Page 48 of Wild Heart

“What the hell is wrong with him?”

“Please don’t get worked up over this,” I begged. “I’ve already done a lot to heal from the situation with Tate, and I need to keep making some forward movement with that. It’s tense right now. I’ve been gone a long time without any communication between us. So, I think we just need to have a cooling-off period before we can even get back some semblance of even a cordial relationship.”

She tipped her head to one side. “You told me you were in love with him.”

My cheeks burned, my gaze dropping to the food in front of me.

Love.

My whole life, it was the one thing I wanted. My parents had been too caught up in themselves and each other to ever give me that. They hadn’t even seemed to care that I started spending less time at home and more time with the Westwoods. As long as I wasn’t inconveniencing them, that was all that mattered.

I’d been fortunate to have Ivy and the rest of her family. Other than the way Tate felt toward me now, I could confidently say that this family did love me. It was likely all I’d ever have, though. Because I was never going to get it with Tate, despite knowing he had the capacity for it. I was never going to get to experience that love I’d witnessed between Malcolm and Evelyn.

Maybe, somewhere down the road, I’d fool myself into falling in love with someone else. Perhaps I’d be like my mom, a woman who knew all along that her husband wasn’t faithful and drowned herself in a bottle of alcohol to cope.

No matter how much I wanted to know what it was like, to have more than just that single night with a man who’d stolen my heart at such a young age, I couldn’t think about what might happen past this moment. It all hurt too much.

I dropped the piece of toast I’d been fiddling with, brought my hands to my lap, and blinked back the tears threatening to fall. A moment later, I felt Ivy’s arms around me, and that was all it took for me to break down sobbing.

I had to admit defeat.

I was in love with a man who’d never love me back. It was a good thing I’d planned to start searching for an apartment tomorrow—I’d need today to pull myself together.

13

TATE

“So, how bad is it?”

If it wasn’t so devastating, I might have laughed at Wyatt’s question. That he’d taken one look at me and instantly knew just how awful things were.

They all did.

All three of my brothers had barged into my office at the end of the workday today, and without giving me much of a choice in the matter, they’d demanded I join them for dinner.

“Work is done for the day,” Cooper declared as they stormed inside.

“What?”

Wyatt had moved to grab my coat. He tossed it in my direction and said, “Let’s go.”

My brows pulled together, wondering what event had been planned that I’d forgotten about. For a fleeting moment, I realized just how possible that was, considering I’d been more than slightly distracted today. “Where are we going?”

“Out.” Leave it to Liam to provide only the very basic of information.

“Out? Where? For what?”

With a proud smile on his face, Cooper crossed his arms over his chest. “Consider it a belated birthday celebration.”

My body stiffened. “Uh, did you forget about last night? We sort of already celebrated.”

“Yeah, that was with everyone else,” Wyatt noted. “This is just for the four of us.”

“Since when do we have a separate celebration?”

I already knew the reason they were doing this, but I hoped that by calling them out on it, they’d change their minds. I loved my brothers, but I wasn’t exactly in any mood to be celebrating.

“Do you have other plans for tonight?” Cooper pressed, ignoring my question.