Chapter 13 Wyatt
WYATT
The following week, Wyatt was on his way to the café to meet Titus and Finn.
Pearl, the café owner, and her granddaughter, Ellie, were going to make the wedding cake, and they had samples for them to try.
Wyatt had the day off, and when Titus asked about his plans, he was delighted to accept the invitation to join them for cake tasting.
He walked from his rental cottage in the village up to the café, breathing in the sweet morning air, fragrant with wildflowers that lined the path, and the faint, salty scent of the sea.
He paused several times to gaze out at the beach and the water beyond, shimmering in the sunlight — a blue-green expanse that looked incredibly inviting.
When he reached the café gardens, he admired the entranceway framed with rambling honeysuckle and roses.
Through the gate, a rainbow of colour greeted him as flowers bloomed everywhere: in pots, borders, climbing trellises, and window boxes.
Along with the scent of flowers came the aromas of baking and coffee, and his stomach grumbled, reminding him he hadn’t eaten breakfast.
He spotted Titus and Finn sitting near the window, laughing about something as Pearl set down trays of pastel-frosted samples on the table in front of them.
‘Wyatt!’ Titus called as he entered the café. ‘Come and join us.’
Wyatt went over and pulled out a chair, then sat opposite the grooms. ‘Well, this all looks delicious.’ He licked his lips as he eyed the variety of cake samples on the table.
‘Ellie is going to talk us through it all,’ Finn said.
‘Excellent.’ Wyatt nodded.
‘And there’s our wedding planner! Right on time, Edith!’ Finn waved.
Wyatt turned to see Edith walking towards them, the smile on her lips disappearing as she spotted Wyatt. But as quickly as it had dropped, she forced it back in place.
In a purple jersey dress that skimmed her knees, grey wedge sandals, and her chestnut hair falling over her shoulders in natural waves, she was stunning. Effortlessly so. Her bright green eyes scanned the scene, and then she seemed to make a decision as she pulled out the chair next to Wyatt.
His heart stuttered.
He’d thought she might squeeze onto the leather sofa with Finn and Titus, but she sat next to him, and he was grateful. Sensing someone watching him, he glanced away from Edith to find Titus raising his eyebrows knowingly.
Heat climbed his neck, and he forced himself to focus. This wouldn’t do; he had to behave as if he barely knew Edith or awkward questions would be asked, and that was the last thing he wanted. He was pretty certain Edith would feel the same.
‘Drinks?’ he asked, getting up and moving around the table. ‘What would everyone like?’
He took their orders then went to the counter and leant against it, glad to have a few moments to compose himself.
After he’d ordered a round of coffees, he went back to the table and found Edith and the men talking about the merits of sponge versus fruit cake.
Finn was in favour of a fruit cake, but Titus was shaking his head, saying they were for dinosaurs.
Edith was laughing, and he admired the tilt of her head and the way she looked so lovely when she relaxed with her friends.
Wyatt set the tray of drinks down on the table and slid Edith’s cappuccino towards her first, before handing the men theirs. She smiled her thanks, and he smiled back, feeling some of the tension in his body ease. Perhaps this would all be OK.
He’d have to get used to seeing her around as she was the wedding planner and he was the best man, so there was no way they could avoid each other over the next few months. Not that he wanted to avoid her because the thought of not seeing her now was completely unappealing.
Ellie joined them and stood next to the table with another tray of cake.
She set the small plates down and then handed out some forks.
‘OK then…’ She smiled at them all, but she looked somewhat anxious.
‘We have a variety here for you to try, but if you don’t like any of them, that’s no problem as I have some other ideas too. ’
‘I’m sure there’s one here that will be perfect for us,’ Titus said. ‘There are fifteen kinds of cake here. How fussy can we be?’
Finn turned to his fiancé. ‘Quite fussy at times, my darling.’
‘Finn!’ Titus shook his head. ‘I am not fussy.’
‘With some things, you are.’ Finn winked at Titus, and they laughed, sharing some private joke.
