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Rayna narrowed her eyes. “You know that is not how it works.”
“Hey, I tried.” I laughed, then dipped my head and captured her mouth in a light, playful kiss…right before I dug my fingers into her side and tickled her again.
* * *
Three days passed, three days of peace, that grew suspicious as the clock ticked away. I’d expected something to come from West—but nothing. It made me uneasy, but I would not roll up on his ranch and demand he tell me what he was planning. How much sense did that produce?
I was ticking off our progress with Twisting Twines’ ranch. We had harvested fifteen thousand of their forty and were aiming to get the next fifteen in the four days or so when Ewan called.
“Hell—”
“May Day,” Ewan said. “We have a situation on our hands that will be a major problem if we don’t get ahead of it right now!”
“What are you talking about?” I demanded.
I heard some clicking in the background, “Are you on your laptop?”
“Yes?”
“Open the link I just sent you,” Ewan replied as a message popped up on my laptop, and I clicked it.
The browser opened to a seven-minute clip of Brandon West on his ranch, giving a reported tour of his farm and acting all pleasant and cordial, talking about his business, his new initiative of making a training course for kids to learn how to ride and parenting with the local 4-H clubs.
“And this is free, yes?”
Brandon flashed his Colgate smile that was sure to fool some people, but sure as shootin’ was not going to fool me. “Completely free. See, my family gained wealth over the years, and my philosophy is to give back to the community as best as possible. What is better than fostering education and skills in the next generation?”
“And we applaud you for it.” The lady smiled while looking at the horse West was patting and lifting her hand. “May I?”
“Sweetheart is as gentle as can be,” West replied, “Matter of fact, she is one of the older mares we used to train kids to ride. You can touch her to your heart's content.”
“Thank you,” the reporter said while stroking the horse's neck. “As generous as you are, not everyone seems as willing to see eye-to-eye with you. A nasty video leaked last night about you and a fellow ranch owner, and our studios had to reach out to you to see if it was true. I think we have a clip about it…”
My gut flipped over on itself while a square cut on the screen, and I saw a clip of me and Brandon talking, and I know this was the moment before he threw the first punch—but the video went on and showed me punching him.
My jaw dropped. “What the fuck?”
It continued to the point where I slammed my boot on West’s chest and me telling him to get off my land. The video didn’t have audio, so no one knew what was said, but I knew one thing, it was ugly.
The clip cut off, and the reporter asked West, “That other person was Mister John Maxwell, the owner of Rolling Ranch, is it not?”
“He is,” West said.
“And what was the discussion about?” she asked.
“A casual business venture, but he was an intolerant brute and unable to have a decent conversation,” West said, while my teeth were grinding so hard, I was surprised I was not swallowing enamel-coated dust. He gave a nonchalant shrug. “Guess not everyone is not as understanding and business minded as I am.”
I watched the rest of the video just to make sure he had not uttered another libelous statement about me, then paused the video. Rage was simmering in the middle of my chest, and every nerve in my body was alive with fury.
“Sir?” Ewan asked. “Are you still here?”
“Oh, I’m here,” I replied.
“What are we going to do about this?” Ewan asked. “From my end, I can get a gag order on the press and probably find—”
“No, Ewan, don’t worry about it. I’ll take care of it,” I told my worried PA. “Believe me, when this all ends, we’ll see who is the brute here.”
As soon as he hung up, I called my lawyer while accessing the video Ben had sent to me the very night after West had assaulted me. I don’t know what media magic they had used to edit the video—I hadn’t even seen anyone with a camera—to make me look like a barbarian. Still, this time, everyone was going to know the truth.
