Page 32 of The Wrong Ride Home (Wildflower Canyon #1)

duke

I took my time getting back to the ranch house.

I couldn’t believe Fiona had accosted Elena, even after all our conversations.

But then, I’d liked that about Fiona in the past, hadn’t I?

That she was pushy. Went after what she wanted.

She was good in the sack and the boardroom.

Didn’t take any prisoners. Shot the wounded and moved over dead bodies to make her ambitions come true.

She was precisely the kind of person I had been, so what the hell was my problem with her?

Had been being 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.

“And us ?” 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.

“What exactly are you sorry about?” she demanded.

“For ending us.”

“No.” She wrapped me in a hug. “No, Duke. No.”

I pulled her away from me and got out of bed. I leaned against a wall and looked at the picture she made as she sat on the edge of Mama’s bed—more furious than sad, more insulted than hurt.

“You’re throwing me away over Elena?” Her eyes fired anger now, the tears gone, the emotion now pure rage.

I met her gaze. “This isn’t about anyone else but you and me.”

She scoffed and closed the distance between us, standing toe-to-toe, her eyes flashing. Too damn close—but that was Fiona, always pushing, always testing. “Bullshit,” she snarled. “You’re telling me it’s just a coincidence? That you see her and suddenly I’m a problem?”

Her voice was sharp, slicing through the space between us, demanding an answer I wasn’t about to give. Not the real one, anyway. I clenched my jaw. “Professionally, you’re not suited for the kind of deals that need to be made?—”

“ Fuck you, Duke ,” she screeched. “I have worked on other deals like this and?—”

“Keep your voice down.” My tone was low and sharp. She went pale.

I didn’t like histrionics. I didn’t do crazy. She knew that. I had enough of it with Mama, and I wouldn’t tolerate it from her. She’d learned that early on when she’d pushed me to have a screaming match with her. That was the kind of shit I didn’t do.

“I was helping you, Duke,” she said, tempering herself.

“I don’t know what you’re doin’, doll, but you ain’t helpin’.”

“I got you Piper Novak,” she reminded me.

“I own Wilder Ranch. That fact got me Piper Novak.” She knew that, too.

“I got you the senator and?—”

“Fiona, you’re good at working corporate deals with white men you can distract with your tits and take advantage of with your brains—that doesn’t work in ranch country.

Yes, you got Piper Novak to the table, but you can’t close the deal because you’re too busy looking down your nose at men like Hunt.

” I put my hands on her shoulders, trying to keep my touch gentle even though I wanted to push her away and end this discussion.

But she didn’t deserve that. “Here, business is done through handshakes while drinking dollar beers on tap at The Rusty Spur.”

“I don’t think this has anything to do with Hunt or anyone else. You’re into that bitch, aren’t you?”

The way she said it made me feel relief. I hadn’t broken her heart, just her pride and that I was okay with. I dropped my hands from her shoulders and walked past her to get the hell out of the bedroom.

“Duke, are you fucking her?”

I had my back to her, and I took a breath. I turned to face her. “We’re done, Fiona.”

“I’ll quit,” she warned, now her stance all professional bitch.

“That’s your call. Your contract has a non-compete clause and an NDA. Is this your two-week notice? If so, I need you to send?—”

“Damn it, Duke.” She launched herself on me, grabbing me into a tight embrace. “I love you.”

She didn’t love me, not really, but that didn’t change the fact that I felt like a jerk. No, I was a jerk. I was hurting this woman who had done nothing but follow my lead. Now, I’d changed my tune, and I expected her to get with the program, which she couldn’t; it wasn’t in her DNA.

I gently set her away from me. “Fiona, our personal relationship is over. You telling people we’re getting married is a bridge too fuckin’ far.

” I took a slow breath. “And our professional relationship? It’s on thin ice.

Your behavior’s causing problems that could drive key people at the ranch to quit—and if that happens, selling this place is gonna get a whole lot harder. ”

“I love you, Duke.” She looked at me, bewildered.

I never said I loved her. In fact, I have only said those words to one woman in my life. Elena .

“Did you ever love me?”

“Fiona, love wasn’t part of our relationship from either side.”

“Don’t tell me how I feel.”

I pressed my lips for a moment and then said, “You knew the deal, doll. I was never goin’ to fall in love with you.”

I could appease my conscience by saying that she knew what the stakes were, but I knew she was expecting more, and I had been considering it, thinking that maybe Fiona would be a good choice for a life partner.

She had been until I came back to Wildflower Canyon, and now Texas seemed impossibly far, and the life I thought I’d have with Fiona simply impossible.

Her expression hardened. “Fine. But just so you know, Duke? I don’t think this is about the ranch. I think it’s about her .”

“If you’re quitting, send your resignation letter by email and cc HR on it.”

“I’m not quitting, and if you try to fire me, I’ll sue you for sexual harassment,” she yelled.

I smirked. “Fiona, I understand you’re upset, so I’ll excuse you mouthing off at me this one time.” I narrowed my eyes. “You threaten me again, I’ll destroy your career and forget suing me; you’ll have trouble paying for gas.”

I went down to the kitchen, leaving Fiona spluttering to let Itzel know that I was going to sleep in a guestroom and asked if she could move my things. She didn’t ask one damn question, just asked me if I was going to eat with Fiona in the dining room or the office.

“In the office, Itzel, and alone . Gracias .”

“ De nada .”

After dinner and answering a few emails, I made my way upstairs. Itzel had put me in the room across from the master bedroom—Nash’s room.