by Linde, K. A.
“So the best thing for you to do going forward is to do absolutely nothing. You gain nothing by revealing yourself further.”
“Does he even know that you’re speaking with me?” Liz asked softly. She didn’t have to tell Heather that she wasn’t going to say anything else. She already felt as if she had died a thousand deaths knowing that it was in the papers. Heather would deal with the article however she felt best anyway.
“Congressman Maxwell knows everything that he needs to know in this situation.”
“So no,” Liz said, disappointed.
“Whether or not he knows doesn’t matter to you, because he no longer matters to you as anything more than a congressman in your district. And I’m going to say this once, so listen closely. If you ever cared for Brady at all, then you’ll think twice about what you do from here on out. Are we clear?” she snapped.
“Crystal.”
“Glad to see we’re finally on the same page. Try not to do anything to gain another phone call from me.”
“I’ll do my best,” Liz said sarcastically.
“You’ll do better than that.”
The conversation ended and Liz dropped the phone into her lap. Her hands were shaking. She felt anger bubbling up under the surface. She wanted to release it, but there were only two people she could blame for what had happened: herself and Hayden. Hayden wouldn’t return her calls . . . so that left herself.
Then again, she had the sneaking suspicion that she could blame Calleigh Hollingsworth too.
“So . . . that didn’t sound good,” Victoria said. “Who was that?”
“Heather Ferrington, Brady’s press secretary. She was telling me not to do anything else stupid.”
“Does she think you’re an idiot?”
Liz bit her lip. “Yeah . . . I think she does.”
“Well, bitch needs to step off,” Victoria cried. “And Brady? Are you going to talk to him?”
“She told me not to do anything stupid, Vic. Calling Brady is probably the stupidest thing I could possibly do right now.”
Chapter 23
TRYING TO FORGET
Hayden never called.
Liz held her phone in her hand all evening waiting for him to call her back, but he never did. She knew that he had ruined their relationship, that he had sacrificed her trust and chosen his career over her. Still she wanted to talk to him. She wanted to know why. Why would he do this to her?
She and Brady kissed once while she was dating Hayden. Everything else that had happened was before she and Hayden had even gotten together. She knew that he wasn’t happy that she had hidden it from him, but he’d had no reason to know until she had kissed Brady that night. And now Hayden had ruined everything.
When no one seemed willing to move from the living room, Daniel went out to get dinner for all three of them. He knew that something was wrong. He returned with a plastic bag full of Chinese food and a bottle of Maker’s Mark. Liz smiled when she saw it and reached for it. Victoria got to it first and snatched it out of her hands.
“I’ll just get us some glasses. Eat,” Victoria said.
Liz groaned, but let Victoria take her liquor into the kitchen. She couldn’t keep it hostage forever. Daniel handed her a box of Chinese, and Liz flipped the lid open. She swirled the food around in her takeout container, took a few bites, and then set it back down. She was too jittery to eat. Her stomach couldn’t take it.
Victoria returned with three glasses of Maker’s on the rocks in her hands. She passed one off to Daniel and then set hers down on the side table.
Liz brought the glass to her lips and, taking a long swig, she cringed at the taste and set it back down. “That’s disgusting.”
“It’s delicious,” Daniel said. “Don’t hate on my favorite drink.”
Victoria rolled her eyes at him. “You should probably eat more before drinking more anyway.”
“I’m fine,” Liz lied. She tipped the glass back again. This was going to end poorly.
Two drinks later and the alcohol was numbing her pain. Somehow she convinced Victoria and Daniel that heading to Franklin Street in her condition was a good idea. She wasn’t sure if they actually believed her or if they were just going along with whatever she wanted. She was so pissed off at the entire situation that she really just didn’t care. She would have walked out of the house and gone drinking alone if they hadn’t wanted to come with her.
Wanting to do anything but think about what had happened, Liz took extra special care curling her hair and applying her dark smoky makeup. She changed into the sluttiest outfit in her closet, a skintight black-and-white patterned strapless minidress, which she had to pull down when she was walking, and six-inch leather strappy high heels. Even Victoria would be proud of her.
Liz assessed herself in the mirror and then decided that red lipstick was in order. It wasn’t her normal routine, but, well, she wasn’t really feeling like herself tonight. She was feeling like total shit. She had walked away from one relationship, tried to love another man, been used for the advancement of his career, and still there was no way she could go back to what she had originally walked away from. So, for tonight, nothing really mattered. She just wanted to get rip-roaring drunk and forget that today ever happened.
As she was about to walk out of her bedroom to see if Victoria was ready to go, her phone started ringing loudly from where she had thrown it on her bed. Liz dashed for it, her heart racing. Was it Hayden? Could he finally have manned up? Her heels skittered across the floor and she crashed down onto her bed, snatching the phone off the comforter. She stared down at the screen. Not Hayden. Another number she didn’t know. She hoped this wasn’t a reporter, because the two glasses of bourbon weren’t making her friendly.
