Page 13 of The Wrong Ride Home (Wildflower Canyon #1)

duke

I hadn’t seen Elena after I talked to her at the stables. It had been forty-plus hours since I saw her. Not that I was counting! What bullshit! I felt like I was twenty again, waiting to see her, smell her, be with her, be inside her.

I’d have thought that ten years would have helped me leave the past in the past, but I wanted her.

I saw her, and I wanted her. She knew me .

She knew what lived inside me—the good, the bad, the ugly.

She’d seen me at my worst. She’d seen me at my best. She’d seen the monster within.

She’d seen the scared boy. She’d loved all of me.

“Duke, we’re looking at a tight timeline,” Tom Haywood warned. He was one of our strategic partners who had his head so far up his ass that I couldn’t see his fucking face.

I settled into my father’s leather chair, fingers tapping against the desk as I listened to the man on screen try to bullshit me .

“If we push this through now, we can break ground by the end of the quarter.” Tom adjusted his tie like it might help him sound more convincing.

I let the silence stretch, watching him squirm.

Never be the first to speak. It was a rule I’d learned early, one that separated the desperate from the powerful. I wasn’t desperate.

Except when it came to Elena!

Fiona sat across from me, her red nails gliding over the tablet in front of her as she jotted down notes. She was damn good at what she did—just ruthless enough to keep up with me, just hungry enough to push for more.

But she still didn’t see all the angles the way I did.

The man on screen who thought he was playing at my level awaited my response. I already had the numbers in my head: the cost-benefit analysis, the profit margin, and the exact percentage I could squeeze out of him if I let him think he was walking away with a win.

I glanced at Fiona. “What’s the valuation on the Lakemont property?”

She scanned her notes. “Last appraisal came in at forty-eight million, but the developers?—”

“Thirty-two.”

She blinked. “What?”

“It was thirty-two million.” I turned back to the screen. “And that’s my offer.”

Haywood laughed, forced and uneasy. “That’s not gonna happen.”

“Then we’re done here.” I reached for the laptop to end the call .

“Wait.” Tom’s face tightened. “Let’s be reasonable, Duke.”

I let him sweat a few more seconds before leaning forward, elbows on the desk.

“Thirty-two, or I walk. And if I walk, I take my other investors with me. You’ll be sitting on a project with no funding, no permits, and no way to move forward.

” I tilted my head. “So, tell me, Tom, how reasonable do you want me to feel?”

His jaw twitched. He knew I had him. He could fight, but he’d lose.

Fiona smirked, already seeing the victory, like she’d won, which she hadn’t.

How often did I carry her? I wasn’t sure, but I wondered about that now.

Was Fiona just good at handling dinners with senators and congressmen who got distracted by her blonde hair, her pretty face, and her tits, or did she know the business?

She’d just given me an evaluation that was inflated. Had she not known? I hadn’t doubted her in the two years I’d worked with her, one of which we’d been fucking for, and one whiff of Elena Rivera, and I was looking at her more clearly.

Did I just need to fuck Elena and work her out of my system?

Even as I thought that, I knew it wouldn’t work that way. I’d fuck her once, and then I’d want her again and again and again.

Fiona looked at me and smiled uneasily. “Maybe we can?—”

I raised my hand to shut her the fuck up. Seriously? Right when I had Tom on his knees, ready to suck my dick, she was going to speak?

“Fiona?” Tom took the reprieve.

“I was just checking…ah, it’s nothing…ah…we have dinner reservations,” she mumbled, and we all knew that she was fibbing. She was ready to cave, and I wasn’t. This was my company, and what I said went.

“As Fiona said, we have reservations in twenty minutes, and it takes about twenty minutes to get there. So, Tom, say what you gotta say, ‘cause I’m starvin’.”

Fiona gave me an apologetic smile. I ignored her.

“Fine,” Haywood finally gritted out. “Thirty-two.”

I smiled, all charm, all shark. “Pleasure doing business with you.”

The call ended, and Fiona let out a low whistle. “We got him.”

“We almost didn’t.” I pounced on her. “Next time you have doubts about what I’m doin’, you wait until it’s just us before you express your doubts, got it?”

I should tone it down, I thought. Fiona was only trying to help.

And I was only trying to see her flaws now because I’d seen Elena and…

fuck me. I was being unfair to Fiona, but right now, I was her boss, not her boyfriend, and she needed to understand she needed to read the room beyond who was interested in her cleavage.

“I know.” She raised both her hands, palms up. “I…I just thought he was going to bolt.”

“Then he bolts. I’m not going to pay more for something that ain’t worth it, Fiona.”

She sighed. “I know. I didn’t want to lose the deal. Piper Novak is watching us, and I have a good feeling about their involvement with the Wilder Ranch project.”

I took a deep breath and tried to soften my demeanor. I must’ve succeeded because she put her hand on mine. “Hey, we got Tom in the bag, and that’s a big fucking achievement. You get that, right?”

I shrugged. It should’ve felt like a win. A few days ago, it would have. But as I sat in my father’s chair in his office, it all felt…hollow.

I’d spent my whole life making sure I wasn’t like him.

Nash didn’t have a killer instinct. He made deals on handshakes and trusted the wrong people. He wanted to build things the right way, while I only cared about making money, period. And I’d done it. I’d made it. And yet….

Fiona moved to slide over and went on her knees in front of me. “Come on, boss. Don’t tell me you’re getting sentimental.”

I tangled my hand in her hair.

“Let me suck you off,” she crooned.

She worked my belt and zipper and pulled me out. I was at half-mast. But I knew all I had to do was think of a certain cowgirl, and I’d be hard as steel.

“Wow! Look at that. You do like to win, don’t you? It makes you hard, doesn’t it, baby?” She stroked my erection. I tilted my head back and closed my eyes.

I let Fiona work me, and when she swallowed my cum, I felt like I was cheating on the woman with chocolate-brown eyes who’d stolen my heart a decade ago.