Chapter 5
five
Killian
Ikeep looking at the phone, waiting for this to be a joke.
Brynlee said a girl named Aarabelle was coming. That she’d be here this morning and she is her top publicist.
Tessa looks up. Her chest rises and falls and the sexual bliss that filled her eyes just moments ago has morphed to a mix of horror and regret. “Is your last name Thorn?” she asks hesitantly.
“Yes. I’m Killian Thorn.”
Her hand covers her mouth. “Oh, God. Oh. Right. Okay. Yes. You are. I’m.” She swallows and puts her purse down. “Mr. Thorn. Killian, I’m Tessa Rivers. I work for Anchor Light as…a publicist…maybe former now but, umm, yeah this is awkward.”
That’s a fucking understatement.
I can’t believe this.
I fucked my publicist.
How much more can I screw up this entire situation?
I wasn’t sure it could get worse.
In walks my next mistake.
She’s uncomfortable, and I need to make this right. “We’re both professionals.”
“We are.”
Although not even twenty minutes ago I was between her legs.
Real fucking professional.
I can’t make this worse than it is, although I’m sure if you give me five minutes, I’ll manage it. I push aside my feelings and do what I can to mitigate her look of distress. “Yes, and I’m not your boss. This is just…two strangers who spent a night together.”
Tessa straightens her back. “Yes. One night and that’s it.”
Message received. Any plans we had for another go are off the table now. I should be pleased with that, but fuck, I’m not. I wanted more with her. One night is not going to be enough, but it has to be.
How the hell did this happen? This doesn’t even make sense. When I spoke to Brynlee, she never mentioned… “Wait,” I say quickly, putting the pieces together. “Brynlee said a woman named Aarabelle was coming?”
Not a girl named Tessa.
Maybe this isn’t the same girl who is supposed to be here.
Her eyes drop her to shoes. “Yes, and she was going to be the one who came here, but as she was leaving the office in New York, she was run over.”
“Run over?”
“By a cyclist! Sorry, she’s fine, but she broke her leg and got a concussion.
So, they asked me to step in. I’m sure this sounds like it’s completely nuts, but I promise it’s true.
Brynlee trusts that I can help and I swear, I would’ve never, we would’ve never…
if I knew who you were. God, please just kill me now.
You should fire me—call Brynn and tell her you want another publicist to work on this. ”
I fight the urge to move toward her, to touch her, to comfort her, but I don’t think I’m the person who can do that right now.
“I’m not going to do that, but I’m just…stunned.”
“But you should!” Tessa bursts out.
I run my fingers through my hair and sigh. “Do you want that? Truly?”
Tessa moves toward me quickly, almost as if she realizes she spoke those words aloud.
“No! Please. Forget I said that. I can do this. We are both adults and we didn’t know who the other was, right?
There’s no reason why we can’t put that behind us and focus on what you need for your ranch.
I’m able to do my job, no matter what happened here last night. ”
“And this morning.”
Her cheeks redden. “Yes, and this morning. We don’t need to talk about it.” Tessa lets out a deep sigh, straightens her back, and nods once. “I’m here to help you so that’s all that really matters, right?”
The only issue I have is that I can still taste her on my tongue. I can hear her sighs, moans, and the way she screams when she comes. That I can feel her body under mine, my dick in her mouth, and the sting of her nails as they scored my back.
But, sure, we’ll just not talk about it.
“If you think you can do it,” I say, trying to pretend I wasn’t thinking how hard it would be to not be with her. No pun intended.
“I can.” She lets out a deep breath through her nose. “Umm, do you think, you should…” Her eyes move down my bare chest and to the shorts that are hanging low on my hips.
“What?” I push.
Tessa tucks her hair behind her ear. “Maybe it would be better for our meeting if you know, you had some pants on.”
I lean against the counter. “I wasn’t expecting my publicist so early.”
“Yes, and I wasn’t expecting to be in yesterday’s clothes, but these are the cards we’ve been dealt.”
I’m being an asshole. I’m just so mad at myself. At her. At the fucking universe for dropping her in my lap and yanking her away.
There’s no way we can sleep together again. Not if she’s working for me. I’m a lot of things, but someone who sleeps with co-worker or those here to fix my entire crumbling business is not one.
So, that’s that.
I push off, ready to eat crow, and also put her at ease.
She didn’t know who I was and the last thing I want is to have to find a new PR team.
“You’re right. My office is down the hall, the third door on the left.
If you want to wait for me there, we can go over everything.
Or you can go back to your place, shower, do whatever you need to do, and meet me here in two hours? ”
“Can it wait? Brynn said it was urgent.”
I give her a reassuring smile. “It can wait a little. Go home and do what you have to do.”
She pushes her purse up on her shoulder. “Thank-you, Killian. For everything.”
I watch her walk out the door, and I head into the shower, washing away the remnants of the night.
Tessa comes back an hour and a half later.
In that time, what went from pretty shitty has escalated to out of control.
“Okay, so as of right now, the concern is that your trainer has sort of gone missing and you’re losing sales in rapid succession?” Tessa asks as she follows me into my office.
“Basically, but none of it makes sense.”
“Why don’t we start at the beginning?”
I grip the back of my neck and motion for her to sit on the cognac-colored leather couch that is against the floor to ceiling windows, overlooking the ranch.
This room is my favorite in the house. It’s masculine and the only one I actually gave a shit about and decorated myself.
I had all the wall space created into a library. It’s warm wood tones with a rolling ladder flanking my massive desk that was my grandfather’s. My kid said it was too manly the one time she came here, and she added a plush rug to “soften” it. Whatever that means.
