Ugly Ducklings Finish First

by Gail, Stacy

  The words came out as if they were no more important to him than if they were mere observations on the weather. But Payton knew what they were.

  They were the end.

  “So that’s it?” She would have laughed, only she knew it would come out as a hysterical sob. She blinked hard at the burning in her eyes, struggling to find the magic combination of words that would make all of this right again. “I’ll admit a no-strings relationship was what I wanted in the beginning, but things have changed.”

  “Have they?”

  “Yes.” She concentrated on making her lungs work, forced the last surge of pride away and went for broke. “I love you.”

  He went absolutely still. For a long moment he didn’t even blink, as if the words had turned him to stone. Then he focused on a point past her shoulder. “No, you don’t.”

  She couldn’t believe her ears. “What?”

  “You’re a lusty woman, and I’m a horny guy. Let’s not screw it up by dragging hearts and flowers into it.”

  “How...dare you.” Rage and the awful emptiness that was grief spilled the tears at last, and it made her humiliation complete. “How dare you reduce what we shared to an animalistic coupling.”

  “That’s all it was.”

  “It wasn’t that way for me,” she nearly shouted at him, clinging to a double-edged hope that she would either reach him or that he would ruthlessly kill the love still raging within her. “I could never have let you touch me if I hadn’t felt something more than lust for you. I thought you felt the same.”

  “I wanted you like hell on fire. But considering your reaction to this whole thing, I’m almost glad I nearly got killed in a car wreck. I never had you pegged for a Fatal Attraction freak-out, but obviously I was wrong.”

  “Oh I’m sorry, is this uncomfortable for you?” The last vestige of control snapped under the weight of his contempt-edged calm, and all she wanted to do was die. “You probably don’t want anything as messy as a big scene, but that’s exactly what you’re going to get. It’s the least you deserve.”

  “Payton—”

  “No.” Violently she shook her head as the anguish of loss pummeled her until she felt shattered all the way to her soul. “You are the one who pursued me. You made me want you. You made me love you. You’re going to take your full share of responsibility in this.”

  “I didn’t want—”

  “Didn’t want? But of course you did, Wiley. That’s what you do. That’s all you’ve ever done. God.” She laughed, and its jagged edges scraped her throat raw. “You know what’s really pathetic? I knew this would happen. That’s why I fought you for so long. Heaven knows I saw how you operated in the past, sliding in and out of relationships as if they meant nothing to you. And they don’t. You’re the Coyote. What a fool I was to let myself believe you’d changed.”

  The only movement in his bruised face was the muscle jumping in his jaw. “It wasn’t my intention to hurt you.”

  “Of course not.” The agreement sounded as bitter as it tasted, while the soothing words poured salt into wounds she knew would never heal. “You never intend anything—you just want. A selfish, greedy wanting, and once it’s satisfied you walk away without a backward glance.”

  “You enjoyed yourself while it lasted.”

  “But now it’s over. Considering how it ended, it wasn’t worth it.” Blinded by tears she turned for the door, wanting only to get as far away from him as she could. But not even Pluto was far enough to get away from the bleak, razor-edged pain. “Send my things to my mother or, failing that, throw it all away. After all, it was only a week’s worth of clothing.”

  “Payton.”

  She stopped in the doorway, a feeble hope stirring in the ashes of her butchered heart. “What?”

  “I’m sorry.”

  The hope died. Everything died. Her stupid body just didn’t seem to know it yet. “Make sure you follow your doctor’s orders,” she intoned, and headed out the door.

  * * *

  Jaw knotted, Wiley watched the hospital door close behind Payton while his pulse throbbed in his foot and head. The faintest trace of her rose-scented perfume still hung in the air, but it would fade in time. Like her, it would soon be gone.

  Gone. Payton was really out of his life.

  What a relief.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Payton wasn’t sure how she wound up at her mother’s place, when she’d had every intention of running back to Houston like a whipped puppy with her tail between her legs. The only solid memory that plagued her was of Wiley shattering her fluffy little dream world by stabbing a butcher knife through her heart, leaving her to bleed out while he strolled off without a care in the world.

  If he hadn’t been lying in a hospital bed, she might have tried to kill him with her bare hands.

  No, she thought grimly. She should be thankful he woke her up to the reality that he hadn’t changed from the oversexed brat he’d been as a kid. Maybe someday—when the need to curl into a ball of raw agony faded—she’d realize that. But for now it was all she could do to stop herself from imagining how satisfying it would be to take something shiny and sharp to all his delicate man parts.

  Not exactly the healthiest of reactions.

  Seeing Deborah destroyed the already iffy internal dam Payton had built to hold the devastation back. She cried like she’d never cried before, as if her body was determined to shed every tear she had ever been allotted in a lifetime, and the bitter anguish behind them burned her like acid. From a clinical standpoint, she was happy to flush stress-related toxins out of her system via tears, but it was her emotional side that needed to grieve.

  And to rage.

  The hell of it was, she’d known this would happen. Wiley Sharpe was the ultimate skirt chaser, forever on the prowl and determined to get any female with a pulse into his bed. But she’d been so wretched in her need for him that she’d forgotten there was no way he could be anything else. He was no Prince Charming. He wasn’t even a frog.

