Chapter Forty-Seven
Chapter
Forty-Seven
The answer was no.
I definitely wasn’t ready to attempt to scale the building.
I wasn’t that crazy. Not yet, anyway.
Besides, it was still light out, and the area was quiet but not deserted. The last thing I needed was for the cops to show up and arrest me for whatever crime fit the harebrained scheme I had wisely scrapped almost as soon as it crossed my mind.
“Maybe we should watch from across the street,” Wyatt suggested as I continued to stare at the warehouse.
I agreed with that plan. At least from that position we could duck behind the row of parked cars if Hoffman made a sudden reappearance. We waited for a van to pass, and then we darted across the street and leaned against the wall of another warehouse.
“I don’t suppose you have infrared binoculars,” I said, stuffing my hands into the pockets of my hoodie. As soon as my fingers touched the box of Milk Duds, my mouth watered.
“Damn. I left them in my car with all the rest of my spy gear.”
“Ha ha.” I rolled my eyes and tore open the box.
“I said I had a background in security, not that I’m 007.”
I poured a couple of Milk Duds into my palm. “I just thought—”
“That I must have every tool and toy under the sun?” Wyatt shifted and shoved his hands into the pockets of his jeans. “I guess the fact that we met at the country club kind of gave it away.”
“That you’ve got money?” I asked. When he nodded, I added, “If it hadn’t, the car would have.”
One corner of his mouth turned up in a short-lived grin. “I do love my car.”
I offered him the box of candy. “What about the country club?”
“Not so much.” He poured a few Milk Duds into his hand. “The amenities are great. The company is hit-or-miss.”
We fell silent, enjoying our chewy, chocolate-coated caramels while watching the warehouse across the street. His answer intrigued me and left me with the feeling that he was more than just some hot rich guy. Maybe I’d sensed that all along.
I glanced his way as I finished the last of my Milk Duds. I flattened the empty box and shoved it into the pocket of my hoodie.
“I have been avoiding you lately,” I confessed, suddenly feeling the need to offer up at least a bit of honesty. “Somewhat, anyway. There’s a lot going on in my head.”
“So it’s nothing to do with me, specifically?”
I tried to figure out how to answer that. “You confuse me. I like you, but I’m wary. I don’t want to get burned, even as friends, but I really don’t know you, so how can I trust you?”
Wyatt stayed silent while we watched the building across the street.
Nobody came in or out. Nobody even walked by.
Now that daylight had begun to fade, due in part to the darkening clouds overhead, I detected a glow of light emanating from the high, bar-covered windows.
But as for what was happening inside the building, we remained clueless.
I crossed my arms over my chest, trying to stay warm. I should have brought a jacket, especially since the clouds looked ready to open up and pour rain down upon us. At least they were holding off for the moment, but I didn’t trust my luck to continue for long.
As Wyatt’s silence stretched on, I couldn’t help but fidget. Maybe I’d offered up too much honesty too soon. Even though I knew I’d likely be better off if I scared him out of my life, I didn’t actually want to run him off.
I’d never claimed to be sensible.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Wyatt take out his wallet and remove something.
My gaze flicked down when he held a plastic card out to me.
His driver’s license.
I opened my hand, and he placed the license on my palm.
The name on it wasn’t new to me, thanks to Theo’s revelation, but the card still felt weighty in my hand. It was the importance of the gesture that gave it that heft. It had taken him a while, but he’d shared his identity of his own accord.
“Wyatt Quintal Alessi,” I read. “A March baby. Three years, one month, and two days older than me.” I passed the card back. “Thank you.”
He tucked it away in his wallet. “I wasn’t trying to be—”
“Secretive?” I offered.
“I was going to say a jerk.”
I smiled at that, just a little. “You didn’t want me putting two and two together.”
“Have you now?”
“In keeping with the spirit of honesty and openness, I already had, thanks to Theo.”
That took him by surprise. “She knows my full name?”
“I’m pretty sure she knows everything about both of us,” I said.
“Should I be worried?”
I didn’t need time to consider my answer. “Most likely.”
