Nate muttered a particularly colorful obscenity, stepping from behind his dad. “Morning, Payton.”
Before she could reply, the Evans elder regained use of his faculties, brows slamming down in an all too familiar scowl. He crossed his arms, turning to the younger version of himself, a man who left tycoons cowering, and demanded, “You couldn’t tell me she was here?”
Nate shrugged—shrugged!—and covered his stubbled jaw with one wide hand in a blatant effort to hide his growing smile. “I thought I could get you out before you caught us.”
“Uh-uh-umm-I—” She broke off, shaking her head, at a total loss for words as she stumbled back a few steps. Now she understood the dialog she’d overheard, and it was definitely a conversation she didn’t want to be a part of.
“Relax, Payton. He’s not going to call your mother.”
Thanks for that, Nate.
“Why don’t you get showered? Dad and I are going to run out and pick up a little breakfast. Wishbone sound good, Dad?”
The older man grunted. “That’ll do.”
Not for her it wouldn’t. “Uh, Nate, I actually need to…” She waved a hand around, casting about for a good excuse to get the heck out of there. Sitting around with Nate’s friends was one thing, but Mr. Evans? After he’d given her a B- in World Economics and busted her shacked up with his son? No, thank you. “I need to take care of that thing I told you I had to do today.”
Mr. Evans wasn’t impressed. And Nate simply shook his head with an expression that said, “Fat chance.”
“Give me a second with my dad here and I’ll be right back.”
“Sure,” she managed, still on the brink of hyperventilating.
Time to flee. Be gone. Vamoose!
She’d finally tasted the mortification of being caught in a compromising position—something most people probably experienced back in high school—and she had no idea how she would survive it.
Nothing could be worse.
Desperate to make her exit, she hastily spun away—square into the jutting leg of the sideboard. Pain shot through her foot as she tripped forward with a sharp cry.
Sadly, not enough pain to block the two voices following in quick report.
“Oh, God in heaven.”
“Dad, turn around!” Nate begged, laughter lacing his plea.
Her eyes bugged and then pinched shut as her crouched position and the cool breeze across her backside registered. She grabbed for the hem of the tee shirt, tugging it down to cover the bit of hot pink lace she’d picked up to entertain Nate.
A peek out of one squinched eye at both Evans men doubled over ensured they were highly entertained. “This is not funny!”
At least his father had the good grace to look away, but Nate simply straightened, hands on his hips, his gaze fixed on her butt. “Oh, Payton. I’m sorry, honey, but yes it is.” Then ducking low, he wrapped an arm around her and pulled her up and against him. “Is your foot okay?” he asked, one palm warming her hip.
She looked at her second and third toes, both red and throbbing angrily, and sighed. “Just stubbed. I’m fine.” Really it was her pride suffering more than anything else right then.
Nate glanced back over his shoulder. “Close your eyes, old man, or I’m putting you in a home. You’ve had enough cheap thrills for one morning.”
A dismissive, “Yeah, yeah,” came from behind them, and with that she was swept up into the cradle of Nate’s arms for the princess-style escort back to his room. Too bad her scantily clad bum was hanging out, ruining the effect.
When Nate deposited her at the door to the master bath, she touched his arm and looked up at him imploringly. “Uh, Nate, how about I let you catch up with your dad? I’ll see you—”
His hand closed over hers with a telling squeeze. “No. I’m giving you thirty minutes and then you’ll sit there with us enjoying breakfast and making small talk. That’s what good girlfriends do.”
“Are you afraid of your dad?” She raised a mocking brow and met one in return.
“Aren’t you?”
“Well, yes.” Everyone had been. He’d been the toughest teacher at school. “But he’s your dad.”
“Yeah, who drove all the way into the city to slap a paper with our picture in it against the side of my head.”
The image that conjured had her near giggles, only what was behind it wasn’t very funny. “He seems upset.”
Acknowledging with the barest nod, Nate extracted the weapon in question from where he’d tucked it under his arm and flipped through until he found their page. “Here we go.”
Setting it on the granite countertop, he leaned close so the heat of his chest warmed her back as they read. Payton’s brows drew down as she scanned the column. There was more information than she would have expected them to find. Particularly since she’d been ignoring the reporters’ calls herself.
“Did you do this?” she asked.
“Some.” He pointed to the line about being seen around town since the relationship had been publicly outed earlier that week. “I had my assistant Deborah drop the hint that we’d been keeping it under wraps. Hey, they hit the school where you work, too.”
An involuntary groan slipped out and Nate chuckled above her. “What, it can’t be the first time the press showed up there.”
“No. Not the first time.” There’d been a few months following her father’s death where the interest in her had peaked and reporters seemed to lurk around every corner, waiting for the opportunity to pump her fellow teachers for information.
How was she holding up? Was a wedding in the works? Could the romance sustain through the tragedy? Would she be leaving the school to take a seat at Liss Industries?
It hadn’t won her any friends at the new school back then, but over the past year the alienation she’d experienced had died down along with the press’s interest. Still, every time she’d found herself pictured in the paper she’d sensed a subtle backlash. She wasn’t looking forward to the reaction come Monday.
“It’s pretty much what I’d expected.” Nate knocked the paper aside with a knuckled fist and stepped back. “Deborah’s got a few more nuggets to dole out over the next weeks, so I’d say we’re in good shape.”
“Mission accomplished.”
Rubbing a wide palm over the scrub of his jaw, he nodded. “As for my dad—I don’t really talk to him about the women I’m dating, but I should have told him about us. Things are different with you.”
“Different?” Hope lit through her veins, pushing into her heart with welcoming ease.
“Yeah.” He met her with a blind stare. “He knows you. Probably feels as protective of you from those high-school days as I do.”
Nate shook his head, thankfully too wrapped up in the situation with his father to notice the falter of her smile as her most vital organ hollowed out. It was stupid. She knew what she’d signed on for and the surest way to ruin it or any chance of maintaining a friendship after would be to spend every minute they were together imagining more meaning into Nate’s words than they deserved.
“I’m a big girl,” she said, as much a reminder to herself as to him. “He doesn’t need to worry about me.”
This brought a low chuckle as his gaze raked down the length of her. “Okay, big girl. You were