Star-Crossed(47)

“Yeah, I ain’t surprised by that,” Wyatt said with a laugh. “You got champagne taste ’cause Daddy spoiled you rotten. This whole town knows you spend a small fortune on designer clothes. You like the flash and glitter; you always have.”

“I wish I knew how to decorate. I’d fix this place up.”

“Thank God you don’t.”

“Maybe I should hire someone. Get Terry to come over and see what he can do.

He’s always fixing up old houses and—”

“Over my dead body,” Wyatt said sharply. “We’re not changing it, Ju Ju Bean, no matter how badly you wanna citify this place. You need something to modernize, go work on your office—again.”

“I own half this house!”





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“Which means you need permission to change things from the other owner, who has fifty percent stake in this property, and unfortunately for you, he likes it just the way it is.”

She folded her arms over her chest and sulked. “I hate you.”

“And I’m really broken up over that,” Wyatt said, not sounding broken up at all.

“Why dontcha go smile at your phone and text your boyfriend in Las Vegas since you’re in such a charming mood this evening?”

“Fine.” Jules rolled out of bed and snatched her cell phone off Wyatt’s nightstand.

“Have a great time sitting here all alone with your girlfriend Bruce.”

“I will,” Wyatt said, ever confident he didn’t let the jab bother him. “Be sure to have fun making that boy jerk off for you.”

Jules gasped, feeling her cheeks heat. She wasn’t sure how Wyatt knew she was doing that. She was always careful. It was likely he was just guessing, but that didn’t make it any less embarrassing. It was on the tip of her tongue to say something terrible, to point out that at least she had someone who cared, even if he was far away and only able to connect with her via phone sex. Wyatt had been alone since Tabitha left, and Jules was fairly certain he hadn’t had sex in over a decade.

“Go ahead, say it,” Wyatt taunted, making it obvious he was reading her intentions clear as day. “Cut me, Jules. I dare ya. See if I bleed.” There was a dark, miserable side of Wyatt the rest of Garnet never saw. All they got was the outgoing, charming sheriff, and they didn’t have to deal with the heartbroken shell of a man a young, pretty redhead had left behind a long time ago.

“Will you?” she asked curiously, wondering if Wyatt was so dead inside the pain had dried up and left him completely broken beyond repair. “Do you still bleed over her?”

“Always,” Wyatt said without hesitation before he turned away and looked back to the television. “I’ve never stopped.”



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Jules’s face scrunched up, and she was surprised to find she was fighting tears. If it was for herself or her brother, she wasn’t really sure. She did know she needed space from him, because Wyatt was self-destructive in a lot of ways. He’d rather sit in this old house that had ghosts in every corner and sulk over a woman long gone instead of go out and fall in love with someone new. For a long time Jules was right there with him.

Sad and unhappy, goading Wyatt into hurting her just to make sure she was still alive enough to bleed.

Wyatt was her twin; she knew that’s what he wanted, for her to hurt him deeply enough to really feel something, and for once Jules didn’t feel like playing. She wasn’t going to cut him just so he could ache over a woman who didn’t deserve that level of loyalty from him.

“I feel sorry for you, Wy Wy,” Jules said, knowing even as she said it that her pity cut deeper than anything else she could have said.

Sure enough, Wyatt turned to give her a look of horror, his light eyes wide and stunned. For a long moment he didn’t say anything; then he growled in a low, furious voice, “Get out of my room.”

Jules didn’t argue. She closed his door and ran down the hallway. Her bedroom was as far away from Wyatt’s as two bedrooms in that house could get. It was by design. Her father had separated them once they’d gotten old enough to fight in the vain hope it’d help. It hadn’t, not once, and Jules shut her door more forcefully than needed. She flipped the lock despite knowing Wyatt wasn’t coming to talk to her, not after that. Conners could deal with just about anything, take any pain and come back asking for more, but they couldn’t tolerate pity.

By the time she fell onto her bed and dialed Romeo, she was crying about a whole miserable lifetime of loneliness. Over being too tall and too strong and too intimidating to men to end up like all her friends from high school who were content and settled.