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 turned to pause. Whatever had transpired between Brandt and Nate hadn’t been washed away by the passage of time. After ten years, the mere mention of Nate Evans put her brother into a lather…and she still didn’t fully understand why. As she didn’t understand why Nate had closed himself off from her so abruptly. So absolutely.
Casting a sidelong glance at the tuxedo-clad villain himself, she realized this could very well be her chance to find out.
“What happened with Brandt? Why did you hurt him that way?”
Nate’s jaw set, the muscle jumping once before he answered. “Maybe Brandt deserved to be hurt a little.”
Her brother had done a lot of things over the years she couldn’t condone. Couldn’t understand. In the back of her mind, she’d always suspected—
“Maybe he deserved worse.” The ice blue of Nate’s gaze raked over her in one slow, telling sweep before it locked back at her eyes. “I could have done worse.”
Her mouth opened, to gasp or deny, only nothing came of it but a slow leaking breath that might have been regret. She would have given Nate anything. Done anything he asked.
If he’d decided to use her as a means of payback or revenge or whatever motivated him back then, he would have found no resistance. Only the eager willingness of a girl desperate for him to see her as a woman. And the repercussions… “Brandt would have gone nuts.”
Nate let out a bark of laugher. “Yeah, well, it wasn’t concern for your brother that stopped me.”
A tide of warmth washed through her and she stole a glimpse his way. Her hero, always and in the most unconventional ways. Only he’d walked away from her as if their friendship meant nothing. “Where’ve you been all this time?”
Her quietly posed question brought a pause, and the faint lines around his eyes lost their laughter. “The last six months I’ve spent mostly in Germany.” He shifted in the nest, stretching out one long leg before them. “Babysitting a new venture that didn’t take off the way I’d anticipated.”
It wasn’t what she’d meant. She’d been thinking more of where he’d been for the past ten years. They’d been close. They’d been friends. And then one day, he just wasn’t. Except now he was back. Asking her to be the friend he needed to help him.
“Do you want to tell me what this is all about?”
Nate ran a wide palm over the heavy line of his jaw. “Honestly, I’d like to get out of your little home-away-from-home here.”
Pushing to his feet, he dug into his pocket for a handful of bills he then tucked under the champagne bottle left atop the rolling cart. “What do you say?” Catching her hand, he pulled her up with him. “Strength in numbers, right? We head back into the reception and give ’em something to talk about?”
It was tempting. Made even more so by the warmth radiating up her arm from Nate’s casual touch. She didn
’t want it to end, but as he led her out into the kitchen access hall Payton’s steps dragged.
Nate turned, seemingly amused by her hesitance. “What?”
“I need to think about this.”
The idea of the talk surrounding her laced with something other than pity was thrilling, and the opportunity to spend some time with Nate again—well, she didn’t quite know how she felt about that. If it was even possible for her to pretend to have a relationship with him at the same time she was pretending her attraction wasn’t sincere. What she did know was that Nate wasn’t a man to ask for favors lightly.
He needed her.
Still, a decision of this magnitude deserved at least one night’s consideration. “Give me the evening and I’ll call you tomorrow.”
Ahead the door to the ballroom opened a crack as a waiter or someone prepared to back through it. Payton took a step in retreat, only to have Nate draw her to a stop.
“Here’s the thing, Payton.” His blue eyes had her now, cool and deep and dangerous. Captivating. “I’ve already thought about it. This is a prime opportunity and the results will benefit us both.”
He’d already— “What?”
His loose grasp on her hand shifted, tightened as though he thought she might bolt. “Trust me,” he urged in a tone of pure seductive persuasion.
Her chin shot up. She’d known Nate back when he was cultivating that tone and, while she couldn’t say she was exactly immune, she wasn’t wholly susceptible either. “No.”
He could forget about luring her in the way he did every other man, woman and child on the planet. She knew how he operated and the last thing she needed was another overbearing man trying to control her.
She wasn’t one of his devotees—some Wall Street junkie determined to live as Nate lived and follow in the footsteps of the financially infallible. And she wasn’t one of his bimbos either, hanging on his arm and every whim. She was Payton Liss, determined to secure her independence, and she wasn’t giving into this man just because his voice stroked like rough velvet over her every independent thought!
The corner of his mouth quirked up a degree and something about his smile, one she’d seen countless times before and knew promised pure mayhem, put all her senses on alert. Her stomach jumped and she tried to escape.
“Oh, no, you don’t,” she gasped, backing down the hall with Nate matching her step for step, still holding her hands captive within his. She glanced over her shoulder, and nervous laughter erupted with the realization she’d somehow ended up moving toward the ballroom rather than away. Stupid.
“Come on…trust me.”
That grin!
“I don’t trust you,” she shot back, her pulse rocketing in response to the predatory intent blazing in his eyes. She’d be a fool to trust a man leering at her like that—as if she’d made his week with this little game of cat and mouse.
“You should,” he cajoled, this time taking a step into her space. “I’ve got a knack for making things work.”
Payton peered up at him as he drew her closer—to the point where their feet tangled, legs touched. He was so bad. So incredibly, unrepentantly bad.
“You’re arrogant,” she accused, laughing as she nearly stumbled into his chest. “You like it,” he challenged, with a pointed jut of his chin, just daring her denial. But, God help her, she couldn’t. She’d always loved his crazy confidence. Nate’s unwavering ability to fly in the face of convention and come out on top. He was free and, contrary to popular opinion, didn’t take himself too seriously…so neither did she. Only, if Nate pulled her any closer, “serious” would become inevitable.
Her hands moved ineffectually to his chest. “What are you—?”
