Levi grunted. “Hunt should have kept his damned lips off my girlfriend.”
Hunt raised his palms, his baseball cap turned backward. He wore a Club Tahoe T-shirt with jeans and was the most casual of the group, having come from the dock and beach area he managed at the resort. “She wasn’t your girlfriend at the time. And I’ve already apologized.”
Needless to say, Adam was still pissed at both Levi and Hunt, and the gossip from that night had gotten out of hand. Levi had worried their bungle would take away business, but it had only grown—at least among the female population.
Local women were well aware of the five wealthy brothers who owned and ran Club Tahoe Resort. Good thing too, because it made hooking up a hell of a lot easier. Wes barely had to put the moves on a woman before she was dragging him into her bed.
Since the engagement party, though, there were actual groupies hanging out in the lounge to get a glimpse of him and his brothers. Or get laid. Wes was all for it, but some of his brothers were less enthusiastic—Levi and Adam, who weren’t single. And Bran, the dumbass, was uncomfortable with the whole thing for some unknown reason.
It would be a perfectly acceptable response if Bran were gay. But no, he was just awkward around aggressive women. Meanwhile, Wes loved the attention. Aggressive women made going from point A—the talking stage—to point B—the getting-laid stage—so much easier.
Occasionally, Wes and his brothers agreed to avoid the lounge and drink beers off-site, but that wasn’t always practical. The stupid hats were Bran’s failed attempt to keep a low profile.
One of the groupies crossed and uncrossed her legs, glancing provocatively in Wes’s direction. “Nice try, but the hats aren’t working.” His gaze snagged on a beautiful brunette entering the lounge in a black dress that clung to her curves, and his smug grin fell. “What the hell is she doing here?”
Levi looked over. “Isn’t that your ex-girlfriend? Kaylee, right?”
Wes stared at the table and picked up his beer. He took a deep swig. But his gaze slipped back to Kaylee, who lingered near the entrance.
This wasn’t normal. Him giving Kaylee lessons. Her planning her wedding at the club.
Hunt leaned on his forearms, angling his head to the side. “Pretty. Is she single?”
Wes shot him a death glare.
Hunt chuckled. “Just checking.”
“She’s engaged. Otherwise, I wouldn’t care what you did.”
Hunt coughed into his hand and muttered, “Bullshit.”
Wes might have some fucked-up feelings when it came to Kaylee, but he didn’t want her. What he wanted was to know why she was here. And it was time he found out.
He stood, and Adam jumped up too.
“Whoa, there,” Adam said. “We can’t afford another fight at the club.”
Wes rolled his eyes. “Simmer down. I’m giving Kaylee golf lessons. I just need to check in with her.”
“Then why do you look ready to rip off someone’s head?”
“I always look this way,” Wes said, and walked toward Kaylee, who was peering around as though she were searching for someone.
Right as Wes neared, McDouche walked up behind her and put his arm around her waist.
Kaylee visibly stiffened. “I’m only here to say goodbye to Eddy.”
Her fiancé looked down at her questioningly—probably because Wes was radiating all kinds of kill vibes. “Everything okay?”
“Of course,” Wes said. “Lessons are going well, with Bella’s assistance.”
Kaylee gave Wes a halfhearted frown.
She couldn’t be happy that he had a five-year-old teaching her how to swing her golf club. But if she wanted his help, she’d have to deal with it. Besides, Bella could kick Kaylee’s ass on the course, so it wasn’t a bad pairing.
“There’s that Bella person again,” McDouche said. “Who is she?”
“No one,” Kaylee said at the same time Wes said, “My protégée.”
Her fiancé nodded. “Great. She must be good, then.”
Kaylee pulled away from McDouche and touched Wes’s elbow. “Why don’t we talk in the lobby? Eddy’s spending time with his friends tonight. I should get going anyway.”
“Good idea, babe.” Eddy leaned over and kissed Kaylee on the cheek.
Wes’s breathing increased and his heart pounded hard in his chest. He walked away before he did something stupid, like attack Kaylee’s fiancé for no good reason.
