The Billionaire's Bridal Bid (12 page)

She nearly cringed remembering how humiliating that had been. Doris had never gotten along with her sister, Claire’s grandmother. So even though Claire grew up knowing they were related, she didn’t have a real relationship with the other woman. Still, with a semester’s worth of school loans coming due since she’d dropped out, a pregnant sister to take care of, and all
of their mutual belongings crammed in the back of her ancient Toyota, she literally had nowhere else to turn.

Aunt Doris had been like a guardian angel. A gruff, cigarette-smoking, Scotch-drinking guardian angel who worked twelve-hour days and expected Claire to do the same.

“Even after Courtney had the baby,” Claire continued, “there was always something to keep me here. She was just sixteen then. And she was behind in her schoolwork. Besides, I owed too much to my Aunt Doris to leave. She’d started to rely on me. Besides, by then you’d moved on. Way past me. There were models and movie starlets.”

“Not that many,” he protested.

“Really, because it seemed like legions of them. And here in Palo Verde, everything any of you did was big news. The whole town followed your every move like you were the Beatles or something. Every time I turned around, someone was talking about some new scandal or romance.” She couldn’t keep her resentment from her voice. “Look at it from my point of view, Matt. In my whole life, there’d never been a man I could count on. Until you. You were the one man I trusted. I loved you so much I forced myself to sacrifice my happiness for yours. I’d thought I’d broken your heart. But just a few weeks later, you’d moved on.”

For a long moment he was quiet. Finally, he crossed the room and took her chin in his hand, forcing her to look up at him. “And it never occurred to you that I acted that way precisely because you had broken my heart?”

Her legs seemed to buckle underneath her and she had the curious sensation that her entire weight was supported by his gentle grasp of her chin combined
with the sheer force of his gaze. She felt something blossom inside of her as that tiny kernel of hope grew. “It didn’t.”

But even as her hope grew, she felt it collapse under its own weight. What was the point in talking about what might have been? She could see in his gaze that there would be no forgiveness. No second chances.

“You should have trusted me,” he said, the accusation sharp in his voice.

His words stung and she found herself revealing more of her resentment than she intended. “Well, I wasn’t at a very trusting place in my life just then.”

He just looked at her, his expression hard and unyielding. “How convenient for you that ‘saving’ me meant you didn’t have to rely on anyone else. ‘Saving’ me meant you could make all the decisions and take none of the risks. You didn’t have to trust me to help. You didn’t have to trust me to make the right decision. The decision you expected me to make. You just sat back and enjoyed your own superiority.”

“It wasn’t like that!”

“Really, then what was it like? Because from over here, it sounds like you broke my heart and then judged me when I didn’t grieve the way you expected me to. From here it sounds like you created this arbitrary test, you never told me the rules, but you were damn quick to judge me when I didn’t pass it…”

Confusion washed over her, making her knees woozy and her head spin. Was he right? Had her big self-sacrificing gesture been nothing more than self-protection?

She tried to force her mind back to the girl she’d been twelve years ago. Tried to remember how she’d felt. But
she couldn’t even consider his accusations without being overcome by waves of anger.

She hurled his words at his back. “If you honestly think I should have trusted you under the circumstances, then you clearly haven’t thought much about Kyle. Remember him? That kid you were so convinced was your son. Have you stopped to ask yourself why he looks so much like you? Because once you do, maybe you’ll realize why I felt like I couldn’t trust you with the truth.”

He stopped then, hand on the doorknob, but he didn’t turn at look her.

Since she had his attention, she asked, “Have you stopped to ask yourself who his father really is?”

Finally, he looked back over his shoulder. “Of course I have. I’m the genius, remember.” Matt’s lips curved in a smile as humorless as the conversation. “Kyle is my nephew. Vic is his father.”

M
att had almost made it to his car when Claire called out to stop him.

“What is your problem?”

He paused with his hand on the door handle and looked up at her. She stood on the top stair to her porch, hands on her hips, her jaw set at a defiant angle.

The pose was somehow classic Claire, all bristling defenses, standing alone. Just her against the world.