But then the door to the ballroom pushed fully open and, with an expertly maneuvered tug, Nate caught her up against the hard-cut planes of his body in a hold so provocatively intense she couldn’t think of anything beyond the miracle of its fit. Ice-blue eyes slid over her in a chilling caress that left her skin pebbled with goose bumps.
Flashing a quick wink, he caught the back of her neck. “Trust me. I’ve done this before.”
Lips parted in protest, Payton didn’t manage a word before he moved in and, with deadly accuracy, captured her mouth beneath his.
CHAPTER THREE
THE kiss was blatant and intense, a showy play of passion that bowed her in a delicate arch, caged by the unyielding iron and steel of Nate’s powerful frame. Firm, smooth lips moved over hers in a back and forth rub so skillfully seductive she could only sigh under their assault. Give into the idea that, if she wasn’t going to escape the spotlight as she’d planned, there were plenty worse things than being exposed while discovering what it was to be kissed by Nate Evans.
It was all consuming.
There was something undeniable in his touch, something chemical, instinctual and wholly unexpected. She didn’t understand it—couldn’t defend against it as, locked in his hold, her body and mind pushed into overdrive.
Eyes closed, fingers flared at his shoulders, she tried to brace against the curl of anticipation licking through her belly. Remind herself that Nate’s mouth sliding against her own was just for show. For whomever had opened the ballroom door—the door that remained open if the volume of the music spilling into the hallway around them was any indicator. It was a kiss for the gossips. For their individual self-serving interests. But not for their hearts or souls or even their libidos. Only the deafening rush of blood speeding past her ears—the heat of it surging through her veins, awakening her body in ways she couldn’t deny—suggested otherwise.
Any second he would stop. Pull away and take this fantasy, a lifetime in the making, with him. But until then…
Payton clutched at the hand-stitched lapels of his jacket, her body curving into his. She’d call it a good show, call it anything Nate needed to hear, but the honest truth was no fantasy had ever measured up to this moment and, audience or not, she couldn’t control her physical reaction to a kiss she’d dreamed of since she was thirteen.
Her fingers skimmed over the contours of his broad shoulders, following the column of his neck until they threaded into the thick silk of the curls at the base of his skull. The forbidden luxury of her hands in his hair, coupled with the seductive pull of his mouth against her own, was too much—too good, everything and not enough all at once—and drove a soft, pleading moan past her lips.
Nate stilled, his mouth fused with hers.
Oh, no, he’d heard her. Heard the sound of desire in a kiss scripted for deceit. She couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe—couldn’t quell the frantic beating of her heart or her desperation to take this insanity further.
And then a breath, warm and wet, slipped between her suspended lips, carrying the gruff response to her needy plea. “Payton.”
Tension charged the air around them, a current jumping from each point of contact to the next.
What was this?
The arms that held her circled tighter, slipping into something wholly different than the embrace of a moment ago. Into a slow, sensual exploration of his hands across her body.
Heat radiated from his touch like a hot claim, waking her every nerve. Every sense. Every desire.
She needed to stop.
Nate obviously read her renegade moan as a call to spur him further. To up the charade. Only Payton was already in over her head. Her body couldn’t decipher the real from the imitation. And—as his tongue licked at the corner of her lips, eliciting a shudder that racked her from top to toe, had her opening wider to the exquisite sensation of Nate Evans seducing her with his mouth, his tongue, his teeth, and the soft rumble of his groan sounding between them—she slipped beneath reason, drowning in need. She wanted him. More than his kiss. She wanted everything he could give her, show her.
Only, already it was ending. His lips eased from hers by degrees until only the barest brush of skin and breath kept contact. That lingering touch, suggesting he, too, was hesitant to break away.
A kiss so carnal, so hot, couldn’t have been—
Don’t be stupid. Of course, it could.
She was dealing with notorious Nate, playboy extraordinaire and on a worldwide scale as she heard it. She was out of her league. Out of her mind. And potentially spoiled for life because of one insane, staged make out she hadn’t had the sense of self-preservation to defend against.
But Nate had caught her off guard. And within the decadent span of that kiss, every fine strand of lingering attraction toward the boy he’d been wove and wound itself into an indestructible tether to the man he was now.
Oh, she was in such trouble.
Breath ragged, she tried to focus on the shadowed planes of the face only inches above her. Taking in the harsh drawn features she knew so well—the strong cut of his jaw, chiseled lips, that once-broken nose—she couldn’t bring herself to meet his eyes. To see his thoughts or risk he’d see hers.
Gaze fixed on the breadth of the shoulders shielding her from the reception, she waited for him to step back and reveal his latest conquest. Then it would be over.
Only she didn’t want the seduction to end.
Her hands slipped down to his chest, palms pressed flat against the definition of pure masculine form. If he could sneak up on her like that, she could grope him a bit while she got her breath back. It was only fair. Except the feel of his hard-packed physique beneath her hands wasn’t doing much to calm her. The flex and pull of his layered muscles. The beads of his nipples. Hard and enticing. Forbidden little playthings that, once found, she couldn’t leave alone.
Nate’s hands clamped around her wrists, stilling her shameless exploration as his breath punched out in a cough.
What a fool to think this could be hers.
Pulling herself together, she managed to make light of a situation that was anything but. “You could have warned me,” she laughed, praying the sound was more convincing than it felt.
A second passed. And then another. Her eyes closed against the rising ache in her chest. The crazy sense of despair she didn’t have any right to. She wanted more. Wanted to be the kind of woman a man like Nate took home. But he’d already said it once. She was the good girl.