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“Hard to believe that when you managed to perform. Chelsea had nothing but good things to say about you. Not that I needed to be told. Your body is a work of art, Cole Rawlins.”
“Am I supposed to say thanks?”
She waved a hand. “Look, I’m sorry about how it ended. After that argument, I just assumed you wouldn’t want to stay in L.A. and work for me.”
“Are you fucking kidding me? You banned me from your estate. You stopped taking my calls!”
Now she was the one who stopped, her boots sending up little arcs of dust. “I did no such thing.”
“I tried to call that night.”
“I remember that. I was busy.”
“Busy with Chelsea,” he snapped. That had been the end of it. When she’d gotten pissed that Cole had said no to another threesome. She’d accused him of being an unsophisticated hick.
She put her hands on her hips. “I didn’t ban you from the estate.”
“I showed up the next day. God, I even brought flowers, as if I had something to apologize for.”
“You called me a psycho slut.”
He just raised an eyebrow, daring her to argue that point. “I was told I was no longer needed. When I said I needed to talk to you, Diane said I wasn’t allowed in and if I stayed she’d call the police.”
For a moment, Madeline frowned in confusion. Well, her eyebrows dipped a little, but her forehead stayed smooth as silk. Then her eyes widened with some sudden understanding. “Oh,” she said.
“Is it starting to come back?”
“I may have mentioned something to Diane about never wanting to see you again. It was late at night and I was still mad. When you left, Chelsea and I argued, too.”
“I’m sorry to hear that,” he snapped.
“I don’t think she wanted me at all. She’s the one who asked if you could join us.”
Cole let his head fall back and stared at the sky. One lonely cloud floated at the edge of his vision. “I have no idea why you’re telling me this.”
“I just meant that I didn’t intend to make you disappear from my life. I lost my temper. I was complaining about you. That’s all.”
“And the phone calls? Was Diane in charge of ignoring those, too?”
Her gaze slid away. She shrugged again. “Look. It was obviously not going to work for us, Cole. You were a small-town boy with small-town ideals. I spent my college years in Europe. I have different ideas about sex and love. I didn’t need you hanging around and making me feel like there was something wrong with me.”
“Yeah? And you decided that after we’d been together for a month? That realization came to you after I gave up everything and moved to California? For you?”
“You gave up a minimum-wage job,” she snapped.
“I gave up a girlfriend and a life and my family!”
She flushed a little and started moving toward the corral again. “You wanted to come. You needed some excitement. Isn’t that what you said?”
He followed her, anger taking away any of the pain he’d normally feel from moving so quickly. “I also said I loved you. Do you remember that?”
“Cole, we gave it a go. I had a life in L.A. and you didn’t like it. That’s it.”
“Right. A life. And an image. And other people you wanted to sleep with.”
She reached the fence, but she couldn’t go in. There were too many horses still in the corral, and she was a Hollywood girl, but she knew enough not to go barging in on unfamiliar horses.
She put her hands on the raw wood of a railing and watched as one of the mares came closer to sniff her. “I’m playing a man’s game here, Cole. In a man’s world. And if I have to do twice the work that any man does to be taken seriously, then I’m going to play just as hard as they do, too.”
