Wild about Weston (The English Brothers Book 5) (3 page)

“No, we couldn’t.” She said this simply, without a hint of drama. “The fact is, we like each other, yes. And we’re each other’s ‘sometimes fuck-buddy,’ just like my sisters were with your brothers. It’s fun while it lasts, but—”

“Con, there’s more to us than—”

“No, there isn’t. It didn’t
happen
, Weston. We’ve been sleeping together off and on for a year, but we never fell in love with each other. Don’t you think it should have happened by now? Organically? Because we felt it?”

“We were doing the casual thing. We could change it up. Be more serious. Stop letting stupid shit get between us.”

“No,” she said softly, offering him the letter, which he refused. “Roller coasters are fun once a year at an amusement park. But I don’t want to ride one all the time, Wes.”

He was surprised she felt this way, because he did too. Was it really too late for them? He shook his head, wincing. Despite the way they made him feel, Weston recognized the truth in her words. He’d gotten sick of the back-and-forth nature of their relationship, too. And why hadn’t they fallen in love with each other yet? Still, he still felt like she wasn’t giving them a chance.

“Connie, please…”

“You’ll thank me one day when you meet the right girl. You’ll be grateful not to have to come here with your tail between your legs and tell me it’s over. And I’ll be grateful that I walked away.” She took a deep breath and gave him a brave smile, before leaning forward to press her cool lips against his cheek. Her voice was soft and low near his ear. “Don’t think I didn’t want it, Wes. I wish it had happened for us. It just didn’t.”

He turned his face toward her, his cheek caressing hers until he met her eyes. She was so close, he’d barely have to move to capture her lips beneath his. “Then, please, Con. Don’t go to Italy. Give
me
a chance. Give
us
a real chance.”

“No.” She swiped at her eyes and shook her head, pulling away from him. “I can’t think of anything more pathetic than forcing something that isn’t there. But, I’m sorry about the timing. I’m a coward.”

“Yes,” agreed Weston sourly, “you are.”

Her blue eyes glistened as she stared up at him, then she turned and headed back to the door. “It softens the blow, though, doesn’t it? That I’m such a cowardly bitch? To leave you high and dry without a date on your brother’s wedding day? Makes it easier to be angry, not sad, doesn’t it?”

Before she reached the apartment door, Weston reached out for her arm and whipped her around to face him. What he saw in her unguarded eyes surprised him: she’d done this on purpose. She’d already fallen for him. He could see it. Somewhere along the way, she’d fallen in love with him, but, he’d missed it. When had it happened? How had he failed to see it? And why hadn’t he fallen in love with her, too?

“Con…”

A tear trailed down her face as she stared up at him. “What do you feel for me, Wes?”

“I care about you. I like being with you. You’re fun and sexy. I feel like you’re giving up on this too soon.”

Her watery blue eyes stared back into his. “Are you in love with me?”

He sucked his bottom lip between his teeth and dropped her eyes.

“I already knew the answer.” She shrugged in a gesture meant to convey apathy, but another tear spilled onto her cheek, betraying her. Her back stiffened as she wiped it away. “And frankly? You’re an English brother, Wes, which means I’d be pretty stupid to trust you.”

“That’s not fair. I’m not Barrett or Alex. I would’ve given this a real chance.”

Connie huffed softly, looking down at her shiny shoes. Weston removed his hand from her arm and reached for her, putting his arms around her waist and pulling her against his chest in the dim hallway. He buried his nose in her hair with a heavy heart. “I’m not ready for this to end yet, Con. I hate you for doing this.”

“That’s the point,” she sobbed softly. “Hate me. Now let me go.”

He gulped, loosening his arms, and Connie reached behind him for her suitcase.

“Lock the door when you leave,” she said softly, then turned and walked out of her apartment, letting the door close softly behind her.

He thought about running after her. He imagined it. But when he got to the part where she raised her blue eyes to his, waiting for the words she wanted to hear, his brain didn’t form them. As much as he liked her, as much as he loved fucking her, as much as it had been an exciting time, and as much as he wished he felt differently… she was right. Weston wasn’t in love with her. But what bothered him was that maybe, if she’d just given him a chance, he would’ve gotten there. Instead, based on her sisters’ experiences with his brothers, she’d decided to walk away. Par for the course. His older brothers had determined the course of his life yet again. It rankled and bit at Weston, making him transfer all of his anger from Connie, to Barrett and Alex.

