The Billionaire's Bridal Bid (7 page)

He slanted her a surprised look. “You doubt that?”

Suddenly, the entire tone of their conversation changed. The very air around them seemed to vibrate with all the things between them that had gone unsaid, the way the atmosphere is charged just before a thunderstorm.

“Yes. I…” The words caught in her throat as she searched his face, taking in the strong line of his jaw, the faint jut of his chin that gave away he was clenching his teeth. That said so much about what he didn’t want to reveal. As did the fact that he hadn’t answered her question outright. The things he wouldn’t tell her told more about how he’d felt than any words he’d spoken.

But wasn’t that true of her, as well?

That first morning, she’d said they weren’t ready for a big talk. Maybe they never would be. It’s not like she wanted him to know she’d never really gotten over him. Yet, surely he’d guessed that. They’d slept together
for goodness’ sake. She could hardly pretend to be unaffected by him now.

She forced herself to meet his gaze. “You seem surprised that I could doubt you.”

The only indication that he’d heard her was a slight narrowing of his gaze. “I had told you I loved you.”

His tone was carefully blank. Devoid of emotion. As if he was speaking of another person entirely. Another lifetime.

A memory flashed through her mind of the first time he’d told her he loved her. The image of his face above hers as they made love, telling her over and over again, “I love you. I’ll always love you.”

She’d had to squeeze her eyes closed against the rush of emotion. The absolute truth in his gaze had seared itself in her mind. She’d never forget it. And she’d tried. God knows she’d tried to scrub it from her mind.

“Yes,” she said now. “You did say the words. So many times. And I believed you. I never doubted it. I wished I could have.”

“Because it would have made it easier to walk away from me?”

“Yes,” she admitted baldly. And she could tell that surprised him. “You didn’t expect me to admit that, did you? If I’d thought you didn’t really love me, it
would
have been easier to leave you. It also would have been less heartbreaking to watch you move on.”

Part of her wanted to study his face, to watch him for any flicker of emotion at what she was revealing. But she found she couldn’t make herself look at him. She felt far too vulnerable, her heart laid bare for him to judge or scorn.

So she continued without giving him a chance to respond. “You’d sworn you loved me. That you would
never stop loving me, no matter what. But then, we hadn’t been apart more than—what was it, a couple of weeks?—before you started dating someone else.”

“Marianna,” he said softly.

“Marena,” she corrected him. “God, how pathetic is that? I remember her better than you do.” She tried to laugh, but it sounded brittle.

“How did you even know about her?”

“My friend Rachel told me. Saw you at a party, actually, and snapped pictures of you together. She was the first person I knew to buy a digital camera and she took pictures of everything.”

“How very helpful of her,” he said wryly.

“She was trying to be helpful. She didn’t realize we’d broken up. I’d only been gone a week or so. She didn’t even know I’d dropped out of school.”

“Claire—”

“Maybe I shouldn’t have minded. After all, I introduced you to Marena.” A week before she’d broken up with him, he’d driven across town to pick her up from a study group. He’d arrived so early, he’d sat at a nearby table and waited. Afterward, she’d introduced him to the other girls from her economics class. “But when Rachel emailed me those pictures—” To her embarrassment, her voice cracked and she had to swallow back her tears.

More images she’d never been able to erase from her memory. Marena dressed in a microskirt, her body pressed against Matt’s, his hand cupped possessively on her backside. Claire’s stomach had churned at the sight and she’d barely made it to the bathroom before losing her lunch. Her sister had come in just after, nauseated herself, and they’d sat on the bathroom floor together and cried. Funny, but that was the moment her sister,
Courtney, really started trusting her. After that, she knew there was no going back. They were in it together.

“Of course, that was just the beginning.” Claire continued. “Six months later, FMJ went public. You guys were millionaires overnight. And you were, what—just twenty-one, twenty-two?”

He didn’t give a precise number. Was he reliving the glory of those first weeks? Or trying to decipher her own emotions?

“You were celebrities. It seemed like every move you made was in the paper.”

“You must have been looking pretty hard to find news about FMJ in New York.”

She shot him a glance, frowning. Was he baiting her or did he really not know?

“I was back in town by then. Working at Cutie Pies. I couldn’t turn around without someone telling me about you. About the parties you’d thrown, the hotels you’d trashed. The supermodels you’d dated and dumped.”

