Jennifer Morey - Front Page Affair

“Quite.” She wasn’t sure she liked his observations. She knew a lot of the people she read about. It was sort of like social media to her.

“Why’d you get into it anyway?”

“Jackson Ivy’s daughter...?” Her levity fell flat. The fun was over.

This was getting too close to personal pains she’d rather not stir up. If she explained why she’d made her observation and where it had come from, she’d have to tell him about her fiancé.

“The media will follow you no matter what you do,” he said. “So why not do something you love?”

What did she love? She thought awhile and nothing came to her other than her undying desire to be recognized as herself rather than Jackson Ivy’s daughter. “My brother thinks I should start a nonprofit organization that takes crime victims skydiving or other high adventures. His version of entertainment that would suit me. Dad would back me.”

“I’d get in on that,” Braden said.

She took in his profile as he typed on his laptop. Would he? Which part? The organization or her dad backing it? “I want to make it on my own. You skydive?”

Pausing in his typing, he turned his face toward her. “I love anything outdoors.”

That was different from Trevor. He’d been chained to his desk and his idea of physical exercise was taking the stairs. “Wow.”

“That surprises you?”

“It’s just...”

He angled his head, green eyes curious and prowling. “You think engineers are boring?”

“No...” He definitely wasn’t boring her right now.

“You’ve banned all engineers, is that it?” His flirtatious grin muddled her senses further.

“No...I...” She struggled with what to say. Engineers reminded her of Trevor. It didn’t matter what type of engineer, or how different they were, for some reason just the association hit a raw nerve. Except with him. Right now.

She had to stop all this focus on her. “Why are you so curious? Do you want to date me or something?”

Now he was the one speechless.

“No? Too soon after your divorce?”

“I don’t want to date you.” He was a rigid wall again.

His divorce had affected him profoundly; a man who’d loved his wife only to discover she didn’t love him back. Or was it only that? She sensed something deeper at work.

“What happened? If you don’t mind me asking...”

He averted his gaze to the front of the plane. “I wasn’t what she expected.”

Did all men answer questions so vaguely or were there only a few? The injured ones. “Did she cheat on you?”

“No. It had more to do with my title, or lack thereof.”

What was wrong with engineer?

“Her parents are rich. She has a trust fund. She’ll never have to work a day in her life. When she met me, I think in her mind she was giving me a chance. And when she realized I’d never advance to executive management, she served me and left.”

He said it so simply. All that emotional baggage wrapped up in a few sentences. Discovering his wife’s lack of caring had to have been difficult on him. How could some women be so shallow? Did they have no consideration for the men they married? They thought they loved them at one point. Of course there were always exceptions, but didn’t the past they shared mean anything? To Arizona, that was like erasing a relationship as though it had never happened. What a waste. She planned to cherish every second she was alive. There was no such thing as mistakes. Everything happened for a reason. Good or bad. The mistakes were just things that happened to correct the course of life. The catalysts of fated change.

“She wasn’t what you expected, either,” she said quietly.

They shared a long look.

“Was Trevor what you expected?”

“I think he would have been.” She stared over the top of the seat in front of her, falling into what-ifs. What if they’d gone to Paris instead of the Caribbean? What if they’d stayed in the hotel room all day? What if...

“Did he die?”

Braden’s question brought her back to him. “Yes.” Odd, how it didn’t bother her to tell him this time. “He was kidnapped in St. Thomas. His captors demanded money. My father gave it to them, but...”

“Were his killers caught?”

She shook her head, angry all over again.

“Lincoln never told me.”

“We tried very hard to keep it out of the press.” Her entire family had. For her. She wouldn’t have survived Trevor’s death otherwise. “We succeeded somewhat.”

“Private family matter?”

His meaning drove straight through her. She’d experienced what too much press could do to a person during a time of grief. Could she inflict that on Braden?

“I said we succeeded somewhat,” she said.

But could she go against his wishes? If his sister turned up dead like her fiancé, would she be able to do it?

She wouldn’t have to.

The news would leak out. One way or another. She’d been approached by reporters once Trevor’s kidnapping and murder had gotten out. The same would happen to Braden. Wouldn’t he rather it be her than a stranger?

She’d convince him he would. And not by giving in to her attraction. Getting mixed up with a man on the rebound was a risk she wasn’t willing to take. Like his ex, her parents were rich. Like his ex, Arizona didn’t have to work for a living. And if that wasn’t enough, Braden was an engineer with a six-year-old son. No way.

* * *

Braden went into the bar for a drink. It was off the only restaurant in their hotel, a historic fort remodeled in the early sixties. There was little they could do until morning when they planned to go to the police, and it was too early to go to sleep. He wouldn’t be able to sleep anyway, wondering where Tatum was and whether she was all right. Was she frightened? Hurt?

Just the thought made him curl his fist. “I’m here, Tatum,” he murmured. “I’m coming to get you.” And whoever had taken her would pay.

He just hoped Arizona wouldn’t make that harder than it already would be. And not just while he was making bad people pay. More and more he thought he’d have to keep her out of his heart, too.

“You’re ruining my perception of you as an engineer.”

He twisted to see the object of his thoughts standing behind him, holding a bottle of beer. “Mine of you is still intact.”

She humphed at his witty response and sat on the barstool next to him, a grin tugging her kissable lips. “You drink?”

“Not every day. You?”

“Not every day.” Laughter lit her stunning blue eyes, clear and light. Mysterious. “Couldn’t sleep, huh?”

“It’s early.”

“You stay up late, too?”

“Yes.”

“Don’t engineers need their sleep?”

He leaned close. “Depends on what’s keeping them awake.”

She held her forefinger up. “Stop that.”

“Breaking your stereotype?”

“I’m afraid it’s already obliterated.” She didn’t seem happy about that. And then, she did.

If she was warming to him, he wasn’t sure how he felt about that. “How long has it been since your fiancé died?”

“Four years.”

Plenty of time for her heart to heal after someone she loved died. He surveyed her flawless skin, glowing a healthy tone, free of lines. Soft. “How old were you?”

“Twenty-one.”

Did anyone know what they wanted in a spouse at that age? He sure as hell hadn’t. “Young.”

“You say that as though it was too young.”

“I was twenty-one when I first got married. Divorced a year later.”

His divorce record left her silent for a while. “Does that make this your second divorce?”

“Marriage must not be for me.”

“I can see how two divorces would make you cynical.”