Page 49 of Jilted

“He’s a good wingman,” I noted. “Did you train him to be adorable and then let you end your evening with privacy?”

“Adorable? He told you I listen to Taylor Swift while working out and have an ass tattoo.”

I laughed. “Oh my God. What is the ass tattoo?”

“I’m not telling you. Gotta keep the mystery alive.”

A light breeze blew, catching a piece of my hair and pushing it across my face. Wilder fixed it. It was such a simple thing, but it took the moment from laughing to more serious.

“I had a really good time tonight,” he said.

“So did I.”

“I hope you’ll come to London early.”

I wanted to get on the plane and go, though when he looked at me like he was right now, it scared the crap out of me. It wouldn’t be hard to fall for Wilder Hayes, that’s for sure. And maybe a little piece of me was already starting to. But I needed to be smart. “I’ll try.”

He kissed my forehead. “Thank you for having us.”

My chest felt hollow as I watched him walk to the car. When he got to the door, he looked back and waved again before I went inside.

Olivia was waiting in the kitchen when I got back. “Oh my God. Did you see his eyes?”

“Wilder’s?”

She looked at me like I was nuts. “No!Lucas’s. When Mom was alive, we went to Turks and Caicos, and I remember looking down from the plane as we landed. His eyes are the same color as the water there. They’re not really blue or green, but blue-green.”

I smiled. “Yeah, Wilder’s are the same.”

“And he likes JoseiandSeinen. I gave him one of my Josei drawings, and he’s going to spray-paint me a Seinen version of it and mail it to me. Can you make sure he knows I live on the second floor? I forgot to give him my apartment number.”

“I think it’ll get to you if he uses mine or even just the house number.”

“He lives in London, and his mom died, too.”

“Yeah, I know,” I told her.

Olivia rarely mentioned her mother, so I found it pretty amazing that she’d apparently already had a conversation about her with a boy she’d just met. But it was good for her to talk about it.

For the next half hour, she rambled on about things Lucas had told her, things they’d talked about. It was clear she had a crush. There was just something irresistible about those brothers. And it was becoming a challenge to fight it already… with six months left of my moratorium.

15SLOANE

I pulled the door closed behind me at eight thirty the next morning, garment bag draped over one shoulder, feeling confident that today was the day. Two steps down the brownstone’s front stairs, I looked up and nearly lost my balance. “What…”

Wilder leaned against a car, a to-go coffee cup in each hand, smiling. “Morning.” He nodded. “I thought you could use a wingman, someone to help you get the job done on the third try.”

“But I thought you had a flight out early this morning.”

“I did. Made it a little later.”

There were very few times I’d been rendered speechless. Hell, even when Josh broke my heart at the altar, I’d found words—most of them were curses, but I’d hadwords.Now, though, I could only stand and stare.

Wilder pushed off the car, set one coffee on the roof, and walked over to me. He extended the cup in his hand and reached for the garment bag. “Trade?”

I nodded, my jaw still slack, and didn’t move.

Wilder took the weight of the bag and tucked the coffee cup into my hand. Somehow I put one foot in front of the other and followed him to the car. After he’d opened the passenger door for me, he laid the dress out in the backseat and jogged around to the driver’s side.

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