CHAPTER ELEVEN
Tamera stayed up late writing the offer for Wyatt’s house, then collapsed into bed and dreamed about him all night. When she awoke the next morning, she stretched languidly, feeling more relaxed than she had in months.
Wyatt was getting under her skin. For the first time since meeting him, that didn’t seem like such a bad thing.
She went for a run, then showered and dressed before sitting down to read over the offer letter one last time. This was one of the biggest sales of her career, and only the third time she’d written an all-cash offer. It was definitely her first time working with a celebrity. She didn’t want to make a mistake.
After only two small corrections, she deemed the letter perfect. Time to call Wyatt. Her fingers thrummed against her desk as the phone rang, the butterflies beating their wings in her stomach with every buzz.
“Hello?” Wyatt’s deep, rich voice sent shivers down her spine, and Tamera’s hand involuntarily curled into a fist.
“Hey. I just sent the offer letter to your email. Can you sign it electronically when you get a minute so I can submit it to the agent?”
“I’ve got time right now. Let me get to my computer.” She heard the soft pad of feet, then a creak as he sat down in a chair. “Just booting up my laptop.”
“I can wait.” She twirled a lock of hair around one finger, unable to hide a grin. He could’ve said he’d get to it and hung up, but instead he kept her on the line.
“So, uh, were you serious about helping me out with the ad spots?”
“Yeah.” Tamera ran a hand along the desk, telling herself to be cool.
“I think I’ll take you up on your offer, then, if that’s okay.”
“Absolutely. Let’s figure out a time that works for both of us.” She wanted to beg him to come over right now. Go all fan-girl over Wyatt James. But it was more than the football player she was interested in. It was how his face lit up when he talked about a film he loved. The shy way he brushed off the spotlight. His uncanny ability to make her forget about everything except how much she enjoyed being around him.
“As long as it doesn’t interfere with practice, I’ll make anytime that’s convenient for you work,” Wyatt said.
She wanted to invite him over right now, but that might seem too eager. And she wasn’t eager. Okay, maybe a little. “How about tomorrow night? Say, seven o’clock?”
“That’s perfect.”
“I’ll text you my address.”
“I really appreciate this, Tamera.”
Was it her imagination, or did he linger over her name? Caress each vowel with his rough voice? She put a hand to her cheek and realized it was a few degrees warmer than typical.
Her emotions were getting out of hand.
“Okay, I’ve got the email. And … signed. Emailing it back now.”
“You don’t want to read it over first?” Tamera asked.
“I trust you.”
She shivered, her heart picking up its pace. She wanted to trust him, too. Drew’s warnings seemed more and more ludicrous after each encounter with Wyatt.
A ping alerted her to a new email and she saw that Wyatt had indeed signed the offer. “Got it. I’ll send this to the listing agent right now. Hopefully they except without a counter-offer.”
“Do you think it’s likely they’ll counter?”
“If it were me, I wouldn’t counter. They’re crazy if they think they’ll get a better offer than full price and all cash. But it’s really all up to the seller. We’ll know soon enough.”
“Yeah, I guess so. You’ll let me know when you hear?”
“The very second,” she promised him.
“Thanks.”
A prolonged pause filled the line. Tamera pressed the phone closer to her ear, wishing she could see his expression right now. The silence zinged with emotions left unsaid. Whatever Drew had against Wyatt, it had to be an anomaly and not a character flaw. Because from where she was standing, Wyatt seemed Mary Poppins perfect.
“I guess I should let you go,” Wyatt said finally. “You probably have work to do and I should get ready for practice.”
“Yeah.”
“Have a good day.”
“You too,” Tamera said.
Neither of them hung up. Could phones spontaneously ignite from heat? If so, hers was definitely in danger of going up in flames.
“Goodbye,” Wyatt whispered. And then he finally hung up the phone.
“You’re adorable,” Tamera said to the empty line. She flung her phone onto the desk. “I’m insane to be thinking about you like this. You’re severely testing my desire to remain forever single.”
Her phone buzzed, skittering across the desk. Tamera nearly fell off her chair, but managed to save herself at the last moment and grabbed the phone. Had Wyatt somehow heard all of that? She would die of humiliatio—
Why was Katie calling her?
She stared at the picture blazing across the call screen. It was from one of the last good days she’d had with Katie before finding out about the breakup. They’d gone to the beach, just the two of them, and spent the day working on their tans and laughing at the tourists. Tamera had gone to bed that night feeling better about their relationship than she had in years.
But Katie had been sleeping with Caleb for almost nine months by that point. And Tamera hadn’t suspected a thing.
The phone went silent, then started ringing again almost immediately. Tamera picked it up with a growl. “What?”
“Hey,” Katie said, her tone so sweet that Tamera felt her teeth spontaneously start to decay. “How are you doing?”
“How am I doing?” Tamera parroted back. Did Katie want to hear that she was still crying over the wedding?
Katie seemed to not even heard Tamera’s response. “Things are so amazing here. I’m so not ready to go home tomorrow.”
Tamera stayed silent. Because seriously, what was she supposed to say?
“You would absolutely adore the beaches,” Katie continued. “I’ve never seen sand so white. It’s so incredibly fine and soft, and the water is the bluest I’ve ever seen. We’ll have to come back together someday. Caleb rented the cutest little bungalow you’ve ever seen. It’s suspended on stilts over the water. Can you believe that? It’s just crazy how picturesque everything is.”
“Unbelievable,” Tamera muttered.
“Excuse me?”
She pulled the phone away from her ear and spoke loudly directly into the receiver. “I said, you’re unbelievable.”
“I—”
But Tamera didn’t let Katie speak. “You stole my groom, my wedding, and my honeymoon. The Bahamas is my dream destination—not yours. But that didn’t stop you from taking it.”
Katie’s voice went from sugary to sour in an instant. “It’s not like you have a monopoly on honeymoon destinations. We just wanted to get out of the cold for a while and enjoy warm sands.”
“You live in Texas!” Tamera practically screamed into the phone. “It’s May. The temperature was eighty-five degrees on your wedding day.”
“Why can’t you be happy for me?” Katie demanded, and she had the pout in her voice that had always turned their parents to spineless jellyfish. “I just got married—married, Tamera. I made the biggest commitment of my life. And you’ve been nothing but negative and unsupportive from the very beginning.”
“Maybe you shouldn’t have made that commitment because of some ridiculous vendetta you have against me.”
“Maybe you shouldn’t have always taken what was mine!” Katie screamed.
Tamera yanked the phone away, her ear ringing with the intensity of the words. Silence fell between them, thick and uncomfortable.
“I’m sorry I’ve made you so miserable,” Tamera said finally, bitterness edging each word. “I’m sorry I let you be that obnoxious little sister who always hung out with me and my friends. I’m sorry I taught you how to put on makeup and do your hair. I’m sorry for trying to be a good sister, because all that got me was a very large knife right in my back.”
“I was constantly competing against you,” Katie said. “It didn’t matter what I did, because you’d already done it better. Grades. Extracurriculars. Guys.”
“So your solution was to sleep with my boyfriend behind my back, then marry him?”
Silence stretched across the line and Tamera blinked, forcing the tears to finally spill down her cheeks. “Have a nice life, Katie.”
“Tamera—”
She hung up the phone, then dropped her head to her arms and cried.