Wes waited for Kaylee outside the lounge in one of the seating areas of the large Club Tahoe lobby. He spread his arms across the back of a velvet couch and crossed his ankle over his knee. Relaxed, that was what he was. His ex didn’t rile him up. He was a man in control.
Kaylee entered the lobby and surveyed the space until her gaze landed on him. She walked over, and Wes couldn’t help admiring her.
Still fucking beautiful. Still stole his breath.
But he shut that shit down. Didn’t want or need it.
Kaylee sat across from him on the edge of the opposite couch, her legs pressed together and slanted to the side. “What did you want to talk about?”
Like she didn’t know. “Why are you really here?”
Her face flushed. “I— You know why I’m here. I’m getting married at the resort, and Eddy wants me to take golf lessons. With Bella’s tutelage, I might actually hit the ball on our honeymoon.” Her mouth curved into an ironic smile, but it was a shaky one.
If Wes didn’t know better, he’d think she was holding something back. “Does it bother you that I’m having Bella give you pointers?”
“Bella’s adorable and very encouraging. However, I understand why you paired me with her.” She gave him a pointed look.
“Because she could teach you a thing or two?”
“Because you want to humiliate me… And I understand where the anger is coming from.” She twined her fingers together, her knuckles turning white. “It’s partly why I’m here.”
Now they were getting somewhere. Because Kaylee sure as shit hadn’t come to Club Tahoe to get married. Her family was from a small town, but they had money. She could have gotten married at any fancy resort. She didn’t need the club. “Continue.”
Kaylee swallowed. “I never liked how things ended between us. But at the time, I wasn’t capable of talking to you about it. I hoped to do that now.”
Wes attempted to remain cool, but his adrenaline from earlier hadn’t subsided and he wanted to tell her to cut the bullshit and spill whatever it was she’d hidden from him. He needed this. Needed to know the truth. And maybe, just maybe, it would help him regain his focus on golf. And he wanted his life back too. Because Adam was right: Wes was angry.
He thought he’d moved on, but the more time he spent with Kaylee, the more he realized she’d ruined him in some fundamental way. That was the part he couldn’t forgive her for. “So talk.”
She huffed out a breath. “This is why I waited to say anything.” Kaylee unfolded her hands and gestured to him harshly. “I won’t talk to you while you’re looking at me with such hostility. What I have to say is important.”
He crossed his arms and dropped his foot to the floor. Seeing another man kiss Kaylee, even if it had only been on the cheek, had pissed him off. And thinking of his past with her wasn’t helping either. Then again, he’d already been pissed. Had been an irritable ass for most of the last four years. “You’re dragging this out. Just tell me what you came here to say, and get married somewhere else.”
Kaylee jerked back. “I’m getting married at Club Tahoe, because it’s beautiful. Not because you own it.”
“Right.”
She shook her head. “This was a mistake. If I try to explain things now, you won’t hear me.” She stood abruptly.
“Where are you going?” He wanted to jump up after her, but he stayed put, attempting to remain calm, though his head pounded with rage.
“Home.” She gestured toward the lounge. “Eddy has plans with his friends. He’
s leaving for a long business trip at dawn tomorrow. I only came to say goodbye.”
Wes scrunched up his face. He was still fuming over her refusal to talk about the past, but something she said snagged his attention. “Your fiancé is spending his last night in town…with his friends?”
Her eyes narrowed. “Don’t judge me, Wes Cade. Eddy’s been there for me. Which is more than I can say for you.”
There was the sass he remembered from college. Even if it was misdirected.
Screw calm. He jumped up and leaned down until their heads were inches apart. “Is that why you left me? Jesus, Kaylee, I had the biggest tournament of my life on the horizon. I didn’t have a shitload of time on my hands, but if you’d needed something, you could have just said so.”
“What I needed was more than you were capable of giving.”
Were those tears rimming her eyes? “You don’t know that.”
She swallowed. “I didn’t know for sure at the time. But I worried about how you’d react. I was confused. Scared.”
She’d known him pretty well back then. Still… “It’s been years. Why don’t you tell me what you should have said then? It shouldn’t matter at this point how I react. You’re about to get married, and I’ve moved on a hundred times over.”
