Scandal on the Sand

  His nostrils flared as he took a slow breath and shook his head. “You have to play without me, Zeke.” Suddenly, he stood, gathering up the papers and the envelope in one swooping motion. “Liza and I are going somewhere more private.”

  She didn’t move but glanced at Zeke, who seemed as surprised as Liza was. “So we should meet you on board the yacht later, for cocktails?”

  Nate shook his head. “Sorry, the party’s canceled. Come on, Liza.” He reached for her hand, and when she didn’t take his, he closed his fingers over her wrist to gently pull her up. “I can’t wait one more minute to get you alone.”

  Zeke looked skyward. “So much for ‘the new Nate.’”

  “Go play softball,” he said through clenched teeth. “I’ve got something more important to deal with.”

  With a stiff nod, Zeke left, but Liza held her ground. “I’m not going anywhere with you.”

  “We’re not talking about this here, out in the open with staff running around. Any one of them could be recording this conversation on a cell phone.”

  She glanced at the busboy who openly stared at Nate as he slowed purposely by their table. He was right, of course. Everyone was interested in his business.

  “Look.” He leaned closer, the low tenor of his voice practically vibrating the air between them. “I don’t know you or this kid or this Carrie character from Adam. But if you think I’m putting my name on anything without details and dates, along with legal, scientific, and medical proof, you’re out of your mind. Let’s go.”

  She pressed the notebook to her heart, a flimsy four-dollar shield against his billion-dollar onslaught. “I have all that. And there’s no doubt of paternity.”

  He tried to usher her away from the table. “Oh, there’s plenty of doubt. I’m not stupid, and I don’t make mistakes when I mess around with strangers.”

  “You’re calling her a stranger? Your lover for almost two months until you found out she was pregnant and dumped her?”

  His eyes widened, then he shook his head with a soft, sarcastic laugh. “I’ve heard some pretty creative scams, honey, really, I have. But I gotta hand it to you. This is good. Innovative, complex, and ballsy.” He had the nerve to give her a salacious grin and openly check her out from head to toe, sending a completely unwanted awareness through her. “And all wrapped up in a hot little package with sex-kitten eyes and my kind of rack. It’s good, kid. It’s good.”

  Sex kitten? Kid? His kind of rack?

  What had Carrie been thinking when she fell for this tool? “Nothing about this is innovative or ballsy and, honestly, the story isn’t that complex. Let me spell it out for you.”

  “Not here.”

  “Right here, and right now.”

  Another waiter walked by, slowing his steps, and glancing in their direction.

  “Okay, okay,” she finally gave in, walking with him off the deck to the beach, to the opposite side of where the game was being played. When they were completely out of earshot of anyone else, she took a breath of salt-infused air, mustering up momentum for her power-plea. But her sandals sank into soft sand, giving him even more of a height advantage.

  She refused to cower.

  “Listen to me,” she said. “You can deny this all you want or pretend you never heard of her or claim you’re too smart to make a mistake. But the facts are simple: Carrie had your child after you made it perfectly clear you wanted no part of a baby, and she spent three years in fear that you’d find her and claim him. She lived with me since she arrived in Florida, pregnant and unemployed, and became my best friend. She was killed by a drunk driver on I-75 a year ago and left me guardianship of her child, whom I plan to legally adopt and raise. I can’t do that until I know for sure and certain you will never try to take him away from me. What’s ballsy about that?”

  “Where does the money come in?” he asked with no hesitation.

  “I don’t want money,” she repeated on an exasperated sigh. Was that so hard for him to understand? “I want freedom and peace of mind and my...this...Dylan.” She swallowed as she said his name. “I want Dylan.” Safe, close, happy. That’s what she wanted. “Honestly, that’s all I’ve ever wanted since the day a cop showed up at my door and told me Carrie was dead.”

