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“He comes from a family with millions of dollars,” I noted. “That already makes him not normal. I just want a guy who walks into my shop, buys his favorite flavor ice cream, and asks for my number. Is that too much to ask?”
“Maybe Wyatt is that guy,” Brooke insisted.
Shaking my head, feeling disappointed, I muttered, “I don’t know. I don’t think that’s it at all. And I’m so confused about how to handle this. I don’t want him coming after my family’s farm, but I don’t understand why he’s putting in this effort to run with me every day without using the opportunity to speak about anything.”
“You know, there is a simple solution to this,” Emily reasoned.
“There is?”
“Yes. Tell him.”
“What?”
She offered a sympathetic smile. “Tell him you’d like to know why he’s making the effort to run with you every day. Or, ask him why he hasn’t requested to sit down and discuss his family’s offer. I don’t know. The way I see it, he’s been proving he’s not like Tristan simply by respecting your wishes. I hate to say it, but I think you’re the one who’s going to need to break the ice here.”
Maybe she was right.
I’d held on to the preconceived ideas I had about who Wyatt was and the kind of man I expected him to be. He was proving to be the opposite, so maybe I needed to have a little bit of grace and find a way to open the lines of communication.
“Okay, I need some time to figure it out. For now, I need to talk about anything else that’s not Wyatt Westwood.”
“Well, how does it feel to be another year older?” Emily asked.
I rolled my eyes. And just like that, we spent the rest of dinner focusing on anything and everything that had nothing to do with Wyatt.
“Alright, who’s ready to get this party started?” Brooke wondered when we’d finally finished our meals and dessert.
Drinks and dancing were exactly what I needed now to continue to forget about all things Wyatt and just have a good time. “I am so ready,” I admitted.
“Me, too.”
Without needing to say another word, the three of us got up and left the restaurant. Brooke wasn’t much of a drinker, usually stopping herself after one drink, so she offered to be the designated driver. In this case, with Emily and I being in the situations we were in, it couldn’t have been a more perfect setup.
An hour later, I was feeling wonderful.
After having struggled all week with being on edge and consumed with thoughts of Wyatt, it quickly became clear how desperately I needed this night out. I’d gotten several drinks in me, got lost in the music, and danced to my heart’s content with the two women who couldn’t have meant more to me if they were my sisters by blood.
Yep.
It was just what I needed.
And I had the next two days off from running to look forward to, so I could get my head screwed on straight before I had Wyatt in my face again.
Unfortunately, my reprieve was short-lived. Because at some point after I’d tipped back two more drinks and was back on the dancefloor again, I glanced up and found Wyatt was back in my space.
He was standing mere inches away, and he smelled divine.
8
WYATT
This was unexpected.
When I decided to accept my brother’s invitation out tonight, it had been about wanting to catch up with him while giving myself some time to clear my head.
And spending an hour or two with Tate would have easily allowed that to happen.
Tate was, by far, the most rigid of the Westwood siblings. We tried not to give him too much grief about being so uptight, because his lifestyle of schedules and order seemed to work well for him. He was phenomenal at what he did within the company as our head of marketing and product development, and we figured if he managed to do as well as he did, being the way he was, there wasn’t much room for us to say anything to him about it.
