Bad Reputation Page 12

  She had a dangerously good feeling about tonight.

  15

  Newspaper lined the windows of the Mercer Street address Connor directed Peyton to. The SoHo sidewalk teemed with tourists but no one so much as glanced at the building, the shuttered ghost of a once-iconic tavern. From the outside, the place looked completely empty.

  With a little smile, Peyton silently commended Connor. It was certainly the perfect spot for a paparazzi favorite to hide out, and it was home to the kind of boyish hobby she didn’t expect Connor Schaffer to partake in. Renovating an old bar with his bare hands? She would’ve assumed that he’d hire someone to do the dirty work and then reap the benefits of owning a hotspot by making nightly appearances to pick up girls.

  But maybe, like Connor suggested, her assumptions were all wrong.

  As instructed via text, Peyton slipped through a side door, walking down a narrow corridor and getting closer to what sounded like the whirring of a saw against wood. Mm baby. She bit her lip back, her feet quickening as she anticipated the sight of Connor’s flexing biceps while using heavy power tools.

  Upon pushing through the heavy black door at the end of the hall, she finally found herself finally inside the tavern – a cozy, mid-sized room clearly under renovation. There was no furniture – just naked walls, a beautiful bar and piles upon piles of unfinished wood. The only light that came into the unlit space was from an uncovered window, which faced the cement wall of the adjacent building. On the wall, through the window, Peyton could see the words Mother Brigid written in tall, thin cursive.

  Just as she finished surveying the space, the drilling noise stopped, and rising to his feet from behind the bar was Connor.

  Staring, Peyton’s jaw dropped like a brick.

  Dear God, sweet baby Jesus.

  He looked like he’d just spent a full day cutting lumber and building a log cabin in the woods. His white T-shirt was covered in soot and his tanned skin gleamed with a thin layer of sweat. He didn’t spot her as he grabbed his beer from the counter top, raking a hand through his messy hair and slicking it back with his own sweat. Chewing the corner of her lip, Peyton leaned against the doorframe, grinning as she waited for him to notice her.

  It was evident the moment he did because he froze.

  And stared.

  Fucking hell. In the midst of swigging his beer, Connor stopped, unblinking as he set the bottle down with a sharp thunk on the bar. Unblinking, he ran his hand down to his mouth, tugging on his bottom lip as he took in the sight of Peyton in a white mini-dress that hugged her every dip and curve so tight he was almost jealous of it.

  “Christ. Are you trying to kill me tonight?” he laughed, shaking his head. His mouth opened and closed a few times only to come up with a non-sentence. “I… damn. I got nothing,” he muttered, too taken to be annoyed at himself for his uncharacteristic loss of words. Pressing the end of his fist to his mouth, he tried to muffle his physical need to groan.

  “Hey you,” Peyton smiled, sounding a little bit nervous. After a second of silence, she cocked her head. “Are you going to come say hi or are you making me walk all the way over to where you are?” she asked teasingly. Connor cleared his throat.

  “I’m a little too hard to walk right now.”

  She rolled her eyes despite her sheepish grin. “Try to,” she said wryly.

  “Fine.”

  Rounding the bar, Connor made his way over to Peyton. It felt as if she were roping him in, some force pulling him slowly toward her until they were toe-to-toe, already breathing shallow from the heat that thickened the air. Shaking his head, Connor touched her waist, aroused the second his fingers brushed against her body.

  “You look so fucking good right now,” he breathed.

  “Thank you,” she murmured, touching his chest as she eyed the damp front of his shirt. “Hard day at work?”

  “Been trying to pick up my slack since Liam tore this whole place apart on his own,” Connor explained, running his hands down the curve of her hips. “But I keep losing track of time. I thought I’d have time to clean up a little before you got here.”

  “It’s okay. I kind of like you like this.”

  Connor lifted his gaze from Peyton’s chest to her mischievous gaze. “Don’t do this to me,” he laughed. “I told myself I wasn’t going to rip your clothes off the second I saw you.”

  Peyton blushed and wet her lips. “Fair enough. What would you like to do then?”

