Scandal on the Sand - Roxanne St. Claire Page 0,4

I’m not stupid, and I don’t make mistakes when I mess around with strangers.”

“You’re calling her a stranger? Your lover for almost two months until you found out she was pregnant and dumped her?”

His eyes widened, then he shook his head with a soft, sarcastic laugh. “I’ve heard some pretty creative scams, honey, really, I have. But I gotta hand it to you. This is good. Innovative, complex, and ballsy.” He had the nerve to give her a salacious grin and openly check her out from head to toe, sending a completely unwanted awareness through her. “And all wrapped up in a hot little package with sex-kitten eyes and my kind of rack. It’s good, kid. It’s good.”

Sex kitten? Kid? His kind of rack?

What had Carrie been thinking when she fell for this tool? “Nothing about this is innovative or ballsy and, honestly, the story isn’t that complex. Let me spell it out for you.”

“Not here.”

“Right here, and right now.”

Another waiter walked by, slowing his steps, and glancing in their direction.

“Okay, okay,” she finally gave in, walking with him off the deck to the beach, to the opposite side of where the game was being played. When they were completely out of earshot of anyone else, she took a breath of salt-infused air, mustering up momentum for her power-plea. But her sandals sank into soft sand, giving him even more of a height advantage.

She refused to cower.

“Listen to me,” she said. “You can deny this all you want or pretend you never heard of her or claim you’re too smart to make a mistake. But the facts are simple: Carrie had your child after you made it perfectly clear you wanted no part of a baby, and she spent three years in fear that you’d find her and claim him. She lived with me since she arrived in Florida, pregnant and unemployed, and became my best friend. She was killed by a drunk driver on I-75 a year ago and left me guardianship of her child, whom I plan to legally adopt and raise. I can’t do that until I know for sure and certain you will never try to take him away from me. What’s ballsy about that?”

“Where does the money come in?” he asked with no hesitation.

“I don’t want money,” she repeated on an exasperated sigh. Was that so hard for him to understand? “I want freedom and peace of mind and my...this...Dylan.” She swallowed as she said his name. “I want Dylan.” Safe, close, happy. That’s what she wanted. “Honestly, that’s all I’ve ever wanted since the day a cop showed up at my door and told me Carrie was dead.”

He had the decency to at least feign sympathy. “Sorry, but...” He reached for the notebook, tugging it from her fingers. “Let me see that. Let me—”

Something slipped out of the pages, fluttering to the sand. He stooped down and snagged it as she did the same, their heads tapping lightly. He got the picture before she did, but Liza had a second to see it was the photo of Dylan she’d slipped into the back of the journal.

She reached for it, instantly protective, even of his photo. “That’s—”

“Me,” he finished, staring at it, still crouched down.

“No, I took that...” Her voice faded as she realized what he was saying. “Yeah, he looks like you. So much for an innovative and complex scam for money, huh?”

Staring at the photo, he let his backside drop onto the sand to sit. “He’s an Ivory,” he whispered, awe and disbelief and recognition making his voice thick.

She plopped down next to him. “What do you think I’ve been trying to tell you?”

“That changes everything.”

Her heart plummeted. “How?”

“I have to...” He struggled with the words, and her brain raced to fill in the blank. Meet him? Take him? Claim him? What did he have to do now that he didn’t want to do years ago when Carrie told him she was pregnant?

He exhaled. “I have to see that journal. Somewhere completely private.”

“We can walk on the beach.”

He shook his head and pointed his thumb at the baseball game behind him. “They’ll come after me. Where do you live?”

“Too far and...” She didn’t want him there. “No, let’s go inside and sit at a table or in the lobby.”

He gave her a funny look, slowly shaking his head as he stood, still looking at the picture. “You don’t understand. I can’t do that. People know me. They take pictures. They