Chapter 12

The man's name was Julian Wyndham.

Years ago, in the warehouse explosion that had first brought Quinn and Holden together, there had actually been two survivors.

One was Holden Blackwood — badly wounded, barely mobile. Quinn had pulled him out one-handed, step by grueling step.

The other was Julian, who had been in the wrong building at the wrong time while sorting out someone else's disaster. He'd been hurt but still on his feet, and had found his own way out.

Afterward, Holden had courted Quinn with the whole city watching. The story was everywhere.

Julian had gone back to Boston. He had business there, family there — and a debt he hadn't forgotten. Before he left the city, he found her and said four words: "Call me if you need anything."

Quinn had saved too many lives to keep a running tally. She'd never once thought about collecting.

So when things with Holden finally became unbearable, she hadn't called Julian Wyndham. She'd gone another route entirely — tricked Holden into signing the divorce papers, and slipped away on a freighter that wasn't supposed to be taking passengers, betting that it was irregular enough that Holden couldn't track her.

The Atlantic had other ideas.

By the time the vessel ran into trouble, Quinn hadn't slept in two days. She missed the life rafts. She grabbed a piece of floating debris and held on in the dark, in the water, for what felt like a very long time.

She was drifting when someone caught her around the waist and pulled her up onto the deck of another vessel.

She'd coughed out half the ocean. When she finally raised her head, the deck was full of men who looked like they came from a very different kind of world than she did.

"Julian, you've really outdone yourself this time," one of them said, looking down at her with a combination of admiration and disbelief. "That's the best-looking thing the Atlantic's brought in."

"Honestly, she looks familiar—"

"Shut up." The voice was quiet and flat. Everyone obeyed it immediately.

The deck went silent.

A hand appeared in front of Quinn's face.

She thought he was reaching for her. Conditioning took over. She swung.

The sound of the slap echoed off every hard surface.

A very long silence followed.

"I have a tremendous amount of respect for you right now," someone finally said in a low, reverent voice.

Quinn focused.

The jaw was sharp. The brow line was clean. The pale eyes had a permanent chill in them that had nothing to do with the weather.

A face you couldn't look away from.

"Julian?" She heard herself say it aloud, and felt the belated heat of embarrassment rising. "I — I didn't—"

Julian exhaled slowly, as if practicing patience. "You've had two goes at my face now and I haven't done anything to you either time. I hope you're keeping score."

Quinn apologized until she ran out of words.

To his credit, Julian didn't retaliate. He took her to Boston. He arranged for her to recover. Over the months that followed they had become, in their careful, guarded way, something close to friends.

She'd still never quite forgiven herself for the second slap.

Now she'd done it again.

"I'm so sorry," she said. "I thought you were someone else."

Julian's gaze sharpened slightly. "Holden Blackwood?"

He was quiet for a moment. Something shifted in his expression — not anger, but something older and more controlled. "Do we look alike?"

Of course they didn't.

Holden was all sharp angles and cold glamour — the kind of man that city magazines wrote breathless profiles about. The most compelling CEO in New York.

Julian was something different: effortless and contained, all his force kept inside, only surfacing in flickers that made the air in a room feel thinner.

He had asked the question, she realized, like the answer might actually matter to him.

"No," she said, carefully. "You're much better-looking."

Julian's expression eased, just fractionally.

Before either of them could say anything else, a knock at the door.

"Mr. Wyndham? The results of Ms. Ashford's workup are ready, whenever you'd like to come through."