Front Page Affair (12 page)

S
OMETHING
was wrong with Payton.

Nate stood by the exit watching the dinner crowd. The up-scale Mexican restaurant was one of his favorites and Payton had mentioned it as one of hers as well, but tonight she'd barely had a bite of her food and her glass of wine sat all but untouched on the table.

He'd gone to her place straight from O'Hare, ready to pick up where they'd left off almost a week before. The trip had been a success and he was in the mood for a celebration. But even before they'd made it to the car he'd sensed something
off.
They'd talked easily enough, laughed and caught up, but every few minutes her attention would drift, leaving him to wonder where she'd gone.

By the time he closed out the bill his frustration had met its limit and he was ready for answers.

Hitting the sidewalk, Payton looked back at him apologetically. “I'm sorry. I just—” Breaking off with a shake of her head, she stared down the street.

A quiet alarm began to sound in the back of his mind. Obviously something happened while he'd been gone, and whatever it was had her anxious and refusing to meet his eyes. He didn't want to think it, but if he didn't know her better he'd say her behavior smacked of guilt. “What's going on?”

Hugging her arms around her waist, she shivered. “Can we walk a minute?”

He tucked her under his arm, guiding her around the Friday-night pedestrian traffic. As he slowed his stride to match hers his mind ran through the little he knew. She'd been fine when he spoke to her the other night. Laughing and easy. No halting exchanges or strained silence. But that had been three days ago and he hadn't spoken to her since. He should have called again, checked in, but he'd gotten busy, caught up in the workings of a new deal— And he'd wanted the space. The distance.

But just for the few days. Now that he was back he wanted Payton laughing and sexy and giving him everything that threatened to be too much. And she wasn't.

Halfway down the block she turned to him. “I'm being stupid. It's nerves is all—I don't want—” She took a deep breath and shook her head. “The other night I was supposed to have dinner with my family, only we didn't actually make it that far. Brandt decided to bring Clint with him—”

Clint.
Tension wrapped tight around his chest, making it difficult to breathe. The guy who'd wanted to marry her. The guy who'd grabbed her in the middle of a charity reception.

“So you left?” he prompted, knowing she hadn't.

“No. My mother and Brandt left, so Clint and I could talk.”

“They left you alone with him.” Heat crawled up his throat and face as he let loose a violent curse. Immediately he was pushing up her sleeves, trying to see the skin on her arms through the wash of red nearly blinding him. “If he hurt you—” If that was the reason, what she was afraid to tell him—

“No, he didn't touch me. Nate, please.” She caught his hand in hers. “I'm fine.”

“You are not fine,” he growled, barely managing to contain
himself from bellowing. “You're worrying over something, refusing to look me in the eye. And I can't tell if it's because you've done something you think is going to hurt me or because someone else has done something and you think I'm going to hurt them. So
tell me what happened
.”

Her chin jerked back in surprise, but quickly she answered. “I was upset, but Clint obviously needed some closure, which I believe he finally got. And when we were through talking, I didn't want to wait around for Mom and Brandt to start in on me again. So I left. Only Brandt followed me home.”

“What the hell is that guy's problem?” he roared in frustration, glaring at the sky.

Silence answered, drew out for a moment, and then, “He thinks I'm not being honest about what's going on between us. About what being with you means to me.” She took a steadying breath before meeting his eyes again. “And…maybe he's right.”

With that the red haze receded, leaving him with an understanding of what was behind Payton's distress. No one had hurt her. At least not yet.

“Because you want…more.” Marriage. A family. More than a good time for as long as it held up.

“I do.”

He should have seen it coming. Hell, he'd known from the start what her priorities were, that long term they didn't mesh with his. Damn it, he didn't want this now. He just wanted Payton back in his arms after days apart. He wanted her laughing and giving him her smart mouth and her soft body. He wanted the good time. The easy ride.

But the easy ride was over.

She was quiet beside him, her head pressed into her palms. Smoothing a hand down her curls, he pulled her into his chest. “There's nothing wrong with wanting those things, Payton.” He looked up at the black night, took a breath of the bracing
air and forced himself to say the rest. “So long as you aren't waiting to find them with me.”

It was only the barest of movements. No more than the slightest stiffening of her body. But he felt it. He closed his eyes, knowing what he had to say next.

Clearing his throat, he took a step back.

