‘Yes,’ he agreed, not acknowledging her confirmation that she had tried to skip the event. ‘It would have saved you a lot of trouble.’
Her expression went blank, her eyes shifting to the doors of the dining hall they’d come out of before resting on him again.
‘Did you come out here specifically to annoy me, Wyatt?’
Since he couldn’t tell her the real reasons he’d followed her—he didn’t fully know what they were—Wyatt said, ‘I did. I’m happy to see I’m succeeding.’
She shook her head and looked up, and for the first time he noticed her hair wasn’t loose. Usually, she wore her curls wild and free; today, her hair was tied back into a stern bun. Sleek, sure, but tamed to within an inch of its life. It bothered him.
Or maybe what bothered him was the hunger that was restless in his body. As if his cells had been starved and were now being offered a feast. Which was, he supposed, not untrue. For two years, his eyes had been starved of the beauty of her face. He couldn’t blame them for wanting to sate their hunger, despite the anger; despite the hurt.
So he allowed them to sweep over the oval slope of her brown eyes; the curve of her cheekbones; the dusting of freckles on the skin of her cheeks. He let them check whether the slight scar at her temple was still there, and if her lips were still pink and full and perfect for kissing.
He stopped himself then, because thinking about kissing and Summer at the same time was taking it too far. The prickling of his body told him so, as did the way those pink, full lips of hers parted. Which made him realise his eyes had dropped to her lips and had stayed there. That he was now showing her his hunger; revealing to her his feasting.
Though he warned himself not to, his eyes lifted to hers, and their gazes locked. A stampede could have passed them, the animals hurling themselves off the edge of the cliff, and he wouldn’t have noticed. He would have just kept looking into Summer’s eyes. He would have kept trying to see if his tainted past had been worth sacrificing that pull between them, especially when it still seemed to be alive and kicking.
He stepped back at the unexpected thought. When he realised it took him closer to the cliff, he took a step to the side. In his current state, being close to anything that might put him at risk of falling wasn’t a good idea.
So run away from Summer, then, a voice in his head told him.
He swallowed.
CHAPTER TWO
SUMMER’S LEGS HAD gone unsteady under her. She desperately wanted to walk away from Wyatt; she couldn’t. Because she was worried her legs wouldn’t carry her away, yes, but also because it was more than just her legs that were unsteady.
It was her mind. It was offering her memories of that short period when they’d been happy together. When his snark had attracted her almost as much as it had annoyed her. When she’d been able to enjoy the breadth of his shoulders, the short curls of his hair, his unreasonably handsome face.
Her heart was unsteady, too. It was complaining about being put under this much pressure, torn between being happy to see him and aching at what seeing him reminded her of.
Heartache. Loss. Failure.
Loneliness.
She resented the feelings almost as much as she resented Wyatt’s admiration for her father. She still didn’t know how he could admire the man who’d broken his family with his infidelity. Who’d broken her heart by telling her to keep it a secret from her sister and mother...
Because Wyatt doesn’t know.
Oh, yes. That was how.
‘I should get back,’ he said.
She nodded. ‘Me, too.’
They both turned, and their shoulders touched. Her head turned so sharply for her to glare at the offending part of her body she was afraid she’d damaged her neck. But she didn’t spend much time thinking about it. She was too busy looking at her traitorous shoulder.
How had they got so close they could touch like this anyway?
Not liking that she hadn’t noticed it, she took a deliberate step to the side at the same time he did. Her head lifted from her shoulder to his face; she narrowed her eyes. It was fine that she didn’t want to touch him, but how dared he not want to touch her? It didn’t matter what his reasons were—and she refused to think about her own—it was offensive.
‘You can’t kill me with a glare,’ he told her calmly, as if he were completely unaware of what had happened.
‘Doesn’t mean I can’t try,’ she replied sweetly, walking ahead of him before he could respond.
Except that the move wasn’t quite as impactful as she’d hoped it would be. Her heels sank into the grass. Because she’d been storming off—quite appropriately—she hadn’t been prepared to get stuck. Momentum pushed her forward and for the longest seconds of her life, Summer thought she was going to fall on her face. In front of her ex-husband. And a bunch of her parents’ wealthy friends she didn’t think much of.
Which didn’t mean she wanted them to see her fall.
Instead of falling, though, she was pulled back up against a hard body. Her mind needed a moment to recover, so it took longer than she would have liked to realise the body was behind her, not in front. It took even longer to realise that she recognised the feel of that body against her.
No, no, no, no, no.
Wyatt had not saved her from falling. He was not standing behind her, his hard, delicious body pressed against hers, his arm around her.
She was not remembering how many times he’d seduced her from this very position. Sliding an arm around her waist, pulling her against him, dipping his head to the nape of her neck, brushing his lips over the sensitive spot he knew was there.
She was not thinking about how she would lean her head back to give him better access. Or how she’d let out a sound that had been somewhere between a purr and a moan when he obliged her. When he’d started seducing her more earnestly, his hand would move from her waist over her breast, linger there while teasing the sensitive spot in her neck. She’d push back onto his—
Two seconds later she’d stepped out of her shoes and was facing him.