  He was the Coyote.

  And the ultimate kick in the teeth wasn’t even all the bald-faced lies he’d dished out about what a changed man he was. It was the fact that she had fallen for it. The one thing that had always set her apart from all the other women was that she’d believed she was too smart to fall for his suave lines. But she was more stupid than any of those poor saps. She was the pathetic loser who’d fallen in love with him.

  Stupid. Stupid. Stupid.

  The seemingly never-ending storm of tears finally let up as the clock pushed its way toward midnight, leaving her a hollowed-out shell and her mother determined to keep her overnight. Which was just as well; she had nowhere to go now that Wiley had kicked her to the curb.

  Except back to Houston.

  A shudder ripped through her, as devastating as any earthquake. Somewhere along the way she’d become accustomed to the idea of making Bitterthorn her home once more. She had family here, she was needed...and it was where Wiley lived. The idea of heading back to Houston had faded so much into the background she’d almost forgotten what it looked like. But now it was back in the forefront, a vibrant, sprawling city where millions of people lived...and not one of them was Wiley.

  The four-hour drive appealed about as much as having root canal without anesthesia, so Payton put it off by heading to her old bedroom after wishing her mother good night. The one thing she knew she shouldn’t do was make a life-altering decision while suffering through the aftermath of the emotional bomb Wiley detonated all over her. Of course she knew she’d have to return to Houston eventually no matter what; falling in love with the most incompatible man on earth didn’t change that she was still under contract. And it helped soothe her wounds that at least she didn’t look like she was running from Bitterthorn like she had something to be ashamed of.<
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  But in the silence of her old bedroom—and her imagination stubbornly insisting there was still the faintest hint of roses in the air—the lifeless silence of being alone pushed down on her like a smothering blanket. Her back was cold without the heat of Wiley’s chest pressed against it, and she felt naked without his arms holding her. It had always amazed her how well they fit together. They were like two pieces to a puzzle that made no sense on their own, but put together they made all the sense in the world. If she could just touch him again so he would remember how much they belonged together...

  Payton was out of bed and dressed before she realized what she was doing, and it made her inexhaustible supply of tears threaten again. Wiley hadn’t been that far off in accusing her of having a stalker-like freak-out after all, she realized in a soul-crushing rush. Who knew she could be so pitiful?

  No more, she decided with a pained growl. This madness stopped here. No amount of pathetic begging on her part would tame him. The sooner she faced that—and removed every possible temptation she possessed in going back to him—the sooner she could put this unending anguish behind her. So what if it looked like she was running away? She didn’t care. She didn’t care about anything, especially Wiley Sharpe.

  Yeah, right.

  With coldly precise movements, Payton grabbed up her purse and dug out both the house key Wiley had given her and her smartphone. Certain he was now at home in his own bed and no doubt so dosed with painkillers that a buzzing phone wouldn’t disturb him, she opened up the touchpad and began to text.

  Dropping your house key in your office mailbox now.

  There. Short and sweet. Not stalker-like. Not bitter. Not weepy and clingy and begging him to give her another chance. Not that she was too proud to beg—she wasn’t. She just knew it wouldn’t do any good.

  When Wiley was done with a woman, he was done.

  She was in the process of hunting down an envelope for the key when her text chime sounded. With a wild flare of pathetic hope, she nearly killed herself tripping over a throw rug to get to her phone. But all too soon a shudder of bitter agony racked her as another knife stabbed into her heart when she read the words.

  Don’t bother. Just leave Bitterthorn now.

  A hot tear slid down her cheek to spatter on the phone’s screen. Furiously she wiped it away before erasing the message, then went a step further and erased Wiley’s number from the phone’s memory. If she needed any more proof that they were done, that was it. It was over. Irrevocably over.

  Grim-faced, her eyes now dried by the heat of ballooning anger, Payton dug up an envelope from her mother’s desk and dropped the key inside. The sooner she eradicated every sign that Wiley had been in her life, the better. Once she dropped off his key, all temptation to try and return the item personally—if only to see him again—would be gone forever.

  If it took every ounce of strength she had, she’d erase Wiley from her life.

  The streets drowsed in a stillness that existed only in the wee hours of morning as Payton drove toward the center of town. Her text chime sounded again, and once safely stopped at a deserted intersection, she broke every texting law on the books by glancing at the screen.

  Have you left for Houston yet? Answer this.

  “Screw you sideways, you conscienceless prick.” Dangerous fury growled up through the layers of shattered grief until her insides were a howling mess. So the big, bad Coyote wanted to make sure he had run her out of town, did he? Too bad he wasn’t going to get his way on this one. He’d gotten his way with her time and again, but he sure as hell wasn’t the master of her. As of now, Wiley was nothing to her. Nothing.

  If only that were true, you liar.

  The chime went off again as she drove past the darkened town square, and when she came to a halt at a stop sign just in front of Thorne Mansion, she couldn’t stop herself from glancing at it.

  Payton, text me NOW.