  He had the decency to at least feign sympathy. “Sorry, but...” He reached for the notebook, tugging it from her fingers. “Let me see that. Let me—”

  Something slipped out of the pages, fluttering to the sand. He stooped down and snagged it as she did the same, their heads tapping lightly. He got the picture before she did, but Liza had a second to see it was the photo of Dylan she’d slipped into the back of the journal.

  She reached for it, instantly protective, even of his photo. “That’s—”

  “Me,” he finished, staring at it, still crouched down.

  “No, I took that...” Her voice faded as she realized what he was saying. “Yeah, he looks like you. So much for an innovative and complex scam for money, huh?”

  Staring at the photo, he let his backside drop onto the sand to sit. “He’s an Ivory,” he whispered, awe and disbelief and recognition making his voice thick.

  She plopped down next to him. “What do you think I’ve been trying to tell you?”

  “That changes everything.”

  Her heart plummeted. “How?”

  “I have to...” He struggled with the words, and her brain raced to fill in the blank. Meet him? Take him? Claim him? What did he have to do now that he didn’t want to do years ago when Carrie told him she was pregnant?

  He exhaled. “I have to see that journal. Somewhere completely private.”

  “We can walk on the beach.”

  He shook his head and pointed his thumb at the baseball game behind him. “They’ll come after me. Where do you live?”

  “Too far and...” She didn’t want him there. “No, let’s go inside and sit at a table or in the lobby.”

  He gave her a funny look, slowly shaking his head as he stood, still looking at the picture. “You don’t understand. I can’t do that. People know me. They take pictures. They approach me. Let’s just...” He gestured for her to follow him. “I have an idea.”

  But she didn’t move, looking up at him, feeling so small and helpless and frustrated and scared. “Are you going to take him from me?” she managed to ask.

  He reached down and took her hand, his silence almost worse than if he’d said yes.

  Chapter Two

  Blackmail would have been better, Nate thought as he maneuvered his Aston Martin through the narrow streets of Mimosa Key, headed for the harbor where he had a shot at relative privacy. She’d agreed to come along, clinging to her precious notebook.

  Blackmail he could handle. The family was used to that sort of thing. But a four-year-old child whose mother—with a name he’d never heard in his life—was dead and left nothing but a journal? This was big. This was problematic. This was life-changing, and not in the way he wanted his life to change.

  But...

  He’s an Ivory.

  The family sure had some powerful, unstoppable genes, and Nate had spent enough time with cousins to know an Ivory when he saw an Ivory. And mistakes happen, obviously, so nothing was impossible.

  But no one told him! He never left anyone penniless and pregnant.

  A sensation he couldn’t name, didn’t understand, and already hated welled up in him. A bunch of them, to be fair. Anger, fear, frustration, and disbelief coiled around his gut. What if he had inadvertently done something like that? What if this claim was real?

  Next to him, Liza had situated herself as close to the opposite side of the sports car as she could be without actually riding outside. Silent, she stared straight ahead, gnawing her lower lip and clutching that cheap notebook like it was the crown jewels.

  Well, in some ways, it was. Maybe it held information that could get her a lot of money. That had to be her game, with the strategy of acting like it wasn’t. Hell, at this point, he ho
ped that was her game, despite her vehement denials.

  He’d far prefer a little friendly extortion to fatherhood.

  Who was this woman claiming to have had a relationship with him? He broke the silence after about five minutes. “Carrie...Cassidy, did you say?”

  “Her real name was Careen. Does that help?”

  Not a bit. “I have absolutely no recollection of meeting a woman named Carrie or Careen or Cassidy, let alone sleeping with her. Let alone spending months with her. I don’t spend months with my best friends, let alone...women.”

  “So I’ve heard. And read.”

  He slid her another look, trying to see past the intriguing eyes and waves of thick, dark hair to the villainess underneath. But all he saw was a great-looking woman chewing a hole in her lower lip, her arms wrapped around her chest protectively, popping some luscious cleavage out of her T-shirt.

  He returned his attention to the road. He would not be diving into that particular weakness of his anytime soon. “So tell me everything about this so-called Carrie.”