‘Thank you,’ she said, her face burning. She couldn’t command the embarrassment back now, though a part of her tried. She hoped he’d think it was because of her almost-fall rather than her overactive imagination.
He studied her for a moment, his expression unreadable, before bending down and removing her shoes from the ground. He placed them in front of her, looking up at her expectantly. She blinked. Then realised he wanted her to step back into them and felt the faint call of hysteria.
That was what this intense desire to laugh was, wasn’t it? And did he really think she wanted to touch him again after what her mind had put her through minutes before?
Oh, wait, she thought. He didn’t know what she was thinking. She also couldn’t keep acting like a lovestruck teenager. She was feeling attraction. She was attracted to him. Had been the moment she’d seen him at her father’s Christmas party three years before; would still be now, two years after their divorce. Attraction didn’t simply go away because they were no longer together. In fact, it had probably grown because she knew what it was like to be with him.
Yes, that was the perfectly logical explanation for why she was so overwhelmed by how sexy he was. Simple, biological attraction.
She took a breath and slid one foot into her shoe. When she was unable to think of a way to avoid it, she rested her hand on his shoulder and stepped into her other shoe. He waited to see if she was steady, then rose. Slowly, languidly, as if giving her a chance to grow accustomed to his new position.
He was still much taller than her; his shoulders broad, his torso and hips narrow, held up by powerful legs.
And suddenly simple biological attraction didn’t seem like the truth.
He lowered his head, meeting her eyes lazily.
‘Put your weight on the balls
of your feet,’ he told her, before walking away.
She didn’t walk after him. Instead, she took a moment to regroup. She had known this would be hard. She had known seeing him would be hard.
Seeing him at a celebration for an occasion she didn’t quite believe in? Hard. Seeing him around her father? Hard.
But she hadn’t expected this. This attraction that awoke every part of her body. Or the sharp quips or any discussion, really. She’d thought she’d avoid him. Avoidance was the perfect solution to any problem, she found.
Up until the moment when she was forced to face what she was avoiding.
Like how steady her parents were even though her father had had an affair; and how unsteady she still felt because of it. She was still an outsider to her family. To their unit: her mother, her father, Autumn. She’d been outside that unit for years. But she hadn’t put herself there.
She couldn’t tell her mother or Autumn that. Not when they’d moved on and their family had recovered from her father’s affair. She couldn’t tell Wyatt either. He looked at their family with the kind of awe that came from not having a supportive one as a child. He looked to her father as the gold standard. Of being a businessman, a husband, a father. Unfortunately, he didn’t know that Trevor had put the first before the last two.
Or that he had done the same, and she’d ended up feeling like an outsider to their marriage, too.
She took a breath. Thought happy thoughts. Strangely, those thoughts were still of the times when she didn’t have to pretend to be a part of her family. They’d spent summers travelling the world; had almost daily family dinners. Her father’s phone had been glued to his hand the entire time, but at least he’d been there.
He’d been more involved when she’d expressed interest in the company though. She’d spent weeks following her father around the Bishop Enterprises building when she was younger. She’d looked at how Trevor had turned the business her grandfather had started into an empire, and she’d been proud. So proud she’d wanted to be a part of it.
Until she’d found out he’d cheated on her mother and it had all felt like a lie.
She shifted gears, but what was left in her bank of happy memories was of her and Wyatt. Of the dates where she’d fallen in love with his kindness, his wit. Where he’d listened to her, really listened, and she’d felt understood for the first time since...since her father had told her she couldn’t speak honestly to the two people she loved most.
As she thought it, it felt as if tar had been smeared all over her happy memories. They felt icky now. Messy. Shameful. No one could blame her for avoiding things when thinking about them turned out like this.
Not that she’d care if they did. Her plan was to stay on the outskirts of her parents’ celebrations as far as she could anyway. She’d wait until Autumn arrived and use her sister as a shield. Against Wyatt, too, she thought, reminding herself to stay away from him.
She turned then, putting her weight on the balls of her feet as instructed, and walked towards the patio. As soon as she got there, her parents’ guests started walking through the doors. She quickly stepped aside, keeping out of the way as she took in the scene.
The guests had blankets and picnic baskets, and were walking onto the grass in groups. Some of them nodded a head at her in greeting; she offered them one back. They spread out their blankets and began to relax on the grass, clearly preparing to watch the sun set.
She couldn’t fault the actual activity. Watching the sunset on a cliff overlooking an ocean was pretty great. Romantic, too, which she supposed her parents had intended. The weather was warm in that careless way summer had. The waiters were moving around taking drink orders so the warmth would soon be combatted by icy cocktails and cold beers.
‘The blankets and baskets are inside,’ Lynette Bishop told her, stopping in front of Summer.
‘Okay,’ Summer replied slowly, looking past her mother to where her father stood in the doorway with Wyatt. Both their stances were casual; they were obviously comfortable with each other. Resentment pushed up in her throat, and she told herself to shake it off. Deliberately, she looked back at her mother.
