Indecent Arrangements: Tabloid Affair, Secretly Pregnant!

She blinked, once, twice. Gave into the heavy weight of her lids and closed her eyes. Gave up her fight against an inevitable hurt and loss in the future and stopped resisting the want and need that was now.

Her eyes closed and her body went lax in his arms. It was as though she’d simply given up and Nate felt the loss of her fight like a blow to the gut.

He shouldn’t care. He never cared. Relationships and whatever came of them were simply what they were. Enjoyable until they weren’t. Always on his terms.

But not this time. This time it was out of his control and driving him nuts.

Didn’t she understand he couldn’t make himself see her in a platonic light? It wasn’t choice firing his blood at the sight of her alone?

Damn, he had to let go, get his head around the fact that he couldn’t have her.

His arms loosened their hold. His marauding mouth eased from its plunder as he drew back to break the kiss—the kiss that wouldn’t break because the lips he’d poured his every skill and desire into had followed his retreat.

His pulse jacked.

Slight hands balled against his chest, released, crept higher and balled again.

Was he reading this right?

He tried to pull back—to see her face—but those slim arms were wrapped around his neck, clutching and clinging tight as her fragile plea shattered against his lips. “Don’t stop.”

His breath rushed out on a groan that was relief and desire and victory all in one, and in a combination so potent it nearly took him to his knees. And then she was alive in his arms, opening wide beneath the crush of his kiss, taking everything he gave and demanding more. Meeting the thrust of his tongue with the stroke of her own so they mingled in a sensual dance that was hot and wet and urgent.

Rhythmic. Erotic.

And not nearly enough. Nothing was enough. No matter how he touched her, how she moaned against his lips, pushed and pulled at his clothing until it hung half free of his limbs, begged with quiet sobs as he worked past her panties, teasing one finger and then two through her slippery arousal, it wasn’t enough. He had to be inside her. Had to have her. Completely.

His body vibrated with need beyond control. Banding his arms across her back, he lifted her from her feet.

“Say it again,” he demanded, his mouth rough against her throat as he moved to the couch.

“Don’t stop,” she panted, her hands grasping at his shoulders. Her knees settling into the leather at either side of him so her skirt rode up her thighs. Opening her to him.

Damn, he could feel her, soft and hot, through the damp swatch of her silk panties.

Pushing violently at his half-open fly, he freed himself, giving into the temptation of that fragile silk barrier. He palmed her bottom and guided her to the bare skin of his shaft. Had to grip the base of the couch when her hands clenched, her body tensing as she slid against the length of him.

“Don’t stop…” she breathed again, her words taking on a desperation that only fed the madness burning within his veins. Her hair hung wild and loose around her face, her breasts swayed half exposed from when they’d wrestled with the straps of her dress. Her eyes were dark, heavy lidded and pleading as she moved over the straining ridge of his erection. “I can’t stop.”

Too. Much.

Not. Enough.

Reason and restraint snapped. He had her beneath him, her lips parted in a silent cry of pleasure that tore through his very soul as he pushed inside.

Wet friction embraced him. Took hold of his sanity and tossed it aside as he drew back and drove deep again, setting a relentless rhythm of triumph and possession.

He had her. Writhing beneath him. Coming apart around him. The clutch of her slick walls urging him to follow. She felt so good…too good…too good…

Nate froze.

Too good.

She felt too good because he wasn’t wearing a condom. Buried inside her, a hair’s breadth from release with the receding waves of Payton’s orgasm pulsing around him, he didn’t dare move.

Control. Where was his control?

His teeth ground together with a series of audible pops as he slowly withdrew. Images of the past six months sliding through his mind, gripping him like icy talons. What the hell was wrong with him?

“Nate?” Her hands smoothed down his chest, her eyes searching. Taunting him with a welcome he couldn’t accept. Yet.

“Condom, Payton,” he managed on a hoarse growl as he found the foil packet he’d never forgotten before.

“Thank God you remembered.” She shook her head, watching him as if he’d managed something remarkable. Well, he’d stopped in time. That was pretty damn remarkable. But the fact that he’d been inside her at all—

Never before. He’d never lost it like that. Never come so close to losing everything.

Never again.

Covering himself, he reached for her. “Now where were we?”

An hour later, they lay sprawled across Nate’s bed, naked beneath a blanket of moonlight. Payton traced patterns across his skin, circling this way and that. Her touch was light. Sweetly exploratory. And arousing all too soon after they’d collapsed together mere minutes before.

This was the point where he typically employed some trusty exit or eject strategy, but tonight the foundation of caring and history he had with Payton was throwing him off. Nothing within his arsenal of disentanglement techniques suitably handled the unprecedented situation with a woman whom was both lover and friend and who he had no intention of letting go. At least not any time soon.

