She inclined her head, gracious as a queen. “And I’m sorry for sneaking into the party under another woman’s name. But given our history, I didn’t feel comfortable requesting an invitation.”
He couldn’t help a wry laugh as he forced himself to gaze into the fireplace flames instead of at the woman on the couch beside him. “Probably because I would have never granted you one. You have to know that it’s my job to protect the privacy of my guests. Which means no tabloid reporters.”
“Nevertheless, I need to have my phone back.” She shifted beside him, running her palm over the expanse between them and drawing his focus to her left hand that bore no ring. Not even a lingering tan line. “My followers will think something happened to me after my video cut off in the middle.”
“Then they seriously underestimate your resourcefulness.” They’d met the year before he’d taken his first company public. Back then, the tech start-up offering network privacy tools had been the sole focus of his life. Elena had been working for a rival firm, and she’d quit her job because she believed in his product more.
She’d shown up in his office to tell him so, offering her services as an influencer to a younger demographic. At the time, she’d had a homegrown following for her beauty and fashion tips, and he hadn’t understood how that could help him. She’d single-handedly taught him the value of never underestimating a target market, making a clever video that brought him fifty thousand converts to his network security product overnight. He’d given her a percentage and a job. In the end, he’d lost more than a woman he loved when they parted. He’d lost a hell of a team member since she’d handed in her resignation the same day they broke up.
“Then what will it take to recover my device?” she pressed, a hint of agitation creeping into her tone. “Let’s open the negotiations so we don’t take up any more of each other’s time.”
She reached for the bourbon on the rocks he’d poured her, and then, as if thinking the better of it, she returned her hand to her lap.
“For starters, be honest with me about what you’re doing in Montana.” He rose from the couch and returned to the wet bar, pouring her a glass of ice water. Delivering it to her, he noticed how carefully she took it from him. Somehow, the absence of contact only ratcheted up the awareness between them as he reclaimed his seat.
“Thank you.” She took a long sip before setting the glass beside the first one. A hint of lipstick on the crystal distracted him for a moment. “And I was honest with you. I’m going to get answers about Alonzo Salazar’s ill-gotten gains and where the proceeds from his book went. I’m not leaving the ranch until I either find out or have a solid lead that points somewhere else.”
Gage already knew from his exchange with the investigator April Stephens that she’d found answers to that same question. But he wasn’t going to point Elena in her direction since he didn’t want to aid her in her quest.
Alonzo’s secrets were tied up with his own. His former mentor had been privy to the nuances of a boarding school tragedy that involved all six of the ranch’s owners, something they’d taken pains to put behind them for good. So his primary objective was to keep Alonzo’s past on lockdown. For starters, he sure as hell wasn’t letting the woman seated beside him anywhere near April Stephens tonight. Thankfully, the investigator would be leaving Mesa Falls Ranch in the morning.
“So you’re just here for a story,” he concluded, willing to capitalize on their past affair to maneuver her if it came down to that. He happened to know her very, very well. “Not out of any desire to see me again.”
He could tell he caught her off guard by the slightest hint of her shoulders straightening. Was it in awareness of him? Or was she just squaring up for the next round of battle?
“You’re safe with me, Gage. I promised your father you would be, after all.”
They settled back into sparring roles, and if he were being honest, he was more comfortable seeing her as the enemy than a woman out of options after a well-publicized divorce. It spoke volumes about her financial position—and, perhaps, her personal confidence—that she was selling stories to the tabloids. The Elena he’d known had been a fierce businesswoman.
“And you’re not seeking some sort of misguided revenge.” He stated it as fact, wanting clarification on that point.
Or perhaps he just needed to rile her.
A light trill of laughter bubbled up from her throat. Rising from the couch, she paced closer to the fireplace, peering back over one shoulder at him. “I’d have to feel something for you if I wanted revenge, Gage.”
She said it so coolly, he almost believed her. But at the last moment, a hint of something else flitted through her gaze. The look was fleeting, but it had been there before she quickly turned away. In that moment, he’d glimpsed something more than cool detachment.
Getting to his feet, he closed the distance between them to join her beside the sleek stone hearth. Eyes locked on her subtle curves as she stared down into the flames, he remembered a thousand other times he’d touched her. Tasted her. Made her moan with pleasure.
The past simmered around him, hotter than any blaze.
“I don’t believe you.”
Gage’s words, spoken while he stood far too close to her, stopped her short.
Her breath caught. Her pulse stuttered for a protracted moment.
Thankfully, her back was to him. So she closed her eyes and steeled herself against the tingling in her nerve endings that reminded her of how hot they’d burned together, once upon a time. That hint of bourbon she’d sipped danced in her veins, seeming to warm her everywhere.
But she wasn’t here to play games with him. And she couldn’t afford to let her guard down for a single second. She needed this story to shore up her finances. If she happened to inconvenience Gage Striker in the process, all the better. Revenge? She preferred to view it as a reminder to him that a Striker couldn’t pay his way out of all life’s inconveniences.
“It hardly matters whether you believe me or not.” She shrugged and traced a pattern in the dark gray stone of the fireplace surround with her finger—anything to delay facing him.
“You feel something for me.” That voice, pitched so low for her ears alone, was like a fingernail stroke down her spine. “It’s probably nothing good, but I am one hundred percent confident you aren’t indifferent.”
He’d dropped the gauntlet, and they both knew it.
The silence between them stretched. She’d tried acting once, when she’d first fled her father’s run-down desert shack for Los Angeles at seventeen. She hadn’t been any good at it then, either, but she’d never had as much motivation as she did right now. Taking a deep breath, she spun on her heel to look Gage in the eye.
“Sorry to disappoint you.” She flipped a few curls over her shoulder. “But I’m in Montana for work, not to rehash a long-dead past. So if we’re done here, I’ll see myself out.”
She sidled past him, but at the last moment, his palm landed lightly on her elbow.
“Wait.” His touch fell away, quickly breaking their connection.
Because he didn’t care to make contact with the woman who’d betrayed him? Or because he felt the same jolt of attraction she felt?
She stopped and turned back around to face him.
“You really plan to stay in town to chase this story?” His voice had lost some of its antagonistic edge.
“I’m not going anywhere until I have answers.” She would be in Mesa Falls for as long as she could afford it, anyway.