“I don’t have a problem, Claire. I think it’s your problem you should be worried about.”

“My problem?” She stomped down the steps. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

He was tired of all her protestations of innocence. He pushed himself away from the car and took a single step toward her, but then stopped. “Since I've been back, it didn’t occur to you, not even once, to tell me about Kyle.”

She threw up her hands in a gesture of confusion. “Why would it? I assumed you knew.”

“And just how was I supposed to know, Claire?”

“Why wouldn’t you know? Your mother knows, your brother certainly knows. Hell, even your father knew. It never even occurred to me that you didn’t know.”

“Well, I didn’t.” He didn’t bother to hide the bitterness in his voice. He shoved a hand through his hair, but that did little to alleviate his frustration. “Christ, Claire, I feel like I could write a book about the things I didn’t know about our relationship.” He ticked the items off on his fingers. “I didn’t know your sister got pregnant. I didn’t know why you left. I didn’t know my brother was the father. Or that I have a nephew the rest of my family pretends doesn’t even exist.”

He propped his hands on his hips, unable to do anything more than just shake his head. She didn’t seem to have a response, so he asked the question that had been haunting him since he’d read Kyle’s birth certificate. “Why wasn’t Vic ever arrested? She was only fifteen. That’s statutory rape. He should have been thrown in jail.”

Her expression was a little sad. “He’s a Ballard. Your family had money and power. If anyone ever seriously considered arresting him for it, I never heard about it. When Kyle was two, right before the statute of limitations ran out on the crime, the Walsteads asked me if I thought they should pursue it. I told them not to. What good could possibly come of it? By then, Courtney had graduated and moved away. And she was still too stubborn to admit it was wrong of Vic to sleep with her. She argues to this day that she was mature enough to make her own decisions even then.”

“And so his crime had just gone unpunished?” He
forced out the question, even though the answer was obvious. When she didn’t answer, he added, “I can’t accept that.”

“You have to, Matt. It’s not your decision to make.”

But it was his decision. The other day he’d thought his anger with his brother had reached its peak. But it was nothing to what he felt now. He really would dismantle Ballard Enterprises and he would do it with relish. He would destroy everything his brother held dear.

Still he had to ask, “Has Vic done this to any other girls?”

“No. Just Courtney.” Then she ducked her head, looking thoughtful. “I wonder sometimes if he didn’t really care about her, in some sick way. If that wasn’t what fueled his interest in me.” Then she shrugged. “But I don’t know.”

“I’m still going to destroy him,” Matt muttered.

“Don’t. Neither Courtney nor Kyle need you to avenge them.”

“It’s not about that.”

“Then what is it about?” Her expression was baffled as if she really didn’t get it. Hell, maybe she didn’t.

“It’s about you always trying to handle everything on your own.”

Her chin jutted out even farther. “Hey, I handled things on my own because that’s how I’ve always had to do it.”

“No.” He moved even closer, forcing her to look up at him. “You handle things on your own because you don’t trust anyone else to help you.” He studied her face, taking in every flicker of emotion, but he didn’t see even a glimmer of understanding. “You talk about your sister’s stubborn pride and you don’t even see that you’ve got that same pride. Only worse.”

“I don’t—”

“You do.” He almost laughed then, as the truth of that statement hit him full in the chest. “You always talk about being a runner, Claire. But you’re not. You’re a pusher. You push everyone away from you.”

“I don’t!” she said again, her voice cracking on the word, as if she didn’t quite believe it.

“Yeah, Claire. That’s exactly what you do.” Suddenly, his anger dissipated. He took the final step toward her, stopping mere inches away. With fingers that almost trembled he brushed aside a lock of silken brown hair. “Think about it, Claire. You never even mentioned him to me.”

“I thought you knew!”

“No. If you’d really thought I’d known, you would have been in my face, demanding to know why I hadn’t acknowledged him. But instead, you avoided the subject altogether. You’d rather assume that I was a jerk who just wanted to get into your pants than deal with the possibility that I might actually be a decent guy. I guess it’s easier for you that way.”