  “I thought we’d have dinner.”

  “In public?”

  “Not if you don’t want to. I have backup options in case you don’t,” he said with a grin. When she smiled sheepishly, he nodded. “Right. We’ll stay here,” he decided. “There’s a room in the back that we haven’t taken apart yet. Come on, I’ll show you.”

  The back room was upstairs and apparently once a private dining area for the old tavern’s VIP guests, which often included Connor and his friend, Liam. It was a cozy, brick-lined space with a full kitchen, a rectangular candle chandelier and a massive, arched window that stretched from end to end of one wall. Between the window and the kitchen was a round table at which Connor sat Peyton. Grabbing a bottle of red from the wall’s built-in wine rack, he poured her a glass. As she sipped, she watched him open the glass fridge and toss several ingredients onto the counter.

  “Connor Schaffer cooks?” Peyton cocked an eyebrow, trying to mask her amazement. He answered her with a crooked grin while unwrapping the steaks and vegetables he’d unloaded from the fridge.

  “One of several things you don’t know about me.”

  “Mm,” Peyton nodded, letting the rich wine coat her lips and her tongue. “What else don’t I know about you then?”

  Connor laughed as he grabbed seasoning from the rack. “What do you know about me? I’m a writer and I’ve dated more women than you find natural. That’s about the extent of it, am I right?”

  I guess. And that you can make a girl scream without even using your famous dick, Peyton thought, chewing the corner of her lip. Apparently, the dirty look on her face was obvious because Connor gave that low, sexy chuckle of his.

  “Okay, you know a couple other things, I’ll give you that,” he conceded with a laugh before turning around to heat up a skillet. “But that’s just scratching the surface.”

  “Really. Then why don’t you go ahead and tell me everything that there is to know about you?”

  “I’ve always made a point to show rather than tell.”

  Peyton grinned, detecting something oddly sexual about the way he said that. “Fair enough.”

  “But since you’re not the writer here, you should go ahead and tell me something while I cook you dinner.”

  Peyton smiled. “What do you want me to tell?”

  “I want to hear the real story behind the sunflowers.”

  Oh.

  Peyton blinked, surprised by his immediate answer. It made her think that he’d spent at least a few moments in the last few days wondering about the story. She was quiet for a moment, letting the room fill with the sound of steaks sizzling loudly on the skillet. “I already told you about the sunflowers.”

  “You didn’t finish the story.”

  Peyton swallowed and looked down into her lap, knowing well that there was no fooling Connor. He wasn’t Kensie or anyone else in her life. He was blunt and honest, and he had an annoying way of reading through her without even trying.

  “Fine,” Peyton nodded, trying to sound unfazed. She tucked a lock of wavy hair behind her ear. “So, my mom was – probably still is a very opportunistic woman. And after that trip to Italy, she got an idea from my flu and used it as a jumping off point for… a pretty heinous lie.”

  Looking up, she saw Connor leaning back against the counter, brows knit as he waited for the rest of her story. Peyton stared back into her wine glass, trying to ignore the butterflies in her stomach.

  “She, um, pretended that I actually had something much worse. Something that she’d been
keeping a painful secret for a long time. She ended up telling Russell and my aunt that after Tuscany, she found out from the doctor that things were worse than we thought,” she said, her pulse picking up as she recounted the absolute shame of their lie. “She told them that I was sick. Cancer sick. And since we didn’t have insurance, she had them pay for my medical bills. Hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of medical bills that didn’t actually exist. Plus a whole lot of other expenses since she was ‘too busy’ caring for me to work.”

  The surprise that registered in Connor’s eyes made Peyton’s stomach twist with embarrassment.

  “Russell didn’t ask for copies of the bills?”

  “He did,” Peyton answered, swallowing the sudden knot in her throat. “But Bree’s my mom’s little sister and she trusted my mom, whether or not she produced any copies or doctor’s letters or whatever it was. I mean trust me, he was suspicious from the jump. In fact, half of that money was taken by my aunt without Russell even knowing, because he didn’t trust my mom. She’d never given him a reason to,” Peyton said, a chill running up her spine as she closed her eyes.

