Once again, it fell to poor Lily to try to keep the conversation civil. “You know, Brynn, as a lone female in a male-dominated field, I know loads of guys who’d flip over you. Let me know if you want me to set you up on a date or something.”
I’ll do that. Just as soon as I start watching Star Trek and eating SPAM and painting zebra stripes on my fingernails…
Will was making a rude tsking noise. “Now, Lil, you wouldn’t know this because you just met Brynn, but she has a very exact type.”
“That’s true,” Marnie said as she began pouring coffee.
“Doctors, dentists…the occasional lawyer…” Will was saying.
“You make me sound like a total snob,” Brynn snapped.
For several seconds nobody said anything. Neither parent defended her. Nobody rushed to confirm that she wasn’t a snob.
“Got it, so I’m a total bitch, then,” she said, pushing her dessert plate away.
Her parents glanced at each other in confusion. “Brynn, nobody thinks that. And it’s true that you’ve always been picky, but…”
“Not always,” Will said under his breath.
Brynn fiddled with her spoon, her fingers itching for something with sharper edges t
hat she could lodge in his solar plexus.
“Actually, Lily,” Brynn said with a forced smile at Will’s dinner date, “I could stand to expand my social circle a little. I’d love to meet one of your friends.”
She resisted the urge to issue Will a smug smile. Two could play at this game.
But he looked completely unperturbed. As though the thought of her dating someone else didn’t bother him in the least. Just like him bringing Lily here shouldn’t bother Brynn in the least. Except it did.
In hindsight, Brynn would wish that she hadn’t gotten so lost in her own musings that she’d failed to study Will’s face closely enough to know what was about to happen. That she might have had a chance to stop it.
But her guard was down, and she didn’t see the change in expression from pain-in-the-ass to downright asshole.
“Well, best of luck getting back out there, Princess,” Will said, raising a glass to her in a mocking toast. “Tell me, how many dates will it take before the poor guy gets a peek at your tattoo?”
A wave of red washed in front of her eyes as she tried to tell herself that that had not just happened. That she hadn’t heard Will mention her tattoo out loud. In front of her parents. In front of his new girlfriend.
Her mother snorted. “Will, don’t be ridiculous.”
Brynn started to reach out a hand to him. To plead. To beg. But he wasn’t looking at her. Instead he was turned toward her mother, his face all boyish innocence as he widened his eyes dramatically.
“Oh, it’s great, Marn,” he said. “It’s this cute little saying that sort of runs a sweet line from her crotch to her butt. See, I saw it up close when we—”
Brynn didn’t remember tossing her strawberry shortcake at him, but she would remember everyone’s stunned reaction to the goopy red dessert as berries slowly dislodged from his chest and dropped into his lap.
Without taking her eyes off his shocked face, she very primly dabbed her mouth before offering him her napkin with a sweet smile, then making a calm exit from the room. She paused only long enough to grab her purse before walking out the door.
For the first time she could remember, Brynn had just willingly turned her back on her dignity.
Because she had something much stronger to fuel her.
And anger and betrayal were one potent combination.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Falling in love is no excuse for behaving irrationally.
—Brynn Dalton’s Rules for an