Indecent Arrangements: Tabloid Affair, Secretly Pregnant!

Clint crossed to her and dropped a chaste kiss to her cheek. “Don’t blame Brandt. I asked him to arrange this. Things didn’t go the way I’d intended the last time we spoke—” He broke off, letting out a strained breath before turning back to her. “And my behavior was unacceptable. But I’m asking you for a chance to talk. Privately.”

She looked from Clint to Brandt and then to her mother, who was descending the wide staircase. “I’m here to have dinner with my family.”

“Nonsense,” her mother interjected, urging her to understand with her eyes. “There’s time enough for everyone. Brandt’s taking me over to the store to pick up something to go with the lamb. It’ll give you two a chance to talk and then we’ll have dinner after we get back.”

Brandt crossed his arms over his chest. “Don’t be difficult about this, Payton. I think it’s the least you can do considering the way these last weeks have played out. In fact, I’d say you owe it to Clint here.”

Payton swallowed, looking past her overbearing brother to the door she wished she’d never ventured through this evening. Releasing a short breath, she nodded, taking a step back from Clint even as she agreed to speak with him. She didn’t want any misread signals. Any misunderstandings. But she did feel bad about the way she’d handled the Nate situation with him.

Clint acknowledged with a pained twist of his lips and a resigned nod. Extending one arm toward the living room, he gave her the space to pass. Then turned to Brandt and her mother. “I appreciate this.”

Payton crossed the ancient oriental and perched at the edge of a wingback chair, ankles crossed, hands folded neatly in her lap. Clint followed her into the room and, catching sight of her there, paused, a small smile touching his lips. “You look beautiful.”

“Thank you, but—”

He held up a hand and walked over to the chair opposite her. “Merely stating the facts.” Then after a pause, “How did we get here, Payton? So far from where we’re supposed to be.” He looked up at her. “I’ve given you time, but this business with Nate Evans has gone too far.”

Payton shook her head. “What’s happening with Nate is none of your business—”

“Fine.” He leaned forward. “Forget him. He’s not important anyway. Not for our future. All I care about is us. You and me. Going forward. I know after your father passed away you had a tough time. You needed…space…to adjust. And I gave it to you.”

They’d broken up. She’d told him it was over. Not that she needed space. But Clint wouldn’t see it that way. He’d chalked her behavior up to a reaction to her father’s death. And maybe it had been, but that didn’t change the fact that she’d made the right choice in leaving him.

“I don’t love you, Clint.”

He shook his head, not willing to hear. Or maybe not caring. “We were good together. Right.”

She felt the familiar stab of frustration, bit back the hot denial that rushed to her lips, knowing it would be dismissed as irrational. Pulling her composure around her, she met his stare. “No. We were never that good or that right together. Only you couldn’t see it and I didn’t want to admit it. But I knew. Even before Daddy…A part of me wouldn’t let us go forward, wouldn’t talk about marriage when you brought it up…I wanted to be happy about what we had. I wanted to see what everyone else saw. How perfect we were together. But I wasn’t being honest with myself or you. I’m so sorry, Clint.”

“You realize what you’re giving up here?”

She nodded. A life where she felt trapped by a man who, though decent enough, didn’t really care to know her.

“I do.”

Knock, knock knock, knock…“Payton, open up.”

Brandt. He must have hopped in his car the minute he got back to the house and discovered she’d left.

The last thing she wanted was to continue this little intervention here at home. She’d do about anything to dodge her big brother coming down on her with all his disappointment and bullying. Maybe if she didn’t answer he’d just go.

“Don’t bother hiding. I know you’re in there.” Of course he did. Her car was parked outside and she was the sole occupant of the third floor, with every light in the apartment shining down on the street below.

Returning the paperback she’d just picked up to the To Be Read pile beside her couch, she pushed to her feet and walked to the door in time to hear the lock tumble as Brandt made use of the keys she sorely regretted giving him.

“Unless you’ve got a bolt cutter in there, just give me a second.” She slipped the chain and stepped back, arms crossed, ready to face him down. “You can’t let yourself in here any time you want.”