He waited for her to deny it. Or try to explain it away. But she didn’t.

She just stood there, struggling to hold back whatever accusation she wanted to hurl at him. The sight of her there, tugged at something deep inside of him. So fiercely independent. So afraid to ask for help and even more afraid to need it. He wanted nothing more than to be the person she relied on, but he was done running in circles for her. “Well, I’ll make this real easy for you.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out the ring he’d been carrying for days.

For a second, he held it, clenched in his hand, debating what to do with the damn thing. “I bought this the
morning after that first date. I carried it around with me every day we were together in college. Even after you left I kept it. Stuck it in a box in the back of a drawer. I told myself I was keeping it because I never wanted to forget how lost I felt when you left. Now I think the truth is I kept it because I never got over you.”

She looked from his hand to his eyes, her own filling with tears. “What is it?”

He opened his palm to reveal the engagement ring he’d bought all those years ago, the simple band of platinum and the square-cut loose stone that had fallen out of the setting. “When you left the first time, I threw it against the wall and it broke. It seemed fitting.”

She reached out her hand, as if wanting to touch the ring. Before she could, he dropped the broken pieces at her feet. “Now I know why I never got it fixed. Some things are beyond repair.”

Claire spent the next five days carrying Matt’s ring in her pocket and waiting for another burned-doughnut incident. She kept waiting for the tears to sneak up on her. For her grief to ambush her when she least expected it. But the emotional breakdown never came.

Before she knew it, Wednesday had crept up on her and Kyle was sitting at the counter of Cutie Pies, his science textbook open on the bar beside him.

She walked out from the back, drying her hands on the dishcloth tucked into her apron strings. “Hey, kiddo,” she said, trying to muster a smile for his sake.

“Hey, Aunt Claire!” Kyle’s own smile was brighter than she’d expected.

“How’s the homework going?” Chatting with Kyle, something inside of her loosened a little.

Maybe she’d lost Matt, but she still had Kyle and she still had Cutie Pies.

Kyle had been doing his homework with a yellow number two pencil and now he used the eraser to scratch a spot on his forehead. “It’s slow. I’ve got this science project due Monday but I want to turn it in early so I can take the weekend off and just hang out with him, you know? But I just don’t get mitosis.”

But by the time Kyle was talking about the intricacies of cellular division, her brain was still stuck on his pronouns. “Him?” she asked.

Kyle went still, his pencil poised above his spiral notebook. “Ah, crap. I wasn’t supposed to say anything, was I?”

“I don’t know.” She feigned innocence. “Say anything about what?”

Kyle didn’t fall for it. He eyed her suspiciously. “About Matt coming for dinner this weekend. Mom didn’t tell you, did she?”

“No,” Claire admitted. “But it’s good he’s coming to dinner.” To distract herself, she swiped Kyle’s red plastic tumbler and refilled it with a scoop of ice and water. “Has he…um, been there a lot lately?”

She had to force herself to ask the question because part of her didn’t really want to know that answer. Matt was right, of course, it had been easier to assume he knew about Kyle and had chosen to ignore the boy’s existence. It was so much harder to deal with Matt’s rejection knowing he really was the decent man she’d always wanted to love her.

“Nah.” Kyle was looking at his textbook again. Studying a drawing of a kidney bean–shaped cell. “He came by last week. Had a big family meeting with Mom
and Dad. They didn’t even let me in the same room with him.”

He flashed her a wry smile and for a second he looked so much like Matt, she felt like her heart was being squeezed through a straw.

“I guess,” Kyle continued, “they didn’t want me to get too excited in case it didn’t go well. But they must have decided he wasn’t going to be a bad influence or anything.”

Claire couldn’t help but return Kyle’s smile, even though she could barely suck air into her lungs. “No.” She forced out the word. “He’s a good guy. I’m glad you’ll get a chance to know him.”

Kyle frowned and wedged his fist under his jaw. “If he’s such a great guy, why aren’t you with him?”

