Chasing Mr. Wrong

by Joya Ryan

  “Staying longer?” Whitney asked.

  Penny just shrugged a shoulder. “Yeah. Maybe there’s something you might like sticking around for.”

  “Like…” Whitney prompted, even though she could tell Penny had the same idea Whitney was trying to deny.

  “Like a tall guy with impeccable manners, who needs a good ass kicking from a hot chick like yourself every now and again so he can lighten up and have fun.”

  “Oh that!” Whitney said, and tapped her jaw. “I thought you were talking about me staying for all the awesome food you make.”

  “Well, that too, naturally.”

  Whitney laughed, then did one thing she hadn’t done in a long time. She reached out for a hug. Penny reached back, wrapped her up, and pulled her in. When Whitney squeezed her eyes shut, a stray tear slipped out, and it caught her off guard.

  Penny had treated her well from the beginning. She’d been supportive and took life by the balls. She was kind and vibrant. Ryder was lucky to have her for a sister, because Whitney saw so much of her own sister in her. And it both broke and healed her heart at the same time.

  “Thank you,” Whitney said and finally released Penny.

  But Penny just cupped her shoulders. “You’re welcome.” She gave a little squeeze, then said, “Now, what are you going to do about the big pain in the ass Diamond boy?”

  Whitney smiled. “Well, last I saw him, I left him sleeping in my bed the other day. I haven’t heard from him since. I didn’t think anything of it.” Even though she had. “I know he needs his space.” Even though she’d wished he would call her. Or come by the BBQ. Or…anything.

  “Please.” Penny rolled her eyes. “Ryder is excited about you. It’s obvious. Now the question is, what are you excited about?”

  The truth hit Whitney hard. “Him,” she said.

  She was excited about the idea of staying in Diamond. Of getting to spend her nights with a specific Diamond, and maybe even her days with the same one. They were family. And that made Whitney feel like she just might belong here. She’d spent the year after Kacey’s death on the run, and this was the first place that felt like home.

  But Ryder’s admission from the other night still plagued her thoughts.

  “Ryder told me about his past, and the woman he eloped with.”

  Penny nodded and looked around, as though gauging who was within earshot. This had to be a tightly kept secret. “Shh,” Penny said.

  Whitney lowered her voice. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to bring that up.”

  “Nothing to be sorry about. I’m surprised he told you. No one knows except our closest friends. He was heartbroken. That woman crushed a part of him.”

  Wow. Ryder hadn’t gone into those kinds of details, like how he’d felt crushed. He had told her more about how he regretted dragging his family into the mess.

  “She really hurt him?”

  “Yeah. He’d left everything and everyone and followed her to the city. He plays it off that he was young, which he was. But he was lost to her. Once the knot was tied, the ink wasn’t dry on the license before she left him and wanted a settlement. It broke something in him. Ever since, he hasn’t really let go of his control.” Penny looked at Whitney and smiled. “But since he met you, I’ve seen some of that spark come back in him.”

  “That doesn’t sound like a good thing, if he’s worried about it.”

  “He doesn’t know how to deal with that kind of passion. For a while, I didn’t, either. But eventually I let it take me down, and it’s a hell of a ride.” Penny smiled, like she was recalling a happy memory. “Ryder just keeps things at arm’s length.”

  Like coffee dates and manners. It was his shield.

  “I’m not after anything of his, or your family’s,” Whitney said.

  “Oh, I know that!” Penny assured her quickly. “If I thought you were, I wouldn’t be pushing you to continue making my brother’s life difficult.”

  Difficult. Yep, that was what she was doing. He’d been honest, and Whitney now knew what he was fighting. She didn’t want to make it harder for him. She just wanted him. Ryder had tried to date her, to keep his boundaries in place, to even be her friend, and now it was Whitney’s turn to step up and compromise.

  “I’m officially taking sex off the table,” she said, and Penny’s brows rose.

  “Ah…I think you lost me.”