She flinched. “I— No. This is wrong. Forget it.” She spun to leave.
And he grabbed her arm. “Hell no.”
“Everything okay over here?” Eddy approached from the direction of the lounge, looking from Kaylee to Wes’s grip on her arm. His gaze moved to Kaylee’s face. “I came to walk you to the car.”
“I was just leaving,” she said, and pulled her arm free. It didn’t take much, because Wes hadn’t been holding her tightly.
Wes shoved his hands in his pockets and smoothed his features, nodding to Eddy. He watched them make their way to the entrance, Kaylee with a stiff back and Eddy with his slimy arm draped over her shoulders.
Her fiancé was leaving for a trip? Good. Kaylee wouldn’t be able to pull another disappearing act. Wes would have plenty of time to find out why she was here without interruptions—and then she could leave.
Because there was no way Wes could prepare for the pro qualifying tournament tensed up the way he’d been since her arrival.
Chapter 4
After Kaylee walked away with her fiancé, Wes returned to his brothers’ table, jerked out a chair, and slumped into it.
“How was the chat with your ex?” Levi said sarcastically.
Jackass. Levi’s new girlfriend was Levi’s ex’s little sister. He probably found Wes’s situation amusing, since Wes was in the hot seat now.
“Fine.” Wes flagged the waitress. He needed another beer. Make that a shot and a beer.
“So, what’s the deal?”
“No deal. Just trying to figure out why she showed up at my resort.”
Hunt flipped a bottle cap on the table, then flipped it again. “Our resort. And this wouldn’t be the girl you dated in college, would it?”
Wes cut him a look. “How do you even know that?”
Hunt shrugged. “She was your last serious girlfriend. And she was hot. Kind of hard to forget. Though she chopped off her hair.” Hunt scanned beyond Wes, as though searching her out.
“She’s still hot,” Wes said, not helping to dissuade his idiot brothers from asking more questions.
“You gonna try and hit that?” Hunt asked.
“Hell no. And don’t talk about her that way.” Wes ordered from the waitress and returned his attention to Hunt. “Kaylee and I have unfinished business, is all. She’s going to explain some shit and be on her way. She’s messing with my golf chi.”
Bran groaned and peeled the label off his beer. “Quit blaming that poor girl for why your game is in the can. It’s not her fault.”
“The fuck it isn’t.” The waitress set a shot in front of Wes, and he threw it back.
Emily, Levi’s girlfriend, snuck up behind Levi and pressed her finger to her lips. She covered Levi’s eyes with her hands.
Levi grinned and reached around, grabbing the backs of Emily’s legs, encased in a dark slim skirt. She was a bit of a workaholic and likely just getting off.
“Emily…” Levi drew out her name in a low tone.
She laughed and dropped her hands. “How did you know it was me?”
Levi hooked his arm around her waist and pulled her onto his lap. “I smelled you.” He waggled his eyebrows.
Wes snarled. Really? This? Now?
He shot Hunt a look, and his youngest brother rolled his eyes.
Adam stared unnervingly at Wes. “What if Kaylee still loves you?”
Wes choked on a gulp of beer. “What?”
Adam sat back in his chair and crossed his arms over his chest, his dress shirt rolled just below his elbows. “It’s possible. Maybe that’s why she’s here.”
“With her fiancé in tow? I don’t think so. And if you’re right, who cares? It wouldn’t mean anything.” But that was a lie.
It would mean something.
All these years, Wes had thought Kaylee had fallen out of love with him. One moment they were talking about the future, and the next his ass was hitting the pavement after being dumped. If she still cared about him, it wouldn’t change things…but it might ease some of his anger over the past.
“Who’s Kaylee?” Emily asked, then stole a sip of Levi’s beer.
“Wes’s ex-girlfriend,” Levi said.
Emily’s forehead scrunched. “Wes had a girlfriend?”
“Yes, I had a girlfriend. Is that so hard to believe?”
“Well…yeah,” she said. “I’ve seen you go home with dozens of women since I started working here. I can’t picture you as a one-woman guy. Did you cheat on her?”