  She let go of that lower lip, whipping around, eyes flashing like the Sri Lankan green sapphires that decorated the backsplash of his master bath.

  “So-called?” She flung the words back at him. “Carrie Cassidy was a living, breathing, lovely young woman who died far too young. And she’s the mother of your child, so show some respect, for God’s sake.”

  “All right, all right.” Once again, he rooted around his memory banks, many of those vaults pickled by substances he’d recently sworn off. “Where’d I meet her? When and how?”

  “In Key West, about five years ago.”

  Five years ago he’d been twenty-five, living off a generous trust fund, ridiculously wild, a bona fide jet-setter who went from party to party on any continent, with any socialite, without a moment’s concern about tomorrow. He did not, however, stick his dick anywhere without a condom. He might be reckless, but he wasn’t dumb, and he’d heard enough lectures from brothers and cousins.

  So, had he been in Key West that year? That was possible, even probable. He went there on a regular basis. Had he had sex with a girl there? Likely enough. But hadn’t she said something about being with her for months?

  “So, she claims we dated for two months?” he asked as he turned into the harbor parking lot.

  “You were lovers,” she corrected. “And there’s no ‘claiming’ involved.”

  Definitely a lie. “I can guarantee you if I was hanging out with someone that long term, I’d remember.”

  She made a grunt of disgust.

  “What? I’m being honest.”

  “Listen to yourself. Two months is a long-term relationship, and calling what you did with Carrie ‘hanging out’ sounds so...” She closed her eyes and shook her head, unable to come up with something awful enough to describe him.

  So he helped. “Cavalier? Uncommitted? Casual? Apathetic? Detached? I’ve heard them all, my dear, and every single one is true.”

  “Have you heard ‘asshole,’ too?”

  He bit back a chuckle. “What do you think?”

  “I think...” She turned away and looked out the window as he slid the car into a parking spot. “I hope none of those things are hereditary.”

  The sadness in her voice did something to his insides that he didn’t like at all. He chose to ignore it. “Don’t count on it,” he said. “Those traits are stamped into the Ivory DNA.”

  “Or you’re raised that way.”

  “Hard to say,” he agreed.

  “Which is exactly why I don’t want Dylan raised like that. I don’t want him part of that greedy, egomaniacal, power-hungry clan.”

  Her words shot a jolt of defensiveness up his spine. He turned off the car, flipped his belt, and reached for the door handle. Before he opened it, he flattened her with a look to underscore the warning he was about to give.

  “Here’s the rule, Liza. I can insult my family, but no one else can.” Without waiting for her response, he opened the door and stepped into the February sunshine, which was plenty warm this far south. Instantly, she popped up on the other side.

  “Well, here’s my rule: I don’t want Dylan to be, what was it you called yourself? Apathetic and cavalier and isolated?”

  “I said detached. I’m not isolated.”

  She glanced around. “Then why are we here?”

  “My boat is private.” And isolated. He started walking toward the last slip, where he’d docked. Liza had to hurry to catch up, shouldering her bag. He reached the twenty-eight-foot cabin cruiser, and when he turned to offer her a hand, he found her eyeing the boat suspiciously.

  “I’d hardly call this a yacht.”

  “Neither would I,” he agreed, purposely saying no more as he helped her on board and then unlocked the doors to the lounge inside.

  “Can’t we sit out here?” she asked, pointing to the leather sofas and captain’s chairs on the deck.

  He shrugged, though it was more comfortable inside with the living room and bar. But he felt relatively alone and safe, since very few people knew he’d rented this slip, so he sat across from her and reached out his hand.

  “Give me that journal, please.”

  She looked back at him. “Are you going to throw it overboard?”

  “No.”

  “Promise?”

  “I swear, and my word is good.”

  Even in the sunlight, he could see the color wash from her face, and very slowly, she took out the maroon and pink notebook. He opened the cover, and the first thing he saw was another picture, this one of a woman holding a baby. Blond, blue-eyed, with pixie-like features and a sunny smile.