  “I mean, it’s not just about sex anymore. I want…” She swallowed back the lump in her throat. “More.”

  “Oh, honey! We can definitely work with more! I’m all about getting that!”

  Penny did a little dance, and Whitney felt truly happy. She had a friend, maybe even a couple of friends. With Ryder, with Penny, with their friends, she felt like she had a small part of her sister back. Like she just might get a chance to hang onto the one man she…

  “Oh, fuckin’ A!” Whitney whispered and ran a hand along her forehead, where an instant phantom headache hit.

  “What? Are you okay?” Penny asked.

  She looked at her and shook her head. “I don’t know. I think it’s…side effects or something. Oh God…oh God…” She pinched the bridge of her nose.

  “Side effects? Are you on medication? Should I call Lily?”

  Whitney shook her head. “I love him,” she muttered. “Somehow I fell in love with a guy who’s killing me with good manners. It’s not my fault, though. He tempted me with naughtiness until I gave in.”

  “That sounds like Ryder.”

  Yes, it did. Now it was her turn to retaliate.

  Ryder was doing touch ups to the paint with a single light on. It was well past dark, and he was the only one at the Hall. He was trying to convince himself he was doing what he should be doing. Seeing to the small details. Proving to the client that he was on top of everything. He was the first one to the site and the last one to leave. Except for that one morning…

  He continued the small brush strokes along the baseboard, making sure all the paint was even and no spatter was left behind. The event was in two days. This was the final stretch, and he would be ready. Ready to discuss the future with Davenport. Ready to face Whitney and really let her go.

  His chest punched at the last part.

  And like God himself had read his mind, Whitney appeared, standing in the doorway of the foyer, holding a small paper bag.

  “Hi,” she said softly. There was a stark vulnerability in her eyes. He set the brush in the paint tin and rose from his hunkered down position.

  She stepped toward him. Those toned leg muscles flexed beneath olive skin, and his mouth dried out with the need to drink down her sweet taste. Her shirt was tied at the side. He’d learned that she liked her wordy tees. The one she was wearing tonight read:

  Welcome to the big apple. Bite me.

  He grinned. He loved her sass. In was in every move, every breath, and every word.

  Wild.

  It was just her.

  “I brought you dinner,” she said and held up the brown bag.

  He took it. “Thank you.”

  He opened it and struggled not to laugh when he saw what was inside: an assortment of candy. He raised a brow and looked at her. “I’ve never had candy for dinner.”

  “Well, I’ve never asked a man on a date, so I figured candy was a starting point.”

  Ryder’s blood stopped pumping, and his chest stilled like he’d forgotten how to breathe.

  Had he heard her right? Surely not. This was their game. The “I’ve Never” part of it was never meant to be serious. She’d said so herself from the beginning.

  She took another step toward him, and her delicate throat worked on a hard swallow. She glanced down, her fingers fumbling in front of her. My God, the woman was…nervous.

  The smart-mouthed, rise-to-the-challenge, no-dates-allowed woman was actually nervous.

  “I was wondering if, ah, maybe you wanted to get coffee sometime?” she asked.

  Ryder’s mouth slackened, and he stared at the smal
l female before him. She was larger than life, her presence so much bigger than her actual frame, yet right now, she looked so innocent. Lost even. And she was coming to him to find herself?

  “Coffee?” he asked.

  She nodded. “I promise to be on my best behavior.” When she tossed him a little grin, his ribs almost split open from the racing rhythm of his heart beating like crazy.

  “I kind of like it when you’re on your worst behavior though,” he rasped, then closed the distance between them. That fog was settling in his brain again. The one he should be fighting. The one he knew better than to be blind to. But she was changing the rules.

  “I was thinking of maybe staying around Diamond for a while. And having you for a friend or…maybe more…could be nice.”

  His brows sliced down. “Nice?”

  That single word cut him faster and sharper than a blade. Whitney didn’t do “nice.” She didn’t do “more.” She didn’t do dates. And she knew neither of them did “public.”

