Chapter 13
CHARLOTTE
The view outside the window of Trent’s private jet shifted from endless sky to endless land, and I leaned closer, my breath catching at the sight of it. Everything below was very, very flat, but beautiful in a way that was unfamiliar.
Untamed. Honest. Just land that wasn’t trying to impress anyone.
Texas wasn’t new to me. I’d been to Austin, Houston, and Dallas more times than I could count, but this was different. There were no high-rises in sight and the last trace of the sprawling, urban parts of the state I’d seen before had passed far below too many minutes ago.
I’d thought Trent lived in Dallas, but it seemed like it wasn’t quite so much in as in the region of. Our descent started slowly, the jet lowering over nothing but untouched land. I kept my nose pressed to the window, searching for an airport or any sign of civilization, but there was nothing.
When the wheels finally touched down, it didn’t take a genius to figure out we’d landed on a private airstrip—on his family’s property, no less.
I wasn’t sure what I’d expected the Shepard ranch to look like, but now that I was here, I realized it wouldn’t have mattered because I sure as hell would never have expected this.
Alex and Jameson had spent months here growing up, and in my head, I’d always thought ranch meant humble. Something rural that looked like the life of a man who owned two pairs of jeans and one good suit.
Instead, I was looking at luxury. A sweep of smooth concrete runway with a long, gleaming hangar that looked newer and more impressive than the garages back at the Westwood estate.
Inside, aircraft equipment and polished steel screamed money.
No one but their staff and nothing but their land was in sight as far as the eye could see. This was Trent’s wealth, his world, and it made me feel very small for being so vast.
Trent unbuckled as casually and easily as if we hadn’t just descended into a hundred new expectations of us both. He grabbed my luggage before I could reach for it and slung both bags over his shoulder like they weighed nothing.
He glanced at me, those blue eyes lingering on mine for a beat too long. “You good?”
I nodded, but right now, I wasn’t sure what that even meant. I also wasn’t sure why I was suddenly less confident about this being the right decision than I had been before.
I guessed that it had something to do with the way Trent seemed to have changed since Chicago, his presence seeming bigger here.
Realer, somehow. I’d officially stepped into his territory.
Here, the rough hands, the stubble, and the build that filled the narrow aisle of the jet weren’t out of place.
They were part of the landscape. Exactly what they should be. It was disarming.
To say the freaking least.
Sweeping one big hand out ahead of him, he motioned for me to precede him, helping me down the stairs with his hand warm and steady at my back. Despite the two bags he’s also still carrying. Holy cow.
As we stepped onto the runway, the wind carried the scent of sunbaked earth, grass, and something clean I couldn’t name, and I inhaled deeply, off kilter because even the smells were unfamiliar. Another not-so-little thing that immediately jumped out at me was how completely quiet it was here.
Grass rustled slightly in the breeze, tree creaking a little, but other than that, all I heard was total silence. Trent’s world stretched in every direction, solitary, beautiful, and wild.
“Welcome to Shepard Ranch,” he said, leading me toward a huge truck parked nearby.
I’d rarely seen these monstrous kinds of vehicles in real life, but it was massive, powerful, and in a weird way, utterly him. Guys in Chicago bragged about leasing these, then they traded them in when they realized they couldn’t fit in any of the city’s parking spaces.
Meanwhile, this one looked like Trent had built it himself, with nothing but his bare hands and a welding torch.
It also fit right in, exactly as big as it needed to be to get the job done.
It even had hay and dirt in the back, all of which made me feel even more like an alien who’d crash landed here.
After dumping the bags unceremoniously on the back seat, he strode around the truck and opened the door for me without saying a word. I nodded my thanks and climbed in carefully, smoothing my dress and trying not to think about how easily he’d tossed my luggage around.
Two weeks was a long time, so those bags weighed a ton. I’d had to sit on them and bounce a little to convince them to close. Back home, my brothers would’ve complained about them and the other men I knew would’ve gotten staff to help haul them around, but that wasn’t how things worked around here.
Clearly, Trent wasn’t the man I’d thought he was—bossing farm hands around and probably allergic to actually getting his own hands dirty. It was quickly becoming apparent that the guy didn’t just own the land, he worked it.
Plus, I’d always known he was rich. That his family had a big ranch and all that, but being here and seeing it was very different. I was burning to ask him about it all. Perhaps even to find out if this was how he felt in Chicago, like a fish out of water. He’d never let on, but he had to.
Right?
Instead of babbling, however, I kept my mouth firmly shut. Trent had barely said a word on the flight and he still seemed sort of distracted. Not rude at all, just quietly thoughtful in that way men got when they were thinking about everything and pretending it was nothing.
We drove for what felt like miles through open land, past fences, cattle, and barns that were nicer than most restaurants before he finally spoke. My nose had practically been glued to the window, but I turned to face him at the sharp sound of his voice piercing the silence.
“Just a couple of ground rules,” he said, not looking away from the road, but his drawl certainly not as lazy as usual. “You’re my girlfriend now, so you’ll hear me introduce you as such. Don’t be weird about it.”
I stared at his profile, noticing the bulge at the back of his jaw that told me he was biting back a lot more than just that. “Why would I be weird about it?”
He flicked the briefest look at me, like he was checking if I was serious. “Because approximately forty-eight hours ago, you and I were both still single.”
“We still are.”
“Not as far as anybody else is concerned.” He glanced at me again, those deep red eyebrows rising a little bit.