Looking around her pristine apartment, he grabbed the roses off the table. No matter what choices she’d made today, she didn’t deserve to come home to dried, blackened flowers. The red bow, printed with the words, “Happy Valentine’s Day” in a soft, white script, taunted him as he locked the door of her apartment behind him and threw the flowers into the incinerator.

Happy Valentine’s Day?

Yeah, right.

He was going stag to his brother’s wedding.

Happy
fucking
Valentine’s Day.

Molly leaned against the bar, downing her second Chardonnay in fifteen minutes. If she’d known a single soul at the wedding besides Daisy, or if she wasn’t attending by herself, it would have been easier to relax, but as it was, she was barely hanging on. She’d looked for another familiar face among the guests, but she was pretty sure she was the only friend Daisy had invited from their community theater group.

Not to mention, Dusty had called her twice at home this afternoon. The second time, she’d picked up the phone without putting it to her ear, hung it up, then left it off the hook so he’d get a busy signal if he tried calling again. An hour later, he’d started texting, saying they “needed to talk.” Without answering, Molly had deleted the texts and set her iPhone to “Do Not Disturb,” so that it wouldn’t alert her to any further texts from him. It was bad enough to be stag and entirely alone at a wedding without her jackass of an ex-fiancé making it worse.

Knowing Dusty, he wanted her forgiveness. He wanted to try to smooth things over, because it killed him to be at odds with anyone. Well, screw him. They
were
at odds, and they were going to
stay
that way. He didn’t deserve her forgiveness. After all, she was the injured party, wasn’t she? She wasn’t interested in explanations or apologies or working out anything.

Frankly, at this point, all Molly really wanted was to go home. She was basically just waiting for Fitz and Daisy to finish their photos and arrive at the reception to greet their guests. Once she’d given Daisy a hug and told her what a beautiful wedding it was Molly would be off the hook. She could slip out of the ballroom of Haverford Park and quietly make her way home where she would continue drinking until she was as drunk as a skunk, and then she’d pass out and try to forget the day ever happened.

It
had
been a beautiful wedding, that much was true. But, for the first time that Molly could ever remember, she hadn’t shed a tear. Not one. Not when Fitz’s handsome face clutched at the sight of his beautiful bride walking down the aisle, not when Daisy’s father lifted her veil, kissed her cheek, and gave her away. Not when they took their vows, which they wrote themselves and were among the most heartfelt Molly had ever heard. Not when they exchanged rings using the Scottish vows, “With this Ring I thee wed, with my body I thee worship, and with all my worldly goods I thee endow” which had leveled her every other time at every other wedding. And as a friend of the bride recited the verses from Corinthians, Molly made her own acidic additions in her head:

Love is patient and kind…
and doesn’t knock up the art teacher.

Love does not behave rudely…
unless you consider it rude to cheat on your fiancée.

Love never fails…
except when it
totally and completely
fails, leading to the break-up of an engagement.

As Daisy and Fitz made their joyful walk down the aisle, Molly forced herself to stand and clap half-heartedly from the corner of the back pew, but all she really wanted was to go home. In lieu of home, she decided to hold up the bar. She was so busy feeling sorry for herself, she missed the adorable blond in a tux who sidled up beside her.

“Scotch. Double,” he said in a low, terse voice. “Wait. Triple.”

Molly shifted only slightly to watch him throw back the lowball glass, before wincing in distaste and sliding it back to the bartender.

“Again. Neat.”

The old Molly—sweet, gullible, trusting, stupid Molly—from yesterday, might have gently laid her hand on his arm and asked him if everything was okay. The dumped, bitter, caustic, on-her-way-to-plastered Molly of today nudged her empty glass forward beside his.

“Another Chardonnay, please?”

“That’s three,” said the bartender, as he filled up Blondie’s lowball glass again.