Brandt swung the door open and met her determined stare, raising it with a measure of disappointment only their mother could rival. “You’ve done it now. Clint’s through.”

“I wasn’t trying to hurt him, Brandt. But I’m glad he finally believes me.”

“You’re throwing away your future for some…fling. You know that’s what it is, right? Mr. Bachelor of the year…bad-boy billionaire Nate Evans. Are you stupid? You know how he gets those names, right? By pricking around.”

“Shut up, Brandt. You don’t know what’s between Nate and I—”

“Yeah, and I don’t want to know, except that, with Dad gone, I’m the one looking out for you.”

She let out a harsh breath. “I don’t need anyone looking out for me. Especially someone who can’t understand the choices I’m making in my life.”

She mumbled under her breath, walking away.

“Did you just call me a ‘stupid jerk’?”

She had. Heat splashed her cheeks, but, unwilling to back down, she spun on him. “If the shoe fits…”

Only then the absurdity of her muttered insult hit them both. The tension and starch seemed to slip from her brother’s shoulders and he leaned back into the wall behind him. Pressing the heels of his palms into his brows, he let out a heavy breath. “I know how you feel, Payton. About Dad. About trying to be perfect for so long. It wears on you and all that pressure makes you resentful. Only you know you can’t get angry at him. The weak heart wasn’t something he could help. So you keep trying to do the right thing. Take care of him. Be good. Try harder…Except, after all that effort, he goes and dies anyway. It was a raw deal. I know that.”

Tears bit at the backs of her eyes as her bully-big-brother voiced what her heart had been sobbing for a year. “It’s like everything I did, all the right choices I made were for nothing.”

“So now you want to be bad for a while? Is that what this is with Nate? With the apartment? Clint? Every major decision you’ve made in the last year has been the sort of thing Dad would have hated. Are you trying to get even with him? Show him what happens when he doesn’t hold up his end of the bargain and live?”

Her throat was so dry, she didn’t think she could speak. She shook her head, blinking away the welling tears. “No. It’s about being true to myself. Living my own life. Mine. Not his. The job I want. The apartment I can afford.” The man I love.

Brandt scanned her apartment, as though doubting her word. Then pushed off the wall and stuffed his hands deep into his pockets. “You know, on the way over to Mom’s, Clint and I were talking about when you two started dating. Apparently he’d asked you what you wanted out of a relationship.”

Her breath pulled in with a slow ache. She knew where this was going.

“You said, ‘Family and security, trust and partnership.’ I think he figured out he wanted to marry you that night.”

She’d known it, too. Looked at Clint and thought he was exactly the right sort of man to make a life with. And yet every time he’d brought up marriage, she’d shied away.

As if following her thoughts, Brandt offered, “Even if Clint wasn’t the one. You gave him an honest answer, didn’t you? You still want those things?”

When she didn’t answer, Brandt’s scowl deepened and the understanding man who might have been her friend a moment ago transformed back into the brother frustrated with the mess his little sister was making of her life. “What does Nate Evans think about those wants? I’m assuming he knows. Or did this ‘honest life’ you’re so keen on living not include being honest with him?”

“It’s not like that with Nate. Neither one of us is interested in marriage or forever right now.”

Brandt let out a short laugh. “Right. Who are you lying to now, Payton?”

Her mouth burst open in denial, but already he’d gone on. “Have you been honest with that guy for one minute since you started whatever the hell it is you’re doing together? Does he have any idea how long you’ve been pining for him? I’d be willing to bet a sizable chunk of Liss shares that he doesn’t. Just like I’d bet he doesn’t know how showing up in the papers has affected your work environment—the flak you take for it.”

“Things have been better at work lately—”

“I’m glad to hear it, but come on, Payton, the last time we talked about this you were hell-bent on getting out of the media spotlight. Swearing up and down that wedding you and Evans were caught at would be the last high-profile event. You were desperate. And yet, I think I’ve seen your name or face in the news more times over the last month than I have in the last year.”

“It’s different now.”

“Why?” he challenged. “Because you’re in love?”