’s tuition at Caltech.’ He picked up the champagne bottle and looked at her. ‘More?’ he asked. She nodded, watching as he refilled her glass. ‘After the first year, the school put me on scholarship.’ He looked over the rim of his glass and smiled at her. ‘The rest, as they say, is history.’

‘You got your degree and you went to England and bought your own company.’

He smiled. ‘It wasn’t quite that simple. I came to the UK, took a look, and decided this was where I wanted to be. I liked the people, the pace of life—and it looked good for computers. They were relatively new, but the American market was already crowded. There seemed a better chance at a future here. But I needed capital, and since I had no collateral, I swallowed my pride and went to my father.’

His words drifted into the silence. Paige reached to him, then drew back her hand before she let herself touch him.

‘Did he agree to lend you the money?’

Quinn laughed. ‘You sound as surprised as I felt—until he explained his terms.’ His voice flattened. ‘He lent me the money—but he charged me two per cent over the bank rate.’

‘But… but that’s usury!’