She hooked her thumb at Blondie. “And he’s on his fourth, fifth, and sixth, but I didn’t notice you counting it out for him.”

“It’s early yet. Maybe pace yourself, honey.”

“If I wanted a lecture, I would’ve called my dad,” she said, shocked to hear the words she was thinking somehow fall out of her mouth.

“Whoa, touchy. Just saying.”

“Well, don’t,” she said softly. “Don’t say. Just pour.”

As she exchanged words with the bartender, Blondie had stopped with his drink halfway to his lips, and was staring at her with his mouth slightly open.

“Hey,” he said, his eyes flicking to her breasts for just a second. “You look
almost
as miserable as I feel.”

“Imagine how delighted I am to hear that,” she answered, putting her back to the bar and looking past him, as though bored.

If she was honest, however, she wasn’t bored by him. Maybe, just maybe, for no apparent reason that she cared to explore, her tummy might have filled with butterflies when he locked his blue eyes with hers a moment before.

“Wow.” He threw back half the glass of Scotch, then lowered the tumbler to the bar, shifting his body to face her. “Not a big fan of weddings, huh?”

“Not today,” she admitted, grasping the stem of her wineglass after the bartender grudgingly refilled it. The wine was doing its work, making the sharp ache of Dusty’s betrayal recede from the front of her mind.

“Amen,” he agreed.

“Today, weddings suck.”

“Right there with you.”

“Love, love, love…blah, blah, blah. Whatever.”

“Preaching to the choir.”

“To have and to hold…what does that even mean?”

He wrinkled his nose at her. “I think it just means…to have and to hold.”

She smirked. “I guess they didn’t want to confuse anyone when they came up with that witty line.”

His lips quirked up and he brought the glass to his lips again, taking a small sip. “Boy, you’re something.”

“Am I?” she asked, still channeling acidic boredom, although part of her hoped he wouldn’t leave because at least if Blondie was talking to her, she wasn’t completely alone. Plus, he was easy on the eyes, it was taking effort not to look at him, and that effort was distracting her from her general misery.

“You’re really angry.” He leaned a little closer and lowered his voice. “Don’t take this the wrong way, but I sort of dig that today.”

“What do you dig on the other 364 days?”

He laughed softly, shaking his head back and forth. “Why don’t we just worry about today?”

She sighed, taking another big gulp of wine before glancing at him. She shifted her body and fluttered a couple of fingers toward the boutonniere on his lapel.

“Wedding party?”

“Weren’t you at the wedding?”

“Back row corner,” she said. “I guess I wasn’t paying attention.”

Fueled by many fermented grapes, she decided to remedy that now. Without even trying to be subtle, she started at his neck then dropped her eyes, inch by inch, to his broad chest, to his tapered waist, to his hips—with strong bets on a toned, chiseled man-V under his sharply creased trousers—to his legs, and back up again. “Friend or family?”

His eyes burned after her blunt perusal. “Family. What about you?”

“Maybe I’m crashing,” she deadpanned.

As if dumped schoolteacher Molly McKenna would ever do something as wild as crash a wedding.

He grinned, his eyes a touch darker now as he threw back the rest of his Scotch without wincing or gasping. He shoved his glass back toward the bartender, tapping on the rim to indicate he wanted another.

“Really?”

“Crashing,” she whispered with a soft laugh of disbelief.

“I’ve never met a wedding crasher. How did you get in?” he asked, amusement and surprise thick in his voice.

“What?”

“You crashed, right? How did you manage to get in?”

“Oh, I didn’t…”

Wouldn’t that be something? To crash a wedding? To be someone who did something like that?
Someone…wild?

Either the wine was making her loopy, or the idea of “being wild” for the first time in her life had taken hold of her like a beagle’s teeth on a bird’s throat. Whatever the reason, it didn’t much matter. She looked into Blondie’s deep blue eyes, which were twinkling with amusement, and made a quick decision. Licking her lips and lowering her voice to a purr as she’d seen in the movies, she beckoned him closer.

“Want me to tell you? Or show you?”

