Scandal on the Sand (The Billionaires of Barefoot Bay #3)(5)
Author: Roxanne St. Claire

“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 better 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.”