Page 111 of Wild Then Wed
I don’t know what makes me ask it. Maybe the way her voice dropped just now.
“Have you ever been in love with someone?”
She looks over at me, surprised. Like she didn’t expect that frommeof all people.
I don’t blame her. I didn’t expect it either.
But I want to know. Has Wren Wilding ever let someone close enough to lose them?
She shakes her head, simple and sure. “No. Not even close.”
That answer lands harder than I expect it to.
She picks at her plate, then says, “I don’t really know if I want to be.”
I frown. “To be what?”
“In love.”
That catches me off guard. I try to read her face, but it’s already gone still again.
“Why not?” I ask, genuinely.
She tilts her head again, thinking like she’s rummaging through a drawer full of stuff she doesn’t touch very often.
“I think,” she starts, slow and deliberate, “that love makes you do stupid things. It asks too much of you. All the compromise. The bending. The being soft when you don’t want to be.” She glances over at me. “And I’ve spent a long time trying to feel solid. Grounded. Like…myself. I don’t want to lose that for someone else’s version of love, or for someone else’s expectations.”
That sits with me. Too well.
She keeps going, quieter now. “It just seems like too much risk for a maybe. And I’m not the most likable person on the planet, anyway.”
I shake my head. “That’s not true.”
She raises an eyebrow, skeptical.
“There’s a whole room of people in there who like you,” I tell her.
She snorts. “They’re related to me. Theyhaveto like me. It’s in the blood contract.”
I smile, but she doesn’t. Not all the way.
“I’m just…prickly.”
“You arenotprickly.”
She gives me a look. Okay. She’s alittleprickly. But still.
“Is that why you think you don’t deserve love?”
“It’s not about deserving,” she says quietly, her thumb tracing the rim of her plate like she’s trying to smooth out the words as they leave her mouth. “It’s just harder to love someone like me.”
She doesn’t look at me when she says it. Just keeps her eyes fixed on the cheesecake, like maybe if she stares hard enough, it’ll swallow the truth she just laid between us.
And I feel it—how heavy that belief is. Like it’s been there for years, packed down tight by someone who made her think that being who she is means she has to apologize for it. That she has to accept less. Settle for almosts. Or worse, nothing at all.
It makes my jaw clench. Makes me want to go back in time and find whoever taught her that so I can strangle the shit out of them.
She shifts then, not much—just leans back into the couch, legs stretched out, her heel nudging lightly into my ribs. It’s gentle. Thoughtless, almost. But I feel it everywhere.