Tucking his chin, he watched her fingertips walk the steps of his ribs, climb higher and then smooth across the center of his chest.

Maybe there wasn’t anything to handle at all. So long as he used his head and a measure of restraint, no one would get hurt.

Yes, he wanted her. Had nearly lost it when he thought he couldn’t have her. But even so, he knew himself—the kind of love that led to marriage and family wasn’t part of his makeup, and this wouldn’t last forever.

As though reading his mind, Payton turned her eyes, soft and vulnerable, to his. “What are we doing?” she asked quietly. “You didn’t want a relationship. You told me. So what is this?” Her question held no accusation, challenge or demand, just a need to know something he didn’t have the understanding to explain.

“No, I didn’t. But nothing turns out the way I expect with you. I think I know how something’s going to play and then suddenly I’m staring open-mouthed at a scenario I couldn’t have predicted. This, what’s between us—” he shook his head “—it’s not common in my life.”

“Mine either. But since neither of us seemed able to ignore it, let’s just enjoy it for as long as this lasts.” She leaned in to kiss him, and he saw the flicker of sadness—remorse maybe—that crept into her eyes. He wanted to make it go away. Only he couldn’t lie to her. Promise something they both knew wouldn’t happen.

What he could offer was the possibility of a scenario he very much hoped would become reality. He ran a finger along her jaw and tipped her face to his. “You know, just because we’re detouring through the jungle now, it doesn’t mean there won’t be a chance to veer back onto the main drag later.”

The fact that it hadn’t happened before didn’t guarantee it never would. This was Payton, after all, and the power of her optimistic determination knew no bounds.

She blinked up at him, her big brown eyes so wide with trust, once again taking him back through the years to a time when she was the only one who saw the potential in him—to her limitless faith.

He didn’t want to let her down. He’d almost done it tonight. Almost let them both down.

“I don’t know what’s going to happen, Payton, but I’ll always care for you.”

She nodded, letting her smile spread. “Then how about we forget about what might happen? Let the future take care of itself and, for now, we’ll have fun.”

She deserved better.

He couldn’t give it to her but neither could he let her go. So he shoved the bitter knowledge aside, focusing instead on the now. Payton in his bed. Smiling. Sexy and bare.

Chapter Thirteen

SATURDAY morning Payton emerged from Nate’s bedroom bleary-eyed and desperate for caffeine. Waking alone, she’d managed to locate her panties and Nate’s discarded tee shirt from the night before, but after minutes of fruitless searching for her jeans she abandoned the quest. Bare-legged, she padded down the hall following the fresh-brewed scent of dark roast coffee.

They’d been to a wine bar for dinner the night before and, though delicious, that third glass was wreaking havoc on her head this morning. Halfway through their first small plate of chorizo-stuffed dates, a couple of Nate’s friends had turned up and joined them bar-side. Not the society crowd Payton was so keen to get away from, just a wonderfully funny and intelligent couple Nate had known for years.

The tone of the evening had been set when Nate introduced her as his girlfriend and she’d choked on her drink and then flushed so red that no one could ignore it. Soon they’d all found themselves laughing about the label, swapping stories about Nate at various ages and overall having such a great time her shaky tolerance was the last thing on her mind.

After, Nate had brought her back to his apartment and proceeded to make love to her until the wee hours of the morning—which invariably had as much to do with the drag in her step as that last glass.

She turned into the kitchen, rubbed a lazy hand at her eye hoping Nate still found ‘puffy’ cute, and poured some coffee.

Nate’s voice sounded from the front room in a low rumble. Probably taking care of some business while she’d been dead to the world in his bed. But noting more rasp than usual, she wondered if perhaps he’d had a glass too many as well. Not likely. Nate didn’t get caught up in excess.

She took a steaming swallow, then cradled the mug at her chest to absorb the warmth both inside and out.

“So it’s true?” The demand filtered down the hall, sounding almost accusatory, and she considered returning to the bedroom. Maybe taking a shower while he wrapped things up.

Then…“Look, it just sort of happened. We haven’t talked since high school, but once we started…you remember what a cool girl she was. Fun, you know?”

She set the mug down on the counter harder than she’d intended, tried to steady it with clumsy hands. This conversation was about her. She stepped back to the hall. She definitely shouldn’t be listening in.

“Is it serious?” Her brow puckered at the croaked question and she slowed her steps. Visualizing Nate’s considering expression. What could he say? It had only been a week since their first night together. And yet they knew each other.

Nate’s exasperated sigh propelled her forward. Toward the conversation rather than away from it. She was in the apartment and he was talking about her. Better to let him know she was awake, before this became something uncomfortable between them. Only it wasn’t until she turned into the front room and encountered Nate’s clear blue eyes—on a face twenty-five years older than the one she went to bed with—that understanding came.