  He’d been on the other end of this conversation a few weeks ago. Just the idea of a date and friendship and nice had pissed Whitney off. Now she wanted that from him. Why now? How had the tables turned so drastically?

  “Why?” he asked. “Why this change of heart?” His body went cold. He didn’t know what she was ultimately looking to gain by coming here, but he knew it would destroy him if she asked for something he had to deny. “Come out and say what it is you’re really after.”

  She frowned at him. “I’m after you,” she admitted, and part of him shut down at the admission. She was the freest, wildest woman he’d ever met, and suddenly she was sticking around and wanted him.

  He didn’t buy it. Couldn’t. Because it went against everything she was. So was her aim to set him up? String him along?

  He dropped the candy bag and closed the last inches between them. He threaded a hand in her hair, maneuvered her against the wall, and pressed hard into her body.

  “Where’s the mouthy woman I’ve come to know? Where is she?”

  “I’m right here,” she said. Her thighs spread enough so Ryder could wedge himself farther between them. The woman had him instantly hard. All the damn time. Now she was pulling a one-eighty, and he was so lost. Had no idea what to think or how to react other than what he knew, which was to resist the impulse to throw caution to the wind and simply be with the woman his heart desired.

  He’d been through this once before, and it had been too good to be true then.

  He pulled her to him, hating that he couldn’t let her go without at least one more touch. His mouth against hers, he said, “You come in to my town, make me lose my mind since day one… Now you’re changing everything you said you wanted because you think there’s more to gain?”

  She nodded. “I didn’t ask to feel this, but I can’t deny it if I do. I’ve never told a man I love him before. This is new for me.”

  Ryder leaned away and looked her dead on. That was the heaviest “I’ve Never” he’d heard, and his mind spun out trying to piece her motives together. Trying to wrap his brain around what to do with her declaration of love. Trying to figure out what this tug in his stomach meant.

  He needed space. Needed to gain control. Because Whitney once again was throwing him for a loop.

  He backed away, his hands falling from her, and he put several feet between them.

  “Ryder,” she whispered his name, and he frowned at the floor.

  “Shit,” he said. The paint he’d just touched up on the trim was now smudged against the wall where he’d held Whitney.

  She looked down, seeing the paint marks on the back of her sandals and the smudges on the wall.

  “I’m so sorry,” she said. “I didn’t mean to mess that up.”

  Ryder just shook his head. “It’s not your fault. It’s mine.”

  It was paint, it could be fixed, but it was also more than that. It was his work and his mind suffering because he wasn’t fucking thinking. With her, he just acted. Just gave in to his instinct. And that had been to hold her. Challenge her.

  He had to stay away from her. Despite his efforts to have it all—both Whitney and his control—it wasn’t working. He was losing. His will, his mind, everything he valued and worked hard to keep locked up was threatening to burst free and be consumed by chaos.

  She just looked at him, those big chocolate eyes wide, waiting for him to say something.

  Whitney tried to inhale, but her lungs somehow didn’t register that concept. She could only take short, quick breaths, and it was hurting her chest. Or maybe it was the silence passing between her and Ryder.

  The look in his eyes was one she’d never seen. Confusion? Anger? Loss? She didn’t know what was rolling through his head. But she had a feeling she was on the brink of something bad. She’d just admitted she loved him, and he looked like she’d kicked him in the face.

  “Knock, knock!” Clara’s voice rang out, and her heels clacked against the marble floors. “Oh, hello,” she said with surprise when she came across Ryder staring down Whitney.

  “I was just finishing up,” Ryder said to Clara, then turned his gaze back on her. “Whitney was just leaving.”

  Whitney’s mouth dropped at the harshness in his tone. That was all he had to say to her? After all these weeks, and all his manners, she got a brush off?

