not just a piece of tasty meat. He’s a good man.”
Tasty meat? Chloe took care to keep her voice even. “I know he’s a good man, Nell.”
“You slumming?”
Chloe didn’t let her gaze waver. “I absolutely am not—and why would you think that? Quinn’s a brilliant man with a whole lot going for him. The word slumming just doesn’t apply.”
“Oh, come on, Chloe. Your mother was practically best friends with my father’s first wife. No way Linda Winchester’s going to approve of you seeing one of the bastard Bravos—especially not the ‘stupid’ one who barely managed to finish high school.”
Chloe felt the angry color flooding upward on her cheeks. When would people stop assuming that her mother made her choices for her? “Nell.” She made a show of clucking her tongue. “Where do I even start with you? Not fair. Not to Quinn. And not to me. He’s far from stupid and he’s done just fine for himself. We both know that. As for me, yes, it’s true. I used to let my mother have way too much influence over me. But that was then. Right this minute, I’m thirty-one, divorced, fully self-supporting and on my own. My mother has zero say about whom I go out with.”
Nell’s lush mouth twisted. “Does your mother know that?”
Busted. “I’ll say it again. I decide whom I spend time with.”
Nell dropped her heavy boots to the floor, braced both elbows on the desk and folded her hands between them. “Am I pissing you off, Chloe?”
The perennial good girl in Chloe pushed for denial, for smoothing things over after neatly sweeping them under the carpet. But no. The truth was better. “Yes, Nell. You are pissing me off.”
“Good.” Nell tipped her head to the side. The overhead fluorescents made her fabulous hair shimmer like a red waterfall. “Don’t you hurt him, or you’ll be answering to me.”
Chloe sat tall. “I don’t know for sure what’s going to happen. But Quinn’s an amazing man who means a lot to me. The last thing I would ever want to do is hurt him.”
Nell’s swivel chair squeaked as she flopped back in it and folded her arms across her spectacular breasts. She stared at Chloe, unblinking, for a grim count of ten. Then: “Look. I like your plans for the house. You know your job. I like the way you carry yourself. And I hardly knew you, back in the day. You were four years ahead of me in school. I only knew your reputation as the perfect one, the one headed for a good marriage to a rich husband, two-point-two children, a soccer-mom-and-country-club life—and some chichi career that you could fit in between social engagements.”
“Something like interior design, you mean?”
“Hey. If the glass slipper fits...”
“As it turned out, it didn’t. Not by a long shot. And that was then, Nell. I’m not that girl anymore.”
Another long, measuring stare from Nell. Finally, she shrugged. “You know, I think I believe you.” She got up and held down her hand. Chloe did want peace with Quinn’s sister—with all of his family. After a moment’s hesitation, she took Nell’s offered hand and rose. Nell said, “Looking forward to working with you.”
“I’m sure it will be interesting.”
“Right. And listen. When you tell Quinn about this little talk we had—”
Chloe didn’t even let her finish. “Why would I tell him? The way I see it, what just happened is between you and me.”
Nell arched an auburn eyebrow. “Fair enough.” And then she grumbled, “I’m really starting to like you. How ’bout that?”
“I’m glad. I’m going to do my best not to disappoint you—though you did go a little overboard just now.”
Always a fighter, Nell stuck out her chin. “You think so?”
“Yes, I do. Then again, it’s nice to know how much you love your brother and that you have his back.”
* * *
That evening, Chloe spent a pleasant hour with a sketch pad, drawing a series of small figures that looked a lot like Annabelle. The figures all wore different versions of a magical, multilayered, brightly colored fairy princess costume, complete with wings—because what’s a fairy princess costume unless there are wings?
A little later, when Quinn showed up, she took him downstairs to her home office and showed him the drawings.
“She would love it,” he admitted with some reluctance. And then he shook his head. “You know she wants a puppy, too? There’s no end to what Annabelle wants.”
Chloe laughed. “The puppy’s your problem.”
“So far, we’re holding the line on that.”
“I just want to make this costume for her.”
He took the sketch pad from her, dropped it to her desk, then wrapped his arms around her and kissed the end of her nose. “You’re a pushover.”
She grinned up at him. “I promise to get myself under control soon when it comes to dealing with her. But I want to do this for her. I want her to have her dream room and I want her to have her fairy princess dress.”
He chuckled. “You’re giving me the big eyes. You’re as bad as she is.”
She traced the crew neck of his Prime Sports T-shirt with her index finger and then she pressed her lips against the hot skin of his powerful neck. “I would need to take her measurements, and probably let her see the sketches, to make sure I’ve got it right, got it just as she imagines it. So she would have to know ahead of time that she was getting what she wanted...”
“Yep. The big eyes,” he muttered gruffly. “I know what you’re doing.” He kissed her then, a lovely, deep, slow one, after which she sighed and gazed up at him hopefully. Finally, he grumbled, “Wait a week or two before you bring it up to her. At least she won’t think all she has to do is bat her eyes and beg a little and everything she wants will just drop in her lap.”
“I’ll check with Manny, too, to make sure he’s okay with it. And if he gives the go-ahead, I’ll wait two weeks to show her the drawings. How’s that?” she asked, batting her eyes for all she was worth.
He gave in. “Fine.”
“Thanks.” She sighed and turned in his embrace so she could lean back against him.
He put his arms around her waist, and she felt his warm lips in her hair. “How’d your meeting with Nell go?”
Chloe thought of his little sister’s biker boots hitting the desk, of the hot, protective gleam in Nell’s emerald-green eyes. “Great. I like her. I think we’ll work well together.”
“She can be a hard ass. Don’t let her intimidate you.”
Chloe smiled to herself. “Not a chance.”
And then she caught his hand and led him back upstairs to her bedroom,
