Payton rolled her eyes. Too much to hope that Nate wouldn’t have heard the gossip surrounding her breakup. Yet another reason necessitating her imminent escape from the social scene. “No. God, no. This is my worst nightmare. I’d planned to come down with something contagious and unexpected and not be able to attend at all. But a bridesmaid beat me to it and I got promoted up from guest. Lucky me.”
Nate’s mouth twisted down as he looked her over. “If you say so.”
She laughed out a breath and then turned, falling back into the conversation that had always come so easily between them. “Well, what about you? It’s a wedding…and you’ve scored a slot on the world’s most eligible bachelors list three years in a row. You’d need a date on each arm to escape unscathed. But stag? I’m amazed you made it out of the ballroom without the single girls setting up a numbered queue to get served.”
“Get served?” This time it was Nate who laughed, letting his head loll back against the wall behind him. “Payton, Payton.” He caught her with a questioning glance. “What kind of talk is that from a good girl like you?”
She stared at him, her heart skipping a beat as his focus shifted to her mouth.
“And why am I the only one who gets to hear that lip of yours?”
She couldn’t have him looking at her like that, particularly when he had no intention of following through. She could handle her attraction to him, she’d done it for over half her life. Managed it. Tamped it down and stuffed it away. First because it was futile, and then because it was misplaced. But now…The last thing she needed was Nate reminding her of what she couldn’t have. Flirting when he’d never see her as more than Brandt’s little sister. The good girl.
Enough. She needed to know what the man who walked out of her life with barely a word all those years ago wanted with her now, and then she needed to get him out of her space before she did something stupid. Such as catch a bit of that unruly hair between her fingers and test its softness against her lips. “What do you want?”
The question hung between them. Nate raised the bottle to his mouth, tipping it back for a long swallow, before turning and pinning her to her spot with the full intensity of his gaze. “You. I want you, Payton.”
Chapter Two
“I NEED you to pretend we’re involved. That we’ve been involved for the last month, actually.”
Nate watched as Payton blanched and then went to beet, sputtering at length before she finally nailed that single-word demand for clarification. “What?”
Well, he hadn’t expected her to simply agree and climb into his lap.
And, man, as much as he liked the hot flush across her skin, he definitely didn’t need to think of Payton’s lush curves and petite frame curling into the seat of his thighs. Not a good idea at all. Never had been.
“Take it easy, princess. Have a sip.” He offered the champagne, only to have it pushed back at him. With a shake of her head, a silky blonde spiral sprang free at her temple. The first ruffled feather.
She was staring at him now, those big brown eyes wide with disbelief. “You want me to pretend we’re together?”
A nod. “But you hadn’t wanted us to get caught.”
Her face screwed up. “Excuse me?”
How was it he managed multibillion-dollar deals without batting an eye when he couldn’t spit out a simple illicit proposal with any clarity or finesse at all?
Letting loose a frustrated growl, he pushed his fingers into his hair, giving it a good tug at the root. “Here’s the deal. The press is on me. Digging into something I don’t want dug up. I need a distraction. Something juicy they can sink their teeth into. And I need a friend—someone I can trust—to help me pull it off. You’re perfect. You’re well known, respected, and everyone will believe you wouldn’t want a relationship with me publicized.”
“Why not?” she asked, and the way her brow furrowed in genuine confusion had Nate wanting to laugh.
“You’re Payton Liss. You want a respectable husband. A tidy family.” He tipped the bottle again and downed another swallow before turning back to her. “A blue-blood name.”
And everyone knew Nate wasn’t about marriage. There’d been a time, back when he first hit the financial papers, that women lined up with “love” in their eyes and a prenup in their purse. Talk about a turnabout for the kid who couldn’t get a commitment for the prom because he didn’t have a trust fund. But he wasn’t a man built for love and lasting. And he didn’t get played. Soon enough, the women in line weren’t looking for anything more than he was. A little company and a lot of sweaty sex. Sure, the occasional fortune hunter still got her silk panties in a twist over his refusal to tie the knot…but on the whole, there weren’t a lot of misconceptions about what he had to offer the women he dated.
A good time. On his terms.
The soft brown of her eyes seemed to go hard beneath his stare, her body still, her voice cool. “If those are my priorities then why would I have an affair with you?”
“Because I’m the best kind of forbidden fun,” he answered with a cocky smile promising it was true. “A bit of slumming after things didn’t work out with Clint. A palate cleanser before the next blue blood gets in line.”
“Slumming?” she asked, incredulous. “You could buy and sell my family three times over.”
Sure he could…now.
“The name thing,” he offered with a shrug. “Old money versus new.”
Payton’s lips parted, then firmed into a tight line. A pretty pink stained her cheeks as she moved to stand. “No one would believe something so ridiculous and insulting.”
Nate caught her wrist, pulling her back down. “Everyone believes it.” He gently chucked under her chin. “But even if it’s not true…there’s still Brandt.”
Brandt. The only reason she might say no.
She huffed, irritated. “Yes, and I don’t particularly want my brother’s wrath coming down on me over you—not without a good reason.”
“How about this. Go along with my plan because it’ll give the talk about you a whole new flavor. No more pity over that idiot not marrying you. They’ll be shocked…and jealous.”
Payton’s expression lightened as she focused on some distant spot beyond the snug walls of their utility closet before returning to him. “Confidence is a real problem for you, isn’t it?”
“Hey, you’re the one who suggested the numbered queue.” But his humor faded as he searched her eyes. “I need this. I need the press to stop looking for what I’ve been up to the last six months. I need them to think they’ve already found the big secret. That it’s you. People will read a million reasons into why we didn’t want it public…Hope that Clint would come around. The animosity between your brother and me. The fact that women who date me aren’t doing it in search of a happily ever after. Let them guess.”
Payton’s gaze shifted restlessly around their small space.
This was supposed to be it. The last society affair. She was getting out of the papers and getting on with the life she’d been working toward. The life where she was judged on her merit rather than how successfully she wore a gown or what the press reported her priorities to be.
But Nate would never have come to her if his secret wasn’t important.
And she had to admit some brazen bit of her psyche, too long neglected, reveled in the stir the name Payton Liss paired with Nate Evans would cause. Definitely talk of a different flavor.
Brandt would be livid. Though her inward snicker quickly