‘I think I’m going to go back to the cabin, Mom,’ she said with forced calm. ‘It’s been a difficult week and—’
‘I’m sure it has been,’ Lynette interrupted. ‘Running your own business must be so exhausting,’ she continued, as if she hadn’t spent her entire life running the Bishop social empire, which was pretty much its own business, ‘which means you have to find time to relax.’
‘I know.’ She smiled. ‘Like going to bed early so I can get some sleep.’
‘Or taking a blanket and watching the sun set with your parents, whom you love.’
Lynette’s smile was equal parts sweet, equal parts threatening. As if she were not only daring Summer to go back to the cabin, but daring Summer to contradict her statement, too.
But Summer had no desire to give in to her mother’s dares. The first had been her taking a chance anyway; the second wouldn’t be true. She did love her parents, which was why all of what they’d gone through—and what she, alone, was still going through—was so hard. Besides, she was there, after all.
She sighed. ‘If I stay, I’m not sitting with you and Dad. I’d prefer not to embarrass myself like that.’
Lynette gave a light laugh. ‘You will stay, but that’s perfectly acceptable.’ Her face changed slightly. ‘Would you prefer sitting with Wyatt?’
‘Mother.’
‘You’re not looking forward to the reconciliation?’
‘I didn’t look forward to it, no. Since we already had it, I can say that I was right not to.’
Her mother didn’t say anything for a moment. Summer wondered whether it was because Lynette wanted to encourage her to sit with Wyatt. Her parents had always liked him. Which made sense, considering Wyatt so badly wanted them to like him.
It wasn’t that Wyatt pretended around them, but rather that he wasn’t entirely the man she’d fallen for when they were all together. She’d tried to avoid spending time with her parents during her marriage because of it. It hadn’t helped. Wyatt had turned into that man anyway.
‘Fine, dear,’ her mother told her with a pat on the shoulder. ‘You can sit by yourself. I just want you here with us.’
Summer nodded, swallowing her sigh. This added to her problem. Her mother was the same person she’d been before the affair. It hadn’t changed her, finding out. Not for the first time, Summer wondered if that would stay the same if her mother found out Summer had known before Lynette had.
Not wanting to think about it, Summer walked past Lynette to get a blanket and basket, hesitating when she reached her father and Wyatt.
What was the protocol with this? Did she ignore them, or did she join in the conversation?
Because neither appealed to her, she offered them both a smile—small, polite, like the one she would have given to two strangers—and passed them. A hand closed around her arm before she could let out the breath she was holding.
‘Are you looking for a blanket?’ Wyatt asked her.
Her head lifted, though she wanted to stare at the hand that was sending uncomfortable shots of electricity through her body. Staring might make him stop touching her. She resisted, looking from her father, who was watching them with interest, back to Wyatt instead.
‘Yes. I was told they’re in here.’
‘They were.’ He lifted a hand, which held a blanket. ‘This is the last one.’
There was a beat when she wondered what he expected her to say. Okay? Thank you for telling me? Can we share?
When all of them rang true, Summer let out a little breath.
‘Okay. Thank you for telling me. Can we share?’
There was another beat, but this time it was long and awkward, making her stomach turn.
‘Of course
we can share, Summer,’ Wyatt said slowly, politely, and she gave him a bland stare.
When she looked at her father now, he seemed almost amused. Which annoyed her, though she wouldn’t show it.
Avoid, avoid, avoid.
‘I’ll leave you two to it, then,’ Trevor said, giving them both a nod before walking out to join Lynette. Summer stared after him while the ball of tension in her stomach that was always there when she was around her father unravelled. She took a deep breath.
‘That was weird,’ Wyatt commented before she could say anything.
‘What?’
‘You were being weird just now.’
‘I’m sorry, this is the first time I’ve had to interact with an ex-husband,’ she said flatly.
His expression tightened, but he continued. ‘I’m not talking about that. I’m talking about you and your father.’
Her heart immediately thudded in her chest, but she tried for an easy smile. ‘Not sure what you mean, Montgomery.’
He blinked. She didn’t need that to tell her she’d taken him by surprise though. She’d only ever called him by his surname when things had been good between them. When things had been easy. It hadn’t been her intention, but she hoped it would be enough to distract him.
‘I’ll get us a basket,’ she said, and headed to where the wait staff were standing.
She smiled at the waiter who handed her the wicker basket, then did a mental shoulder roll before heading back to Wyatt. She couldn’t let him suspect anything was wrong. She’d hidden the turmoil between her and her father for the entire year she and Wyatt had been together. She hadn’t let him see how his desire to be like her father had affected her either.
She wouldn’t reveal it now. Which would be an effort, considering the anniversary—the vow renewal—was challenging for her.
But she would play the part. She wouldn’t let Wyatt suspect she was keeping secrets. She wouldn’t let her mother and Autumn suspect it either. She’d just let them all think she was being her usual surly self. And everyone could go on pretending everything was fine.
Second Chance with Her Billionaire Page 2
