a diversion—and the sooner the better. So this was it.
He’d dive headfirst into tonight’s sea of swank and silk, in search of the biggest scandal. He’d reel in a beauty he could splash across the tabloid pages. Someone with enough hook she’d drag the press’s interest out of the past and secure it in the now.
Someone who knew the score.
That was the touchy part, because, when it came to his dates, Nate didn’t do soft. He didn’t do love. And he didn’t do forever. He made certain his women knew what they were getting into with him—and then he did them with enough attention and skill they didn’t care there wasn’t anything deep or lasting between them.
Scanning the throngs of social elite gathered within the gold-domed ballroom, he searched for a like-minded wave-maker. Except after barely five minutes, Nate realized he’d miscalculated—and in no small way. Finding a woman to flaunt was easy. There were at least a hundred willing candidates batting thick-fringed lashes at him. But with each toss of perfectly coiffed hair and every lingering glance, the apathy that had kept him so easily unattached these past six months turned to something darker.
More suffocating. Everywhere he looked, false claims and secret agendas lurked beneath the guise of enticement, and he found himself backing away rather than closing in.
And then he saw her.
Payton Liss, slinking through the crowd, using every evasive technique at her disposal to dodge the conciliatory hand pats, air kisses and general gossipy blood sport that occurred post nuptials—regardless of the social strata involved.
The good girl from his past. Brandt’s little sister. Miss Off-Limits herself.
Payton didn’t need his money. She wouldn’t want his name. And she’d help him regardless of what went down with Brandt all those years ago because she habitually did the right thing.
Or make that, she mostly did the right thing.
The corner of his mouth quirked as, while he watched, she pilfered a dinner roll from the table closest to the kitchen access hall and slipped stealthily out the door.
Nate’s feet were moving before his brain had even finished processing the plan.
Neck deep in a cloud of ill-fitting taffeta and tulle, Payton Liss pressed her shoulders into the wall behind her. Stretching across the floor of her hideout—a miraculously unlocked utility room, discovered purely by accident three weddings before—she braced a foot against the door and straight-legged with the determination of a second-string bridesmaid on the run.
“Not a chance, Nate. The women will sniff you out. Go find your own storage closet.”
Between the gap of the door and frame, ice-blue eyes slid over her, bringing to both mind and body the heart-pounding effect that gaze once elicited. “You open this door, Payton, or I’m heading straight back into that reception—and I’m telling every schmuck I can find you’re alone in here…crying.” The last word he delivered with the smug satisfaction of a man who knew he’d already won.
Her breath caught as she stared in outraged indignation. “I am not crying!” Hiding, yes. Sulking, some. Crying, not a chance.
“It’ll be like open season. Every guy intent on snaring himself a top-floor job in Liss Industries moving in for his white-knight moment. And the talk…”
Her stomach seized. It was the talk that had driven her into hiding in the first place.
The “Poor Payton” talk.
“…Such a good girl…so desperate for a wedding of her own…so disappointed when he left her…what her father had wanted, but what did he expect…”
She couldn’t stand the sound of it anymore.
They were all wrong. But even if she bellowed out the truth, no one would believe her. She’d done too good a job for too long of forcing herself into the mold of a quiet-souled, docile-minded lady who didn’t exist. And for nothing. In the end, no amount of perfect behavior could save her father from the weak heart that had plagued him the last fifteen years of his life.
Pushing back the well of emotion that still rose at the thought of losing him the year before, she shook her head. Nothing could upset him now. No defiant choice or willful stand for independence. He was at peace and, though his death broke her heart, it also set her free.
But no matter the changes she made, no one could see past the illusion she’d perfected to the real woman trying to break free. Which was why this had to be the last society event. She needed a life. One she could live on her own terms.
To try and set the record straight before she escaped would leave her sounding petty—the perfect complement to preexisting pathetic.
No, thank you—
The bored sigh directed her way snapped Payton back to the present. To Nate, quite literally sticking his head back into her life after walking out of it all those years ago. “Last chance, babe, or I talk. Lot of hopefuls out there tonight waiting for a shot.”
He’d do it, too, the bastard, she thought, giving into the inexplicable smile that seemed to rise from the ashes of every memory she had of the man. Nearly every memory anyway.
Nate knew no limits when it came to getting what he wanted. And now—after a decade with little more than the most limited greetings passing between them, and only when absolutely necessary—he wanted to get into her hideout.
“Now, Payton.”
With a reluctant sigh, and then a second, louder, more pointed version of the first, she gave up her hold on the door and scooted into a seated position against the wall where she’d arranged a pile of linens to pad the floor.
“Fine, come in. Just hurry up before someone sees you.”
“Smart girl.” He shouldered through the door, closing it with the sweep of one foot behind him. The swift, fluid move, executed with Nate’s signature masculine economy of motion, took her back to the days of watching him tear across the soccer field. Fast and strong and skilled. Damp strands of sun-kissed gold whipping about his face as he drove toward a goal.
She hadn’t been able to take her eyes off him.
Even now, attempting to pry her gaze from the man-sized version of the boy she’d wanted so badly, she only managed to skirt from one hard-planed, deep-chiseled element of his physique to the next.
It was no good.
He was more devastating in the looks he’d grown into than any man had a right to be. The waves atop his head were a few shades darker and a bit shorter, but remained utterly tempting in their unruly disarray. He was broader in the shoulders and chest, still athletically lean and exuded a power and confidence that dwarfed the world around him. Particularly in his tailor-made tux with a bottle of champagne hanging loosely from his fingers. The personification of careless elegance.
Intimidating in ways to which she was normally immune.
But then, this was Nate. It had been different with him from the start. He was everything she never let herself be.
Finally she asked,