“Hello?” she said into the phone. She crossed her legs and sat up straighter.
“Liz, it’s been too long,” the smooth, seductive voice said through the line.
Liz’s eyes bugged as she pressed the phone to her ear. “Clay?”
“And I thought for a minute you might not recognize me.”
“Of course I recognize you.” No chance in hell that she wasn’t going to recognize Clay Maxwell. Why was he calling her now?
“So, how have you been? Did you have a nice day?” he asked casually.
Liz narrowed her eyes. No contact for over a year and now he was acting all buddy-buddy.
“What do you want, Clay?” she asked.
“I can’t check in on an old friend?”
“You’ve never called me before.”
“Well, I am now,” he said.
“So, what do you want? I don’t assume that you’re calling me for no reason.”
“I read an article today in the newspaper about my brother. Have you seen it?” Clay asked.
Liz’s mouth went dry. “I saw it,” she said.
“But do you know what I couldn’t stop thinking about, Liz?”
“No,” she whispered.
“You. Liz Carmichael. The girl who showed up at the Fourth of July event and the gala and Hilton Head. Seemed a bit . . . convenient once I started thinking about it.”
Oh shit! Liz couldn’t breathe.
“But when I looked up the UNC registry, there wasn’t a Liz Carmichael either, and the only Liz at the UNC paper was a Liz Dougherty. Strange that you should tell me that your last name was Carmichael. Don’t you think?”
Breathe in. Breathe out.
“I never told you that was my last name,” she whispered.
“Ah. Right. The valet mentioned it at the gala . . . the event that you were at with Chris. Perhaps it’s just me, but the pieces don’t seem to fit,” Clay said. She could almost see the dimples in his smile.
“What do you want, Clay?” There had to be a catch, some kind of point to all of this. He knew. But what did he want?
“I’m not sleeping with you, Clay,” she responded immediately.
“Whoa! I never even insinuated that you would. Someone is jumping to conclusions.”
She could hear the laughter in his voice. She knew exactly what he was after. He had always been after one thing.
“I’m not stupid.”
“No, you’re not. But you also don’t have anything else to lose by coming to see me. The reporter was your boyfriend, right?”
“Ex-boyfriend,” Liz quickly corrected. She didn’t even want to think about Hayden. She just wanted to knock some sense into him.
“Exactly. So tonight?”
What the hell did she have to lose that she hadn’t already lost?
“Well, I’m going to be on Franklin Street in about twenty minutes. If you can find me, then you can see me.” She doubted that he would ever find her. There were a ton of bars on Franklin Street, and why would Clay go through that much trouble?
“Any hints?”
“I’ll be drinking,” she said before hanging up the phone.
That was it. She wasn’t going to answer her phone the rest of the night. Each call just brought more and more drama that she didn’t want to have to deal with. The only people she actually wanted to speak with hadn’t called, and she didn’t think they were going to. So she resigned herself to getting blackout drunk.
It actually took thirty minutes for Victoria and Duke Fan to get ready to go out. They started at their usual spot, which was packed with people, since it was Valentine’s Day weekend. Heavy dance beats filtered through the speakers, and groups mingled together near the bar. The bar had specialty drinks for the occasion and a giant red-and-pink heart-shaped piñata.
Liz leaned over the bar, her breasts nearly spilling out of her top as she flagged the hot bartender down.
“What’ll ya have?” he asked, eyeing her chest appreciatively.
At least someone was enjoying the view.
“Whiskey sour,” Liz told him.
“Sure thing.”
He filled a glass almost entirely with whiskey. She normally would have cringed, but tonight she didn’t care.
“What kind of candy is in the piñata?” she asked him as he added the sour.
“No candy. Condoms, suck and blows, lube, and other fun treats,” he said with a wink as he passed her drink across the bar. She went to hand him her cash and he winked at her again. “On the house.”
Liz bit her lip coyly and dropped the money into the tip jar. She must look good tonight to warrant free drinks from the bartender. “Thanks.”
“Come back and see me.”
Liz nodded and went to find Victoria.
“There you are!” Victoria cried. “Did you order? Kyle is working at the other end of the bar. I could have gotten it for free.”
“I got mine for free,” Liz said, taking a sip of the liquor.
“Look at you! You look totally fuckable tonight.”
“Are you encouraging her?” Daniel asked.
“Butt out,” Victoria snapped. “Or I’ll send you straight home.”
“You’re not my mother!”
“We can role-play later, baby,” she said, slapping him gently across the face twice.
Daniel rolled his eyes and sipped on his drink. Score one for Victoria.
“So . . . you know what they say . . . the best way to get over someone is to get under someone else,” Victoria said.
Liz tilted her head and laughed. “I don’t think that’s the expression.”
“It should be.”
“I think it’s ‘find someone else.’”
“It amounts to the same thing. And all I’m saying is that you look fuckable and you’ve never had a one-night stand. Tonight is the perfect night for a threesome!”
“Victoria!” Liz said, shaking her head. “That doesn’t even make sense.”
