Page 26 of The Southern Thirst Trap

I stay silent while I move to my chair behind my desk, grasping for the smallest piece of control I can muster, even if it’s just the act of being at my desk and in a position that normally makes me feel powerful.

Payton closes the door and leans back against it, the tablet lit in his hand while he scrolls. “Gossip site or not, the Atlanta Haute List had correct information about the flight manifest when we know she accompanied you to the Maldives. So why don’t we know about this mistake?”

“I don’t make mistakes,” I growl, my head lowering slightly, ready for the challenge these assholes are no doubt going to throw at me. The question sends me right back to the last conversation I had with Harlowe. She said it was a mistake to get mixed up with me, and it fucking hurt. If we did create a child from that trip, he’s no mistake. I don’t care if it wasn’t the intention or something I ever considered. If he’s my child, my son, he will never be a mistake.

“You made a mistake by not following up with one of your longest-running…” Payton pauses, glancing up quickly while searching for the right word to call my trip with Harlowe, “hookups, I guess. You just did your typical Zander move and cut off all contact with her and had absolutely no idea you may have had a bigger souvenir from that trip to paradise than a killer tan and a wet dick.”

“Oh, give him a break, Pay, the man doesn’t do repeats. He just uses a woman for a day or a weekend, and we clean up the mess if they want to stay longer. How many times have you or I shown up at his penthouse, NDA in hand, to find a disgruntled date that didn’t want to leave despite Zander’s clear instructions?” Hayes says far too casually to match the hard set of his face.

“True, we’ve had our share of chasing off the clingers who didn’t get that Zand wouldn’t want to sleep with them again after their value, as something to conquer had been diminished when they opened their legs to him.” Payton strolls away from the door and settles his long frame into a chair across from my desk. “The biggest surprise here may be that he spent more than one night with a single woman, not that he may have a kid because of it.”

I could crack a tooth with the ferocity of my jaw clenching. They’re not wrong, but it feels far more irritating to hear them discuss my motivations and hookup history with such bluntness. It’s beginning to sound like I may have fucked up.

“What pisses me off the most is his fucking conquer the mountain mentality that sent him careening after his next conquest after creating a major liability. What do we know about the woman? She’s a former supermodel and she’s making a name for herself with a cookbook and YouTube channel, but is she going to shake him down? How much money is she going to want, and why hasn’t she made her appearance before now, looking for it? She didn’t sign an NDA, so what’s she waiting for?” Hayes asks Payton, deliberately ignoring me.

“Shut the fuck up, both of you. She refuses to even say if this is my kid. There’s no way.” The slight catch to my voice at the end of the sentence gives away my lack of confidence in the words. I cross my arms and lean back in the chair, creating some distance from their accusations.

“There’s no way, or there’s a chance and you’re just an idiot for being sloppy?” Hayes probes, leaning his big arms on his knees and peering at me with an intensity that I want to punch away.

“Did you raw dog her the whole trip, or did a condom break? Did you forget, even once, to wrap it up? What are the chances here? Give us the truth because we need to know if there is even the slightest possibility you may have a child, whether or not you know about it,” Payton says, mirroring Hayes in his position and making me want to fly out of my chair under their scrutiny. “We need the information if we’re going to get ahead of this and help you figure it out.”

The softening of his voice is what finally buckles me, and I blow out a breath I didn’t realize I was holding and drop my arms to the desk. “It was only once, and I didn't think anything of it. I don't forget things like that. It’s second nature to grab a condom, but we were in the shower and it just progressed faster than either of us realized. It was just the one time.”

Harlowe’s sun-kissed caramel skin had been glowing from our afternoon under the tropical sun, the scent of her coconut sunscreen thick in the shower enclosure when she stepped in after me. Her body had molded against mine, her long, burnished brown sea salt waves falling down her back as the water washed over us both. She’d said she missed me, and I knew I would never be the same because I had missed her too. I slipped into her wet heat bare and made love to a woman for the first time in my life, knowing it would change me forever. When we both came, I looked into her eyes and lost myself to her completely. It was a dangerous game we both ended up losing, in the end.

“Zander, this is serious,” Hayes says, his voice bringing me back to the present.

The pungent fragrance of plumeria and coconuts is such a visceral memory, it feels like a punch to the face when my eyes refocus in my office. I also realize I’ve become uncomfortably hard, my cock straining in my pants under the desk. Fucking hell. From a single memory, Harlowe has me this twisted up. She will be the death of me, if not my brothers, at this point.

