She rushed into their loving embrace.
It was time to tell the truth.
All of it.
The McCauley sisters circled Paige and led her away.
Trent ached to go after her, but the raw hurt in her eyes had gored him. He’d let her talk to her sisters and calm down. Tomorrow, before he left for Knoxville and his board meeting he’d find her and explain. She’d understand.
She had to.
“Hey, bro,” Brent said, coming up beside him. “What’d I miss?”
He wanted to punch his brother in the mouth—something he hadn’t done since he was twelve. Afterward his mother had pulled him aside and explained that Brent was weaker and needed Trent’s help and his protection. Trent had been playing watchdog ever since.
“Where’s Luanne?”
“She went upstairs to rest.”
“You weren’t supposed to arrive until this afternoon.”
Brent shrugged. “Luanne got impatient. What’s the big deal?”
“Paige didn’t know about you yet.”
“You didn’t tell her?”
“No, I was covering your ass.”
“Wait a minute. You lied? You? Mr. Honesty-is-the-best-policy, Mr. Head-off-any-problem-before-it-starts? And you got caught pretending to be me, pretending to be you? That’s rich.” Brent’s laughter only made Trent want to hit him more. And harder. His fists clenched by his side.
“It was stupid.” Paige was right. You had to let your siblings learn from their mistakes or they’d be doomed to repeat them. Brent was a perfect example. He screwed up. Trent cleaned up. There were never any consequences for Brent.
Trent should have been honest with Paige and let Brent sweat out his own problems.
But it would have cost you.
Not as much as losing Paige would.
Brent shifted on his feet. “Yeah, okay, fine. But what’s the harm? You’re leaving Vegas tomorrow anyway, and you won’t see Paige again for at least a year.”
“I love her.” Trent wanted the words back the second he said them. He didn’t do emotional displays or share personal secrets. But apparently Paige’s brutal honesty was contagious.
Brent stopped his fidgeting. “Aren’t you the one who told me twelve years ago that nobody could fall in love in a couple of days?”
Trent remembered the conversation well. He’d been trying to talk his brother out of getting married. “I might have been wrong.”
“What? You? Wrong? Do you want to repeat that?”
His irritation with Brent rose a few more degrees. “Not particularly.”
Brent’s sarcastic smile turned into a sympathetic grimace. “I know a little about being in love and wanting a woman so much nothing else matters. And I know what it’s like to want to make someone happy so badly that you’ll do anything. Even ask your brother for sperm.”
That caught Trent’s attention. “What?”
“Can we go to the bar? I need a drink or three.”
“It’s 9:00 a.m.”
“Back home it’s lunchtime.”
Trent pivoted and headed for the Blue Grotto, the closest bar. The place reminded him of Paige because she’d met Brent here. After they placed their orders—his for coffee he didn’t want or need in his already burning stomach—he turned to his brother. “Explain.”
The bartender set down the drinks. Brent downed his Scotch in one gulp and signaled for another. “I didn’t sleep with Paige.”
Muscles unraveled that Trent hadn’t realized he’d tensed.
Brent fingered his empty glass. “I wanted to. I mean, she’s hot and cute and everything. But…I love my wife.”
“You and Luanne fight all the time.”
“That’s just our way. You know. Fight and then have blazing hot make-up sex. Haven’t you ever had make-up sex?”
“No.” He didn’t keep women around long enough for that.
“It’s killer good, man. Kicks it up a notch.”
Trent wanted to signal a time out. His brother’s sex life was not an interesting subject, and since the tabloids followed the Hightowers, Trent had never picked up the locker room talk habit out of concern that his words might end up in print.
“If you love Luanne, then why pick up women in bars? And what does it have to do with my sperm?”
When Brent looked at him, Trent saw a vulnerability he’d never seen in his brother’s usually cocky face.
“Luanne has wanted kids for years. And we tried. But my plumbing wasn’t…up to snuff. When she suggested we ask you for some of your identical DNA, I kinda lost it.” He took a swig of liquor and stared into the mirror behind the bar. “That day I realized for the first time why you always dumped your girlfriends once I’d been with them. There are some things a guy just doesn’t want to share with his twin.”
But Trent realized he’d fallen in love with Paige even though he’d believed she’d been with Brent first. He didn’t know exactly when that had ceased to be important—except for the fact that their entire relationship had been built on a lie.
“I’m sorry, Trent. Until that moment I’d always thought it funny that 99% of women couldn’t tell us apart. But then to have Luanne say we were the same and it didn’t matter who fathered her baby…” He finished his drink. “That hurt. Bad.
“Anyway, after Luanne suggested that we separated for a few weeks. And like an idiot, I tried to prove my…manhood with other women. Only I couldn’t.”