“Which part?”
“All of it!”
“Why not make the night memorable?” Victoria asked. “You’re trying to ruin all of my fun.”
“I just want to get wasted drunk and black out in the safety of my own house.”
Victoria shook her head and turned to survey the room. “Hmmm. No. No. Maybe. He probably has back hair though . . . so, no. No. We’ll find you one,” Victoria said. “This is the perfect night for this. It’s like a breeding ground for singles who want to get fucked, because they didn’t have a date for Valentine’s Day.”
“You are the most insensitive person I’ve met in my entire life,” Liz said, tipping her glass back and trying to quell the urge to throw it at her best friend.
“What?” Victoria asked as if she didn’t know. “Oh, Lane? I don’t consider him a human being anymore.”
Liz laughed. Sometimes Victoria was a bitch, but at least Liz wasn’t on her bad side. She couldn’t imagine what that would be like.
“Oh, oh, oh!” Victoria cried, clapping her hands. “Found him. That one walking into the bar.”
Liz’s eyes followed Victoria’s finger as she pointed out the guy across the bar. She froze in place. No fucking way. How the hell had Clay found her? There weren’t a trivial number of bars in downtown Chapel Hill. It would have taken him longer than this to search her out unless he had just gotten fucking lucky. But still she hadn’t expected him to actually come find her.
“Yep,” Liz said to Victoria. “That one.”
“Really?” Victoria shrieked.
“Yeah.”
Their eyes met across the bar. Shit! He was too fucking gorgeous. How did everyone in his family have such good genes? He was in a black suit with a white button-down underneath it undone at the neck so he looked more relaxed than stuffy. His dark blond hair was styled and as his mouth rose into a smile, she could see the dimples that she knew were there.
Liz strode deliberately across the room, dropping her drink off as she passed the bar. She didn’t stop until she was directly in front of him and she could see the blue eyes gazing mischievously back at her.
“Found you,” Clay said.
Liz shrugged. “How are you, Clay?”
“Probably better than you.” His dimples showed as his eyes crawled her body.
“Probably.” She found it hard to argue that point.
“So, this whole time you were fucking my brother,” Clay said with a shake of his head as if he should have known all along.
Liz bit back a snide retort and breathed out slowly. “Could we maybe talk about this somewhere else?” she asked, realizing just how public they were.
Clay nodded. “Yeah, let’s get out of here.”
Liz followed him out of the bar and out onto the sidewalk. He latched on to her arm and smiled at her. “You wouldn’t let me take you home before. Come with me now.”
Liz pulled her arm away from his. “I’m not like your girlfriend; you can’t just yank me around.”
Clay smirked. “No, you’re nothing like Andrea.”
“How long before you’re married anyway?” Liz asked, deflecting that statement.
“As long as I can postpone it,” he told her, walking up to the valet and handing over his ticket.
“How did you find me?” Liz could feel the alcohol from that last drink clouding her mind. “There are too many places I could have been.”
“I asked Savannah where she would go,” he said with a shrug.
Liz’s eyes widened. “Did you tell her you were coming to see me?”
“Um . . . no. Why would she care?”
She opened her mouth and then closed it. She wasn’t sure that she wanted to disclose the information about how close she and Savannah were, but it seemed too late now. “We’re friends. We work on the paper together.”
“You seem to be affiliated with
everyone in my family somehow.”
“All of you by accident.”
“Well, it’s not an accident tonight,” he said with that same smile.
A sleek black car pulled up in front of them. The valet hopped out of the car and handed Clay the keys.
Of course he has a Porsche.
“After you,” he said, holding the passenger door open for her.
Liz walked up and stood directly in front of him. “Why are you even with Andrea if you don’t want to marry her?”
“Why did you fuck my brother when you knew you had no chance together?” Clay shot back.
“Those two things aren’t even comparable,” she said with a shake of her head.
Clay smirked. “Just get in the car, Miss Carmichael.”
Whatever. It wasn’t as if she had anything better to do. Brady wasn’t an option. Hayden had fucked up royally. She was drunk and couldn’t think of a reason not to go with Clay.
“Fine,” she grumbled, looking over her shoulder to make sure no one heard him use that name.
She sat down on the plush leather interior and Clay shut the door in her face. She watched him walk around the front of the car, open the door, and take the seat next to her. Clay revved the engine and then pulled away from the bar. Liz didn’t even know where they were going, and at that moment she didn’t care. It was nice to not think for once and go along with whatever was happening.
“My roommate is probably freaking the fuck out,” she said, leaning her head back against the seat.
“Why is that?”
“Because she picked you out in the bar and told me to go home with you.”
Clay cracked up laughing. “She has good taste.”
“Usually. I’d say she was questionable on this choice.”
“You’re cute when you’re lying,” Clay said with that cocky attitude. “So, how did it all happen?”
“How did what happen?”
“You and Brady.”
Liz cringed. It was too fresh to even think about them like that. Things had gone all wrong.