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“I did. You keep telling me that’s exactly what I need to do, live a little.”
She squealed like a girl in high school. “Tell me more. Was he really that sexy?”
“He was an arrogant, self-assured pain in the ass with soft lips and a hard body.” I laughed with her until something caught my eye across the street. No, it couldn’t be. I narrowed my eyes, leaning closer to the window. “Shit.” I felt more flustered than I had in a long time and it didn’t make any sense other than the time we’d shared had been so explosive.
“What?” She turned in her chair, staring out the window and following my gaze. “Wait a minute. Is that him?”
“Oh, God. I think so.” He was wearing another suit similar to the one I’d seen him in at the gas station. He was leaving a building I wasn’t familiar with. By the way he jerked his sunglasses from his jacket pocket, I’d say the man wasn’t happy. With the sun on his face, the light breeze tousling his hair and the way he took long strides down the sidewalk, he quite literally took my breath away. Yep, I was hot and bothered, which was ridiculous.
“What’s his name?” she asked, the sudden strange tone in her voice catching my attention.
“I honestly don’t know. We didn’t take the time to get to know each other. He called me Big Red and I called him city slicker.”
“Isn’t that romantic,” Megan teased. “From what I can see of that hot bod, he’s gorgeous. Are you going to see him again?”
“He’s just passing through. That much was easy to tell.”
“Interesting.”
“Why interesting? Because I finally had a little bit of a fling?” I threw the comment out there to see how long it would take her to realize what I’d said.
She gasped, squealing even more loudly than before. “You rock, girl! I’m glad and no, that’s not why I find it interesting. You being able to allow your guard to fall is fabulous but…”
“But what?”
“What’s the name of Walter Cawthorne’s attorney?”
“Hank… Barclay. That’s it. Why are you asking?”
“That’s what I remembered. Because Barclay’s office is on the top floor of that building.”
I sat back, watching the man until he disappeared out of sight from the window. “But there are other businesses inside the building as well.”
“Oh, absolutely. A real estate firm, an accounting firm. At least four or five others I can’t remember. But it’s a little coincidental.”
“Yes, you’re right.” Why was it I had a bad feeling about the identity of my mystery lover?
“What are the odds the man you slept with is Walter’s grandson?”
Yes, what were the odds?
As my stomach started to churn, my sixth sense kicked in. Forget about my life being a dumpster fire. It had escalated to a nuclear bomb.
It looked like I would be dragging my Louisville Slugger into the living room just in case. I was finished being the nice girl from… Georgia.
Sebastian
“I don’t give a shit, Parker. Make the time to look over the goddamn paperwork I’m going to send you. I pay you and your firm enough money. You also have a subsidiary located right here in Colorado.”
“That I have nothing to do with,” Parker insisted.
“How is that bright young daughter of yours? Does she enjoy attending Harvard?”
“Don’t do that, Sebastian. You and I have known each other for a long time,” he huffed. “I don’t play games and from what I thought, neither do you.”
“Yeah, well, times have changed. Maybe that’s part of the problem, you just think you don’t. We all do, my friend. Your firm isn’t immune to doing so and you know it. I’m not going to allow some two-bit hokey law firm out of Bumfuck, Colorado to best me at a game I invented years ago.”
I wasn’t certain why I remained so angry other than Hank had acted like he had something dangling over my head. Like a guillotine with an extremely sharp blade. Plus, the assholes who’d been in his office hadn’t really been shocked by my statements at all. I’d played poker both literally and figuratively dozens of times. I knew when someone was bluffing and they hadn’t done a very good job. The reason they were playing me was all about how much the ranch was worth.
