Loving Quinn Novel by North Rose

(“Annona)

My weekend passed in a blur after the events of Saturday morning. Quinn certainly gave me plenty to think about. There are so many questions about his past that I want to ask him. However, rather than bombarding him with all of them at once, I will think about what questions are the most important to get answers to.

I want to know everything about his relationship with Dionne Masters. When she worked at Mercy General, we didn’t work together often. I knew of her, but I didn’t know her. Now, after seeing the way she interacted with Quinn, I wish I would have gotten to know her a little

more.

Only so I know what kind of woman I am up against. When I saw the hungry look on her face as Dionne practically devoured Quinn with her eyes, I must admit I was jealous. When he told me about how their relationship ended, I was angry, then heartbroken for his loss.

I When I found out I was pregnant with Grace, never once did the thought of an abortion cross my mind. With all the things I had on my plate at the time, I was overwhelmed but elated by the thought of having Quinn’s baby. My father tried to pressure me into an abortion, but my

mother intervened on my behalf. My entire family rallied around me when I gave birth.

What was going on in Dionne’s life that was so important that her baby was an inconvenience?

“Earth to Annie!” Shawna says. She snaps her fingers in my ear to pull me from my thoughts. Then she laughs with I just blink at her.

“Did you say something?”

“I asked how your weekend went. Then you got a far away look in your eyes and I knew I lost you.”

I look around, then shake my head when I realize we are still standing in line at the coffee shop across the street from the hospital. “It was eventful”

“Woman, you are blushing! What did you do?”

There is no way I am telling her about what happened with Quinn while we stand here waiting in line for coffee. “Let’s just say that I came to a decision about Quinn. I will tell you more later.”

“Did you finally decide to jump him?”

“We talked about Grace on Friday night. I gave Quinn all the copies of her baby pictures for his birthday. Then I gave him a second chance.”

“Did that involve getting all naked and sweaty with him?”

“Shaw, I am so not having this conversation with you here.”

“You did!” She says.

Her laughter makes my cheeks burn as I remember what I did with Quinn that night. “I will spill all the details later, so behave or you will get nothing”

“It is about time the two of you got all sweaty together. Those looks he sends you in passing could send any woman up in flames just by getting too close to you.”

I slap her arm playfully, then step up to give the barista my order. Thankfully Shawna is distracted by another nurse from the hospital after I grabbed my coffee, I took that as my cue to head to my office. My best friend can be relentless when she wants to know something-

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Telling her about how Quinn and I spent Friday night and early Saturday morning is not something I want to do with a crowd of people around us. I can hardly believe what happened myself. No, I take that back. I can believe all of it except Quinn’s ex-fiancé showing up to rekindle their relationship.

What happened Friday night between us was inevitable. We have been like magnets to each other since we were eighteen. We were always drawn to each other, no matter what, when we were eighteen. I tried to fight it at first this time around, but why fight something that 1 know is a losing battle. My heart and soul belong to him.

Quinn Greyson is my soulmate.

The complications came when we added sex into the mix, then and now. Our first-time together at eighteen was in the back of his car on an old dirt road. It was raining, and we were both nervous. The minute his hands touched the bare skin on my upper thigh, I let myself go to the feelings he gave me. Years later, that first time together after so ing it was just as reckless.

Knowing what I do now know about him and his sexual exploits, a dark part of me wants to come out to play. That part of me that isn’t a doctor, a mother, or a responsible adult. It is the part of me that is simply female. A grown adult who has had a very limited sexual

experience.

I am embarrassed but not ashamed to admit that I want more.

With flaming cheeks at my train of thought, I lowered my head, then enter the lobby of the hospital. I head straight to the elevator, then hit the button to the floor my office is on. After going through my morning routine, I slip my lab coat on, drape my stethoscope over my neck, then head to the pediatric wing.

However, I stop in my tracks when I see who is leaning against the wall outside my office door. “What are you doing here Dr. Masters?

“I think it is time you and I have a chat,” Dionne says. There is a knowing look in her eyes and a smirk on her lips as she looks me up and

down

“Does it have to do with a patient of mine?”