Those brown eyes stared up at him, waiting. Wounded. She knew what was coming. Knew they'd agreed to stop before things got serious. Stupid. As if it hadn't been serious with Payton from the start.

Her lips parted and she whispered a single word. “Don't.”

He didn't want to do this.

“Do you think maybe it's time to stop?” he asked, taking her hand in his. She was shaking her head no, but it hadn't really been a question. He caught her cheek in his hand, slid his fingers into that wild hair. “I don't want to hurt you.”

Too late.

“Then don't.” Her hands covered his chest as though it would be enough to keep him there. Hell. She didn't understand that the organ beneath her hands didn't work the way she needed it to.

“Payton—”

“Aren't you having fun?” Her big brown eyes turned to liquid pools, that kissable bottom lip of hers beginning to tremble. “Hasn't it been good?”

“You know I am. That it has.” Damn it, he didn't want to see her cry—didn't want to be the reason for her tears.

“Because, I'm having fun with you. Like I've never had before.” Her words coupled with the glitter of wet tears on her lashes would have been laughable, except for the pain behind them. Cutting through him, she wiped at her eye with the back of a wrist. “All I need is the chance that maybe—”

“I care about you. More than I've cared about anyone else.”
Only that didn't change the fact that love didn't happen for him. He'd told her about his mother, but what he should have spelled out was he was just like her. His inability to connect completely in the romantic arena was more than a habit born from defense or disgust at being the center of media speculation. More than a convenience too comfortable to investigate, though, in all honesty, it had been that, too. Why bother trying to overcome something that worked just fine for him? He hadn't cared until now.

“Isn't that something? Isn't it enough to wait and see? Yes, I want marriage…someday. But I've been so careful about everything for so long, I'm willing to take a risk for you. I would wait.”

He knew she would. If he gave her any hope at all, she'd spend years waiting for something that, in all likelihood, he would never be able to give her. She might be willing to take that risk, but he wasn't. Not with her heart. Her life. Her happiness.

She wanted the white picket fence and the pram around the park. And he wanted her to have it. Even if it meant letting her go so someone else could give it to her.

“I'm sorry, sweetheart.” And that was when the first camera flashed and the shutters began snapping.

P
AYTON'S
gown crinkled, gaping in falls of stiff, creased blue paper as she sat atop the padded exam table, legs crossed with as much lady-like decorum as she could muster given the circumstances. She was crabby. Sick and depressed. Fighting what had become a perpetual state of lethargy for weeks. But she wouldn't give in to it—surrender to the call of her bed simply because she'd been dumped.

It happened. To everyone, she was told.

Though usually not with the media there to witness the critical moment. But what did she really care if they'd splashed the portrait of her heartbreak across the newsstands? Or if Nate was pictured almost daily looking every bit the modern-day rake the papers made him out to be. The only thing that mattered was the affair was over and her life had to go on.

So she kept busy. Waited for the heartrending pain to pass. For her lip to finally stiffen up. For that promised time when another fish from the sea of men might actually appeal to her. She had a job she was passionate about and new friends who wouldn't let her breakup come between them. And even her fellow teachers had reached out to her in spite of the reporters trolling the block. So she got up every day and went to work and kept her appointments.

Like this one she'd scheduled weeks ago.

Dr. Thoms breezed into the room, pumped a handful of
sanitizer into her palm and rubbed it in as she scanned the electronic chart on her worktable. “So this is a regular check up today, and I see you'd called about beginning an oral contraceptive.”

Payton's knuckles whitened as she gripped the table's edge, tears threatening again. Please, God, not in the gynecologist's office. They'd be writing her a referral to another kind of doctor altogether if she started sobbing here. “Um, yes, but…”

“Were you thinking primarily about birth control or to regulate your periods?”

Her ears pricked up. Of course she'd known the pill could do both, but she'd never really been inconvenienced enough to consider it. Only now, after weeks of bouncing all over the place emotionally, physically feeling the signs of an impending cycle then barely having one at all… This could be the answer to at least one of her problems. Albeit the most minor.

“Regulating my periods.” Since she couldn't imagine ever having sex again. At least with anyone other than Nate…and she was doing her very best not to imagine that.

Thankfully, Dr. Thoms seemed oblivious to her inner turmoil and, focused on the task at hand, continued on. “Okay, then. So how are you feeling overall?”

