Page 2 of Tempting Wyatt (Triple Creek Ranch #1)

CHAPTER ONE

ivy

Six Months Later

Los Angeles, California

AFTER A DOZEN FAILED ATTEMPTS AT outlining the screenplay that was due to my agent last week, I snap my laptop shut, declaring my morning plotting session a bust.

Traffic on the 405 will be a nightmare because it’s almost lunchtime, but I toss my empty coffee cup in the trash and leave the café, heading to the condo I share with my fiancé.

Fiancé. The title is still foreign in my mind.

Malcolm asked me to marry him at dinner last night, and I haven’t adjusted to the new reality. Living together for the past six months was one thing—committing to forever is another.

Due to the traffic, it takes half an hour longer than it should to get to our condo. Malcolm’s Tesla is in the driveway when I pull up, and the sight of it adds to the day’s frustration. I didn’t expect him to be home and was looking forward to some quiet time alone.

Sitting in the vintage Porsche I bought with the money from my first real streaming deal, feeling empty, tired, and uninspired, I try to clear my head of my disappointing morning. I keep telling my agent, Devyn, that I’m almost finished with this project.

I’m not.

I have nothing. No plot, no characters, no conflict.

Nada.

Every idea I’ve come up with feels stale. I’m beginning to worry it’s all been done and I’m out of original ideas.

As I punch in the code for our front door, a ray of sunlight reflecting off my engagement ring catches my eye. Much like calling Malcolm my fiancé, the flashy diamond on my left ring finger will take some getting used to.

We’re attending another dinner party tonight. I remind myself I’ll need to refer to Malcolm as my fiancé instead of my boyfriend. But the minute I step into our home, it’s irrelevant.

The only thing I want to call him is an asshole.

The naked blonde continues riding him like a prized pony on the living room floor, on the rug he and I picked out together at a street bazaar in Dubai last year.

I suck in an audible breath, then let out a pathetic whimper while going into shock. The sound of my keys hitting the floor gets their attention. Both of their gazes are glazed over when they land on me.

“Fuck,” Malcolm utters, moving my former friend, Heidi, and her surgically perfected body roughly off his still-erect dick. It bobs in the air, and I can’t help but notice there isn’t a condom on it.

Not only is he cheating on me in our home, but he’s having unprotected sex while cheating.

The acidic burn of bile rises in my throat.

“Oh my God, Ivy,” Heidi squeals, as she’s tossed aside.

Ironically enough, they’re both gaping at me like I’m the one in the wrong place. Maybe they’re right.

As I stand there, it occurs to me that I should leave. Just turn around and walk out the door, never to return. But I’m frozen, my feet cemented to our hardwood floor, like a statue.

“How. . . When. . . Why would—” I can’t finish a thought.

My brain is eggs scrambling in a hot skillet. My face is numb, a million pinpricks assaulting me, while a trail of fire scalds me from the top of my scalp all the way down my spine.

“Don’t be a child,” Malcolm says easily, standing and covering himself by wrapping a chenille throw from the couch around his waist. “It’s just sex, Ivy.”

Heidi at least lowers her eyes and looks ashamed. Malcolm only appears annoyed at the interruption.

“It just happened, I swear,” she stammers.

“Wait for me in the bedroom,” he murmurs to her before she scurries her skinny, bare ass down the hallway until she’s out of sight.

My eyes widen at his audacity. A hysterical laugh escapes my lips.

“So… you thought since I agreed to marry you yesterday, it was a good time to stick your dick in my friend?”

He frowns at me as if I’m a petulant toddler throwing an embarrassing tantrum in public.

“It’s LA,” he scoffs. “No one here has friends.”

I watch as he strolls past me and retrieves a bottle of water from the refrigerator. Heidi’s red satin micro-mini dress lies crumpled on the floor. Her favorite not-going-home-alone clubbing dress.

Just happened, my ass.

“Apparently, no one here has any integrity or a sense of loyalty either,” I say, surprised at how calm my voice sounds. I’m pretty sure there’s a crimson haze that matches Heidi’s dress forming around my head. It’s already tingeing my vision.

“Look, I get that you’re upset,” he concedes like he’s doing me a favor I should be grateful for.

“Heidi came by to audition for the lead in Captive—you know, the screenplay you wrote and I’m producing?

We got carried away with the scene. Caught up in the heat of the moment.

It’s not a big deal, unless you make it one. ”

I nod stoically. “Right.”

Maybe he thinks if he keeps saying it isn’t a big deal, it won’t be.

Suddenly, all the red flags I’ve ignored about Malcolm since we met wave wildly in my face.