It made Wyatt’s heart ping like it had just received a calendar reminder, because he’d once shared similar jokes with Edith, things that would have seemed unimportant to outsiders but things that mattered to them.
It was the wonderful thing about intimacy — the way two people could know each other better than anyone else in the world.
His chest squeezed, and he realised he missed it, had been missing it for years but had been trying to ignore how empty he felt without it.
Without Edith.
Oh damn…
‘Right then,’ Ellie snapped him out of his thoughts. ‘First, we have lemon and elderflower sponge cake. This one is fresh, floral and very light.’
They tasted the cake, and Wyatt had to admit that it was delicious. It tasted like summer in baked form, and he licked his lips, wishing he could eat more of it but knowing that this was about tasting and not comfort eating.
‘Next, we have the salted caramel with dark chocolate. This one is a contrast to the elderflower and lemon, and it’s perfect if you want a more decadent cake.’
While they all tried it, murmurs of pleasure circled the table, and Wyatt saw Edith’s eyes light up as she licked her fork clean.
Her lips parted slightly and something inside him snagged like wool on a nail, and he tried to focus on the cake and not on her.
But each slight movement drew his gaze, and a pleasant warmth spread through him.
He told himself to pay attention to the conversation, to the cake, to anything else.
But every time she smiled, his heart gave an unsteady little jolt.
They sampled more flavours, each one divine, and Ellie blushed at their praise.
When they paused for a break — there was only so much sugar they could consume in one go — Ellie went to get them more drinks.
Edith rearranged the table so that the cakes they hadn’t tried were on one side and those they had were on the other.
‘Well, I’m just here for the icing,’ Titus said with a chuckle. ‘As long as it’s iced, I’m happy.’
They laughed together, and it felt easy and warm.
Wyatt relaxed into the moment: the gentle tinkling of cutlery from other diners, the frothing of the coffee machine, the way Finn rested his arm around Titus’ shoulders and how Edith dabbed gently at her pretty mouth.
He wondered how it would feel to brush the hair from her cheek or to whisper something sweet into the shell of her ear and see her eyes light up just for him.
As if she’d read his mind, she met his gaze, and something passed between them. A spark flared, and heat seared through Wyatt’s chest. It made his breath catch in his throat, and he sat up straight, aware that this feeling was not to be ignored.
Edith blinked rapidly. She had felt it too. When she stood and grabbed her bag, then excused herself to visit the ladies’, Wyatt wanted to run after her and take her in his arms, pull her against his chest and feel her heart racing.
Of course, he didn’t, because that wasn’t how people behaved after they’d been separated for years, but it was how he felt in that moment and what he wanted to do. Longed to do.
Edith was incredible, and being near her again was messing with his reserve and rattling his composure.
Over the years, he’d erected walls around himself, walls that protected him from pain.
Edith had been the only person capable of penetrating those walls.
She got to him, and he had let her in, welcomed her, and savoured being close to her.
And then he had tossed Edith aside as if she didn’t matter at all, and it had hurt him just as it had hurt her.
But he’d believed he had no choice and so he’d breathed deep and swallowed the pain of losing her.
It had been better for her to have the plaster ripped off in one quick swipe than for her to suffer a drawn-out breakup, or even worse, for her to know the truth.
For her to witness what Wyatt’s life in New York was like, to learn about him and what he’d done.
If she’d seen the fallout from his worst mistake, she would have hated him for it.
The thought of her knowing was worse than letting her go.
She could hate him for breaking her heart but not hate him for being what he was.
A complete letdown. A failure. He had failed the people who needed him the most, and it had led to a tragedy that he couldn’t bear to tell Edith about.
She would look at him differently, and that was too much for him to bear, and so he had let her believe he’d stopped caring for her when the exact opposite was in fact true.
Tearing his eyes away from the door she’d gone through, he bit down hard on the inside of his cheek and counted to ten.
He was strong enough to get through this without telling Edith how much he hated himself. Without asking her to hold him. Without begging her to love him once more.
Wasn’t he?
All he could do was try.
Over and over again.