Sad. Lonely. Stunned beyond belief that Nate could walk away from what they'd had so easily. Stunned even more by the physical toll their breakup was taking on her. “A little run-down, but it's not—no. I'm fine.”

“Run-down? Any fever, runny nose, sore throat, upset stomach?”

“My stomach's been off, but I think it's more nerves than anything. And I'm beat.” Then going for a little levity, she added, “Just sick and tired of being sick and tired.”

Only it fell as flat as everything else.

Ignoring the weak joke, Dr. Thoms stared at her with that placid smile in place. “And when was your last period?”

“I had it for about a day, two and a half weeks ago.”

Cool eyes met hers over the top of the chart. “Just a day? Was it heavy? Light?”

The temperature in the room dropped.

Payton didn't like the look she was getting. Her hand went to her stomach again, and those eyes narrowed ever so slightly, following the motion.

“Light.” And then she hastily added, “But it's not that unusual. My cycle isn't exactly like clockwork. And we were using protection, so I really don't think you need to worry.”

“Mmm-hmm.” The doctor typed in a few notes. “Any dizzy spells, unusual tenderness in your breasts, mood swings, cravings or loss of appetite?”

The questions hit her like rapid-fire artillery. Each punching a bigger hole through her façade of calm.

Yes…yes…yes…

Oh, God, it couldn't be. “Doctor, I see where you're going with this, but I can't be—” She broke off, unwilling to even say the words. Desperately trying not to even think them.

Failing.

Pregnant
.

Pregnant with a tiny, little piece of Nate growing inside her.

Her eyes pinched shut as she sucked air, willing the precious image away. She couldn't want it to be true, shouldn't be hoping it into existence. But something instinctual stirred to life within her, and on the deepest level she knew it was too late for hopes or wishes to make any difference at all.

“What am I going to do?”

Responding to a question far more encompassing than it had been interpreted, Dr. Thoms answered simply, “You're going to start by taking a pregnancy test.”

 

Two hours later, the results had been confirmed and an ultrasound done to determine gestation. Payton walked the downtown streets in a daze, barely registering the blare of midday traffic, screeching tires and shouts for taxis as each step brought her closer to a conversation she'd never anticipated having. Explaining to Nate that his biggest fear—his worst nightmare and the horrific scenario he'd so recently escaped—had once again become a reality.

How would he react to the news?

She knew he'd be doing the math, same as she. Wondering if they'd ever had a chance or if their fate had been sealed from that very first night. He'd wonder if the fun and games had been worth it.

Know they hadn't.

The clap of thunder broke through her reverie, pulling her eyes to the gunmetal-gray sky and the steel and glass tower slicing into it. Nate's building.

Wrapping her arms around her waist, she tried to stave off the numbing cold seeping beneath her skin.

Would he hate her?

“Payton, is that you?”

She turned toward the lilting voice and found herself face to face with Nate's longtime assistant.

“Deborah, how are you?” she asked, embarrassed to be caught standing this way by the fifty-ish woman with a soft heart and mind too sharp to chalk her presence there up to coincidence.

“Are you headed up to see Nate?”

She opened her mouth, then simply shut it again. Was she? She'd come here to tell him about the baby, but now that she stood so close to her destination, she couldn't do it. Not like this. Nate deserved better than to have the news dropped in his lap between afternoon meetings. He'd always tried to do right by her, and she owed him, at least, a reasonable conversation
in private. The news would devastate him—shatter the life he'd worked so hard to protect. The life he'd sacrificed her to preserve.

Finally, she forced enough air from her lungs to form words. “No. I thought I'd stop in, but I…” she held up her left arm, without looking to see she wasn't wearing a watch “…I don't have time after all.”

Compassion shone in the older woman's eyes as she reached out and squeezed Payton's numb hand. “You're shivering, sweetheart.” Then turning up her own collar against the wind and chill, she nodded toward the building behind her. “Wouldn't you like to come inside for a coffee?”

The seconds passed as Payton stared at the lobby doors, followed the lines of the architectural mammoth dominating the landscape around it. “No, thank you. I'm going home. Don't worry.”

With a reluctant nod, Deborah turned down the sidewalk and went on her way.

Payton smoothed a hand over the still-flat plane of her belly and, eyes fixed on the building that so reflected its owner, the dizzying truth of what would happen when Nate found out she was pregnant hit her full in the face. If she didn't have a rock-solid plan for her future in place before she told him the news, Nate Evans would take over and make one for her.