  Crap. She felt a long lost darkness returning, dragging her heavy heart down to her stomach. Mortified. She had been a kid but to this day, she was still fucking mortified by everything that happened.

  “I still remember…” Peyton winced as the memories rushed back in vivid color. “I still remember him taking me aside one Thanksgiving and grilling me about my symptoms. About my treatments. I was eleven and I had answers memorized from a script that my mom literally wrote for me to keep our story straight. I actually helped her with this lie. Whatever she said to do I thought was okay because she was my mother, and weren’t mothers supposed to be unquestionable role models?” Peyton asked with a bitter laugh. “I didn’t think moms could be bad or make mistakes,” she muttered, blinking back angry tears before they could spill and further humiliate her.

  Taking a breath, Peyton thanked God that Connor faced away for a moment to put the skillet in the oven, giving her time to wipe a rogue tear with her pinky. She didn’t even care if he did it on purpose to give her a moment of space. When he turned back around, there was a gentle look in his eye.

  “You were a kid, Peyton,” he said, pouring himself a glass of wine and joining her at the table. He took the seat next to her and shook his head with a little laugh. “Man, when you’re a kid, your mom’s a goddess. It’s not your fault you went with her. There was no way for you to know what else to do at the time.”

  Peyton bit back her trembling lip. “My uncle divorced my aunt for stealing money from him. And then she figured out that my sickness was all a sham, and she never spoke to my mom again. Rarely even speaks to me,” she said softly. “And for the four years after that blowup, my mom moved us around the country, trying to find someone else to leech off of. When she realized she couldn’t, and it probably wasn’t right to make her teenaged daughter crash on a stranger’s couch, she made a call and sent me on a train to New York. That was probably the one and only good thing she ever did for me as a mom,” Peyton acknowledged, running her fingertip around the rim of her glass until it made a high-pitched ringing sound. She smarted. “Except of course, she stuck me in a house with a man resented me for stealing his money and ending his marriage, so there’s also that. I honestly don’t know how Russell ever forgave me.”

  Connor’s jaw was tight as he shook his head. “Peyton. Your uncle isn’t exactly known as the nicest guy in Hollywood but he’s known as one of the smartest, so I’m sure he’s aware of the fact that you had no real part in what happened. Your mom took advantage of your trust. Russell knows that. And he knows you’re a good person. You’ve taken care of his daughter for as long as you’ve lived with her, so I don’t think there’s any denying the kind of heart you have.”

  Letting go of a breath, Peyton let Connor’s words sink in. They were sweet, warm and they felt so damned good until she remembered what she’d let happen to Kensie at the beginning of the summer. “Well. I took good care of Kensie until I saw Blake cheating on her and decided not to tell her about it,” she murmured, staring at the floor. She looked up at Connor, bracing herself for a judgmental look that didn’t come.

  “You know you were trying to protect her, Peyton. Everyone would question themselves in that situation, especially if it came to a girl as fragile as Kensie,” he said, his hand suddenly cradling hers. “It might not have been the right decision but it wasn’t wrong either. There are such things as grey areas in life. You can’t hold every one against yourself.”

  Peyton nodded, trying to agree with him. “Yeah,” she said, hoping to just end the conversation. She didn’t feel like going into the rest of it. Not even Hailey knew the full details about what happened with Blake. As much as she wanted to get the load off her chest, Peyton felt way too much shame. She figured it was better for her to just bottle it and try to move on. Taking in a deep, unsteady breath, Peyton managed a weak smile and shrug before taking a long drink to relax herself.

  But Connor’s laugh sent her right back to the edge. With narrowed eyes, she shot him a look. “What?” she demanded.

  “That doesn’t work on me,” he said plainly.

  “What doesn’t work on you?”

  “That dismissive I’m-fine, let’s-move-on thing that you probably do to Kensie. I’m not stupid, I don’t fall for that shit.”

  “Don’t call Kensie stupid.”

