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He sliced another piece of bread, failing in his effort to make each slice the same size. “Let’s say two months. I was seen out at events with someone else before that, so that would make the most sense.”
“Someone else?” Kelsey asked, adding the rest of the vegetables, all except the mushrooms. “A girlfriend?”
“A colleague.”
She stirred the contents of the pan. “Who you were sleeping with.”
“Yes,” he said, not liking where this conversation was going.
“And why isn’t she around anymore?”
He sent her a warning glance when she peeked his way again. “Is that so important to know?”
“I’m exceptionally nosy. You should know that about me.” She flashed him an unapologetic smile. “My sister always joked that I should’ve become a therapist like her since I’m so fascinated by other people’s personal lives.”
He shook his head. Usually he was as private and tight-lipped about his life as anyone could be, even his brother had to drag things out of him. But Wyatt was having trouble mustering up the will to dodge Kelsey’s questioning. “She knew what she was getting into when we started seeing each other. Her feelings changed over time, and she wanted more. I didn’t.”
She added the mushrooms, then poured cream into the mix and added a few pats of butter. “Sounds complicated.”
“It wasn’t. At least not on my end.”
She seemed to consider that for a moment, her back to him. Then she dipped a spoon into the simmering sauce and turned around, blowing gently across the steaming sauce she’d captured. “Are all the things in your life always that cut and dried? That neat?”
He looked down at the uneven slices of bread, the imperfection annoying him more than it should. “I try to keep it that way. Yes.”
“Mmm,” she said, some indiscernible judgment underlying the innocuous sound. She held out the spoon for him to taste. “And then you invite a waitress, who has a gang after her, on a business trip. Are you sure you’re not the practical Wyatt Austin’s reckless twin brother? This is anything but neat.”
He opened his mouth to answer but she guided the spoon forward. The delicate cream sauce hit his tongue, the buttery decadence balanced perfectly with the fresh herbs she’d added to it. “That’s delicious.”
She sniffed. “Of course it is. Told you I can cook.”
“And no, I’m not my evil twin brother. But being around you does tend to tempt me away from my best laid plans. I was supposed to take things slow tonight.”
She reached for his hand and gave it a squeeze. “To be honest, I’m kind of glad you didn’t. I was getting really nervous to come over here tonight. After a week apart, I thought it might be awkward. Plus, despite what happened at The Ranch, it’s still hard to wrap my head around all this. It feels a little surreal.”
He curled his fingers around hers, rubbing a thumb over her wrist. “Surreal?”
“A few weeks ago, I was serving you eggs and now I’m—”
“Serving me, period,” he said softly.
Her lashes dipped. “Yes.”
He lifted her hand to his mouth and kissed the center of her palm. “It’s just as surreal for me, love. Maybe best laid plans aren’t all they’re cracked up to be.”
He could see her throat work as she swallowed hard. “You ready for dinner?”
“I’m ready for it all.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Kelsey finished wiping down the table in the kitchen and loaded their dishes into the dishwasher while the storm still hammered the house. Wyatt had told her not to worry about any of the cleanup. He had a housekeeper who would be there the next day. But she wouldn’t have been able to sleep knowing that dirty dishes were in the sink. Her sister, Brynn, had ingrained in her that no food was to ever be left out. They’d waged a constant battle with roaches in the crappy little rental they’d lived in growing up, and the habit of making sure everything was spotless had never gone away. In her days of addiction, she’d lost sight of that, but it’d been the first thing she’d gotten back on track with once she’d sobered up. Clean house meant clean Kelsey.Author: Roni Loren
She washed and dried her hands, then took a deep breath. Time to get back to Wyatt. She didn’t know what else he had planned for tonight, but she wasn’t sure she could survive another round with him. The experience in the shower had flayed her. Her emotions felt raw and exposed, like shredded power lines writhing and sparking with danger. She’d managed to keep things relaxed and light during dinner, but beneath her smiles and jokes, she’d been trying to piece herself back together, slapping duct tape on broken shit and hoping it held together.
She needed to figure out how to hold on to some shred of control in all of this. Otherwise, she wouldn’t survive him. She knew how she could be. In the past, she’d fallen too hard and too fast. And always for the wrong men. Her heart was entirely untrustworthy. She needed to keep that part of her out of this. Sex she could do. To endure those three days with Davis, she’d figured out how to shut off her emotions and just exist as something to be used. She didn’t need to go that far with Wyatt, but if she’d learned anything over the years, it was how men wouldn’t look too far past that physical stuff. She could play the vixen, the seductress, and that was enough for a guy. And someone like Wyatt, a man who treated his interactions with women like neat business arrangements, would probably be more than happy to keep it at that level, too. She could let the other stuff stay tucked away out of sight.
She turned off the light in the kitchen. Wyatt had told her he had a few phone calls to make, but when she walked into the living room, she found him frowning at the flatscreen TV that was perched above the massive stone fireplace. The weather radar filled the screen, complete with a lot of green blotches and an ominous swath of red. The television was on mute, but words ran across the bottom of the screen at a rapid pace.
