Page 77 of Confessions

Wynona’s eyes were frigid and her lip curled. “Just like your old man, aren’t you, Hayden? One woman was never enough for him and it looks like you’re just the same.”

He dropped her as if touching her skin had scorched his fingers. “Get out, Wynona.”

Rubbing her arms, she said, “You haven’t seen the last of me. You and your father owe me. Big-time. Promises were made. Nothing’s changed just because he died.”

“Like hell. I’m in charge now.”

“And you’re trying to cut me off!”

“Take it up with Bradworth. Maybe you can strike a private deal with him.”

She tried to slap him, but he was too quick. He caught her wrist in his hand and shoved her back. “Don’t be stupid, Wynona.”

“You bastard! You sick, filthy bastard!”

“Flattery will get you nowhere,” he said, and she yanked her hand away. Throwing a scathing glance at Nadine, she strode into the house, grabbed her purse and fur coat, and with the mink waving behind her like a sleek banner, she stormed to her car.

She threw the Jaguar into reverse, backed into a tree and smashed her taillight. Metal crunched and glass splintered. Wynona shoved the car into Drive and roared away, tires spitting gravel, one red taillight winking brightly through the trees.

Nadine was shaking so badly, she could barely move. She thought she might throw up as the pieces of Hayden’s past fit together into an ugly, painful puzzle.

“What do they say about a woman scorned?” Hayden asked.

Nadine couldn’t answer. Her mouth was dry as cotton, her guts twisted and the pain in her bruised heart wouldn’t go away. “I think I should leave,” she said, tears threatening her eyes.

“Because of what Wynona said?”

She nodded, and the first drops of rain started to fall from the sky, touching her cheeks and splashing on the ground. “There was a baby?” she whispered, her fists clenched so tightly, her fingernails dug into her palms. She prayed that she misunderstood, but the hardening of Hayden’s jaw, the tightening of his mouth at its corners only confirmed the worst of her fears. The bottom of Nadine’s world seemed to fall out from under her.

“Yes, there was a baby, but it wasn’t mine.”

“Hayden, don’t lie—”

“I’m not, damn it!” He grabbed her and dragged her wooden body close to his. “You have to believe me.”

“But you never said a word,” she cried, her trust in him unraveling as quickly as an old seam in an antique dress. How could she have trusted him, made love to him, given her heart to him when she knew so little about him?

“There are reasons.”

“Reasons? What reasons? You didn’t want me to know because then I wouldn’t be so easily seduced, is that it? Or were you trying to make yourself look better in my eyes?” Icy rain was falling heavily now, trickling in the gutters and pooling on the walks. Frigid drops drizzled down Nadine’s face and throat.

“Of course not!”

“Then why?”

His jaw worked and he closed his eyes. “The baby was my father’s.”

Nadine gasped, and her insides churned as wildly as the storm-tossed lake. “Your father’s?” She couldn’t believe it. Wouldn’t. “But you were engaged to her. Come on, Hayden, you don’t really expect me to believe that—”

“That my father would seduce a woman half his age? That she would be flattered by his attention since she couldn’t have mine? That Wynona Galveston was more interested in Monroe money than she was in me or my dad?” he asked, shoving his wet hair from his face. “Which part is so unbelievable?”

“It never came out that she was pregnant. In all the press about the accident. Never once—”

“Her father is a doctor. He hushed it up. It was part of the deal he made with my dad... Oh, hell, it’s complicated. Come inside before we’re both soaked. You may as well know the whole sordid story.”

“I don’t think I should—”

He held her hand in his and looked into her eyes with such pain and torment, she couldn’t say no. “I must be crazy. I should just walk away from all this.”