AllFreeNovel
Share Us
She shrugged. “It’s just wine.” Lifting the glass to her nose, she took a deep inhale, her pupils dilating. “Haven’t you been here, like, a million times? Why are you so suddenly interested in our family pictures?”
“Normally Brody and I are out in the stables or we jump straight into whatever he wants to discuss. I’ve never really looked at them before,” I explained. I sipped at the pricey merlot, the familiar taste washing away the dust that coated my tongue. “That’s your mother, right? Allison?”
She nodded. “She died when I was seven.”
“I’m sorry.”
I wasn’t expecting the exaggerated eye-roll I got as she turned away from me again, another silent instruction to follow her. Our footfalls made the floorboards creak with each step until we reached the sliding back door. The screen squealed on its tracks as she opened it. “I don’t need your sympathy.”
She stepped out onto the back porch, the bottle of wine in one hand and her glass in the other. She sank into one of the rocking chairs and I made my way around to the other one, sitting at an angel next to hers.
I sat down into the cozy chair, appreciating the amazing view before me.
“Sell it to me,” she said, her gaze sweeping out toward the mountains beyond the perimeter of their property. “Make me want to do this for you and maybe I’ll say yes.”
Forty-nine percent of the business isn’t enough?
“And before you ask, no, the percentage of the business isn’t enough of a selling point.”
Damn.
“Alright,” I sighed. “Well, you’ll get to experience a life of luxury for the next six months?—”
“My father makes enough for that already. Do you think I grew up poor?” She glanced at me from the corner of her eye, a thousand unsaid insults lurking behind it.
“Fair enough,” I responded. “I’ll consider taking thoroughbreds off the docket for next year.”
She slowly turned her head toward me. “Promise and mean it.”
God, the way she looked at me like I was the worst person she’d ever met somehow managed to excite me. “Fine. I promise.”
“I want to hire Dana,” she added. “She’ll be more than just a stable hand. I want her by my side.”
I sighed and sipped at my glass of wine, gently rocking myself back and forth to calm myself down from that one. “You’re asking for an additional entire salary with benefits. You realize how expensive that is, correct? That’s a position that isn’t needed.”
“Do you want me to do this for you or not?”
Ballsy. That’s what she was. She would use this as her bargaining chip to get whatever she wanted, and in truth, a part of me respected that. She’d clearly learned a lot from her father.
“Fine.”
She nodded to herself as she broke eye contact, looking back out at the mountains behind the stables. I wondered if it kept her calm, if it soothed her in a way she couldn’t get elsewhere. Her thumbnail sat between her teeth, her thoughts churning in her mind in the silence. “What would be expected of me?”
I’ve got her. I’ve fucking got her. “It will need to be public. My parents won’t believe it if it isn’t,” I said, reaching for the bottle of wine and topping off her glass. Knowing that Brody would also be aware made my stomach churn. “You’ll come to events with me. You’ll meet my parents. We’ll sell it however we need to in order to convince them that it’s real.”
Her face scrunched as she picked up her glass, nearly spilling the wine from the unexpected weight of it. “When you say public?—”
“Brody will see, yes.”
“That’s not what I meant,” she said, her head shaking, the little bun atop it wobbling. “We’ll have to, what, kiss? In front of people?”
“Yes.”
“Sex?”
I snapped my eyes to hers within a second. Just hearing her say the word was enough to make my skin heat, to make my cock twitch, to make the memories of Oahu flood back in with a vengeance. “Is that normally something you do in front of a crowd, Lottie?”
The little breath that escaped from her lips was shaky. “No.”
