Page 2 of Jealous Mountain Man (Seduction Summit Trails #5)

ENZO

H er screen name was ShelfDestruct, and she was ruining my life.

I pictured various ways I could give her a piece of my mind. She worked at the moonshine tasting place. I learned that from her bio. A buddy of mine owned that distillery, and I immediately pulled up my contacts to call him the second someone sent the video to me.

But my finger hovered over the screen. How was I going to explain my situation?

Nobody knew why I’d come up to Seduction Summit abruptly a couple of years ago.

Not the real reason. They all thought I was just looking for work, like everyone else had after leaving the military.

But I’d given up a good gig as a mechanic in my hometown of Cheyenne, Wyoming.

This had nothing to do with my military service. I was well and truly in hiding. And moonshine girl was in the process of shining a spotlight on me for the world to see.

Another plan had been to confront her at work, but I couldn’t do that. She was always surrounded by people. It was too risky. I’d even thought about going straight to her cabin, but that seemed like a good way to get the sheriff called on me, and I definitely didn’t want that kind of attention.

Instead, I took a big chance that she’d come back. I even set a trap for her. That was why I was standing here, at the exact same time a week later, holding my axe with my shirt off. I listened for signs I wasn’t alone until it became clear she wasn’t going to return.

Sighing, I wiped sweat from my brow, snatched up my axe, and started walking toward my cabin. It was down the trail about a quarter of a mile, and that would give me plenty of time to think through what my next move would be. I had to find her and get her to take down that video.

I just had to stop by her cottage. That was the only choice. I’d knock on the door, tell her who I was, and make my request. The video clip had spread pretty far already, but maybe I could get it removed before the wrong people saw it.

My life literally depended on it.

I was staring at my feet as I walked. I’d thrown on my T-shirt halfway down the trail, feeling ridiculous for thinking this would work. I sensed movement ahead, and my head snapped up.

Sure enough, a brunette was walking toward me. As far as I could tell, she had no idea someone was coming toward her. She wore a baseball cap, and her head was bowed, so I couldn’t see her face. But her body was beyond an eyeful. She was freaking gorgeous.

Suddenly, her head whipped up. Her gaze landed on mine, and she came to a complete stop.

It was so sudden, it was almost like she’d hit an invisible wall.

Yes, her face definitely lived up to the expectations her body set.

In fact, her face might even be more beautiful than the generous swell of her breasts and curve of her hips.

But she didn’t look happy to see me. I kept walking, only stopping once I was several feet in front of her.

What was I going to say? I was mad, but my first tactic would be to kill her with kindness.

If I had any hope of coercing her into taking down the video, I’d have to sell her on it, not go to war with her.

“ShelfDestruct,” I said.

Her eyes widened, but she shouldn’t be surprised. She knew exactly who I was. She’d shot at least two minutes of video of me shirtless and posted it on her social media channel for all the world to see.

I should have poked around a little. Maybe I would have noticed just how hot she was. Instead, I’d glanced at the profile photo, which had been one of those heavily filtered ones that made her look like she wasn’t a real person, not this all-too-real natural beauty standing in front of me.

“Crap,” she said. “You saw it.”

“A friend sent it to me.”

Actually, it was a girl I used to date. She lived on the other side of the country near Cheyenne. She said it had gone viral. Not that I knew what that meant. I mean, I knew what “viral” meant, but not exactly how many people would have seen it.

“I wasn’t stalking you, I promise,” she said.

Interesting that that was her first defense. Especially since I wouldn’t mind being stalked by this woman. Maybe that was making light of a serious offense, but I’d handled much bigger danger than whatever this beautiful woman could send my way.

“I needed the views,” she said. “I’m trying to become a book influencer.”

A book influencer. What the fuck was that? Someone who influenced people to read? Or someone who influenced people to buy certain books? Was there actual money in that, or was it just for vanity?

“I know what people are always saying about my generation,” she rushed to add. “We just want to get social media famous and not have real jobs. But I have a real job. I do moonshine tastings in the shopping center downtown.”

She crossed her arms over her chest, as though waiting for me to argue with her on that. I hadn’t really argued with her yet, so I wasn’t sure why she thought I’d start now.

“I was hoping I would go viral, but I had no idea it would get this much attention,” she said.

“Correction,” I said. “ I went viral. That was me chopping wood.”

Anger. I reminded myself I was supposed to keep it in check. But it was coming through in my voice, and I saw it in the way she reacted.

It was a stark reminder of why I stayed away from beautiful women.

My jealousy almost always got the better of me in a relationship, and I ended up disconnecting as a result.

I’d exited more relationships than I could count because I didn’t like the way jealousy made me feel.

I’d rather be alone than stressing over whether a woman was cheating on me or preparing to leave me for another man.

“Sorry about that,” she said.

She actually shrugged. But this wasn’t something she could shrug off. Basically, she’d treated me like a piece of cake on a platter. I’m going to have another yummy meal tonight at my favorite restaurant. Hashtag blessed. Or maybe in my case, it would be a slab of meat on a plate.

I should mind, but the truth was, that part of it didn’t bother me at all.

In fact, I kind of liked the idea of this woman seeing me as hot enough to capture and share with the world.

It was the “sharing with the world” part of it that bugged me.

I couldn’t have my image plastered all over the internet.

“It’s an invasion of privacy,” I said.

That was the plan I’d come up with to get her to take it down. I couldn’t tell the truth, so privacy was the route I was taking.

“I understand,” she said. “But it’s too late. It’s like trying to put toothpaste back into the tube after you’ve already squeezed it out.”

I shook my head. “No, it’s like continuing to squeeze toothpaste out even though you realize you’re making a mess.”

She tilted her head. A frown took over those delicate features. I definitely needed to explain a little better.

“The longer it stays out there, the more people are going to see it,” I pointed out. “I’ve already had one person I know come across it. That’s enough for me.”

“You were in a public place,” she said, finally dropping her arms to her sides. “You had no reasonable expectation of privacy.”

I narrowed my eyes at her. Was she seriously bringing out the legalities of this?

“Look, I don’t care if you keep the video up,” I said. “Just blur my face. I’m not looking at the camera, anyway, and I don’t think anyone’s paying that much attention to my face.”

“Then what’s the problem?”

“People can see my face. All it takes is someone recognizing me and sharing it with other people I know. I just don’t want that kind of stuff spread around. I’m a private person.”

I couldn’t stress that enough. I’d always been that way, even before I had a reason to hide. I couldn’t imagine any version of me being comfortable with my likeness spreading across the internet.

“Okay,” she said.

My eyes widened. “Okay?”

Really? She was going to agree to this? Not until then did I realize I’d fully expected her to say no. I hadn’t prepared for what I’d do about it, but it was a total surprise that she was game.

“I’ll take down your video on one condition,” she said.

Here it was—the catch. But I couldn’t imagine anything she’d ask me to do that would be worse than being tracked down here in Seduction Summit by the wrong people.

There was only one way to find out. I took a deep breath and asked, “What’s that?”

“Shoot a new video. In fact, multiple videos. I’ll keep your face out of the picture. Deal?”

She pulled her phone out of her pocket and stared down at the screen as she swiped and tapped around on it.

She turned the screen toward me. My image filled it.

My face was clearly visible. It was my profile, but anyone who knew me would spot my signature square jaw.

Not to mention my slightly imperfect nose that still had a bump from where I broke it in fifth grade playing softball.

What choice did I have? Just the sight of that video made me want to relocate to another country and change my name. So I gave a nod and stared at the screen.

“Delete that right now, and you have a deal.”