Shocked by her own boldness, Molly didn’t move an inch. She stared at the pulse in his throat, the way it pounded, pushing at the skin forcefully with every throbbing surge of blood. By staring at
his
heartbeat she could ignore the fierce pounding of her own.

“Are you serious?”

Her breathing had suddenly become shallow and quick. Was she? Was she serious? What exactly was she offering? A kiss? Sex? Christ on a cracker, she’d never had sex with anyone but Dusty. Dusty. Her nostrils flared with fury. Dusty who’d cheated on her with Shana. She exhaled raggedly, licking her lips again, emboldened by her fury.

“Try me,” she whispered.

He leaned back, his blue eyes almost black as he scanned her body neatly. First her lips, which he stared at with longing, his own tongue darting out quickly before his eyes dropped lower, resting on the swell of her breasts, which she’d purposely shoved into a strapless, push-up bra to add a little cleavage to her simple, black, multi-purpose cocktail dress. Lower now, he took in her small waist and the gentle swell of her hips, before staring at her feet in black, patented leather sling backs three inches high with a hot pink heel.

When his eyes returned to hers, they were smoldering. “I like your shoes.”

“Thanks,” she managed to murmur.

“Let’s go.”

She gulped soundlessly, her fingers trembling with a mixture of fear and excitement. Half a glass of white wine sat on the bar and she picked it up, tipping it back and swallowing until she’d drunk every drop, holding his eyes all the while.

“Lead the way,” she said, in a breathy voice that didn’t sound like her at all.

He took the glass out of her hand, then laced his fingers through hers, searching her eyes wildly for an extra moment.

“Don’t take this the wrong way…”

“What?” she asked, incredibly distracted by the solid warmth of his hand pressed into hers, the way their interlaced fingers fit together.

He shook his head. “You don’t seem like the type.”

Molly McKenna lifted her chin just a notch.

Just for tonight, she was. Tonight she
was
the type of girl who slept with a stranger at a wedding. Tonight, with someone she’d never see again
after
tonight, she was going to forget she was a responsible, good-girl teacher. Tonight, she wasn’t pathetic, jilted Molly McKenna. Tonight, she was going to the wild.

“Tonight,” she said, “I am.”

“What about the other 364 nights?” he asked, his eyes narrowing slightly, like he was trying to figure her out.

She glanced down at their joined hands then mustered the courage to smirk.

“Why don’t we just worry about tonight?” she suggested.

He tightened his grip on her hand and led her through a side door, out of the ballroom.

***

Having the reception in his parent’s country estate, Haverford Park, where Weston had grown up, was suddenly very convenient. Winding his way through the dimly-lit back corridors, from the ballroom, through the dining room, into the service hallway, he made it to the back staircase without running into any other guests, pulling the gorgeous, sexy, intriguing redhead behind him.

With her hair held back with a black velvet hairband, and her conservative cocktail dress adorned, simply, with a single strand of pink pearls, she looked like one of the boring, well-mannered girls he’d grown up with…until she’d started speaking to the bartender. He’d been utterly captivated by the sharp whip of her words, the heat of her anger that she tried so hard to conceal with ennui. And then suddenly, when he thought he had her figured out as a single, bitter, anti-wedding wedding guest, she pulled out the sexy, informing him that she hadn’t been invited to the wedding. She was, in fact, crashing. And she insinuated that she’d gotten in by…by…by what? Fucking someone? Like one of the valet guys? A waiter? Holy shit, that was hot. It was wicked and oh-so-dirty, but damn, it was hot.

And suddenly it had occurred to Weston in his increasingly soused state: whoever she was? She was perfect. The perfect post-Connie rebound. They’d do the deed, he’d cut the cord with Connie, and he’d move on. Slam, bam, thank you, single, bitter, uninvited wedding guest. Don’t mind if I do.

It was certainly preferable to enduring Barrett and Alex’s guilty grimaces. The second he’d shown up without Connie, they’d asked where she was, and Weston had made no bones about the fact that his ex-
almost
-girlfriend had shot him down because she didn’t want to date an English brother. Even though that was only partially true, Weston was in the mood to pick a fight and felt angry with his older brothers, resentful of being the youngest and subject to the wake of their decisions.