Under the Boardwalk (Costas Sisters 1)

“How?” he asked, hoping to coax more information out of her.

She rolled her eyes. “She dyed our hair green and snapped pictures of the Martian Invasion. Except by then the National Enquirer had caught on to her schemes. Add to that kind of insanity the fact that my mother was a showgirl, which for other kids was tantamount to a stripper. I was the laughingstock of the school.” She ran a hand through her hair. “And the guys? Oh, they just loved the lie detector,” she said. “Even they tended to steer clear, too.”

Knowing it wasn’t the time to laugh, Quinn tried keeping things serious. “What about Zoe? Did she have problems with that kind of behavior?”

She shook her head. “Zoe was different. Her sense of humor was as wicked as my mother’s, and she loved the limelight just like Mom did.” Her eyes glazed over as she remembered. “Maybe Zoe wasn’t different, maybe it was me. Zoe wanted to be just like Mom. She dressed in tight clothes and flouted any convention. It didn’t matter to her what the other kids thought, because she obviously had a stronger independent streak.” She clenched and unclenched her fists as she spoke. “And don’t think I don’t realize how ungrateful and awful this sounds, but—”

He placed a finger over her moving lips, trying like hell to ignore the erotic sensations that just touching her inspired. “I’m a cop. I was also a kid once. I know how cruel other kids can be, and you don’t need to make excuses about your feelings. They’re yours and you are entitled to them. But I don’t think you need to worry about Sam. She’d be happy to play along and tell the other kids where to go if they dared to make fun of her.”

“That’s probably true. In psych lingo, I’m probably just transferring my fears and insecurities onto Sam. In my family, normal didn’t fit in. I didn’t fit in.” She shrugged. “But Sam already has been through the hell of being different. If someone makes fun of her, she can handle herself a lot better than I ever did.”

He laid one hand across the back of the couch and turned, slanting his head toward her. “Now that’s the truth. I really wouldn’t worry. Sam wants to be there and she already knows exactly what your family’s like. They adore her and she already loves them. If it works out, it’s a perfect solution.”

Leaving me as the misfit once again, Ariana thought.

“Now tell me about the stuffed-shirt boyfriend your family mentioned.”

She laughed, grateful he’d changed the subject to something that wasn’t quite as painful. Not anymore. She didn’t like her cousins giving her a hard time over Jeffrey, but she was fine with sharing that part of her past with Quinn. “Like the family said, he was a pompous ass. But he was everything they weren’t.”

“Conservative and normal?” he guessed.

“Yeah. And I needed that at the time.” She stared out at the water, the turbulence there somehow familiar. “He was a break from the insanity at home, and I thought if he got to know me first, they wouldn’t seem so different, or at least he wouldn’t care.”

He reached out and massaged her shoulder. “What happened?”

“My father asked him one of his infamous questions. He used to hit up any guy who walked into the house with one.”

“What did he ask poor Jeffrey?” Quinn, not the least bit fazed, was laughing already.

“He asked him if he had enough goods to satisfy his girl,” she said, shaking her head at the memory. “Jeffrey turned five shades of red and changed the subject, and my father told him he’d take that as a no.”

Quinn burst out laughing. “I assume that didn’t go over well?”

She sighed. “Jeffrey gave me an ultimatum. He told me to choose between my family and him because there was no way he’d have a life that had anything to do with those wackos.”

Quinn visibly cringed.

“In other words, if we got married and had kids, my parents wouldn’t be acknowledged as their grandparents. He was headed into corporate America, where his family was already established, and he said they’d all see my relatives as a liability.” She shrugged, but the memories were far from casual. Reliving them truly hurt more than she’d thought they would.

Quinn’s eyebrows drew together, his expression one of outrage. “He’s a jackass,” he muttered.

A smile pulled at her lips. “Yeah. He actually thought I should consider myself fortunate he was willing to continue to see me at all, considering my bloodlines.”

Quinn rolled his eyes. “I take it you told him to go to hell?” Because as far as he was concerned, the man wasn’t fit to step into the Costas home, let alone have a worthy place in Ari’s life.