Without thinking I set them in his open palm.
“Get in. It’s freezing out here,” he commanded as he slid into the driver’s seat.
He should have looked ridiculous folding his big body into my sports car. Instead, he expertly slid the seat all the way back, adjusted the mirrors, and turned the engine over.
“Ten days, Piper. Ten days of shutting me out.” He peeled out of the parking space and wheeled the car to the gate. Holding out his hand without looking at me, he wordlessly demanded my ticket and paid the full fare when the gatekeeper quoted him the parking price.
My teeth chattered from the cold and from the fallout of my actions, which I was only now figuring out might have been more about past experience than about present company. I cranked up the heat and shrank down into my seat as Wyatt drove my car on the edge of the speed limit. But instead of taking me home as I’d expected, he drove us directly to his place.
“Um, why are we here?” I finally managed to ask when he shut off the car and stared out the windshield.
“Because if this goes any more south, I’m not stuck calling an Uber for a ride home.”
The hurt in his voice gutted me.
He swung out of the car and slammed the door. His long strides ate up the sidewalk to the front porch of his house, and I had to double-step to keep up. But as usual he waited until I caught up and held the door for me to precede him into the house. Even angry and hurt, he still treated me with respect.
God, I’d been an idiot.
“Wyatt—”
His eyes tracked someone in the living room then he glanced back at me. “Save it until we’re upstairs.”
He shook the water out of his jacket and hung it on a peg on the wall to drip onto a rug below it. After toeing off his tennis shoes, he set them neatly inside the closet and waited with his impressive arms crossed over his massive chest while I removed my jacket and shoes.
I wanted to take my time, prolong the inevitable, but the moment of truth had arrived, and I couldn’t stall any longer. Grimly, I walked past Finn and Callahan sitting on the couch and staring at me with open hostility and headed up the stairs with Wyatt trailing me.
At the top of the stairs, he took a detour to the bathroom, emerging with a couple of towels. Closing the door to his room, he handed me one and ran the other over his shoulder-length hair. When he’d finished drying himself, he draped the towel over the handle of the door and stood in front of it, once again crossing his arms over his chest. His granite stance did nothing for my nerves and gave me no clue about whether or not he could forgive me for not trusting him.
His shirt said it all. He wasn’t a cheater. How many times had he told me with words and actions that I meant everything to him? Yet I’d let my past and my family dysfunction carry more weight than his truth.
I draped my wet towel over the back of his desk chair, catching sight of his open sketchbook. “Wyatt?” Gingerly, I reached for it. When I glanced up at him, he remained stoic, his expression stony.
With shaking fingers I began turning the pages. Interspersed with ideas for graphic designs, doodles, and incredible studies for art pieces he’d yet to create were sketches of me. He’d captured me in every mood—pensive, playful, studious, silly—and then I found the drawings he’d made for his eyes only. This was how he saw me? Sexy, sultry, alluring.
In love.
Only when he gently pulled the sketchbook from my hands and set it back on his desk did I catch on that I was crying. Great, gulping sobs escaped me as he wrapped me tight in his arms and held me to his chest. “I’m s-s-sorry, Wyatt. I’m so, so sorry.”
He rubbed his hand up and down my back and made shushing noises in my ear and let me cry.
“I s-saw you with her, and... and...” I gulped down a sob. “In the end, Charlie didn’t matter. He only hurt my ego.” I squeezed my body as tightly to his as I could. “But y-you—” I sniffled. “I love you. So much. Thinking I’d lost you wrecked me.” I fisted my hands in the back of his damp shirt. “I should have listened to you. I should have trusted you. But.” I tried to sniff back the next onslaught of tears. “But the look on Pippa’s face.” Fresh sobs started, and he picked me up and sat on the bed with me on his lap.
“She ambushed me, Piper. From the way she kept glancing past my shoulder, she timed it for you to see. And to draw the wrong conclusion.” He smoothed my hair from my face and reached over to the nightstand for a tissue.
I blew my nose, and he handed me another.
“I can’t pretend to understand what makes your sister tick, but she’s nothing at all like you. She doesn’t deserve your loyalty. And she’s sure as hell the last person I’d ever want in my bed.” He pinned me with his eyes. “But you and I have some things we need to get straight.”
I nodded.
“From now on, no more radio silence. Ever.” His tone brooked no argument. “I can’t stand it when I can’t reach you, when you won’t talk to me.” He let the hurt come into his eyes. “When you delete my messages without reading them.”
I wanted to close my eyes, shut out the pain I’d caused him. Instead, I faced it head-on, my gaze locked on his. “I promise to never shut you out ever again.”
“When you’re scared or worried, you have to say it. You’re not on your own anymore. We’re a team. Teammates have each other’s backs. Always.”
“It’s hard for me to ask for help. I’ve never had it, Wyatt. I’ve always had to take care of myself.” Though I’d shredded the tissue in my lap, I stayed with him.