She could see him struggling, trying to balance his loyalty to her with his fascination with Matt. She leaned over, propping her own elbows on the counter across from him, so she and Kyle were at eye level.

“Hey, what happened between Matt and me has nothing to do with you, okay, kiddo? I don’t want you to think you’re being disloyal by being his friend. It’s just as much my fault as it is his that things didn’t work out.”

Maybe more.

But there were some things she couldn’t say aloud, not even to Kyle. Maybe especially not to Kyle.

“It’s just…” Kyle let his words trail off as he stared at the chrome and pink tile behind the shake blender. He stuck his pencil eraser in his mouth and gave it a thoughtful chew. “Do you remember what you said to me when I used to ask about why my mom put me up for adoption and didn’t want anything to do with me?”

“Yeah.” She nodded slowly. She remembered the
conversation vividly. Kyle had been about five. The Walsteads had been so generous to let Claire be an active part of Kyle’s life since he was a baby, but Courtney had never shown any interest in the son she’d given birth to. Three years earlier, Courtney had graduated from high school, moved off to Sacramento and never looked back. Claire had long ago made peace with the shallow relationship she now had with the sister for whom she’d done so much.

Kyle took a long gulp of his water, then turned his gnawing attention to the end of his straw. “You always told me that my birth mother leaving me didn’t have anything to do with me. That it was all about her. And that it didn’t mean there wouldn’t be plenty of other people who wanted me in their lives.”

“That is what I said.” She put her hand over Kyle’s so that he finally met her gaze. “You’re not worried about Matt walking out on you once you get to know him, are you? Because if he says he wants to be with you, then you should believe that. He’s a man of his word.”

Kyle looked at her, those whiskey-brown eyes of his narrowed in confusion. “Then why didn’t you believe him when he said he wanted to be with you?”

Claire straightened, sucking in a deep breath of shock. “I…I don’t know.” She pressed her hand to her belly, suddenly feeling woozy. It was a hell of a thing, having the rug jerked out from under you by a scrappy eleven-year-old boy.

Kyle shifted his shoulders, shrugging in a gesture that looked very much like Matt. “I just figured, if you thought I should trust him not to leave, shouldn’t you?”

“But he did leave,” she pointed out. And then immediately felt ridiculous for having this discussion
with Kyle, who was only eleven and couldn’t possibly understand the intricacies of adult relationships any more than he could mitosis.

But Kyle just tilted his head to the side and studied her. “Did he really leave? Maybe he just wanted you to be the one to chase after him for once.”

Then again, Kyle was Matt’s nephew. He was probably smarter than most kids his age. It certainly seemed that he was smarter than she was.

When Matt showed up at the Walsteads’ house on Saturday, he found Claire sitting on the top step of their front porch, guarding their door like a Cerberus before the gates of hell. Her gaze was narrowed, her jaw clenched. He wouldn’t have been surprised if she’d growled when he walked up the steps.

Her fierce expression was at odds with her appearance. For once, she was dressed in something other than jeans and a Cutie Pies T-shirt. It was only the second time he’d ever seen her in a dress. The first had been at the charity auction. That number had been an elaborate cocktail dress that had hung awkwardly on her, like she was unfamiliar with how to wear it. This—a simple floral number that nipped in at her waist before falling to drape over her knees in a froth of fabric—looked both feminine and comfortable. Like the dress had been made for her. Still, all that delicate femininity didn’t lessen the effect of her determination.

He stopped at the bottom of the steps, holding the bottle of wine he’d brought in one hand and the gift for Kyle in a gift bag in the other. “If I’d known the Walsteads had a guard dog, I would have brought a raw steak instead. But here I am with just wine and gifts to buy my way into their affections.”

Her gaze took in the items in each of his hands before returning to his face. “I don’t think it’s their affections you need to be worried about.”

“Do the Walsteads know you’re here, barring their door?”

Her lips twitched, as if she wanted to smile, but stopped herself. “Actually, I think they’re listening at the door. I’m trying not to think about that.”

“Let me guess then. You don’t approve of my relationship with Kyle. You’re here to warn me off.”