Maybe because his arrival was the first truly interesting thing to happen all evening. She went in the direction where she’d last seen the figure, stepping out of the golden pool of light spilling from the party and into the grapevines. The moonlight illuminated her steps, though it was pale and left her hands looking waxen.
She rounded one row of grapevines into the next, then stopped, frozen.
She had known he was tall, even from a distance. But he was…very tall. And broad.
Broad shoulders, broad chest. He was wearing a cowboy hat, which seemed ridiculous at night, because it wasn’t keeping the sun off him. He had on a tight black T-shirt and a pair of jeans.
And he was not a Cooper.
She had never seen the man before in her life. He saw her and stopped walking. He lifted his head up, and the moonlight caught his features. His face was sculpted, beautiful. So much so that it immobilized her. That square jaw was visible in even this dim light.
“I… Have you lost your way?” she asked. “The party is that way. Though… I’m fairly certain you’re not on the guest list.”
“I wasn’t invited to any party,” he said, his voice rough and raspy, made for sin.
Made for sin?
She didn’t know where such a thought had come from.
Except, it was easy to imagine that voice saying all kinds of sinful things, and she couldn’t credit why.
“Then… Forgive me, but what are you doing here?”
“I work here,” he said. “I’m the new ranch hand.”
Damn if she wasn’t Little Red Riding Hood delivered right to the Big Bad Wolf.
Except, she wasn’t wearing a scarlet cloak. It was a scarlet dress that clung to her generous curves like wrapping paper around a tempting present.
Her dark hair was lined silver by the moonbeams and tumbling around naked shoulders.
He could picture her in his bed, just like that. Naked and rumpled in the sheets, that hair spread everywhere.
It was a shame he wasn’t here for pleasure.
He was here for revenge.
And if he had guessed correctly based on what he knew about the Maxfield family, this was Emerson Maxfield. Who often had her beautiful face splashed across magazine covers for food and wine features, and who had become something of an It Girl for clothing brands as well. She was gorgeous, recognizable…and engaged.
But none of that would have deterred him, if he really wanted her.
What the hell did he care if a man had put a ring on a woman’s finger? In his opinion, if an engaged or married woman was looking elsewhere, then the man who’d put the ring on her finger should’ve done a better job of keeping her satisfied.
If Holden could seduce a woman, then the bastard he seduced her away from deserved it.
Indiscretion didn’t cause him any concern.
But there were a whole lot of women and a whole lot of ways for him to get laid, and he wasn’t about to sully himself inside a Maxfield.
No matter how gorgeous.
“I didn’t realize my father had hired someone new,” she said.
It was funny, given what he knew about her family, the way that she talked like a little private school princess. But he knew she’d gone to elite schools on the East Coast, coming back home to Oregon for summer vacations, at least when her family wasn’t jet-setting off somewhere else.
They were the wealthiest family in Logan County, with a wine label that competed on the world stage.
Her father, James Maxfield, was a world-class visionary, a world-class winemaker…and a world-class bastard.
Holden had few morals, but there were some scruples he held dear. At the very top of that list was that when he was with a woman, there was no coercion involved. And he would never leave one hopeless, blackmailed and depressed. No.
But James Maxfield had no such moral code.
And, sadly for James, when it came to dealing out justice to men who had harmed someone Holden cared about very much, he didn’t have a limit on how far he was willing to go. He wondered what Emerson would think if she knew what her father had done to a woman who was barely her age.
What he’d done to Holden’s younger sister.
But then, Emerson probably wouldn’t care at all.
He couldn’t see how she would not know the way her father behaved, given that the whole family seemed to run the enterprise together.
He had a feeling the Maxfield children looked the other way, as did James’s wife. All of them ignoring his bad behavior so they could continue to have access to his bank account.
“I just got here today,” he said. “Staying in one of the cabins on the property.”
There was staff lodging, which he had found quaint as hell.
Holden had worked his way up from nothing, though his success in real estate development was not anywhere near as splashed over the media as the Maxfield’s success was. Which, in the end, was what allowed him to engage in this revenge mission, this quest to destroy the life and reputation of James Maxfield.
And the really wonderful thing was, James wouldn’t even see it coming.
Because he wouldn’t believe a man of such low status could possibly bring him down. He would overlook Holden. Because James would believe that Holden was nothing more than a hired hand, a lackey.
James would have no idea that Holden was a man with a massive spread of land in the eastern part of the state, in Jackson Creek.
Because James Maxfield thought of no one but himself. He didn’t think anyone was as smart as he was, didn’t think anyone was anywhere near as important.
And that pride would be his downfall in the end.
Holden would make sure of it.
“Oh,” she said. She met his eyes and bit her lip.
The little vixen was flirting with him.
“Aren’t you meant to be in there hosting the party?”
She lifted a shoulder. “I guess so.” She didn’t seem at all surprised that he recognized who she was. But then, he imagined Emerson was used to being recognized.
“People will probably be noticing that you’re gone.”
“I suppose they might be,” she said. She wrinkled her nose. “Between you and me, I’m getting a little tired of these things.”
“Parties with free food and drinks? How could you get tired of that?”
She lifted one elegant shoulder. “I suppose when the drinks are always free, you lose track of why they’re special.”
“I wouldn’t know anything about that.”
He’d worked for every damn thing he had.
“Oh. Of course. Sorry. That’s an incredibly privileged thing to say.”
“Well, if you’re who I think you are, you’re incredibly privileged. Why wouldn’t you feel that way?”
“Just because it’s true in my life doesn’t mean it’s not a tacky thing to say.”
“Well, I can think of several tacky things to say right back that might make you feel a little bit