Page 43 of The Rancher Married the Wrong Sister (Billionaires of Evergreen, Texas #13)

THE FAbrIC SLIDES THROUGH my fingers like silk, emerald green cotton that will make the perfect book pouch for the romance novel I borrowed from the library yesterday.

I guide it under the needle of the vintage Singer sewing machine, listening to the steady rhythm that’s become my favorite sound in this enormous house.

It’s been five days since our wedding, and this is the first time I’ve felt anything close to peace.

The sewing room is tucked away on the second floor, flooded with afternoon sunlight that makes the dust motes dance like tiny golden stars.

According to Clarice, the head housekeeper, this was Gavine’s mother’s favorite room.

She died giving birth to him, but apparently she was an accomplished seamstress who dreamed of making quilts for all her future children.

The tragedy of that hits me every time I sit at her machine. All those hopes and dreams, cut short.

But I can’t deny how perfectly her workspace suits me. Bolts of fabric line the walls in rainbow order, and her collection of vintage buttons fills Mason jars on every shelf. It’s like stepping into a craft paradise I never dared dream of having.

For years, I squeezed my quilting supplies into a corner of my bedroom, working on tiny projects by lamplight after finishing my bookkeeping duties. Jessica always rolled her eyes at my “grandma hobby,” but here...here I can spread out. Create something beautiful without judgment.

Well, mostly without judgment.

I still feel like a fraud every time I pass the staff in the hallways. They’re all perfectly polite, of course, but I catch the whispers.

“The quiet wife.”

“Nothing like her sister.”

“Wonder what he sees in her.”

That last comment stung the most, probably because I wonder the same thing. They all expected Jessica: glamorous, confident Jessica who could light up a room just by walking into it. Instead they got me, the sister who prefers books to parties and blushes when anyone pays her too much attention.

I don’t blame them for being confused. I’m confused too.

Especially during breakfast.

I bite my lower lip, remembering this morning’s awkward meal. It’s become our only interaction each day, thirty minutes of strained silence in the formal dining room while we pretend to read our respective papers and avoid eye contact.

Except I’m terrible at the avoiding part.

Today, he was wearing a navy button-down that stretched across his broad shoulders in ways that made my mouth go dry. His sleeves were rolled up to reveal strong forearms dusted with dark hair, and when he reached for his coffee cup, the fabric pulled tight across his chest.

I tried to focus on my eggs Benedict. Really, I did. But then he shifted in his chair, spreading his legs slightly to get comfortable, and my gaze drifted lower before I could stop myself.

The way his dress pants fitted across his thighs.

The suggestion of...of everything underneath that expensive fabric.

My face caught fire as I found myself wondering how large he might be.

How thick.

Whether he’d be gentle or demanding if he ever—

Oh my gosh, stop it this instant, Wednesday Marie Arthurs!

I jerked my attention back to my plate so fast I nearly knocked over my orange juice. But not before I noticed the way his jaw ticked, like he knew exactly where my thoughts had wandered.

The memory makes me press my thighs together now, that familiar ache building between my legs.

Ever since that dream, my body has been betraying me at the most inappropriate moments.

I’ll be folding laundry or arranging flowers, and suddenly I’m remembering dream-Gavine’s hands on my skin, his mouth doing things that make me flush from head to toe.

I’ve started taking cold showers twice a day just to function.

The sewing machine stutters as my hands shake slightly.

Focus, Wednesday. Think about something else. Anything else.

Like how I finally worked up the courage to ask about using this room.

“ There ’ s a sewing machine upstairs,” I’d said during a particularly long stretch of silence, my voice barely above a whisper. “ Clarice mentioned it belonged to your mother. Would it be...would it be all right if I used it sometimes?”

He’d gone completely still, his coffee cup halfway to his lips. For a moment, I thought he might refuse. His gray eyes had turned stormy, distant.

“ Do whatever you want,” he’d said finally, his tone flat. “ The room hasn ’ t been touched in years anyway.”

But when he thought I wasn’t looking, I caught him watching me with something that almost looked like curiosity. Like he was trying to figure out what kind of person asks permission to use a dead woman’s sewing machine.

The truth is, I don’t know either. I only know that being in this room, surrounded by fabric and possibilities, makes me feel less like a hostage and more like...like maybe I could build something here. Even if it’s temporary.

I finish the seam and hold up the book pouch, admiring the neat stitches. The emerald fabric will look perfect with gold thread for the quilted pattern. Maybe little vines and flowers, something delicate and—

“The security team ran those background checks you requested.”

The voice drifts up from somewhere below my window, and I freeze. That’s Gavine’s voice, muffled but unmistakable. He must be on the terrace directly beneath the sewing room.

I should move away from the window. Give him privacy for whatever business call he’s conducting.

But something about his tone stops me. There’s an edge to it I’ve never heard before.

“What did you find?” he asks.

A pause. He must be on speaker phone.

“Jessica Arthurs knew exactly what she was doing when she signed that contract,” comes the response. A man’s voice, professional but grim. “She researched the penalty clauses extensively before agreeing to the terms. There’s a paper trail of her consultations with three different lawyers.”

My blood turns to ice. I creep closer to the window, straining to hear.

“She knew the penalty would fall on her sister if she defaulted,” the voice continues. “The shared inheritance, the house. She knew Wednesday would lose everything.”

The book pouch slips from my numb fingers.

“And the other matter?” Gavine’s voice is carefully controlled.

“Wednesday doesn’t even know she’s adopted, does she? The records were sealed when she was an infant, but Jessica would have had access through the family lawyer. She’s known for years.”

Adopted?

I grab the windowsill to keep from falling, my heart hammering so hard I can barely hear the rest of the conversation. But Gavine’s next words cut through the rushing in my ears like a blade.