“You get that, right? As of right now, you’re my devoted girlfriend who loves me so much that you couldn’t even bear the thought of letting me come wrap up business on the ranch without coming out here with me. ”
I rolled my eyes. “I’m pretty sure you’re the one who insisted that I must come home with you to see the ranch and meet the family.”
Surprised laughter tore out of him, but it didn’t last long. “Alright, fine. We’re both equally smitten. Just, uh, just don’t overthink it and roll with whatever happens.”
“Right.” I exhaled a long, slow breath, surprised that endless fields were still rolling by outside. It really felt like their property stretched on forever. “Explain to me again how this helps you. Aside from having eye candy on your arm at your parents’ party, why would you agree to this?”
I doubted he would have struggled to find a date to this Labor Day shindig. Especially now that I’d seen his family’s spread. No doubt women around here would be willing to do whatever he asked for a chance to become the lady of this manor. Ranch. Whatever.
Trent lifted his shoulder in a shrug. “Outside of that, it doesn’t really help me. If anything, it’s a favor for a friend and Alex will owe me eventually.”
I blinked hard and turned back to the window. “Wow, it’s nice to know where we stand.”
When I risked another glance at him to see if he was at least a little contrite about it, he was smirking just enough to make me want to smack him. And maybe kiss him after that.
“I didn’t say this arrangement wasn’t useful to me in other ways,” he said, but before I could ask what he meant by that, a house came into view.
Although describing it as a house was a laughable understatement, and this was coming from me. It wasn’t like my family home was a shack.
Even so, this was an absolute mansion perched on a rise overlooking rolling pastures dotted with cattle.
It had balconies, wraparound porches, stone pillars, and huge windows reflecting the sunset, like a billionaire had merged a ranch with a resort and then casually lived in it like it was no big deal.
I went silent, forgetting to question myself for thinking about kissing him and to question him about how my presence here was supposedly useful to him. Instead, I just gawked.
Trent pulled up right in front of the monstrosity, put the truck in park, glanced at me, and the faintest twitch of amusement ghosted across his mouth. “Not what you were expecting, huh?”
“I thought you lived in a barn.”
“I do,” he said without skipping a beat. “This is just the house attached to it.”
Oh, well, that’s just great.
He hopped out and grabbed my luggage again, then turned and jogged up the front steps. I sighed deeply as I opened the door, peering up at the house that would be my temporary home.
Digs could be worse, I guess.
Honestly, I prepared myself for the interior to be a letdown. A soulless, empty modern version of a cavern that creaked and had one couch, some moldy cheese in the fridge, and half a bottle of bourbon on the bathroom counter next to a used razor.
Once again though, I quickly learned that I didn’t really know my brother’s best friend at all.
The inside turned out to be even more absurd than the facade.
Every room was huge but warm, with wood beams, glass walls, leather furniture, shelves of books, and a fireplace that could roast an entire herd of cattle.
With a home this impressive, he would never need to brag. The majesty spoke for itself. For possibly the first time in my life, I came very close to gaping, but I managed to keep my jaw and my eyes in check as I followed him upstairs.
Trying extremely hard not to notice the strength in his broad shoulders as he hauled my luggage up a wide, comfortable staircase, I found myself staring at his denim-clad ass instead.
Damn it, Charlotte.
With no other choice since he was immediately ahead of me, I finally just looked at the floors all the way up. Trent stopped around halfway down a long hall and opened the door to an airy bedroom with high ceilings and large, long windows looking out over the fields.
“This is you,” he said. “I’m across the way.”
Just casual. No big deal. He was putting me, his fake girlfriend, in a bedroom directly opposite his. Sure. Absolutely normal.
He started to turn before he seemed to remember something. “I’ve got a few things to check on, but I won’t be gone long. We’ve got dinner in town at seven. It’s a good spot. We’ll be seen. So just get settled and I’ll be back.”
As soon as he started moving again, for some insane reason, the thought of staying behind while he went off to… cowboy? Ranch? Do whatever he needed to do… made my stomach churn.
“Can I go with you?”
He glanced at me over his shoulder, his eyebrows raised and questions written all over his face. “Do you really want to go get your hands dirty and yell at ranch hands?”
“No, but I also don’t want to sit in this giant house alone, pretending I’m not creating thirteen different versions of my future in my head.”
A beat passed before a tiny hint of a smile appeared on his lips. It wasn’t a smirk or a cocky grin, just a shift in his expression that said he saw me. That he understood.
“Alright, then,” he said, grabbing a hat from a hook on the wall and spinning it once in his hand like the most aggravatingly confident man alive. “Come on, Westwood. Let’s see how you do outside the country club.”
I was about to take a step forward when he suddenly tilted his head toward my suitcase. “Would you like to change first?”
I looked down at my travel dress and kitten heels. “Why would I need to change?”
He just shrugged again, one corner of his mouth pulling up like he was actively trying not to laugh. “No reason.”
That was an absolute lie, but he offered no further explanation or gave any hints. All he did was nod with a half-smile that made me suspect he was enjoying the fact that I had no idea what I was walking into.
Because I had apparently declared war on my own dignity today, I followed him anyway, still wearing my sparkling clean city shoes and my wrinkled dress, and with absolutely zero indication of what I had just volunteered for.
But I wasn’t staying behind. If he and I were going to be faking a relationship, I fully intended on doing it the right way.