It was hard for me to say no to Tori. She knew that, and right now, she was taking advantage of one of my few weaknesses.
“No promises,” I said vaguely.
Honestly, my cooperation was going to depend on Shelby Remington’s attitude.
If she was as surly as she’d been the evening of Chase and Vanna’s wedding reception, all bets were off.
All I really wanted to do was eat in peace, and leave as quickly as possible.
“Go and eat,” Tori insisted as she cut what I assumed was a piece of that irresistible cake for me and put it on a smaller plate. “The chair right next to Shelby’s is available.”
I stared at my little sister suspiciously. “Are you trying to set me up?”
It wouldn’t be the first time.
She rolled her eyes at me. “No, I’m not setting you up. But it would be nice if you got to know her since she’s my friend. I think everything that happened between the two of you was a misunderstanding. She told me about the blind date thing a year ago, but only because I forced her to cough up that information. Refusing to meet her after she’d already agreed to meet you was kind of a crappy thing for you to do. She was new in town, Wyatt. She didn’t have any friends here. She didn’t have any ulterior motives. All she wanted to do was meet up with a friend of Kaleb’s.”
Fuck! I’d really hoped that Tori hadn’t been informed about that incident.
I put my loaded plate down on the counter and ran a hand through my hair in frustration. “Kaleb didn’t tell me that she knew he was attempting to hook us up. I thought he’d asked me first, so I nixed the idea right away. I didn’t know he’d already asked Shelby.”
Tori looked at me with a puzzled expression. “Why would he ask you first? She’s his cousin, and they’re really close. Of course he cleared it with her before he asked you. You hurt her feelings, Wyatt. I really don’t blame her for being a little standoffish and short with you when the two of you finally met in person.”
“Short?” I protested. “She called me a superficial asshole and indicated that she thought I was conceited. For some strange reason, she seemed to think I refused to meet her because of the way she looked.”
Tori shot me an accusatory look. “She’s gorgeous, and any guy would have to be an idiot to refuse a date with her, but did you do it because you didn’t think she was attractive? That’s the reason most guys refuse a blind date, which does make them superficial and stuck up.”
“I had no fucking idea what she looked like,” I said grumpily. “We’d never met. Not even when I visited Montana to see Kaleb and his family. I was never around when she was, and all I’d ever seen was pictures of Shelby with her cousins when she was nothing more than a child. I have no intention of getting romantically involved with any woman. I’d rather not lose my mind like all of my friends and my brother. She was better off never meeting me at all. I don’t have a romantic bone in my body, Tori. You know that.”
“She was no more interested in romance than you were. So you were afraid of jeopardizing your friendship with Kaleb?” she queried. “And you don’t find her…unattractive?”
Fuck, no. Shelby Remington was beautiful. Statuesque and gorgeous, with large, flaming red curls that looked softer than silk and a curvy body that had made my dick twitch the moment I’d seen her. However, I wasn’t about to share those little details with Tori.
Truthfully, Shelby Remington’s audacity had challenged and surprised me, which hadn’t happened in a long time. Sure, it had been somewhat annoying, but it had also intrigued me…at first. Before she’d ran away like she couldn’t tolerate another moment in my company. But I wasn’t confessing that to Tori, either.
My little sister was always insistent that I just hadn’t met the right woman yet, and I didn’t want to encourage her to keep making that incorrect assumption.
If Tori knew that Shelby had stood out from other women in any way to me, she’d jump all over that information.
I shrugged. “I was mostly worried about my friendship with Kaleb. But it was for her own good, too. I’m a jaded asshole who spends most of my time working. What female wants to deal with that?”
“All she wanted was a friend,” Tori said softly.
“Yeah. Well. I’d suck at that, too,” I informed her bluntly. “I’ve never been friends with a woman.”
I’d spent the majority of my adult life in special forces in the military, many of those military years leading Delta Force missions with the same guys over and over again.
I knew zero about being there for a female when she needed me, and even less about how a woman’s mind worked in general.
That was a lesson I’d learned a very long time ago, and I wasn’t eager to try and fail at it again.
“You have a little sister, and I’m also a female. You’ve always been there for me when I needed you,” Tori reminded me gently.
“Sisters are different,” I retorted firmly. “You’re family. There’s no romance involved.”
“Oh, Wyatt,” Tori breathed out softly. “You’re much more compassionate than most of the world sees.”
I picked up my loaded plate, stacked the dessert on top, and then snatched a napkin and silverware. “I really hope you don’t feel the need to share that opinion with anyone else because it’s bullshit,” I told her unhappily as I strode toward the patio door.
Luckily, Tori only saw a small portion of the man that I was and always would be.
She didn’t know the man who could kill someone without a second thought when it was necessary.
She didn’t know the person who had always put duty first and personal relationships last.
She also didn’t know the cutthroat businessman who did what he needed to do and almost never looked back at the destruction in his wake.
Tori only knew the big brother who had been there to protect her for as long as she could remember.
She only saw the guy I wanted her to see, and I was oddly grateful that she didn’t know what I was capable of outside of that little sister bubble.
At least there was one woman on the planet who didn’t think I was an asshole, and I really wanted to keep it that way.
Shelby
“I’m sorry that I called you a superficial asshole,” I blurted out as I watched Wyatt devour his food like he hadn’t eaten in a very long time. “I don’t know you, and it wasn’t fair for me to say that.”
The tension between me and Wyatt Durand was thick enough to cut with a knife. It had been since the moment he had taken the seat beside me about ten minutes earlier.