“We didn’t trash any hotels. That was a rumor. We just happened to be staying at the same hotel as Courtney Love.”

“Exactly. You lived like a rock star.”

“And it never occurred to you to wonder why I acted that way?” There was a note of anger in his voice. As if this was her fault.

Her gaze snapped to his face. “Of course I wondered. That’s the point, isn’t it?” She’d been at home, cleaning up the mess his brother made, while Matt had been moving on with his life. Partying like a rock star with every scrawny model he could lure into his bed.

Of course, she hadn’t known at first that Vic was the one who’d gotten Courtney pregnant. Courtney had refused to tell anyone who the father was. When she’d
finally relented and told Claire it was Vic, Claire had been incensed. He was four years older than Courtney. He’d committed statutory rape. But at sixteen—and even eighteen—Courtney had refused to admit that he had manipulated her into his bed. She’d refused to go to the police and had told Claire she’d deny it if Claire went on her behalf. In a small town like Palo Verde, Claire knew she’d have a hard time getting the police to act even if Courtney had been eager to point a finger.

Then Claire had resented Matt all the more. He’d already broken her heart by moving on so quickly. The speed and fervor with which he’d recovered from his broken heart seemed proof that he’d never loved her at all. Against the backdrop of her life in Palo Verde, it was all too easy to believe the worst of him.

That old bitterness leached into her voice as she hurled the words at him like an accusation. “You were supposed to love me. I was supposed to be the love of your life. ‘I’ll always love you.’ Isn’t that what you said?”

“And you think the way I acted meant I didn’t love you? It never occurred to you that I dated all those women because I couldn’t have you?”

“What occurred to me was that
always
meant something different to me than it did to you.”

“What are you saying, Claire?” he pressed, his voice thick with anger. “Do you expect me to believe you still love me? Because if
always
meant anything to either one of us, we’d still be together.”

The emotion in his voice surprised even Matt. He rarely lost his temper, and he hated that Claire brought him to that. Over and over again it seemed.

Even worse, he hated the stung expression on her
face. As if he’d slapped her. Or snatched a piece of candy away from a child. And worse, even still, was the way his breath caught in his chest while he waited for her to respond. “You left me for another guy. You rode off to New York on the back of Mitch’s motorcycle and never looked back. So don’t tell me how hurt you were when you saw pictures of me with Marianna.”

“Marena,” she said blankly.

“What?”

She met his gaze, her eyes wide, but steady. “Her name was Marena.”

Funny he couldn’t remember her name. Hell, he barely remembered her. But Mitch was a name seared into his memory. He’d never even met the guy, but his hatred for him still sat heavy on his chest like a cancerous tumor. He’d once refused to hire an innocent intern just because his name was Mitch.

After all this time, he was still waiting to hear whatever sorry excuse she could cough up about Mitch. He deserved an answer.

Before he got one, the doorbell rang.

He turned to look at the front door, just visible through the doorway that lead from the kitchen to the dining room and the foyer beyond. Then he glanced at his watch. “It’s barely seven. Who the hell rings the doorbell before seven on a Sunday morning?”

In the moment he was busy looking at his watch, she slipped right past him.

“That’s the cab I called after I put the biscuits in the oven.”

Only then did he notice the overnight bag that sat at the foot of the stairs. She snatched it into her hands on her way past. Before he could stop her, she was halfway out the front door.

She paused just long enough to look over her shoulder at him. “Don’t worry about flying me back to Palo Verde. I can get home on my own.”

And then she was gone.

Only after she left did he notice the bite of biscuit she’d been toying with as she’d talked. She’d flattened it onto the counter, like a squashed bug. A casualty of her stewing emotions.

Maybe she thought she was hiding her resentment because she hadn’t been facing him when she spoke. He may not have seen the betrayal on her face, but he certainly heard it in her voice.

He crossed to the spot, pried it up with his thumb and dusted it into the sink. Ever since that morning at the diner, he’d wondered why she was so mad at him. She’d dumped him. What right did she have to be angry?

Well, now he had at least part of the answer. She was mad about how quickly he’d moved on after she dumped him. But he still didn’t understand why.

Their breakup had been brutal. In addition to extolling the virtues of Mitch and his motorcycle, Claire had listed his myriad flaws. He was too boring. Too smart. Too busy working to have fun. He wasn’t what she wanted and she was tired of pretending otherwise.