  “Is that what you want?” Whitney asked, not giving a shit if Clara was present to hear this or not. “You want me to go?” They both knew she meant for longer than tonight. She’d come to him with the desire to stay, and now he fastened those gray eyes on her and held her fate in his hands.

  “Yes,” he said.

  She saw a flash of regret in his eyes, but it didn’t matter. That single word struck her spine like shrapnel, slicing all the way to the bone. Turned out, Mr. Diamond with his good polite manners didn’t want her for long after all. She’d been kidding herself to think that his “in the meantime” attitude could ever translate to more.

  “I don’t want to interrupt, but I wanted to talk more about the event,” Clara said. “And my daddy said you were looking like the prime candidate to take on the development project for the county.”

  Ryder just nodded at Clara, and Whitney put the last piece together. Ryder was up for a big job with the same man whose last name was on the building they stood in. A package deal it would seem, since Clara was the one “coming to chat” about all the details.

  If Whitney could ever have a wish, it would have been the ability to teleport far away instead of having to walk past Ryder and Clara and out the door. She’d been discarded. The worst part? She should have seen this coming.

  She didn’t fit in his world, just like he didn’t fit in hers. She wanted to experience life and joy, to live for Kacey and try to find some kind of adventure. Ryder was looking to stay right where he was, wielding control over his world with an iron fist.

  The problem was that she loved him.

  And she’d lost him. The one thing she’d never wanted to experience again.

  Every step she took away from him was tearing open her chest. Because she knew what it was like to lose something she loved and be left with only memories of the good times. It hurt worse than any pain she’d ever encountered, and she’d just set herself up for it.

  “I knew better,” she whispered as she passed Ryder. Using every ounce of strength she had, she lifted her chin and tried to mask her grief. When she met his stare, her disguise faltered only for a moment, but she had to say one thing. “I knew you were a risk, and I took it anyway. But you have your distance now.”

  With that, she walked out and into the summer night. When Kacey had died, Whitney had cried until she couldn’t cry any more. And now that she’d lost Ryder, too, she found she had no tears left, only a bitter, aching emptiness.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Ryder opened his fridge, grabbed a beer, and slammed the door.

  Tonight was shit.

  After watching Whitney walk out—
no, after telling her to leave—he’d spent only a few mind numbing moments listening to Clara talk about the event, a date, and the future of “them” working together. He’d realized real quick that everything came with strings, and part of him just wanted to get out.

  He popped the top off his long neck, tossed it into the sink, and took a long swig, pacing back and forth in front of the massive windows in the main room of his house. It was dark. He could still see the reflection of the moon off the lake where he’d let his real self come out and skinny-dip with Whitney. He thought of how her skin had glowed. How she was the best damn “I’ve Never” he’d ever had.

  Until she’d wanted more.

  Wanted more of him. Wanted something from him. And he’d sent her on her way. His good manners were good and gone when he should have used them. He could at least have softened the blow, but instead, he’d bluntly asked her to leave.

  “I never thought I’d see the day when I’d have to come talk sense into you,” Bass said, letting himself through the front door.

  “How the mighty have fallen,” Huck agreed, coming in right behind the attorney.

  Ryder really, really didn’t want to hear what they had to say. But he knew his sister and the gossip ring too well to not know why his friends were here.

  “I have plenty of sense, and I haven’t fallen anywhere,” Ryder said, then took another drink of his beer.

  Huck had brought his own drink, some organic whatever the hell it was that he drank from a straw like a damn juice box. But it was the shit-eating grin on his face that really irked Ryder.

  “Whatever you say, boss,” Huck said. “Although, if that were true, then why did our women and Lily spend the last half hour screaming at us about how you’re a jackass?”

  And there it was. “They don’t know what’s going on.”

  “Oh no?” Bass challenged, and crossed his arms. “Sounds like they do. And from what I gather, it also sounds like you may need a smack in the face to give you some clarity.” Bass looked all too willing to be the smacker. Especially since it’d been Ryder to deck him a while back, when he’d found out he was dating Penny.