He’s conventionally handsome but a little on the shorter side, constantly trying to make up for it by reminding everyone on set that he’s the money.

He wears entirely too much overpriced cologne and product in his slicked-back hair and takes longer to get ready than I do.

Not to mention his rude way of answering calls in the middle of meals, saying, “Sorry, babe, this is important,” as if I wasn’t.

Also, I hate being called babe.

So much.

Even if I could overlook all that and his latest indiscretion, he hasn’t sent Heidi home so we can work things out. He hasn’t even said he’s sorry. He sent her to the bedroom—our bedroom.

Arrogant son of a bitch, this one.

My entire life, people have mistaken my kindness for weakness—or worse, for stupidity. But I’m done being kind to Malcolm.

Even with the hurricane of emotions whipping through me, I know later, I’ll wish I’d had a little more class and held my head high and left with my dignity intact. But my mom was a waitress at truck stop diners most of my life, so I have an entire vocabulary Malcolm hasn’t heard me use yet.

Heading back to the bedroom, I brace myself for a confrontation with my former friend. I don’t need or want a dramatic showdown—just my belongings.

When I open the bedroom door, the room is blessedly empty. Which means she’s hiding in the bathroom.

Great. So much for getting my favorite hair mask and texture spray.

I make a mental note to order more while sliding off my engagement ring and setting it on the dresser. Even with an abundance of adrenaline flooding my system, I don’t miss the weight that lifts after I take it off.

While my heart pumps like I’m being chased by a wildebeest, I begin gathering my things casually, refusing to give him a reason to call me a child again.

Malcolm follows me, leaning against our dresser and staring down at the diamond on it.

“What are you doing?” He sips his water as if we’re discussing the weather.

Without answering, I drag my designer rolling suitcase and weekender bag out of the closet and open them on the bed.

I focus intently on filling them with everything I care about.

Which, strangely, isn’t much. My favorite leather jacket, some shoes, a couple vintage T-shirts, my writing cardigan, some zip-up hoodies, tank tops, several pairs of leggings and jeans, and an armful of dresses I haven’t worn yet.

All the ones I have worn have memories attached to Malcolm, so I leave them behind.

Heidi can have those, too, as far as I’m concerned.

I have no idea where I’m going to stay, but it doesn’t matter. At the moment, only the leaving part matters.

Tears blur my vision, but I refuse to let them fall. Not here, not in front of him.

After tossing in a handful of bras, underwear, and socks, I zip the sides shut. I grab my yoga mat and strap it to my bag. When I set the bag atop my suitcase and roll them across the floor, my ex-fiancé makes a grievous error in judgment.

He blocks the doorway.

Now, I don’t know if you have claustrophobia or if you know anyone who does, but I can tell you from personal experience, never block the exits.

Without a second thought, I knee him in the groin and instinctively step aside as he keels over.

Malcolm drops to the floor like bricks in a wet paper sack.

“I’ve told you how I feel about blocked doorways,” I say evenly, lifting my suitcase over his body and rolling on down the hallway. “It makes me claustrophobic.”

“I’ll have you fired, you fucking bitch,” he groans. “You’ll never work in this town again—I swear it.” The raw pain is audible in his tone. It’s marginally satisfying—a soothing balm to the freshly open wound of seeing him with Heidi.

But not soothing enough that my trucker-trained mouth doesn’t fly open and release everything I’ve held in since I walked through the door.

“Do whatever you need to do, you selfish, soulless limp-dick asshole.”

“You’re nothing without me,” he calls out. “And you never will be.”

The tears nearly leak from my eyes when he stabs me in my most sensitive spot.

I am scared to death that the success of Random Hearts was a fluke.

I lie awake at night, worrying that Captive won’t do well.

I’m terrified that I got lucky and won’t be able to write another decent screenplay to save my life.

Imposter syndrome, my colleagues call it, and it’s very real.

Blinking quickly, I swipe at the moisture on my face before closing my eyes briefly. I take a deep breath and try to get control of my emotions. I choke them down with the pain of betrayal I’ve been swallowing since I was a kid.

I hate that I let Malcolm get to me. I hate that he didn’t love me enough to be faithful—that I’ll spend the rest of my life wondering how long this was going on and if I was a fool the entire time.

Behind me, I hear Heidi’s voice fawning over him.

She says something that sounds like, “It’s okay, baby. She’s leaving,” and a painful memory from my childhood threatens to surface at the worst possible time. I shove it underneath the jumble of hurt in my chest before it escapes.

I grab my keys from where I dropped them on the floor earlier. When I leave for the very last time, I shut the door gently behind me so it doesn’t slam.

If there’s one thing I should be an expert at by now, it’s escaping places I’m not wanted quietly.