Nate’s father. Mr. Evans, seemingly paralyzed as he gaped with what she could only describe as open-mouthed appreciation at the region where her tee shirt ended and bare legs began.

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 all over this whole girlfriend business last night. Rolling around in the title like you owned it. Time to start paying those dues.”

She let out a cough. “Dues? Come on—”

“Payton, I’m not asking you to see him through his retirement years.” He raked a hand through the thick mess of sandy blond spikes. “Just to hang out for an hour or two and show my dad I’m not treating you like some floozy or pulling the wool over your poor innocent eyes.”

And suddenly she realized he was serious. “You’re worried about what he thinks.”

“That surprises you?”

It shouldn’t have. But after having spent a lifetime worrying—obsessing—about how her every action would be interpreted by her own father, she’d never really thought of Nate, who always came across so fun and carefree, as having the same issues. “I guess you never seemed…concerned.”

“Yeah, well, my mom took off when I was young, so it was just my dad and me. And, you know him, he’s not a halfway kind of guy. Since raising me fell wholly on his shoulders, he took the job seriously. Made a lot of sacrifices and spent a lot of years making sure I knew right from wrong, worked hard and did the right thing. Honestly, he couldn’t care less about the financial kudos or bank account I’ve built. He measures my success—and his—by the kind of man I’ve made. So, yes. It matters to me that he knows he did a good job.”

Her heart rolled over with a little sigh for this man who loved his father and had his priorities so well aligned. If only there were room in his heart for more. “He did a very good job. Go get me some grub while I get dressed and I’ll tell him so.”

It was early afternoon by the time they’d said their goodbyes and the elevator doors slid shut with a quiet whoosh. Nate leaned a shoulder against the brushed-steel interior and watched his father. Waiting.

Payton had recovered from her initial embarrassment by the time they’d returned with breakfast. He’d expected the quiet poise and well-mannered reserve she was known for, but she’d been relaxed and comfortable, charming his old man with her bright smile and fresh take on the adventures of academia.

She’d been perfect. Too perfect. Too comfortable. Too right a fit between what had always been just the two of them. God only knew what his dad was thinking now—but he didn’t have long to wait to find out.

Solemn eyes that had been shining with merriment half an hour before turned on him. “What are you doing with her?”

Or, more to the point, what was a nice girl like Payton Liss doing with a guy like him? “We’re just having some fun, Dad. It’s not serious so don’t start knitting any booties.”

A beat of silence and then, “Does she know that?”

Staring at the numbers as each floor illuminated and went dark, he offered a single nod. “Give me some credit. We wouldn’t have gotten anywhere near a bed if she didn’t.”

“She’s not like the others.”

Nate fought back a grin. His father hadn’t had a say in his sex life since he’d slapped a box of condoms in his hand in high school and sat him down for a man-to-man. “What do you know about the others?”

“I know you haven’t introduced me to a date since you were seventeen.”

“You already knew Payton. And it wasn’t like I brought her home for dinner. She walked in before I could get rid of you.”

His dad let out a derisive snort. “I know you’re linked to one woman after another, but it never lasts more than a couple weeks because there’s no connection.”

Yeah, he supposed if anyone had the skill set to recognize something like that it was his dad. Hindsight and all. “You’ve been spending too much time with your nose in the tabloids.”

“I saw you laughing with her. The way she looked at you.” His dad stared him straight in the eye. “This one’s not going to let go so easily.”

Nate shook his head. “Yes, she will.”

When the time came, she’d have to. And until then, she wouldn’t get too close.

He wouldn’t let her.

Chapter Fourteen

THEY’D spent the evening enjoying dinner, drinks, and non-stop laughter at the Gold Coast home of Diane and Garry Ortiz. Nate tried to warn her ahead of time about his former Marketing VP’s larger-than-life personality trapped in a pixie-sized body—but it wasn’t until Payton found herself gasping for breath within the enthusiastic squeeze of Diane’s shockingly strong arms that she fully grasped his meaning. Stunned, she took a step back, laughing as Nate steadied her with a hand at her hip.

“Diane, I think you broke my date,” he joked, dodging to avoid the swat of her arm.

“Oh, stuff it, Nate.” She took a deep breath that seemed to fill her entire body, nearly bringing her to her toes, and then let it out in a huge rush. “It’s just so wonderful to have finally met you, Payton. I can’t believe the nerve of this guy in keeping you a secret for so long.”

“Thank you. Tonight was so much fun.”

Diane cast a mocking scowl Nate’s way. “See? She likes us. No reason to keep her holed up the way you did.”

It was hardly the case. As absurd as the suggestion had been, Nate hadn’t been kidding about sharing his friends. In their few short weeks together, he’d been steadily circulating her through the various groups he socialized with, encouraging relationships outside himself. Keeping up his end of the bargain while maintaining the ruse around the timing of their reunion for the sake of a child half a world away.