“I’m quite aware of the seriousness of the situation. I haven’t spoken to her in years. Until,” I pause, remembering her face and the small changes to her physique that only enhanced her allure when I saw her weeks ago on the side of the highway, and then the feel of her against me when I stopped by her house that week. “Javi rear-ended her in traffic a couple of weeks ago. It was a total coincidence and the first time I’ve seen her since the Maldives trip, and she didn’t say anything about a kid to me.” I don’t mention my late-night visit.

Payton drops his tablet into his lap and palms his face with an exasperated sigh. “Did you talk about anything else besides the fender-bender that day? Did you happen to think maybe it’s no coincidence this story has leaked and they are making connections after so many years? She could have leaked it herself as a way to put pressure on you.”

“Or the Atlanta Haute List is just another stupid gossip blog intent on coming up with the juiciest clickbait story, regardless of the facts,” I retort, anger deepening my voice as my hands grip the desk until my knuckles whiten.

“Gossip or not, they got access to our flight manifests and were able to link you two from the right time period. That takes an insider here and some searching. I don’t like what that implies about our employees and how easily our private information is getting out,” Hayes says, his anger rising to meet mine.

He’s always been incredibly private and comes down hard on anyone who steps out of line and shares company or personal information. He had his own struggles with the Atlanta Haute List when he met his now-wife, Paige. They were hounded from the beginning, every public step they took ended up on the Haute List, all the on-and-off portions of their relationship splashed on the internet, and several employees were let go in the process. It doesn't surprise me in the least that his main concern is privacy and potential company leaks.

“Fuck!” I exclaim, my hands shooting out and stopping my brothers from continuing in this vein. “It doesn't matter how it got out. I don't know if the kid is mine, and Harlowe isn’t telling me anything about him. She’s the only one who can confirm who the father is, and she wants nothing to do with me.”

“We can have a paternity test subpoenaed from her,” Payton offers gently.

I shoot daggers his way and wish I could toss him out the window. “For fuck’s sake, you don’t know her like I do. Sending a team of lawyers after her is just going to raise her defenses and make her howl her rage to anyone who will listen. That’s a lot of ears right now that she has a new cookbook out and is appearing on local and national news segments and morning shows, and has stories splashed across the internet.” It’s stupid to admit I have been digging into Harlowe since she crashed back into my life, but it’s the truth and may help us out. “We don't need to demand a paternity test if she’s not even asking for the connection. We would have heard from her by now if she was trying to get into my bank account. Leave her the fuck alone,” I growl, surprised by the intensity of my rage as I stare my older brothers down. I don't want them harassing Harlowe. Or going anywhere near her.

Payton steeples his hands in front of his face, his blue eyes blazing with an intensity that can only mean he’s scheming. “Or we can turn this around in our favor. The public loves a good romance. They love seeing a bad boy reform for the right woman. Both would do wonders at taking the heat off Olympus while we clean up the cyber attack mess and the Pegasus issue.”

My throat constricts and my mouth goes dry.No.

“Are you seriously suggesting what I think you are, Pay?” Hayes asks, squeezing his temples between a thumb and forefinger. “There’s no fucking way he would do it.”

“Think of the headlines,” Payton says, holding his hands out in front of him to highlight an invisible marquee. “Fuckboy billionaire breaks with one-night-stand tradition to become a family man. It would push public perception up faster than our stocks dipped in the first few weeks after the cyber attack. It would take the heat off the company at large, and you know we need that. It’s taking forever for our stock prices to come back up after we sent the all-clear that our data was safe outside of the Pegasus project.”

“This is ludicrous. You can’t force me to claim a child that I have no proof is even mine and force a relationship with a woman I haven't spoken to in five years just for public perception.” My heart is beating wildly against my ribs at the very prospect. That’s far more than attachment. It’s life-changing.

“You want to play at being CEO, but you balk at the prospect of putting your reputation as a sex-crazed fuckboy on the backburner when it’s what could save the company.” Hayes scoffs and shakes his head. “All you would be doing is making a show of the attempt at reconnecting with Harlowe and the kid. We’re not asking you to fuck her out of pity. We know you wouldn’t do that since she has no value to you, being a conquest well in your past,” he says, both challenging and poking fun at me.

“Olympus needs you to man the fuck up and take some goddamn responsibility for once in your personal life. You made the choice to fuck without a condom and this is the consequence, just coming at you a delayed five years later. Our company’s reputation is still at rock-bottom and you figuring out your role as a parent would show your ability to take responsibility for your actions, and a softer side of the company leadership.” Payton leans back in his chair, confident in his ability to push me into a corner there’s no fighting my way out of.

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