“I’m immune to your bullshit, Brooke. Try it on someone else,” Quinn reminded her as he moved to go to his wife when her next words stopped him.
“Tell Dylan that we’re even,” Brooke said as she made a show of pulling off her engagement ring and handed it to him.
“What the hell are you talking about?” Quinn asked as he looked down at the engagement ring in his hand and-
“It’s fake,” Brooke said, shrugging it off as she gestured to the prick she was supposed to marry. “Dylan threatened to tell our parents that I’d been passing her designs off as mine after I refused to give her the money that she needed for Blackwood Manor.”
“You’re lying,” Quinn bit out, knowing Dylan better than anyone. She would never-
“March twenty-sixth,” Brooke said, cutting him off. “That was the day that you met with Dylan at the courthouse and got married.”
“You could have found that out through public records,” he said, telling himself that she was lying.
“True, but I also know that she’s been living with you and that she came to tell you that she was pregnant when I tried to serve that injunction to stop you from working on Blackwood Manor,” Brooke said, shrugging it off.
“Because you wanted the land,” Quinn said, calling out her bullshit only to watch as she frowned in confusion.
“Why would I want Blackwood Manor?” Brooke asked, looking at him as though he were crazy. “It’s a dump and it’s draining B.T. Construction dry. We’ve had to delay two projects because of it.”
“To build condos,” Quinn said, watching her frown deepen at that.
“What the hell are you talking about?” she demanded.
“You planned on building luxury condos after you took over B.T. Construction,” Quinn bit out coldly.
“Is that what she told you?” Brooke asked, shaking her head in wonder as she glanced at Dylan, who was now dancing withhis father, saying something that had his father smiling down at her.
“Yes,” he said, only to watch as she opened her mouth and sighed, truly looking at a loss for words.
“B.T. Construction isn’t equipped to build condos, Quinn. You of all people should know that. We’d go bankrupt in the first year and if we were lucky, we’d break even in ten years. I have no plans of changing B.T. Construction,” Brooke said, making everything inside him go still as she repeated back almost word for word the argument that he made when Dylan first told him about Brooke’s plans.
“You’re lying,” Quinn said even as he found himself wondering about a few things that she said.
“I don’t have a reason to lie anymore. To be honest, I never thought that she’d be able to pull this off. I figured that either our parents would change their minds in five years or I’d be looking for a new job. But it looks like B.T. Construction is yours and I’m out of a job, which is fine with me.”
“You’re really going to try to make me believe that you’re giving up that easily?” Quinn asked, watching as she shrugged it off while she finished her glass of champagne.
“I honestly don’t care what you believe,” she said, placing her glass on the table behind her. “I already have a job lined up.”
“She didn’t have to marry me,” Quinn pointed out.
“She did if she wanted access to B.T. Construction,” Brooke said, making him chuckle darkly because now he knew without a doubt that she was lying.
“She’s never been interested in B.T. Construction,” he reminded her.
“Not until she realized that she was in over her head with Blackwood Manor. She really didn’t have a choice, which is why she made that deal with you.”
“And what deal would that be?” Quinn drawled.
“That your marriage was nothing more than a deal. You both agreed to keep it a secret so that you wouldn’t tip me off and leave me with no choice but to elope. As long as I thought that neither one of you would get married, I would stretch it out with a long engagement, lavish parties, and a huge wedding that would most likely bankrupt my parents,” Brooke said dryly, making his stomach turn.
“Sex was a necessary part of the deal and was supposed to end when she got pregnant, but she just wanted you so much that she couldn’t seem to stay away,” Brooke whispered mockingly, making him swallow hard.
“What’s the plan?” he asked hoarsely.
“To either force you to buy her out of B.T. Construction or find a buyer that could buy her out,” Brooke said, shrugging it off as she reached into her purse and pulled out her phone, and after a few swipes, handed it to him.
“She realized that she would never be able to renovate a house like Blackwood Manor on her own, so she settled for the next big thing, modern homes designed to look historical,” Brooke explained while Quinn stared at the model of what appeared to be an eighteenth-century Victorian house.
