Selfish, spoiled, egotistic, narcissistic. Wyatt remembered Nicole’s familiar list of complaints about her sister. Right now, every one of them made sense to him.
“Listen,” he said. “You can wait at the house or fly back to Paris or wherever it is you live.”
“New York,” she said quietly. “I live in New York.”
“Whatever. My point is you’re not going to see Nicole until she’s had a couple of days to recover, even if that means I have to stand guard on her hospital room myself. You got that? She’s in enough hurt right now from the surgery without having to deal with a pain in the ass like you.”
CHAPTER TWO
CLAIRE DEFLATED like a punctured balloon, leaving Wyatt feeling like the biggest asshole this side of the Rockies. He told himself it was just an act, that she was born to play people and had only gotten better at it as she’d gotten older. For someone who claimed to care so much for her sister, she’d never once shown up here in all the years he’d known Nicole. Not for birthdays or even her sister’s damn wedding. She’d missed Jesse’s high school graduation. She was good at playing the victim, that was all, and he wasn’t going to get sucked in to her game.
Just when he thought she was going to turn around and go away, she straightened. Her shoulders went back, her chin came up and she looked him square in the eye. “My sister called me.”
“So you said.”
“You don’t believe me.”
“I don’t care enough to think about it one way or the other.”
She tilted her head so that her long, shimmering blond hair fell over one shoulder. “Nicole has a good friend in you. I hope she appreciates that.”
So she’d moved on to sucking up. Probably an effective plan on anyone who wasn’t clued in to her style.
“Jesse called me,” she continued. “She told me about the surgery. You have to know that much is true, otherwise how would I know? Jesse also told me that Nicole wants me to help out afterward and is happy I’m here. Under the circumstances, I’m more inclined to believe her than you.”