Does this little toy car of yours have heated seats?” Brynn asked as she peered at the fancy buttons of his sports car.
Wordlessly Will punched a button and turned his attention back to the road. Brynn studied him out of the corner of her eye. They might not get along, but she’d known him long enough to know that silence and Will were never a good combination. Her body went on high alert.
“You shouldn’t have offered me a ride if you were going to sulk the entire time,” she said.
“Had I known you were going to chatter the whole way, I probably wouldn’t have offered.”
Brynn straightened her shoulders and gazed out of the passenger window and tried not to let his words sting. He’d never made a secret that he didn’t like her, but she couldn’t quite understand why her company was so repellant to him. And she really couldn’t understand why someone as open, loving, and sweet as her younger sister had befriended such a selfish oaf. His entire existence revolved around casual sex and business ventures. He had zero substance.
“I don’t understand why Sophie loves that bar so much,” Brynn mused as she stared out at the line of red brake lights on either side of them. “It’s so out of the way.”
Will made a sharp turn to take a side-street detour, and Brynn braced her hand against the dash, surprised by sudden movement. She was about to nag him for driving like a freaking NASCAR driver when his outburst obliterated the sullen silence.
“Don’t you ever get tired of being selfish?” he exploded.
She snapped her head around to look at his clenched profile. “Excuse me?”
“I’d just think you’d get sick of yourself after a while. I know I do.” His knuckles tightened on the steering wheel.
“What—”
But he wasn’t done. His voice took on a whining, high-pitched, mimicking tone. “Sophieeee, you need to sit through a hellish double date to make my life more convenient. Why doesn’t everyone pick a bar that’s closer to me? Mommy, Daddy, it’s been ten minutes since you’ve praised all of my superpredictable accomplishments. Gray, why aren’t you adoring me the way I deserve to be adored? Gosh, Will, you’re so mean to me.”
The unprovoked attack sent a river of emotions rolling through her, the anger hitting her hardest. How dare he of all people accuse her of being selfish?
The sharpness of her anger was followed quickly by an automatic denial. Will didn’t even know her, not really. She was a good person. Sure, maybe she’d asked Sophie for an unfair favor, but Sophie was resilient. Nothing bothered her.
But as hard as Brynn tried to hang on to her anger, doubt crept up her spine. Was he right? Was she selfish? Brynn didn’t mean to be. She loved her sister and would never want to sabotage her happiness. But did Brynn even know what Sophie’s version of happy looked like? Had she really stopped to assess what was going on with her sister, or had she just assumed that her own priorities were more important?
God, she was selfish.
The last emotion was perhaps the worst of all.
Hurt.
Hurt that it had to be Will of all people who’d held up the mirror and forced her to see her own narcissism.
Oh no. Not tears. Not now. She could not let Will Thatcher see her cry.
“Are you crying?”
“No,” she said, the word soggy.
“Shit,” he said softly.
Exactly.
He pulled over to the side of the road, and Brynn was surprised to see through the haze of her tears that they were outside of her condo building. Grabbing her purse, she fumbled at the door, desperate to escape Will and the flood of emotions he’d thrown at her.
“Thanks for the ride,” she muttered tersely.
Again with the damn manners! She should have told him to go screw himself, but even at her most vulnerable, she couldn’t get the words out.
“Brynn,” he said softly, putting a hand on her arm.
“Don’t you dare,” she hissed, turning to face him, suddenly not caring that he was seeing her with puffy eyes and black rivers of eye makeup running down her cheeks. “Don’t you dare insult me, outline every single flaw I have, and then turn around and try to make it better. You wanted to hurt me and you succeeded. At least have the balls to own your victory.”
“I never meant to hurt you,” he said, not breaking eye contact. “I just couldn’t stand the way you were trying to push Sophie down so you could pull yourself up.”
“Of course, we wouldn’t want your poor precious Sophie to suffer,” she said scathingly, hating the words she heard coming out of her mouth.
“This isn’t about Sophie!” he said more sharply. “This has never been about Sophie!”