  “Don’t deflect from my point. I’ve got two gorgeous sirloins finishing in the oven right now and I made them with love, so I’m not about to let you hold onto some deep, dark guilt and ruin the first dinner I’ve ever cooked for a woman who wasn’t my mother,” he said with a grin. “Get all the shit off your chest now so I have a shot at seeing you actually laugh tonight. Unless you insist on letting Kensie fuck up your night from three thousand miles across the ocean.”

  Staring for a second, Peyton finally let herself laugh with disbelief. “You do have a way with words.”

  “I would hope so.”

  “Right,” Peyton smirked. She heaved a sigh. “About the cheating thing… when I caught Blake with the other girl, he basically broke down and told me that it was the biggest mistake of his life. It was a one-time thing and he’d never do it again and please, please, don’t tell Kensie because it would only break her heart, which I knew was true. So I tried to forget what I saw because I knew that Blake loved her. But then weeks later, it almost happened again and he called me to talk him out of it. I fixed things but I said that if he did it again I wouldn’t have a choice anymore. I’d have to tell Kensie. He said he wouldn’t and he thanked me for helping him and…” Peyton trailed off, feeling her nose wrinkle as she recalled the rest. “I think… in some twisted way, I somehow wound up somehow filling his need to cheat. When he wanted to hook up with some girl, he’d call me. And the way he talked, the things he talked about – they made me feel completely dirty but I felt like I had to stay on the phone or he’d wind up going out and hurting Kensie. But then the calls started to get too regular, too late. Way too sexual. He kept steering the conversation into these really uncomfortable places and I knew he was enjoying it.”

  Connor’s lip curled with disgust. “He was getting off on it.”

  Peyton felt her skin prickle. “Yes. Literally.” She had never told Hailey about that part – about unwittingly becoming Blake Rittenhouse’s personal phone sex operator. It was a thought that still made her feel as if she needed a scalding hot shower. “So I stopped picking up when he called and he freaked out. He texted, he left voicemails, he told me he was going to cheat on Kensie if I didn’t agree to talk to him. And then finally, the doorman let him in one night even though Kensie wasn’t home. I didn’t want to let him in but he apologized, said he knew he was doing something wrong, that all of it – everything was going to stop.” Peyton paused, feeling momentarily nauseous. “And the second I believed him he put my hand on his dick.”

  “Christ,” Conn
or growled straightaway. He cursed against his hand as he dragged it across his jaw. “I should’ve fuckin’ broken his arms the night he – ”

  “I punched him,” Peyton blurted, hoping to calm him down. A nervous laugh bubbled from her lips. “I hit him in the nose and I broke it.” She covered her mouth with her hands to stifle what she realized was delight. Eyes wide, Connor processed the information. Then he burst out laughing.

  “Fuck. You’re amazing.”

  Peyton gave a little grin but it quickly faded. “I got him out of my apartment, I cleaned his blood off of our rug and then I called Kensie to come home because I had to tell her something before Blake could give her his bullshit, manipulative version of the story.”

  “Good. Then what?”

  “She disappeared the next morning and we couldn’t find her for twenty-three days.”

  “Fuck, right. I heard about that.”

  Peyton nodded. Kensie’s disappearance hadn’t been leaked to mainstream media, thank God, but there were a few groups within the industry that found out because Russell and Bree had gone around pleading for information. They had none and for several days, there was no contact. But shortly after Russell filed a police report, Kensie emailed Peyton saying that she was safe but “needed time.” And though it was good to know that she was alive, it was hardly comforting to hear her describe her situation as “safe.” Kensie’s idea of “safe” had never been accurate before, and Peyton had no reason to believe that it was now that she’d found out her longtime boyfriend had cheated on her and made a move on her cousin.

  So for those three weeks, everybody was on edge and Peyton endured Russell’s daily nagging and berating. It only stopped when Kensie finally came home on her own, having apparently taken a friend’s jet to the Corn Islands of Nicaragua. There, she had meditated, gotten a tattoo of a bird and decided to “take a break from thinking about boys, especially Blake.”