“My dick is going to be entertained in your pu**y,” he said seductively.

“No, after that!”

Clay narrowed his eyes. “Uh . . . Brady doesn’t have a girlfriend?”

“Shut the f**k up!”

“What?” he asked, trying to put his hands back on her, but she pushed him away.

“When did they break up? What happened?” Liz demanded.

“I don’t know. It doesn’t really matter.” He tried to lean in again.

“No. Stop,” she said, ducking out of the way of his kiss. “When the f**k did they break up?”

Clay rolled his eyes and took a step back, clearly seeing he wasn’t going to win this battle. “A few months ago. October maybe? Why does it even matter?”

Liz’s mouth dropped open. “Did you just say October?”

“Yeah. Brady just dropped her one day. I don’t know what happened, so don’t f**king ask me. We’re done with the Q&A session. Can we get back to f**king?” he asked, annoyed again.

“No! Are you out of your mind? I’m not having sex with you,” Liz said, scooting off of the bed and fixing her dress. “You need to take me home—or better yet, to see Brady.”

“What?” he practically yelled. “I’m not taking you anywhere, especially not to see my brother. What the f**k?”

“Just shut up!” she shrieked. “Don’t you understand anything? It’s Brady. It’s always been Brady. Stop trying to be your brother, because you’ll never be Brady.”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Liz shook her head. “You’re walking in a shadow, and f**king me isn’t going to make that any better. I need to talk to Brady tonight, and I’m going to do it whether you take me home or I have to walk all the way to your parents’ house in Durham myself.”

“Do you think it’s going to help him for you to show up at the house the night after the article breaks? Do you think you’ll actually be helping him by corroborating the story your boyfriend wrote?”

“Ex-boyfriend,” Liz snapped. “And I don’t care. I just need to see him. We have to be able to fix it. There has to be a way.”

“Why don’t you stop and think for a second? Think about what happens if I take you to my parents’ house, and you walk into that lockdown war zone. You’re not just talking to Brady. You’re talking to my parents, his staff, Savannah, everyone. Tell me you want to walk into that.”

“Did you not hear me? I. Don’t. Care. I need to see him.”

“You’re insane. You think anyone is going to let you near him when they find out that you’re Sandy Carmichael? What happened in October anyway? You flipped out over that,” Clay observed.

“Nothing,” she answered immediately. He just raised an eyebrow. “Fine. I saw him again, but nothing happened and we parted ways.”

“Parted ways. Knowing my brother, I doubt that went over well,” Clay said. “Okay, so tell me this then. Why did you agree to see me? Why didn’t you speak to him before? And don’t give me some bullshit about his girlfriend, because I don’t think anyone thought she actually mattered.”

“Why?”

“Do you want me to take you there?” he asked.

Liz glared at him. “You’re such an ass**le.”

“What you see is what you get, babe.”

“He told me not to speak to him again,” Liz said softly. She hated admitting it out loud. Brady’s angry words still echoed through her mind all these months later.

“And you’re going to anyway? Don’t you think he said it for a reason?”

“Yes, I do. I think he said it because he was angry, and he had every right to be. But I clearly don’t care anymore.” Liz brushed past him and started for the door.

“Where are you going?” he cried, following her down the hall.

“I told you that I’d walk home if you didn’t take me,” she said stubbornly.

Clay humphed behind her. “You can’t go tramping through the woods in a minidress and heels.”

“Try to stop me!”

Liz made it halfway down the driveway in the middle of the woods, at night, freezing her ass off when she heard the soft hum of the Porsche behind her. The headlights flashed as Clay approached. He rolled down the passenger window and stared at her in frustration.

“Get in, crazy.”

She opened the door and sank back into the passenger seat. As soon as her door shut, Clay jolted the car forward.

She sighed as she relaxed. She had been determined to walk home, but realistically it had been a dumb move. She was relieved that Clay had given in and picked her up.

“Thank you,” Liz whispered.

“I’m not taking you to my parents’ house,” he said sullenly. “If you want to do something stupid, you can do it on your own.”

Liz nodded. She wasn’t surprised that Clay wouldn’t take her to Brady, and barging into the Maxwell house didn’t exactly sound like the best plan. It was just the first that had come to her. Perhaps the alcohol was still talking. She would have to find a better way to get to him.

“Um . . .” she began, biting her lip.

She didn’t say anything for a second and Clay asked, “What?”

“Do you think I could get Brady’s number from you?”

“I’m turning around,” he said, easing on the brakes.

“What? Why?”

“There is no reasoning with you.”

“With me? You’re the one who wanted to f**k me because I’d been with your brother.”

Clay shrugged. He slid open the compartment between their seats, placed his phone inside, and then purposefully shut it tight. “That makes more sense to me than giving you his phone number.”

“I only ever tried to reach him on the campaign line, and unless you think it’s a good idea to do that now, perhaps you should give me his personal,” she snapped. Well, besides the time she had used his personal line last year, but she had deleted that number and it did nothing to bring that up with Clay right now.

“You called him on the campaign line?” Clay asked, shaking his head. “For being smart, you two are f**king idiots.”