The tone of my voice is professional but firm as I stare at her. The nerve of this woman to come to my place of work, ambush me in the hallway outside my office, then just stand there with a smirk on her face.

Dionne gives a throaty laugh that just imitates me further. “You know why I am here. Quinn doesn’t belong to you.”

“If you have nothing to say about a patient of mine, then I am going to have to ask you to leave.”

“Do your co-workers here know that you are ***g the owner of the hospital? Is that how you kept your job here?”

Rather than answer her, I turn towards the elevator and walk away.

“Quinn will never be satisfied with your little life. You have a daughter, and he just isn’t a family man like you are trying to make him. He will grow tired of you eventually. Then he will come running back to me.

“Why? So, you can kill another baby of his?” I throw over my shoulder as I keep walking away

“That is none of your business,” Dionne says.

The s**e of rage in her voice lets me know I hit a sensitive spot. Was she that touchy about it when she told Quinn about the abortion? From the way he made the entire story sound, she was very nonchalant about it.

“You made it mine when you showed up at his place on Saturday.”

How will you feel when he tells you about her?”

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Her? Now that makes me stop in my tracks to turn around. Is there another woman out there Quinn has not told me about? That thought sends hurt and anger through me. He swore to me that there were no more secrets between us.

“Who are you talking about?”

“The love of Quinn’s life, his first love.”

All the hurt and anger I just felt fades as pure joy fills me. I am that woman, but Dionne doesn’t know that. The feeling of knowing something she doesn’t know makes me smile at her in a sinister way,

“It gives me an obscene amount of pleasure to knone that woman isn’t you

“Quinn can never have her again, but he will always love her. How does it feel to compete with a dead woman?”

Turning around to face the elevator, I take the last steps towards it, then push the button and wait. What Tam about to tell her will shatter her illusions. It will make me immensely happy to wipe that smirk off her face when I tell her that the love of Quinn’s life is right in front of her.

“She isn’t dead “I tell her as I turn around to face her again.

“Did he tell you that? I spent years as his therapist and lover. Trust me, she is dead. He would have told me if she were alive.”

“No, she is very much alive and well” When I hear the elevator ding behind me, I smile at Dionne. “The reason I know that is simple. 1 am that woman.”

The look of shock and disbelief on her face makes me feel slightly ashamed of my pettiness, but I ignore the feeling as I get on the elevator. Dionne opens her mouth to say something, but her words were drowned out when the doors close in front of me.

(Quinn)

After we arranged everything with Mac, Aaron and I head to Merry General for our first official board meeting with our new board members. We have asked Gayle Preston, the hospital’s chief of staff, to sit in as well. She proved her worth in the first two months after we bought the hospital by getting things done that had fallen to the wayside. We have her everything she asked for to do her job without

hindrance from anyone.

When we reach the conference room, Gayle is outside talking to our new CEO, Dr. Andrew Perez. Andrew is a retired Army surgeon. He agreed to come on board if Rylan agreed to be the head of the Veterans program. Much to Aaron’s dismay, she agreed.

Rylan is Andrew’s half-sister. Now that she is on staff officially, Aaron will have no choice but to deal with her. I am going to enjoy watching my best friend fall at her feet.

“Is everyone else inside?” I ask Gayle.

“Yes, sir.”

“Gayle, please just call me Quinn. Let’s not be so formal.”

She smiles, then relaxes as she nods her head. “You two are the last to arrive.”

“Have you been waiting long?”

“No, Lauren and Marco got here a few minutes ago.

“Then let’s get this meeting started.”

The four of us walk into the conference room to greet the rest of the board members. Donna Thompson, our new CFO, stands to shake my

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hand as I walk to my seat. I

right.

t one end of the table with Aaron at the other end. Andrew sits to Aaron’s right while Donna sits to my

Lauren Carter, Marco Torres, Katherine Green, Samuel Harris, and Gayle fill in the rest of the table. Lauren and Marco are both lawyers. Katherine and Samuel are accountants. We handpicked each of this board with Gayle’s help. We also added more accountants to the finance department that will run under Donna..