Wes set his beer on the table with a thunk. “No, I didn’t cheat on her. What is this? Bash Wes Night? Can we drop it, please?”
Adam looked to Bran, who looked to Levi.
“Nope,” Hunt said, grinning. “This shit is good entertainment.” He nodded at a beautiful groupie staring their way. “That woman’s been eyeing you since you returned from your little chat with Kaylee. Why don’t you go over there?”
“Not in the mood.”
Hunt smacked his hand on the table. “I knew it!” He raised his arms triumphantly. “Wes wants his ex. Who wants to place bets?”
Bran shook his head. “Leave him alone.”
“Just because I don’t feel like a woman’s company tonight,” Wes said, “that doesn’t mean I want my ex back.”
“Really?” Hunt looked past him. “Then you don’t mind that her fiancé is about to hook up with that blonde over there?”
The fuck? Wes whipped his head around.
Sure enough, McDouche was hanging out with his friends with his hand on a woman’s ass. He whispered something in the woman’s ear then looked around.
To see who was watching?
Wes would bet anything that Kaylee hadn’t informed her fiancé about the extent of her and Wes’s past. Ex-boyfriends were competition, and Eddy would be more careful with this chick if he knew. Instead, the guy was openly hitting on her.
But Eddy wasn’t stupid. He’d made sure to touch Kaylee in Wes’s presence and mark his territory. And to make sure her new golf instructor wasn’t looking while he hit on another woman.
Maybe the baseball hats were more discreet than Wes thought? Because Eddy missed Wes staring at him from the corner of the room.
Wes and his brothers were in the back, somewhat hidden, thanks to Bran’s insistence on keeping a low profile, but Wes stared down at the table anyway when Eddy peered in their direction. When Wes looked up, Eddy was slipping out the side door with the woman.
“Son of a bitch.” Wes’s jaw clenched. “That fucker.”
“Bets, anyone?” Hunt said. “Fifty bucks says Wes and Kaylee are back together by the end of the week.”
Wes ignored his brothers, even though a couple of them were placing bets. Dum
basses.
He waited and glanced at the door every few seconds for Kaylee’s fiancé to return. The hum of chatter in the lounge was just that—a steady stream of white noise. Wes couldn’t focus on any conversation. Not while this shit with Kaylee’s fiancé was going down.
It took McDouche twenty-two minutes to walk back inside, and when he did, part of his button-down shirt was untucked and he wiped lipstick off his mouth. The woman he’d been with walked in behind him, her hair ruffled. She said something to the others and headed toward the women’s restroom.
One of Eddy’s cronies pointed at his fly. Eddy laughed, turned around, and slyly pulled up his zipper.
“Motherfucker.”
“Yeah,” Hunt said, eyeing Wes. “That’s what I thought.”
Wes gripped his beer bottle. “Not my problem.”
Emily was sitting in her own seat now, sipping a gin and tonic, but Levi had pulled her chair close, his leg parked behind it. “Wait.” She stared at McDouche. “I know that guy. He and his fiancée came to see me about their wedding. She’s your ex-girlfriend?”
Wes shrugged noncommittally.
Emily curled her dainty lip and leaned forward. “I think that woman gave him a blowjob. There are lipstick marks on his pants.”
Hunt chuckled. “That’s a foregone conclusion.”
“That is so messed up.” Emily stared at Wes. “You have to say something to your ex-girlfriend.”
Wes sighed. He wanted to punch Eddy in the fucking face for his dick maneuver. But to tell Kaylee?
No. Not a good idea.
Things were better between them. At least while they were on the course with Bella. But their conversation earlier proved tension still existed.
Okay, mostly on Wes’s part. He was pissed. And she knew it. If Wes said something about her fiancé, she might not believe him.
Still, this was fucked up.
Maybe Emily was right. And Bran too. The past was the past. Kaylee wanted to talk, but he’d been an ass to her and now she didn’t feel comfortable opening up.
He dug his fingers into his hair. She’d been a great girlfriend…until the end. And he’d loved her.
He still couldn’t see himself telling her that her fiancé had cheated, but he could try to be more civil.
Daring Wes: Cade Brothers Series Page 3
