Joy stared glumly at her brother, wishing she’d delayed their meeting another few days. The weekend spent with Quince had been more than she’d hoped she might enjoy. The sex kept getting better. They’d played miniature golf, sunbathed on their private stretch of beach and had beaten a score of others in a volleyball tournament that guaranteed her bragging rights among the overly tanned Miami cats.
She’d reacquainted herself with a few women she hadn’t hung out with since before Lex’s days running the pride. Willow was a trip, and Cari had made her laugh so hard she’d cried. But her nights spent with Quince… To her bemusement, Jace, Ellis and Rain acted as if she and Quince were a foregone conclusion. The three lived in the estate house and shared meals together. Quince, his lieutenants and Rain were a tight group.
Throughout the laughter and talk during meals, though, Joy imagined Quince remembering the many times he and Miles had shared stories and swapped smiles. Quince even admitted to her later one night that he wished Miles might have been with them, for all that her brother was still acting like a schmuck.
“So this is what you designed for next year’s collection?” Miles asked, his voice subdued as he stood over her drafting table in the company warehouse, where Bermin fashion often came to life.
“Yeah, go ahead. Critique it. It sucks. It’s too juvenile for the junior crowd. Too colorful, too expensive to produce. Go ahead. I’m ready.” She stared morosely at her portfolio, wishing she’d kept her mouth shut and her designs hidden from Stacey. She never would have had the courage to branch out on her own line if Stacey hadn’t been snooping through her sketch book and convinced her to take a shot at it weeks ago.
Miles traced a finger over the laminate-covered sketch of her favorite—a black suit with a jaguar print, but styled to provide more coverage while alluding to the sexy, female shape. It still amazed her that two scraps of fabric could be designed to show off the female form in so many different ways.
“I like this.”
“What?” Surely she hadn’t heard him correctly.
Miles lifted his gaze to hers. “I said I like it.”
She watched him, waiting for the other shoe to drop. “But…”
“But nothing. How soon until we can get these into production? And I like the alternate colors, the bright purple and vivid teal especially.”
She nodded, not believing him. “Uh, well, if you’re good on it, we can have a few hundred ready to go in a month. I figured we’d get just a few made up, then set up some test beds in our boutiques along the strip.” Bermin Beauty had three stores devoted to their collections, but many of their clothes were sold in high-end boutiques in the southern states, where beachwear and high style were sought after.
They owned their own sewing contractor business, complete with a small collection of expert sewers, to do the actual labor of creating their clothing. Stacey, Amy and Melissa typically fashioned the patterns. Joy would nail down the materials, on Stacey’s say-so. Once everyone was satisfied with the overall product, depending upon its popularity, Miles might make the decision to hire a few other contractors. But the key to their success, thus far, had been that one couldn’t purchase a Bermin item from just anywhere. Not in a Target or Macy’s or Nordstrom’s. Only independently run businesses that could afford a bigger price tag met Miles’s and Stacey’s standards.
“Okay, do it.” Miles lifted his hand from her book and glanced around at the small space they had leased in North Miami to complement their main store in the Miami Design District—a primo spot they paid through the nose for, but which advertised their wares to the clientele that kept them in the black.
“I could get it done sooner if I wasn’t the pride’s new FL,” she said, pushing her luck.
“The what?” He frowned.
“Female Liaison. My job is to make sure we females aren’t getting screwed over, like when Lex was in power.”
He nodded slowly. “That’s not a bad idea.”
“It was Quince’s.”
At his name, her brother scowled. “Let’s talk about him, since you brought him up.”
“Oh, let’s.” Time to stop dancing around her big brother’s distaste. Joy liked Quince. Hell, her cat loved him, and to her anxiety, she thought she might be falling in love with him too. And so what if she was? Did she have to have Miles’s permission to date the guy? Hell no. But it bothered her that he didn’t like Quince. Though Miles acted like he disdained Dean, Stacey’s mate, he’d secretly confided that he thought Dean was the best mate Stacey could have chosen. That he didn’t mind her sisters living so far away from them, protected by another pride, spoke to his trust for the Chastells and the Catamount Pride in general.
“You can’t trust Quince.” He stepped closer to her and took her hand in his. “Honey, I love you. I don’t want to see you hurt.”
She didn’t understand his insistence Quince would harm her. “He’s a good man, Miles.”
“He’s a backstabbing traitor.”
“He didn’t side with Lex.” She knew that for a fact. “Michael was his idol. You know that.”
“Which is why I had such a hard time believing Quince might have harmed him. Or that he’d raped then killed Alissa’s cousin.”
“What?”
“Yeah.” His lips thinned and he let Joy go. “I held Belinda in my arms, watched the light fade from her eyes. She told me what had happened, what Quince had done. Hell, I saw him flee the scene.”
“No. No way.” Joy knew to her bones Miles was wrong about this. “Quince might be a lot of things, but he’d never resort to rape. Geez, Miles. He’s hot. He doesn’t have to.”
“You’re a woman. You know a man don’t rape because he can’t get the girl. It’s a power trip. A violent, evil rush he gets from abusing others. And you know Quince bullied Maya and Norton Jeffries. He broke the old man’s wrist, for Christ’s sake.”
“I know. He had to hurt them so Lex would leave them alone. But no way he hurt Belinda.” Yet Quince had never mentioned her to Joy. Why not? Even as doubt plagued her, she forced it away. One thing she knew to her soul—Quince had been raised to respect women. His mother, sister, Michael…they’d all had a hand in grooming him to be a fine man. He made mistakes. Who didn’t? But rape a woman? No way in hell.
Miles grimaced. “I admit I’m on the fence about him raping Belinda. That just seems so out of character… But then, I never would have imagined he’d side with Lex either. What do I really know?”
“Apparently, not much.” Hell, he didn’t even trust her to know her own mind.
“And what about your sister?”
“What about her?”
“Quince wanted Stacey. When she wouldn’t have him, he pushed the idea at Lex to claim her. That’s why Lex was so fixated.”
“Who the hell told you that?”
He shrugged. “It doesn’t matter.”
“It sure the hell does.” She gripped him by the sleeve of his designer polo. “Who?”
“Alissa told me, okay? She might not be your favorite person, but it was her cousin who died. And Lex almost killed her too.”
“Really? When? Because from everything I’ve heard about the bitch, she was nearly Mrs. Lex Gates until Lex caught sight of Stacey and blew her off.”
“She…no. Alissa’s self-centered and yeah, at times petty. I know that. But she wouldn’t lie about something like that.”
“Wouldn’t she?” Joy snorted, pissed off at her close-minded brother. “You just can’t admit you’re wrong about Quince, can you? Because maybe Belinda lied. Maybe she was in with her best buddy, Alissa, the woman who was nearly a sister to her. Remember them? Thick as thieves lording how beautiful and wonderful they were over the rest of us poor slobs.”