But if any of that was true, why had she cared what he’d done afterward or who he’d dated? And why had she followed FMJ so obsessively in the news? And she must have followed it obsessively to know about the Raven.

But why? And why lie about it now?

Clearly, Claire thought their discussion this morning heralded the end of their relationship. He’d seen it in her eyes when she looked at him that last time. She’d
been saying goodbye. But this time, he wasn’t letting her go.

Besides, she’d stolen his favorite sweatshirt.

“W
here did he take you on your date?”

She’d heard the question from friends and customers alike. From blue-haired, eighty-year-old women and giggly teenaged girls.

The one person she didn’t expect to hear it from was Kyle, who sat at the counter eating the grilled cheese sandwich she made him every Wednesday after school. Wednesday was the one day during the week that both his parents worked late and he’d taken to hanging out at the diner. Steve and Shelby were gracious enough to act like she was doing them a favor by letting him sit there and do his homework, when in fact it was always the highlight of her week.

However, she had not expected Kyle to ask about her date with Matt. Certainly not after his years of feigning complete disinterest in all of the Ballards.

Like everyone in town—everyone with eyes,
anyway—Kyle had figured out his relationship to the Ballards. Since Kyle had his grandmother’s distinctive almond-shaped, whisky-colored eyes, as well as her strawberry allergy, it was pretty obvious which family genes had contributed Kyle’s Y-chromosome. Kyle had figured out the truth when he was seven.

He’d come to Claire to ask about it. “I wouldn’t want Mom and Dad to think they’re not enough,” he’d explained. At the time, she’d told him the truth as simply and as honestly as she could. Of course, he’d known she was his aunt by blood for as long as he’d known he was adopted. The few times he’d asked her about his birth mother, she’d been able to honestly say that she admired the decision Courtney had made to give him up for adoption. At sixteen, Courtney was smart enough to know she wasn’t ready to be a mother. Giving Kyle up was the greatest gift she could have given him and moving on with her life away from Palo Verde was the best decision she’d made for herself. But Claire had a much harder time explaining about Vic.

At seven, Kyle hadn’t yet been old enough to understand how distasteful—not to mention illegal—it was that Vic had gotten such a young girl pregnant. And he certainly didn’t understand that Vic’s crimes had gone unacknowledged by most of the town merely because Vic was from a wealthy and powerful family. All Kyle knew was that his birth father lived right there in town and never so much as smiled at him.

Even at seven, he’d been astute enough to know that if the Ballards hadn’t acknowledged him yet, they were unlikely to do so at all.

And that had been the last time Kyle had mentioned the Ballards to her. Until the Wednesday after her date
with Matt, when he sat there, poking listlessly at his sandwich.

She was so surprised by Kyle’s question, she just sat there for a long moment, staring at him, dishcloth hovering over the counter she’d been wiping down. Finally, she tucked the cloth into the tie of her apron. “Just a restaurant in San Francisco.”

Kyle stabbed a slice of fried zucchini. “What’s he like?”

“Brilliant,” she answered without thinking. “Stubborn. He doesn’t tolerate fools or people who don’t work hard. And he never—” She broke off abruptly, suddenly aware that she was not only serving her own selfish need to talk about Matt, but feeding Kyle’s curiosity about him, as well.

Kyle sat very still on his stool, his expression carefully blank. She knew instantly that his facade of disinterest hid a spark of curiosity. A glimmer of hope. Kyle was as sensitive as he was smart. She alone knew how hurt he was by the Ballards’ cold rejection. She hated to think that he might be harboring any anticipation that Matt would feel differently.

Kyle had been hurt so many times by the Ballards, she couldn’t stand to see him hurt again. She leveled her gaze at him and said, “He’s a good man, but he’s still a Ballard.”

“I know.” He nodded seriously, before shoveling several more zucchini fries into his mouth. “You’re not going to marry him, are you, Aunt Claire?”

“Nope. Not a chance.” She didn’t bother wondering who had put the idea in his head. Seemed like the whole town was obsessed with the idea that Matt was going to…she didn’t know what people expected to happen. For him to fall in love with her? Come back to town and
sweep her off her feet? Ride through town on a white horse to rescue her from a flame-spouting dragon?

Well, actual dragons flying through town were more likely.