  “That’s Carrie, right after Dylan was born.” She stood near him—maybe planning to dive in if he tossed the book—looking at the same picture.

  He studied the woman’s features, angling the photo so he could get every detail. And then something clicked. Something cleared. Something snapped into place like a puzzle piece.

  Carrie? “No, not Carrie,” he said, peering at her face, digging through a faded memory. “Her name is...” He closed his eyes, pulling the moment from the past. Yes, it was Key West. It was crazy. It was... “Bailey.”

  Liza lowered herself to the bench to sit next to him. “No, her name is not Bailey.”

  “Bailey Banks. I remember because she said she was named after a jewelry store, and I looked it up after...after...” After they had sex in the back of a limo. Fast, furious, forgettable sex. “I wanted to find her again, but I...” He shook his head, remembering the real frustration at the time. “No one knew her. I tried to find her. I asked around, but no one had ever seen her before. She must have crashed the party, and the number she gave me was bogus. I never heard from her again, and I wanted to.”

  And not because she was a good time. Not at all. Bailey Banks had been camera-happy, and that had scared the shit out of Nate, even back then before Instagram and Twitter. Right before she slipped out of the limo, she laughingly waved her camera and told him she’d had a video running the whole time.

  So I never forget this night with Naughty Nate! Her parting shot was crystal clear in his vodka-soaked memory.

  The next day, sober enough to be scared spitless, he went searching for the woman and her camera, but came up empty-handed on both. Eventually, he’d forgotten she existed, and no videos ever surfaced.

  “That’s not her version of the events at all.” Liza gestured to the notebook. “You better read that.”

  “Are there more, um, pictures of her?” Or him?

  “I have a few at home. Pictures I took.”

  “But no others? No pictures or…anything?”

  She shook her head, and he took another look at the photo, everything from that night coming back to him, decadent moment by decadent moment. Bailey Banks. She’d been easy, sexy, and more than a little starstruck. And, of course, he’d taken advantage of that.

  Self-loathing rose like bile, but he tamped it down. He was b
etter now, different, and on the right road.

  Wasn’t he?

  “I remember some of her story,” he said. “She told me she ran away from home at fifteen.”

  Liza looked at him like he had two heads. “She didn’t run away at fifteen. She was raised in Arizona, an only child, and close to her parents, who, as you know, because you went to their funeral, died in a fire.”

  What the hell? “Someone is on crack,” he said. “You or her. But I never went to anyone’s funeral in Arizona.”

  “Read the notebook,” she finally said, pushing up from the bench.

  He didn’t answer, but something was not right. Something was so not right with this picture. Nate leaned back and turned the page, to the picture of a boy who could have been him twenty-five years ago. “Let’s see what we’ve got here.”

  Other than a big, fat mess.

  * * *

  Liza knew every word in that book. Every turn of phrase, every scrawled sentence, every gut-wrenching emotion that spilled out like Carrie’s tears, every time she mentioned Nathaniel Ivory’s name. The account of a naïve and innocent girl’s relationship with a rich, famous, heartless bastard wasn’t very long, maybe fifteen handwritten pages, but it made for good reading.

  If you like fantasies with unhappy endings.

  While he read, Liza walked around the deck of the boat, trying not to watch him, and failing a few times. She heard the pages flip, quickly, so she occasionally turned to catch a glimpse of him, bent over the notebook.

  Any other time, any other circumstance, and she’d react like, well, like any other woman. He was easily six-one or six-two, with strong, square shoulders and the kind of chest a woman wanted to…rest against. Or explore with two hands. His face was classically handsome, with thick brows and a Roman nose, and a hint of shadow where his whiskers grew.

  Easy wit, a sexy smile, and dark topaz eyes all attracted her more than she wanted to admit. But attraction wasn’t an option…she needed that signature and then, just as she said, she never wanted to see him again.