Page 34 of How to Say I Do
“Myfamily?” I snorted, pig-like. “There’s nothing to tell.”
“There’s always something to tell.”
“Nothing good. My father is nothing like yours.”
“What’s he like?”
I tried to think of happy crayon drawings and childhood sketches I could have scribbled. I’d never drawn a family portrait when I was a child. I never saw us together enough for the idea to stick. “He’s cold. A workaholic. Someone very important on Wall Street, apparently. He’s a lawyer, but for finance types. I’m not sure, exactly. He never bothered to tell me what he did.” All I knew was, whatever it was, it had always been more important than us.
“I was an accessory in my mom and dad’s lives. I participated in all the right junior leagues and foundations and charitable enterprises, looking dashing in my seersucker suit for the society pages. But I shattered that perfect image, and my mother’s plan for me, when I decided to go to college at astateschool. I didn’t even have the class to go to Cornell, myGod.” I scoffed and rolled my eyes, imitating the way my mother reacted to me through my whole life.
“There have to be some happy memories.”
“I haven’t seen my mother without a martini in her hand since 2008 when the first recession hit. And when I was sixteen, my father sent one of the junior lawyers from his firm to teach me how to drive on Long Island. That guy was scared out of his skin, petrified that he’d say something wrong and I’d run back to Daddy, until he realized my father didn’t speak to me. Then he let me drive around on my own while he drank beer on the beach and picked up high schoolers with fake IDs. Years later, on what my dadthoughtwas my twentieth birthday, he sent me a bouquet of flowers from Manhattan’s best florist. Except, it wasn’t my birthday, and the flowers were addressed to his third executive assistant. On my actual birthday, there wasn’t a peep.”
Wyatt’s arms tightened. His lips pressed against my temple and stayed.
“I decided to strike out on my own. My classmates from my very posh private school all went to Ivy Leagues, thanks to fat donation checks made out to the alumni boards. I applied—and got in—to SUNY Empire College. My mother hasn’t spoken to me since.”
Talking about my family made all my nerve endings tighten. I didn’t want that. I didn’t want the real world to touch us, not now, not ever. I rolled in Wyatt’s hold and straddled his lap. He ran his hands down my hips, circling his thumbs into the crease of my thighs.
“Hey, cowboy,” I purred.
His slow smile unfurled like warm butter, lopsided and tenderhearted. “Hey there, beautiful.”
I reached for his hat and tried to be cool, rolling it slow-motion style up to my head. I looked down, settled it carefully, and then raised my eyes like I was Clint Eastwood at high noon. Eastwood probably never tried to pull off smoldering bedroom eyes, though. He probably never bit his lip as he ran his gaze down the supremely sexy body of a man between his legs, either.
“Oh my God,” Wyatt breathed.
I winked. “Giddy up, partner.”
CHAPTER8
Noël
Morning finally arrived,but we were unconscious for the sunrise, still tangled up in each other and the remnants of his bedding.
Sometime after ten a.m., Wyatt’s room phone rang. He groaned and reached blindly for the receiver, knocking over a bottle of water and his hat, which had been dropped back into its proper place after a thoroughly debauching cowboy ride and a long and languorous make-out session rolled into an unhurried sixty-nine suck.
For my first night sharing a bed with a man, I’d certainly ticked off a healthy amount of Never Have I Evers.
Wyatt dragged the phone to his ear. His voice was cock rough and sex hoarse. “’Ello?”
“Mornin,’ sunshine. Wakey wakey, eggs and baccy.”
“Liam? What’s got you all fired up?”
“Oh, you know. Just hangin’ out with my wonderful family, eatin’ brunch, and wonderin’ where my favorite older brother might be on this blessed day.”
“Fuck.” Wyatt tried to sit up, but I was draped across his chest like a dead water buffalo, fucked out and unable to move. I dug my chin into his belly and grunted a broken syllable. “Time is it?”
“Past time for you to be down here.”Liam sounded far, far too pleased at Wyatt’s tardiness.“Is there somereasonwhy you may have overslept, big brother? Some possiblehappeningthat explains your absence? An unavoidable delay, might you say?”
“Mmm.” Wyatt flopped back.
“I haven’t seen Noël yet this morning. He knows we were all meeting up for brunch. He’s so polite, that Noël. Never late”—I snorted—“and such a gentleman. You wouldn’t happen to know why he’salsodelayed, would you? I can send someone to check on him…”
“Mmm.” Wyatt hummed again, his inflection rising.