We shared the briefest of smiles before turning our eyes back to the warehouse across the street.
“You thought if I knew about your famous mother, I’d…what?” I asked. “Go all fangirl? Morph into a gold digger?”
He was silent for a moment before responding.
“My mom grew up in Brazil,” he said. “Her family was dirt poor. She got pregnant with me when she was fifteen. Her family knew that they couldn’t look after me—they were already struggling—so I was given up for adoption.”
My gaze snapped to him. I hadn’t expected that. He kept his eyes trained on the warehouse.
“At the time, my birth mother had no idea that she’d get discovered by an agent and shoot to fame as a supermodel two years after I was born.”
I opened my mouth to say something but then closed it again when words eluded me.
I’d never known Rosangela Quintal’s background. She was just a familiar face I saw in commercials and print ads. She’d enjoyed the height of her fame when I was a kid, but she had her own fashion and cosmetic lines that remained popular to this day.
“An American couple adopted me,” Wyatt continued. “Lorenzo and Emilia Alessi. I grew up in Syracuse in a middle-class neighborhood with a middle-class life. And it was great.”
“I sense a but,” I said quietly.
“An until.”
Even in the waning light, I didn’t miss the shadow of pain that passed across his face.
He stared across the street. “Until my parents were both killed in a car crash when I was fourteen.”
“Oh my God. Wyatt.” My heart broke for him.
He plowed on, as if determined to finish the story.
“I ended up in the foster system and bounced around from placement to placement for about three years. Until my birth mother tracked me down. She took me in, and we became close. Became family. I’ve never wanted for money since, but I know what it’s like to lose everything, to have nothing and no one.
There’s a lot more to my story than country clubs, cars, and a famous parent.
But that’s the stuff people see first, and most don’t bother to look any further. ”
“Like me?” I whispered, my regret and heartache mingling together.
“I didn’t mean you,” he said with nothing but kindness in his eyes.
Kindness that I didn’t deserve.
“But I did,” I insisted, turning to face him.
“I did judge you. I figured you couldn’t know what it’s like to struggle, to worry about money.
I thought a rich guy like you could never truly understand someone like me.
” I looked him straight in the eye, hoping to convey the depth and sincerity of my remorse. “I’m sorry, Wyatt.”
He shook his head. “You couldn’t have known. Like you said, you hardly know me.”
“But I thought I knew enough to put you in a box. I really am sorry. And I’m sorry you went through all that. I can’t imagine how awful it must have been to lose your parents at such a young age. I can’t even handle losing my brother as an adult.”
Facing me now, Wyatt touched a hand to my arm. “You’re handling it better than you think.”
“Maybe on the outside.”
His eyes held fathomless understanding and compassion. “There’s no timeline for grief. That’s one thing I know for sure.”
I looked up at him, realizing only then how close we stood to one another.
An invisible tether bound us together in that moment.
He felt it too. I could see it in his eyes.
I could sense it in the gentle, reverent way he brushed his thumb across my cheek.
As he lowered his hand, he let a lock of my hair slide through his fingers.
I grasped fistfuls of his open jacket, below the lapels. His inky eyes held mine like magnets, and the air around us buzzed with a heady, electric energy. Or maybe the buzzing was inside of me. All I knew was that every breath of space between us was too much.
“Wyatt.”
The whisper had barely left my lips when his mouth was on mine.
The kiss started out soft, gentle. Then one of Wyatt’s hands skimmed down to the small of my back, anchoring there, the warm pressure a flash point for the heat that flared through me. I slid my arms around him and pressed in closer, the taste of him only fueling my need for more.
Wyatt eased up and pulled back, just long enough to tug a yearning gasp from me, just far enough to allow me a glimpse of his heat-hazed eyes. Then we dove back in, and I fell into the dizzying depths of the kiss.
A rough burst of laughter rang out, startling us apart.
Dazed, I took a second to realize that Hoffman had emerged from the warehouse across the street, his phone to his ear.
“Yeah, I know,” he said into the phone. He turned his head our way, his gaze skipping past us before snapping back to home in on me.
“Oh, shit,” I said.
So much for going unnoticed.