  “Why, so you can make an even bigger fool of me? No, thanks.” She reached over to wipe the screen when it lit up with another text chime.

  This is an emergency! Answer this text by letting me know where you are!!!

  She was in the process of erasing it when her phone rang and the familiar number flashed on the screen. Without hesitation she turned it off and threw it in her purse, then jerked the car into the mansion’s parking lot with a dangerous rev of the engine. Damn him, was he actually trying to pose as the caring guy post-breakup? Was that how he managed to live with his conscience after decimating countless hearts with his love-’em-and-leave-’em lifestyle? No wonder so many of the women he’d fooled into trusting him still saw him as a sweet little cuddle bunny of a guy. But she wasn’t going to fall for any of his pseudo-caring acts a second time. Obviously she was stupid to have fallen for it in the first place. But by God, she wasn’t that stupid.

  A late-model Caddy with gold trim was the only car in the lot, parked at the far end as she came to a halt near the massive wooden doors at the mansion’s impressive front entrance. The scent of gasoline wafted to her as she slid out of the car, only to curse her idiocy at having to go back into her purse to dig out the envelope, the sole reason she was there to begin with. Her stupidity was spreading, she thought, gritting her teeth in helpless grief and fury as she at last surfaced with the house key. But she had no one to blame but herself for that. And Wiley. Definitely she could blame Wiley.

  Swearing under her breath, she stalked toward the door.

  * * *

  “Faster.”

  “We’re almost there.”

  Wiley swore and punched the dashboard of Donovan’s SUV. “Don’t go the frigging speed limit like some Sunday-driving granny, floor it!”

  “You may not have anything to live for, but I’ve got a wife and kids who happen to love me. I’m not going to kill us both by breaking overland speed records just because you want to make sure your now-ex-girlfriend leaves Bitterthorn.” Donovan gripped the steering wheel until the leather creaked. “She’s probably not even there, Wiley.”

  “You don’t know Payton,” came the grim reply. “Once she decides on something, that’s it, it’s set in stone. If she says she’s going to go by my office, that’s where she’ll be.”

  “Okay, fine. But there’s no proof anything bad is going to happen just because she’s decided to drop something off at your office.”

  “Donovan, how much more proof do you need that everything in my life is under fire? My home, my car...everything that’s intimately tied to me has been destroyed in one way or another. That’s why I don’t want Payton going to my office. I just want her to go. Now.”

  Donovan’s sigh held a world of thinning patience. “News flash, dude—racing off to confront her at your office is only going to delay her leaving.”

  “Who says I want to confront her? She doesn’t even have to know we’re there. I just need to watch over her and make sure she gets out of town all right. And maybe follow her back to Houston, just to make sure she gets there safely.”

  Wiley didn’t appreciate the look of abject horror his friend shot him. “Are you out of your fucking mind? I’m not going to follow your ex all the way to Houston in the middle of the night!”

  “Stop calling Payton my ex.”

  “Wiley, you’re losing it, man.” Donovan’s tone was grim as he slowed for a turn. “You do realize that, right? Tell me you’re not that far gone.”

  “Until she texted me, I was stupid enough to assume she was already gone,” Wiley said, barely hearing his friend. “Why does she never do what I expect her to do? Any other woman would be getting as far away from me as possible, but not Payton. Oh, no. She has to prove she’s totally unaffected by our breakup.” Then it hit him. “Oh, God. What if she’s totally unaffected by our breakup?”

  “That’s it. I’m driving you to the nearest hospital to have
you committed. It’s for your own good.”

  “Very funny.”

  “Who says I’m joking?”

  Wiley didn’t bother answering, focusing instead on dialing Payton’s phone once more. When it switched over immediately to voicemail he swore with a vengeance and pounded his fist on his knee, which jarred brand-new pain into his already throbbing leg and foot. But seriously, what kind of doctor was she, turning off her phone like that?

  A pissed-off one, came the instant response as he searched through the dark for the familiar lines of the Italianate ramparts of Thorne Mansion. But Payton being pissed off at him was fine. Expected, even. It didn’t matter in the grand scheme of things. What mattered was that he made sure she was out of Bitterthorn and away from him.

  He didn’t give a damn if Donovan thought he was overreacting. And he sure as hell didn’t feel bad about dragging best friend off the couch where he’d been determined to stay during Wiley’s first night out of the hospital. If everything eventually shook out as being nothing more than a false alarm, then Wiley would be the first to cop to being a drama diva. Hell, he hoped that was all this trip would amount to be. But the days of ignoring signs of trouble were long gone. It had taken a brush with death to open his eyes, and now that he had, all he could see was devastation and chaos.

  That sort of vision of the world would make anyone act like a lunatic.

  You’d better be gone, Payton. I swear, I’ll kill you myself if you’re not.

  “There it is.” Donovan’s calm voice broke through his thoughts as the engine roared. “Thorne Mansion, straight ahead. See? Just like I told you, you fucking psycho. Everything’s fine.”

  “Good.” Relief rippled through him like a tangible thing, and he tucked his phone into his pocket with a pained grunt. But as they approached, his gaze sharpened. “Wait. Is that her car?”