As expected, the meeting passed quickly. Everyone was eager to get Mercy General back to the hospital it once was before Max Davidson drove it into the ground. When I get onto the elevator, I look down at my phone as it signals an incoming text message.

“That b**h?

“What’s going on?” Aaron asks as he joins me in the elevator.

“Dionne ambushed Annora outside her office this morning.”

“What the f**k is she playing at

“I am going to go find Annie now, then I will decide

le if it is worth confronting Dionne or not.”

“I will meet you back at headquarters later and you can fill me in on what happened.”

I nodded at him as I stepped off the elevator when we reach the floor Annora’s office is on. I send her a text as I walk, telling her to meet me there when she is free. The minute I walk into her office, images of what happened the last time I was in here flash through my mind.

I would love to make use of her desk again, but I agreed to the no sex rule she put in place Saturday morning. We may have had phone sex later that night, but she maintained it didn’t count. That is good to know, but not good for my libido,

Taking a seat on the chair in front of her desk, ideas form in my head as I think about all the other sexual activities that we can have fun with that are not intercourse. A smile forms on my face as I imagine her spread eagle on her desk, my face buried between her thighs, and) her hands in my hair.

“Do Leven want to know what you are thinking right now?”

Itum to look at Annora as she closes the office door behind her. “No, but I will tell you later, I promise,”

“Were you thinking about what we did the last time we were in here akne?”

The naked desire in her eyes has lust going straight through me. All I can do is nod my head as she walks towards me. The smile on her face makes me hopeful she will let me do what I want to right now.

“You never shared your memories of me with her.”

At first, I am confused at what she means, but realization hits me as she stops in front of me. “How did you know that?”

Annie steps back then leans on her desk. “Dionne asked me how it feels to compete w your life died, but you will always love her.”

Well, that wasn’t what I expected. “Tell me everything she said to you.”

with a dead woman. Then she told me that the love of

“She wanted to get under my skin by trying to make me doubt myself. Telling me you will get bored with me, my daughter, and the dotnestic life I am forcing on you. I had the last laugh there.”

“How so?”

“When s

she tried to taunt me with the idea of another

you haven’t told me about

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Chapter 25

I frown. “There is no one else. Ftold you everything there is to know. Everything but my Army career or dy..

really don’t want to know. You know about Dionne and all the other women.”

“I know that now after she told me about your first love, the one you let her believe is dead.”

with Dionne that you

My eyes widen as Annora says this. “She asked me one day about if I had ever been in love. I said yes, with my first love, but refused to say anything further. When we started dating, she asked me to tell her about the woman I loved. I told Dionne that the past was dead and buried. She jumped to the conclusion that the woman I loved was dead.”

“Why didn

didn’t you want to tell her?”

“Because I knew if I did, she would taint those e memories somehow. Sharing them with her felt wrong. I wanted to keep all those

memories for myself. What did you say to her?”

“Dionne told me I would always compete with a dead woman. The love of your life, your first love. I smiled when I told her I was happy she wasn’t the love of your life. Then 1 smiled even more when I told her that your first love wasn’t dead.”

“You told her, didn’t you?”

“I told her the reason I knew that woman wasn’t dead was because I am that woman. Oh, the look on her face was worth the revelation.”

The devilish smile on An

on Annora’s face makes me stand up, close the distance between us, then fuse my mouth to hers. When I pull away, we are both breathless. “I love this side of you,”

“Will she back off or do you

think she will try harder?”

Knowing Dionne, what Annora told her will make her angry, then she will confront me. Or try. After the package she sent me today, I know she will not take no for an answer. Not even after this revelation. She will try harder.”

“Then let’s make sure she knows she that she

e can’t have what was never hers.”

Annora wraps her arms around my neck, then leans up as I lean down to kiss her. I made good on my promise to tell her what I was thinking when she walked in. To my surprise, she locked her office door and let me do what I imagined.

You go for it. He has plenty to teach and give. Lol…