Kyle, excruciatingly polite kid that he was, waited until he’d swallowed before saying, “That’s good. Even Mom thought that was why he’d come back. But I told her you’d never leave Cutie Pies.”

Claire felt her head sway, as if the world had suddenly come to a stop under her feet. “What do you mean, ‘He’d come back’?”

Kyle may have been smart and polite, but he lacked the social experience to recognize the shock on her face. So he didn’t know to soften the blow, but came right out and said, “You know, come back to stay in town. He’s Mom’s new client. He’s why she’s working late tonight.”

Kyle’s mom worked as a real estate agent. And if she was working late this evening because of Matt, that meant he was already in town.

Sheesh, no wonder people thought they were dating.

And then, suddenly her heart started pounding a rapid tattoo inside her chest as the bigger realization hit her. If Matt was working with Kyle’s mom, how long would it be before Matt ran into Kyle? Hadn’t the poor kid been through enough without the additional humiliation of meeting Matt only to be rejected by him in person?

Before she could even consider the implications, she looked out the plate-glass windows overlooking the street to see Shelby and Matt climbing out of his Batmobile, which he’d parked in the space directly in front of the diner.

She felt a burst of pure protectiveness. It was one
thing for Matt to toy with her emotions. She wasn’t about to let him meet Kyle. The poor boy had been hurt enough by the Ballards. She couldn’t let Matt do any more damage.

Matt hadn’t believed he could sneak back into town unnoticed, but he hadn’t been prepared for quite as much attention as he attracted. He’d checked in to a B and B on Comal Road late the night before. Despite the hour, the woman who owned the place seemed all too eager to socialize. Since he’d been up early and put in a full day at FMJ before making the drive in the afternoon, he hadn’t been in the mood. Still, the woman mentioned at least twice that she knew Claire through the local chamber of commerce and that she and Claire were “practically friends.” He’d considered sneaking out early and heading to the diner for breakfast, but the B and B’s owner had been so determinedly chipper about serving him breakfast that he’d had little choice but to choke down the short stack of pancakes and scrambled eggs.

And that was just the start of it. People seemed far more talkative than they had just a few short weeks ago when he’d seen many of them at the library fundraiser. Everywhere he went, people wanted to stop and chat with him. Mostly about Claire.

The general consensus was that, besides serving the best doughnuts in the state, she was an angel from heaven. The verdict on him was still out.

It made for an oddly unproductive day. He’d hired a real estate agent, Shelby Walstead, to serve as his excuse for returning to town. After all, FMJ had been looking to open an additional R & D lab and Palo Verde seemed as good a place as any. Though Ford and Jonathon were in D.C. for the week, he’d cleared the idea with them via
a conference chat. Ford thought the idea was brilliant. Jonathon hadn’t said much but hadn’t shot down the idea, either. The tax incentives would be in their favor, the local economy could use the boost and—most important of all—it would keep Claire in his sights for as long as he wanted her there.

However, the real estate agent he’d hired only made it through three of the properties she’d planned on showing him, none of which were remotely suited to FMJ’s needs. The woman had to be the least successful Realtor in the history of the profession. She was as nervous and jumpy as if he were her very first client. Finally, he’d decided to put her out of her misery and suggested they stop by Cutie Pies for a break.

She must have known what a crappy job she was doing and feared he was going to fire her, because she paled, then finally nodded before mentioning that her son sometimes hung out at Cutie Pies after school and she’d be glad to have the chance to see him.

He slid his car into the spot in front of the diner, unsure of what his reception would be. He hadn’t had a chance to talk to Claire since she’d run out the morning after their date. She’d been dodging his calls. He’d gone to the trouble to hunt down her email address, but she’d ignored his emails, too.

So he was surprised by how she marched out of the diner to meet him in the street. Until he saw the anger glittering in her eyes. Her hair was pulled back into an efficient ponytail; her face was bare of makeup, her cheeks flushed. She looked refreshingly simple and appealing dressed in jeans and a Cutie Pies T-shirt. It didn’t bode well for either of them that he found her indignation charming.

She faltered when she saw the real estate agent, obviously struggling to muster a smile.

“Hey, Shelby,” Claire was saying, as she ran her hand over her hair, smoothing down hair that wasn’t out of place to begin with. “You here to pick Kyle up or just to check in on him? ’Cause he’s doing great. Just sitting there at the counter like he always does.”

