Chapter 5
Addison
“You yelled at me,” I snap. It was humiliating enough that he felt the need to ride up here in the pouring rain and “save” me. But to yell at me like a child?
“You were being obstinate,” he says coolly.
My eyes widen. He’s doubling down. Which I shouldn’t be surprised by.
All he’s done since I’ve known him is double down on his asshole tendencies.
I don’t know if the man is even capable of being civil.
“Obstinate?” I repeat. “You’re the one who decided to come after me for no reason, and then you threatened me if I wouldn’t get on your stupid horse! ”
Cruz stares at me for a few seconds before tossing his soggy hat angrily atop a nearby bale of hay. “Are you being serious right now?” he mutters, raking a hand through his hair. It flops to the side, dark, wet, and not wholly unattractive.
“Just because you’re some big hotshot on the ranch doesn’t mean you get to boss me around!” I stride toward him, as if to shove him in the chest to drive home my point, but instead I stop just in front of him.
His eyes darken, his jaw set. “I boss around whoever I want on this ranch.” His voice lowers.
He hovers over me, and I’m suddenly regretting my decision to invade his personal space.
He’s the physically intimidating one here, not me.
Water drips from his hair, down his chest, his arms. The slight stubble on his face glistens with rain.
“I don’t work here,” I counter, wishing my voice sounded sterner than it does.
“I don’t give a shit,” he snaps, and his hand reaches out to grasp my upper arm.
It isn’t rough, it doesn’t hurt, but the contact is enough to elicit a soft gasp from me.
His hand is hot against my bare skin, practically burning it.
“You were in danger. You put yourself in danger by fighting me out there. If I had to toss you over my shoulder like a child, I would have.” He says the last words evenly, his face now inches from mine, daring me to contradict him.
And I probably normally would have caved. I probably would have given in and apologized. But him referring to me as a child? I grit my teeth, my brow furrowing. “I’d like to see you try,” I hiss.
Something sparks in his eyes—anger, frustration, hatred—I’m not fully sure. All I know is that I’ve thoroughly gotten under his skin. He huffs, letting go of my arm, and the sudden lack of contact seems to burn more than the initial touch. “Don’t test me, Princess,” he mutters.
My blood boils at the usage of that stupid name again. “Don’t follow me around like a helicopter parent,” I retort.
He raises his eyes to the ceiling, running a hand through his hair again in exasperation. “You were lost. In a thunderstorm.”
“I was fine,” I snap, even though I know it’s a stretch.
I’d been panicking since the moment the rain started.
In fact, I’d been anxious and restless all morning.
It was the reason I decided to go on a hike in the first place.
Isn’t that kind of stuff supposed to be good for you?
Calm your nerves? If anyone needs their nerves calmed, it’s me …
“Addison, you just need to get out of your head,” my mother would always say.
But the trails up there were confusing, and I didn’t know which way was back. And the rain didn’t help. But I’m sure I would have figured it out. Eventually.
“You were lost, and you know it,” Cruz growls. “How about a ‘thank you’? Or at least cut it with the attitude.”
His last comment only makes my blood boil hotter. “Attitude,” I mutter to myself. “You’re one to talk.”
“Me?” He actually looks shocked. And exasperated. And wet. And hot. He’s wearing a jacket, but I can see a t-shirt underneath that’s wholly soaked through, giving just a glimpse of those abs I’d seen the other day.
But his attractiveness does not cancel out every other thing about him. “Yeah, Mr. I’m a tough cowboy and I’m better than everybody else,” I say, lowering my voice for effect. I’ve spent my whole life micromanaged, and I’m not about to let this asshole take over now.
My mind momentarily flits back to home. My dad hovering over every decision of my life.
My mother making sure I presented well, looked good, played the part.
As their only child, it’ll eventually be up to me to take over their luxury real estate business—their real baby.
So my choices? Well, they were never mine at all.
It's the whole reason I’m here. To get over the—
“Says the stuck-up city girl,” Cruz retorts. “Probably got everything handed to you and are angry you have to sluff it on your own up here. And then here I go, having to ride after you in a thunderstorm and save your ass.” He waves his arm in the air.
Handed to me? More like forced upon me. I think of my life.
Never was I asked what I wanted to do with it.
What I wanted to do for fun as kid, where I wanted to go to school, what I might want to do for a job.
