Rancher's Wild Secret. Maisey Yates

smiled, the slow honeyed timbre of his voice.

      Yes.

      He was a man without a cell phone.

      A man who wasn’t tied or tethered to anything. Who didn’t have comments to respond to at two in the morning that kept him up at night, as he worried about not doing it fast enough, about doing something to damage the very public image she had cultivated—not just for herself—but for her father’s entire industry.

      A man who didn’t care if he fell short of the expectations of a parent, at least he didn’t seem like he would.

      Looking at him in all his rough glory, the way that he blended into the terrain, she felt like a smooth shiny shell with nothing but a sad, listless urchin curled up inside, who was nothing like the facade that she presented.

      He was the real deal.

      He was like that mountain behind him. Strong and firm and steady. Unmovable.

      It made her want a taste.

      A taste of him.

      A taste of freedom.

      She found herself moving forward, but he took a step back.

      “Come on now, princess,” he said, grabbing hold of her left hand and raising it up, so that her ring caught the sunlight. “You don’t want to be doing that.”

      Horror rolled over her and she stepped away.

      “I don’t… Nothing.”

      He chuckled. “Something.”

      “I… My fiancé and I have an understanding,” she said. And she made a mental note to actually check with Donovan to see if they did. Because she suspected they might, given that they had never touched each other. And she could hardly imagine that Donovan had been celibate for the past two years.

       You have been.

      Yeah, she needed to check on the Donovan thing.

      “Do you now?”

      “Yes,” she lied.

      “Well, I have an understanding with your father that I’m in his employment. And I would sure hate to take advantage of that.”

      “I’m a grown woman,” she said.

      “Yeah, what do you suppose your daddy would think if he found that you were fucking the help?”

      Heat washed over her, her scalp prickling.

      “I don’t keep my father much informed about my sex life,” she said.

      “The problem is, you and me would be his business. I try to make my sex life no one’s business but mine and the lady I’m naked with.”

      “Me nearly kissing you is not the same as me offering you sex. Your ego betrays you.”

      “And your blush betrays you, darlin’.”

      The entire interaction felt fraught and spiky, and Emerson didn’t know how to proceed, which was as rare as her feeling at a loss for words. He was right. He worked for her father, and by extension, for the family, for her. But she didn’t feel like she had the power here. Didn’t feel like she had the control. She was the one with money, with the Maxfield family name, and he was just…a ranch hand.

      So why did she feel so decidedly at a disadvantage?

      “We’d better carry on,” she said. “I have things to do.”

      “Pictures to post.”

      “But not of you,” she said.

      He shook his head once. “Not of me.”

      She got back on her horse, and he did the same. And this time he led the way back down the trail, and she was somewhat relieved. Because she didn’t know what she would do if she had to bear the burden of knowing he was watching the back of her the whole way.

      She would drive herself crazy thinking about how to hold her shoulders so that she didn’t look like she knew that he was staring at her.

      But then, maybe he wouldn’t stare at her, and that was the thing. She would wonder either way. And she didn’t particularly want to wonder.

      And when she got back to her office, she tapped her fingers on the desk next to her phone, and did her very best to stop herself from texting Donovan.

      Tap. Don’t. Tap. Don’t.

      And then suddenly she picked up the phone and started a new message.

      Are we exclusive?

      There were no dots, no movement. She set the phone down and tried to look away. It pinged a few minutes later.

      We are engaged.

      That’s not an answer.

      We don’t live in the same city.

      She took a breath.

      Have you slept with someone else?

      She wasn’t going to wait around with his back-and-forth nonsense. She wasn’t interested in him sparing himself repercussions.

      We don’t live in the same city. So yes, I have.

      And if I did?

      Whatever you do before the wedding is your business.

      She didn’t respond, and his next text came in on the heels of the last.

      Did you want to talk on the phone?

      No.

      K.

      And that was it. Because they didn’t love each other. She hadn’t needed to text him, because nothing was going to happen with her and Holden.

       And how do you feel about the fact that Donovan had slept with other people?

      She wasn’t sure.

      Except she didn’t feel much of anything.

      Except now she had a get-out-of-jail-free card, and that was about the only way she could see it. That wasn’t normal, was it? It wasn’t normal for him to be okay with the fact that she had asked those questions. That she had made it clear she’d thought about sleeping with someone else.

      And it wasn’t normal for her to not be jealous when Donovan said he had slept with someone else.

      But she wasn’t jealous.

      And his admission didn’t dredge any deep feelings up to the surface either.