Shelby returned an equally strained smile. “Well, I did think…”

Inside the diner, Matt could see a boy sitting on a stool near the wall, a ball cap obscuring his features, an oversized backpack on the counter beside him. One that looked like it would dwarf his small frame. Matt had a flashback to his own youth, when he’d hung out at Cutie Pies after school because it had been easier than dealing with the dysfunctional dynamic at home.

The boy on the stool turned to look out the window, straining his neck to see the adults chatting on the street. He sat with his elbows propped behind him on the counter. For a moment, there was something so familiar about the situation, Matt had the odd sensation he was looking at some past version of himself transplanted into Claire’s diner.

Claire interrupted Shelby, who’d been rambling about something or other.

“Why don’t you go on in, Shelby? I wanted to talk to Matt for a few minutes anyway.”

“Oh!” Shelby looked pointedly between them, her gaze wary. “Sure. Matt, why don’t we start again in the morning? That way you and Claire can catch up.”

“Great idea!” Claire responded for him. Before he could protest, she linked an arm through his and steered him away from Cutie Pies. She shot one last
look through the front window and then zoomed Matt down the street.

Main Street ran straight through the center of town, dead-ending at the county courthouse on one end. The park was just a short distance away. She seemed to be steering him in that direction.

Despite her claim to want to talk to Matt a few minutes alone, she didn’t say anything so he asked, “You know Shelby well?”

“What?” She looked at him, startled. “Shelby? Yes. I mean, as well as could be expected, I guess.”

“But well enough for her to trust you to watch her kid sometimes,” he pointed out, wondering about her evasiveness. Claire was blunt and to the point. Always. So what was up now to make her hem and haw?

“Oh. That. Well, we’re practically family.” She scrubbed her hand across her forehead. They’d reached the edge of the park now and she turned off onto the walking trail that winded across the green. Her voice was suddenly fierce. Almost protective. “Kyle’s a really good kid. He’s smart. The kind of kid that figures things out and—”

He stopped, pulling her to a halt beside him. “Claire, what’s up?”

“What’s…up?” She sounded more angry than confused.

“Yes.” He searched her face, taking in her wide eyes and flushed cheeks. “You’re rambling. Get to the point.”

She sucked in a deep breath, then bit down on her lip. Then sucked in another breath, preparing to launch some kind of verbal offensive. Finally, she spoke in a rush. “You can’t move here.”

“What?”

She started walking again, her words pouring out of her at an equally fast clip. “You hated it here. I can’t imagine why you’d want to look at houses. You can’t seriously be thinking of moving back. It wouldn’t be fair to any of us. Not even you.”

“I’m not.”

Spinning to face him, her gaze searched his face, no doubt looking for signs of subterfuge. “You’re not?”

“I’m not looking at houses. I’m looking at real estate for FMJ. We’re looking to expand our R & D lab. Ford thinks Palo Verde may be the perfect location. Particularly if we can find an existing building that only needs minor renovations.”

“So
you
wouldn’t be moving here.”

“No. Our headquarters would still be in Palo Alto.”

He stepped closer to her, trying to read her expression in the dabbled light of the shady park. As soon as he’d said he wouldn’t be moving there, relief had flickered across her face. But something else, as well. Something he couldn’t read.

As for the relief, well, that wasn’t exactly a balm to his ego.

“Look,” he finally said. “I know why you’re so up set.”

“You do?” Her voice sounded high and squeaky again.

He hated that she seemed so nervous. So unlike the Claire he knew. He fought the urge to pull her close to him. In the quiet sanctuary of the park, they were alone without being really alone. Chances were, no one was watching them, but he wasn’t going to risk it. So he shoved his hands deep into his pants and rocked back on his heels.

“Yeah. All that gossip you tried to warn me about, I got a taste of it today.”

“Oh.” She pressed her hand to her belly. Then seemed to realize for the first time that she still wore her little apron. She reached behind her to tug the tie loose and pulled the apron off.

“Everywhere I went today, people asked me about you. The general consensus seems to be that I must have fallen in love with you during our date.”

A burst of laughter broke through her clenched lips. She didn’t respond, but focused her attention on rolling the apron into a tight little tube.

Unable to resist any longer, he nudged her chin up with his knuckle. “You aren’t under that impression though.”