No, it was all laid out. Didn’t matter that I hate being the center of attention, used as the face of my parents’ prestigious company, carted out to events like a show pony, ending the night with panic attacks, fearful of how the press would later pick apart my outfit, my smile, whether I’d put on weight recently.
I was pumped full of antidepressants since a teenager because of it.
No, she wasn’t shy, my parents urged. There was just something wrong with her.
And they’d push and push and push. Until last month, when they’d decided I would make a speech at their company’s biggest event of the year.
A charity ball they throw for Seattle’s underprivileged.
I’d talk about how great my parents’ company is, how great they are, how excited I am to take over one day.
Didn’t matter that I could barely get through the practice speeches without breaking down.
Not to them. It just meant I needed to try harder.
But fear doesn’t care how hard you try. Because when I got up on that stage and uttered my first two lines, the panic attack came. I remember the shaking, my eyes losing focus, the world closing in on me.
And the headlines the next day. Heir to Seattle’s most prestigious real estate firm has public mental breakdown.
I thought maybe they’d finally see me after that. See that I wasn’t cut out for this. Let me live anywhere but in the limelight.
But no. They sent me here instead.
“A summer in the mountains will be good for you. A refresh. So you’ll be good as new come the fall.”
A flash of lightening from outside catches my attention, and it’s just then that I realize I’m shaking. My fingers tremble, and I clench them into fists. It never helps, but I always try it anyway.
“You’re shivering,” Cruz says quietly.
It’s not the full truth, but I let him believe it is.
He shrugs off his jacket, moving to put it over my shoulders.
“I don’t need it,” I say, holding my chin up definitely.
He rolls his eyes. “Would you take it if I tell you I can see through your shirt?”
Startled, I glance down. And gasp. My white tee and bralette are utterly soaked through, leaving absolutely nothing to the imagination. Horrified that I’ve been in this state the entire time, I clamp my mouth shut, feeling my face redden.
The entire time I was walking around in the rain, the entire time we’d been in here fighting, me trying to regain my lost sense of dignity—and Cruz had had a completely unobstructed view of my breasts the whole time?
Taking my silence as compliance, Cruz settles his jacket over my shoulders. I wordlessly tug it around my torso, covering myself—and actually feeling a bit warmer.
“Sit down,” he says gruffly, pointing to a bale of hay nearby. And while it doesn’t look like the most comfortable thing in the world, it makes me realize how tired my legs are.
I sit, feeling the weariness of the day settling in on me. Cruz sits next to me, although with plenty of space between us. Probably doesn’t want to catch city-girl-cooties.
“Look, you don’t have to like me,” he mutters after a beat. “But my boss has entrusted your safety to me. And I’d like to stay on my boss’s good side. It’s that simple.”
I feel myself bristling at the insinuation that I’m nothing more than a chore. An inconvenient one, at that. It brings all my insecurities rushing to the surface. I’ve never been anything other than a burden. Never living up.
“Don’t worry, I won’t be getting lost again,” I snap, and it’s more of a promise to myself than to him.
He grunts in response, like he doesn’t believe me.
I pull his jacket tighter around me, still mortified by the idea of him having been able to see my breasts this whole time.
To his credit, thinking back on it, he seemed to maintain pretty good eye contact with me.
Which actually might be more embarrassing.
He’s probably not attracted to me—even with my tits out.
That’s great for my self-esteem.
“You hungry?” he asks from beside me.
I simply turn and look at him. Yes, I am, but it’s not like there’s a restaurant in this barn. He sighs and gets up, striding across the barn to his horse. He reaches into the saddlebag, grabbing a plastic bag, which he carries over.
Then he pulls out two sandwiches wrapped in plastic wrap. They look a bit smushed, but edible. He hands one to me and then wordlessly sits down and begins eating his.
I stare at it for a few seconds. “You brought these?”
He nods. “Hank made me bring you lunch since he figured you wouldn’t want to walk in the rain—cut to Tate and I realizing you were out on a hike and then me riding off to find you.”
The sequence of events makes sense.
I have the sudden urge to thank him. If only for the sandwich. But something about that feels like giving in. Like admitting that I’m the problem. That I don’t belong here.
Or anywhere.
So instead, I simply eat my sandwich in silence.