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She was precisely the kind of person I had been, so what the hell was my problem with her?
Had beenbeing the operative words.
Two weeks back on the ranch, and just like Nash had warned me, my roots started digging in again. The land was in my blood, and no matter how much I’d fought it, I was beginning to see the impossible truth—I had come here thinking I could shape the land to fit my plans. Instead, the land was shaping me just like it had humans for time immemorial.
“The land controls you, son, not the other way around,” Nash had once told me.
Fiona was waiting for me in the bedroom when I walked in, arms crossed, back straight, eyes sharp with both anger and desperation.
She already knew.
Good. That meant this conversation would be short.
“We’re getting married? I didn’t know that,” I jeered.
She swallowed. “We’re together, and I wanted to let everyone know that when I say jump they ask how high, not give me the whole Duke is the bossman shit.”
“Who you askin’ to jump, doll?” I walked into the room and sat on the bed, the one my mother used to sleep in, the one we’d been sleeping in, the one where I hadn’t been able to fuck Fiona. Outside of what had happened outside the stable for the benefit, to my shame, of Elena, I hadn’t been able to touch Fiona, not sexually, not when I was breathing the same fucking air as the woman who owned me, body and soul.
It was easier to pretend that she didn’t when I hadn’t seen her for a decade. But the minute I laid my eyes on her, panic had set in. I knew she was the end game, which was why I’d tried to kick her out of the ranch, and wasn’t I relieved when Hunt stopped me? Wasn’t I scared shitless when I saw Maverick Kincaid trying to make his claim?
“Your ranch hands don’t respect me.”
“In these parts, respect is earned. They don’t give a shit that your degree was from Harvard or any other motherfucking place.”
Fiona hissed. “What the hell has happened to you?”
Wildflower Canyon happened to me.
“Read the fuckin’ room, Fiona. That’s what you’re paid to do, to behave the way you need to so we can hit our targets. Yet, since you stepped on the ranch, you’ve been runnin’ your mouth off, and now you almost caused my horse trainer to quit right before the rodeo.”
I tossed some pillows and rested against the headboard, my booted feet on the bedspread.
“Get your feet off?—”
“Stop being a nagging wife, Fiona.” I sank back into the pillows, my hands clasped behind my head. It was a lazy posture far from how I was feeling, which was predatory.
She let out a sharp laugh, shaking her head. “I don’t know who you are anymore.”
Tell me about it!
“After the rodeo, I want you gone.” We had a meeting with Piper Novak there, after which Fiona had to leave.
She moved to be closer to the bed, to me. “What does that mean?”
“Pack up, head back to Dallas. You’re done here. I told you one more fuck up, and you’re off the ranch project. You’re off the ranch project.”
She studied me, searching for a crack in my resolve. She wouldn’t find one.
“Andus?” Her lips trembled. She sat next to me in bed and put a hand on my chest. I wanted to scream at her not to touch me. Couldn’t she see I belonged to another?
Her eyes were vulnerable and sympathy for her flooded inside me.
It wasn’t her fault that the man she’d been with turned out to be someone else, someone who, right now, was unrecognizable to her. But I knew this man well. I’d met him years ago, and I’d liked him—but then I’d forgotten him for a while. But I couldn’t ignore him any longer.
“Fiona, I’m sorry.”
The hurt on her face was evident. She was expecting this, but the words were hard. Even though I was the one ending the relationship, I felt the slap of it. Most of my affairs lasted a few weeks here and there. Fiona had been by my side the longest, nearly a year. I felt like an asshole for hurting her—but there wasn’t any other way to do this but rip the bandage off.