“Jessica turned that contract into a weapon. She knew exactly who would pay the price.”

The pieces click together with sickening clarity. The matchmaking contract wasn’t just a business deal. It was a trap Jessica designed knowing I would be the one caught in it.

And I never saw it coming.

Because apparently, I never really knew my sister at all.

Or myself.

GAVINE STARED AT THE quarterly reports spread across his father’s old campaign desk, but the numbers blurred together like meaningless scratches on paper. He’d been trying to focus for the past hour, and failing spectacularly.

His mind kept drifting to Jessica. To how easily she’d fooled him.

The woman he’d thought he wanted—wild, reckless, sparkling with dangerous energy—had been nothing more than an elaborate performance. Every laugh, every stolen kiss, every breathless declaration of how much she needed his strength, his protection...all of it calculated. Rehearsed.

She’d played him like a master violinist, and he’d danced to every note.

The realization still burned in his chest like acid.

Gavine Launcelot, the man who could read a hostile takeover from three moves away, had been completely blind to the con happening right in front of him.

Jessica had researched him as thoroughly as any business acquisition, identified his weaknesses, and exploited them with surgical precision.

She’d known exactly what kind of woman would appeal to him. The kind who seemed to need rescuing. The kind who made him feel powerful, necessary, in control.

What she hadn’t counted on was leaving behind a sister who was everything Jessica pretended to be.

Wednesday’s genuine kindness disconcerted him in ways he couldn’t name.

When she’d asked about using his mother’s sewing room, her voice had been so soft, so careful, like she was afraid of overstepping invisible boundaries.

There’d been no calculation in her violet eyes, no hidden agenda.

Just honest uncertainty and a need to create something beautiful.

It was...unsettling.

Jessica would have simply taken what she wanted and justified it later. Wednesday asked permission to use a room that had been gathering dust for thirty-four years.

The staff had noticed too. He’d caught fragments of their whispered conversations in hallways, their confusion evident.

They’d all expected Jessica.

Sophisticated, commanding, impossible to ignore.

Instead they got Wednesday, who thanked them for every small courtesy and somehow managed to make the enormous house feel less like a fortress and more like a home.

Gavine rubbed his temples, trying to dispel the growing headache. None of this mattered. Wednesday was a temporary complication, a means to an end. Once Jessica realized her game was up, she’d come back for her sister, and everything would return to—

The memory hit him without warning.

Wednesday at breakfast two days ago, her cheeks flushed pink as she stared at him over her untouched eggs Benedict. He’d been reading the financial section, only half-aware of her presence, when something had made him glance up.

Her gaze had been fixed on his lap.

Specifically, on the way his dress pants fitted across his thighs.

Her lips had parted slightly, and she’d wet them with the tip of her tongue, completely unconscious of what she was doing.

The innocent hunger in her expression had been unmistakable.

..and quickly followed by mortification when she’d realized where she was looking.

At the time, he’d dismissed it. His mind had been closed to other women, still focused on Jessica’s inevitable return. Wednesday’s attraction had been nothing more than an inconvenient complication he could ignore.

But now...

Now he remembered how she’d wetted her lips as she stared, and this time the memory had a very different effect on his body.

“Shit,” he muttered, shifting uncomfortably in his chair.

He tried to control his thoughts, to redirect them toward the quarterly projections or the upcoming board meeting or anything else.

But his treacherous mind wouldn’t cooperate.

Instead, it conjured more memories. The way Wednesday’s breath had hitched when he’d kissed her at their wedding.

How she’d trembled against him, her inexperienced mouth responding to his with surprising passion. The soft sounds she’d made...

And every morning since then, those stolen glances across the breakfast table.

She thought she was being subtle, but he noticed everything.

The way her eyes lingered on his hands when he reached for his coffee.

How her breathing changed when he rolled up his sleeves.

The unconscious way she pressed her thighs together when he spoke to her directly.

She didn’t know it, but every time she looked at him, her eyes begged him for something she was too innocent to name.

Take me. Claim me. Fuck me.

His body responded involuntarily to the memory, tightening, hardening, and demanding release that eventually had Gavine leaning back in his office chair, his hand moving to his belt with desperate urgency.

He squeezed his eyes shut as he unzipped his pants, and for the first time since his teenage years, he pleasured himself while imagining he was fucking his wife.

In his mind, Wednesday was beneath him, her violet eyes wide with shock and wonder as he showed her exactly what her innocent stares had been begging for.

He could picture her reaction when she finally saw him— all of him —for the first time.

How those same eyes that had lingered so hungrily on his clothed body would widen when she discovered just how thick he was, how much of him there was to take.

She’d been wondering about his size during that breakfast, her curious gaze drinking in every detail she could see through his dress pants. Now he imagined her hands trembling as she reached for him, her inexperienced fingers barely able to wrap around his length.

“Too big?” he’d murmur against her ear in his fantasy, and she’d shake her head frantically, desperate and wanting despite her fear.

His hand moved faster as he pictured her soft skin flushed pink with arousal, her inexperienced body stretched around him as he pushed inside her for the first time.

The sounds she’d make—not the calculated moans Jessica had performed, but real gasps of pleasure and surprise as he filled her completely, teaching her body sensations she’d never imagined.

His climax hit him with devastating force, leaving him gasping and shaking in his leather chair.

For several long moments, he sat there in the aftermath, his heart pounding and his breathing ragged. Then cold, hard reality set in, and his jaw clenched with self-disgust.

This was an accident, he told himself firmly. A momentary lapse brought about by his anger over Jessica’s deception. It didn’t change anything. Wednesday was still the wife he neither needed nor wanted, a temporary inconvenience to be endured until Jessica came to her senses.

The sooner he got rid of her, the better.