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desperate and thought she’d found a solution through me.”

      Perhaps not so ruthless after all…and maybe that was what he didn’t want broadcast around the globe.

      “I found her a small house. I cover her bills. But the arrangement is she can’t talk. If she tries to profit from this in any way, the funding is off. So there’s a reason I don’t want the press getting a hold of her.”

      She could see that quite clearly. He’d financed the woman who tried to trap him into marriage with a false paternity claim. It was a risky precedent to set. So why had he done it?

      Slanting a glance his way, she asked, “Did you love her?”

      Nate’s head snapped around, the strangest expression of shock on his face. “No. No, I didn’t.”

      “But you set her up?”

      He waved her off. “She was without resources.”

      “So are a lot of women. Do you have a charitable foundation in place to help them all?” Though, now that she thought about it, he’d tried to do the very same thing with her that afternoon. Was it some kind of white-knight syndrome or was Nate simply the kind of man who couldn’t sit idly by when he was capable of making a difference?

      “There was a part of me that wouldn’t let myself hate her. I knew on some level it was possible the child was mine. And if it turned out to be true, that baby couldn’t be born to a father who loathed her. Do you see what I’m saying?”

      Payton didn’t trust herself to speak. Didn’t trust herself to touch him for fear she wouldn’t be able to stop. He’d developed an attachment to a child he hadn’t believed was his. Forced himself to care—maybe even to love—on the chance it was.

      Pushing beyond her own heartbreak, she reached for his hand. “When you found out?”

      His head tilted back, eyes fixing on the sky. “I care about Bella. But I can’t drop in and out of her life or be her daddy just because she doesn’t have one. It would never work with her mother. So I made sure she was taken care of and I let her go.”

      That kind of emotional toll was unfathomable.

      He seemed to have followed her train of thought. “I’d never planned on having a family. I didn’t want one thrust upon me. So in that regard it was a relief.”

      “Because if she’d been yours?”

      He met her gaze, steady and unwavering. “I would have married her mother and played the hand life dealt me.”

      A nervous alarm sounded deep within her. It had been too close. He would have given everything up and she never would have had him back in her life. “Even though you didn’t love her?”

      “It wouldn’t have mattered. If Bella was mine, I would have made us a family. I would have made it work. No issue. But that’s the only way I’d make a trek down the aisle.”

      It wasn’t the first time he’d said he didn’t want to marry. Though this time she sensed more distaste behind his words. “Pretty adamant about that, huh?”

      Nate caught her sidelong glance. “Yeah.”

      “Was it always like that with you?” She never would have guessed it from the way he’d been in high school; of course, she wouldn’t have wanted to see something that didn’t support her fantasy that someday he’d marry her!

      “I didn’t think a lot about it, but probably. My parents’ marriage—” He shook his head, squinting off into the distance before letting the rest drop as though it didn’t merit voicing. “In college and after, I was working so hard there wasn’t time for much more than a quick—There wasn’t time for anything involved.”

      He caught himself in time, though the crinkling around his eyes and a tilt to his lips told her it had been a close thing.

      “So kind of you to look out for my delicate sensibilities,” she teased.

      “Don’t be disappointed. I’ll slip up another time. Anyway, the romance thing didn’t really become an issue until I’d started making a name for myself. And suddenly I couldn’t buy a woman a drink without some jerk sticking a mic in my face to ask when the wedding was. It bugged the hell out of me.”

      She remembered what it was like when his name hit the papers. The constant speculation about how long he’d be able to dodge the gold band. Nate was so good-looking. So charming and charismatic. His success and wealth growing exponentially, it seemed. The press was forever trying to marry him off, practically placing bets as each new female graced his arm.

      “I’m sure your dates loved that. It must have been very awkward.” It certainly had been when she and Clint faced similar speculation.

      “Some of them got the wrong idea.” He laughed at the sky and then turned a wry smile on her. “Some had the wrong idea from the start. Honestly, that kind of constant speculation…” He let out a grunt. “It’s not like I had a mind for love and marriage before all that, so it didn’t take much to turn me off completely.”

      “But…the right girl?”

      “Payton, there are a million ‘right’ girls. Right for right now. But it doesn’t last with me.”

      “And you still would have married Annegret? You could have lived like that?” She shook her head, fighting the urge to press her hand against the center of his chest. “Without love?”

      Nate let out a short laugh. “It’s called responsibility. It’s not always fun. But it’s necessary. Besides, I’ve lived without falling in ‘love’ this long,” he said, making the taboo emotion sound like something toxic. “I don’t want it.”

      That much was clear. Even so, she couldn’t help but wonder…How many women before her had inadvertently given Nate Evans their heart? And had any of them gotten it back?

      Chapter Nine

      THE temperature had dropped with the afternoon sun, and Nate stood at the rear of his car shaking out the sand from the blanket while Payton sat bundled in the front seat. The roof was up and the heater on. Still, she was chilled and he’d wrapped her into a spare fleece he kept in the trunk. She’d looked fragile tucked into the expanse of his oversized pullover. Like something to shelter. Take into his arms and hold.

      Which was nuts. Closing the trunk, he rounded to the driver’s side door and levered into his seat.

      Payton smiled over at him, then nodded back at the darkening sky. “Beautiful, isn’t it?”

      Her curls were wild with wind-blown abandon. Her cheeks alive with the pink flush of exertion. “Yes. Breathtaking.”

      Her gaze dropped to her lap, to where only the tips of her fingers peeked from the ends of cuffed sleeves. A sure sign of the nerves he really shouldn’t take such satisfaction in stirring.

      “Thank you for bringing me out here.”

      “It was my pleasure. Been a long time since I was here myself. I guess being around you’s making me sort of nostalgic.”

      She smiled, still not meeting his eyes. “Me, too.”

      The parking lot was deserted. The interior of the car cozy and intimate. He didn’t want to admit just how nostalgic he’d become for things from his high-school past—like long wet kisses and getting naked in the back seat by the beach. Didn’t want to admit even to himself how tempting the idea of slipping his fingers into those soft curls and pulling her over him had become.

      But making out was a bad idea, and for more reasons than he was six foot five and this was a stick shift convertible with a back seat too small to accommodate a dog. Payton wasn’t the kind of woman Nate normally dated. His relationships were short-term and emotionally barren—the women he indulged in them with all too quickly forgotten. And while the sex from the night before had definitely

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