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“We’re just saying you should go out with him and hear what he has to say. At least, in that scenario, you can give him your reasons for turning him down, and he’ll be less likely to pursue legal action.”
I tipped my head to the side and considered that. It wasn’t a bad idea. “Maybe you’re right.”
My best friends perked up.
Not wanting them to get too excited about it, I warned, “But I’m only going to do it if he approaches me again. And it’s just to carry out my goal. This is about protecting the Marks Dairy Farm. That’s it.”
They nodded at me, smiling brightly, but it was clear they didn’t believe a word that came out of my mouth.
I pinned my eyes on Emily and reminded her, “You said we were moving on from Tristan and Ryan tonight. Are we not going to do that now?”
Her grin grew. “Oh, we’re doing that. It’s been a while for you, so I’m guessing you’re a bit out of practice. You need to work on softening up and flirting.”
I sighed. “Ugh.”
“Finish your dessert, babes. We’ve got a good night ahead of us. I can feel it in my bones,” Brooke declared.
With that, we finished our desserts before we made our way out of the restaurant for a night of fun.
Though I tried my best to soften up and flirt, I wasn’t sure I succeeded. Too much had happened to toughen me up, and some lessons lasted a lifetime.
5
RHEA
“Rhea?”
At the sound of the vaguely familiar voice, my body came to a halt. The chances there was another Rhea somewhere behind me were slim, so I slowly spun around and confirmed my suspicions.
My body went rigid at the sight of Wyatt Westwood standing there, his eyes pinned on me.
Immediately, I became defensive. “What are you doing here? Are you following me?”
I didn’t think it was possible for someone to hear my tone and think there was anything funny, but Wyatt seemed to be amused by my reaction to seeing him. The corners of his mouth tipped up slightly before he countered, “I’d like to think I was that good at being able to locate a person, but sadly, I’m not. I had no idea you would be here.”
My eyes narrowed on him as I attempted to assess whether he was being truthful. It was safe to say I questioned everything and everyone I didn’t know. And when it came to a man in Wyatt’s position, I was even more apprehensive about trusting he could tell the truth. “Okay. So, then, why are you here?”
He lifted a brow. “I could ask you the same question. This is a public place, you know?”
Nodding, I confirmed, “Yes. But I come here to run every morning.”
“So do I.”
“I’m not entirely sure I believe you,” I fired back. “I’ve never seen you here before today.”
Wyatt’s lips twitched. “Yeah, but you didn’t know who I was before last Friday.”
“What does that have to do with anything?” I asked.
If it was possible for a man like him to be even more confident than he already was, Wyatt managed to convey that to me when a proud smile washed over his expression. God, that smile made him look not only more confident than before, but he was even more handsome. Fury pulsed in my veins—why did the guys like him always get to have it all?
“Rhea, I can’t tell you how much it pleases me to know you’re so confident if you’d merely seen me here before today, you believe I would have been unforgettable.”
I gasped. “I didn’t say that.”
He held his hands up in surrender. “You didn’t say the words, but the ones you did say certainly implied it.”
I wanted to stomp my feet and shout at him, but I couldn’t exactly refute his point. The truth was, if I didn’t know Wyatt as the man he was—the man whose family wanted to take my family’s land—I’d have noticed him in a way I wouldn’t have forgotten him. As frustrated as a man like him could make me, I couldn’t deny the truth. On the surface, Wyatt had it all.