Trent wanted to know. And he didn’t. “Couldn’t?”
“Get it up.”
“For Paige?” Impossible.
“For any of them.”
“How can that happen?”
“I know I don’t have to explain the birds and bees to you. Your little black book resembles a phone book.”
“Brent, you’re young and healthy. You don’t smoke or drink to excess. How can you have…a malfunction?” It had certainly never happened to him. Especially with Paige. Damn, all he had to do was think about her and his blood caught a tailwind south.
Brent shrugged. “I guess my heart knew I didn’t want to go there and played chaperone.”
“I’m not following here. Get back to why you needed my…help.”
“I have a low sperm count.”
“But Luanne is pregnant and I didn’t—” He made a crude hand gesture to indicate something he couldn’t put into words connected to his sister-in-law.
“Luanne got the name of a fertility specialist from our sister and we…made an appointment. The doctors worked some kind of magic with a centrifuge or something. He concentrated my stuff, and voilà. I’m going to be a daddy.” Brent’s wide grin said more than words about his happiness.
“Congratulations.”
“You know, that’s the first time you’ve said that.”
“I thought you were making a mistake. Now I can see you’re not.”
“No. I’m not. I love her, and I want to raise a family with her. So how about you? How did you fall in love in…How many days did it take?”
Trent scrolled back through the days of Paige’s wicked, daring smiles, the challenges she issued in her slow, Southern drawl, her blunt honesty and the way she crawled into his head and tried to play amateur psychologist. He couldn’t pinpoint the moment. “I don’t know. Five? Six?”
Brent punched his shoulder. “A little slow on the uptake, aren’t you, bro? Well, welcome to the club. The love shack is the best place to be when things are going right and the worst kind of hell when they’re not.”
Brent threw an arm over Trent’s shoulder in an unfamiliar offer of support. “Now all we have to do is come up with a plan to win her back. Are you game?”
Trent looked into his brother’s eyes and for the first time, experienced the sense of teamwork Paige shared with her sister.
“I’m game. And this is a game I don’t intend to lose.”
“Do I need to go back there and castrate the bastard?” Jessie growled the moment Paige swallowed the last sip of her Margarita.
“Hey,” Kelly interjected, “I said no questions until she calmed down.”
“If Senor Patron’s best tequila won’t calm her, nothing will,” Ashley drawled.
Paige raised an eyebrow at her oldest sister. “And when did you give that order?”
“While you were asking the valet to hail our cab. You looked shattered when we found you, honey.”
Shattered. Definitely.
Paige shook her head. She should be grateful her sisters had allowed her a drink and time to gather her thoughts before beginning the inquisition. “I guess that’s why you gossiped more than the church choir during the taxi ride even though you know I hate gossip?”
Four heads nodded in unison. Her sisters had whisked her out of the hotel and applied their version of first aid without once asking why she needed it. They’d been there for her. No questions asked.
Jessie covered her hand. “So, about numb nuts…Do we need to hurt him?”
“No. Just let it go. He’s leaving tomorrow anyway.”
“Always the peacemaker,” Ashley said in disgust. “C’mon, Paige, slug somebody for once. It feels good to release all the tension.”
Paige shook her head and laughed despite her aching, breaking heart. “This from the E.R. nurse who spends her nights cleaning up the messes other people make when their emotions overrule their heads.”
“Yes, well, that’s them. This is us—you. Have another drink and fill us in.” Ashley signaled the waitress of the swanky restaurant they’d dragged her into for another round of drinks.
“Hey! I haven’t even had breakfast yet.”
Kelly pointed to her glass. “There’s lime juice, a slice of orange and a cherry in here. That’s breakfast, but if you insist, we can order food. Although I have to admit the meal we had on the plane was amazing. But first I have to know, is the gorgeous blond hunk the guy who paid our way out here?”
Paige blinked. She wasn’t drunk yet. Was she? “Wait a minute. The four of you didn’t just decide to fly out here and surprise me? When I saw you I thought…Sammie’s call…She made sure I was going to be here. When I saw you in the lobby I thought this was my Christmas present.”
“Not exactly. Trent Hightower of Hightower Aviation Management Corporation sent his private jet for us. Is he the jerk we saw you talking to?”
Her surprise. Paige gaped. “Yes.”
“He also reserved rooms for us at the Bellagio,” Sammie added.
Confused, Paige crumpled her cocktail napkin. “I can’t believe he did that.”
He couldn’t have given her a more perfect gift, but why had he done it? Probably to get her out of the way before his brother arrived. Or maybe out of guilt for being such a liar.
“What did the bastard do to warrant all the money he’s throwing our way?” Sammie asked.