Wyatt's heart soared. His confidence for the evening grew higher. He was sure she would say yes now. He was sure they could make this work. They could go back to the island and things could go back to normal.
Cassie went back to the kitchen, stirring the eggs with a spatula and muttering angrily under her breath about Lorna's nerve. She no longer paid any attention to the hem of her shirt, and it kept riding up with her every motion.
It was all Wyatt could do to stay in his seat and not carry her off to the bedroom. He wanted her but knew he needed to wait until she was out of the kitchen. She took her egg cooking very seriously.
“I never asked, but I'm curious,” Cassie said after a moment. She glanced over at him, her face no longer angry. “What happened to your old job? The bartending one? Did you just quit? I'm kind of imagining you telling your boss who you were and doing a mike-drop.”
He chuckled at the image of him dropping the microphone aft
er telling James off. It definitely would have been satisfying.
“I actually was fired.”
Her eyes went big. “What? Why? You were great!”
He shrugged. “An anonymous guest reported that I was at the wedding,” he explained. “It was against policy to date guests.”
Cassie paused mid-push of her eggs. “You didn't tell me that. You didn't tell me you risked your job to be my date. I mean, I thought it might, but you never said anything. I thought you were okay to come to the wedding.”
He shrugged. “It's not like I needed the job.”
“But you liked it.” She smiled softly. She left her eggs and came over to kiss his cheek. “You must really like me or something.”
“Or something,” he agreed.
“Wait, anonymous guest?” Cassie scoffed and rolled her eyes. “F-ing Lorna.”
“You know you can use real curse words,” Wyatt offered. She stuck her tongue out at him.
“Corporate says no foul language,” she replied.
“Corporate's not here,” he reminded her.
“It had to have been her,” Cassie said, ignoring his point. “She would have been the only woman in that entire wedding that would have ratted you out. Everyone else thought you were wonderful.”
“Aunt Suzette did say she liked me,” Wyatt agreed. “Your eggs are burning, by the way.”
“F-ing Lorna,” Cassie repeated, making Wyatt laugh as she rushed back to the kitchen to rescue the scrambled eggs.
“Does she do this often? Lorna, I mean, not the eggs,” Wyatt asked, twisting in his seat to watch Cassie in the kitchen.
“All the time,” Cassie confirmed. “It's basically how she found husband number two. It only lasted a couple of years before he realized what he'd gotten into with her. The eggs are fine, by the way.”
Cassie pushed the eggs out onto two plates and returned to the kitchen table. Cassie made the best scrambled eggs. Her eggs were one of the reasons that he hoped she'd come with him to the island.
“I don't want to talk about Lorna,” Cassie said, sitting down in her chair. “I can't believe she called like that.”
Wyatt shrugged. “I get it a lot.”
“Seriously?” Cassie paused with a fork-full of eggs halfway to her mouth.
“I'm a billionaire. Women look at me and see all their dreams coming true,” he told her.
Cassie set her eggs back down. “I don't see you that way.”
“You mean you don't want me to make your dreams come true?” he teased, liking the way she blushed.
“No, I mean... I like you,” she explained. “I like the way you think about things. You see things differently than I do, and I like the way you see the world. I mean, the money's nice, and I am completely in love with Maria, but that's not why I'm here. I like you. Just Wyatt. Not necessarily billionaire Wyatt.”