“The beginning?”
She nods. “I want to help, but Brynlee didn’t have any information, just that it was urgent and I needed to drop everything and come here.”
Right. The beginning. “Six years ago, I hired one of the most renowned horse trainers in the industry. It was a big win for me since I was able to persuade him to leave a training facility that was producing some of the top racehorses in the country. It brought me some enemies, mainly one.”
Tessa writes a few things down before looking up. “I’m guessing the owner of the farm or ranch you were able to persuade him to leave?”
“Yes, and some owners of the horses he was working with.”
She shifts. “Why would the owners care?”
I chuckle. “Well, either they kept their horses at that farm without the trainer or they had to come to mine and pay my fees.”
“That would do it,” Tessa notes. “Okay, so you get the trainer to come here, igniting anger with owners of the horses and the facility, then what?”
“We forged a pretty straightforward and lucrative team. I allowed him a lot of free rein—he had contacts in this industry that I didn’t.”
She nods. “Makes sense.”
“This place was never really meant for any of this. I bought the ranch for a family member, and it grew into something more. I became even more passionate about horse racing and thought this would be a great side gig. I figured I’d have some fun, be around the animals I love again.
It was truly never meant to grow into something. ”
“So how did it?” she asks.
I laugh, remembering how we went from being a sort of unknown to much bigger. “I got lucky.”
Tessa leans back on the couch, draping her right leg over her left. Her long lashes sweep across her cheek and then lift again. For a moment, my breath catches, and her beauty absolutely floors me.
As though she can sense my desire starting to mount, she clears her throat and tucks her hair behind her ear. “By getting your trainer?”
I shake my head. “No, by my horse winning a major race. I have six personal horses and my one thoroughbred just…dominated. He won and won and won and then won a major derby. He’s been incredible and he’s built all wrong according to everyone.
My jockey said he couldn’t explain it, but that horse just wanted to win. You can’t train that, you know?”
“If you say so,” she says with a smile.
“I do. It’s inside of them, a desire to succeed. It made me a fuckload of money, and I knew I couldn’t reproduce a season like that, but I knew I could breed him. People would pay a lot of money to have a foal from him and the right mare. Which is where I feel like things changed for me.
“I brought Travis, my trainer, in to help me create a breeding program where we figured out some markers that, when crossed, started to produce winning racers. We had, in two years, produced multiple winners and it put us on the map. Our mares and studs, when paired correctly, started to prove we were a great breeding facility. Then, we knew we could make even more money because he would train them, study their habits and tendencies, correct what he could, and sell them. Most of the buyers wanted Travis to train them, so then they boarded them here. We became a one-stop shop for quality prospective racehorses that you could buy, keep here, have trained, and cared for.”
Tessa sighs. “I’m not seeing anything illegal or that would cause a PR crisis yet.”
No, she wouldn’t.
“Well, that’s because there isn’t anything in that sense.
We aren’t doing anything illegal. However, Travis is gone.
He took off a few days ago, and I didn’t think anything of it.
Maybe he wanted to see another horse to buy.
Maybe he had an emergency. Who knows, but it’s been a week.
Nothing. His phone is now off. He lives in the guesthouse back there, it’s empty.
Completely empty. As though he never lived here. ”
“I see. Okay, so he’s gone, and you said something about the buyers?”
I nod. “So we have buyers lined up for the next year, but at least half are now pulling out of their contracts. Horses that we had in the program that were ready to sell in the next few weeks, they cancelled the sales and the promise to board and train. No warning, no explanation—nothing. I spend about half my time between here and my home in Boston. Travis runs everything, and when I’m here, I check in and help out.
Most of the day-to-day running is by him and the staff, but he’s gone.
I wasn’t overly concerned until two days ago—I found this. ”
I push off the desk and walk around to the safe that looks like it’s a part of the bookcase. I open it and pull the note out, coming over to where she’s sitting. Our fingers brush as I hand it to her and pull back, opening and closing my fist as I try to ignore the tingle.
However, I notice the tremble that runs through her.
Good. At least I’m not the only one who felt that.
Tessa focuses her attention to the note and lifts her eyes to meet mine. “What the hell does that mean?”
“I don’t know.”
The note reads:
Get your house in order before the story breaks and you lose it all.
“Okay, so there’s a story coming and we need to find out what it is. How much does each of your horses go for?”
“It depends. A horse from a proven winner or combination foal can go for anywhere from $100,000 to $400,000. The other stud we have, who has never won, his foals go for less since he doesn’t have the same winning record. Most of the time Travis can make a good arrangement with the buyers he knows.”
“And how many sales backed out?” Tessa asks, writing more notes down.
“Six.”
“That’s a lot of money.”
Yeah, I know. “And we lost eight of the horses we were boarding.”
She stands, biting her thumb and pacing. “Okay, then let’s dig in and see if we can uncover whatever story is brewing before the press or whatever the hell this note is warning you of. I can’t lay out a PR plan when we’re already on our backfoot.”
“I don’t even know what foot we’re on,” I admit.
All of this is odd, and I don’t have a great feeling about it.
I don’t know if Travis was stealing money, harming the horses, doing something illegal, or just finally had enough and quit.
Maybe another farm grabbed him, and he didn’t want to tell me.
Although, he has stock in this ranch. He’s not just a trainer—I gave him partial ownership of the breeding program.
Not a single fucking thing adds up, and I’m hemorrhaging money. I need to figure this out and find new buyers or I’m going to end up losing the ranch.
“We’ll figure it out and then we’ll create a plan, okay?” she says with determination.
“All right.”
“Great. In the meantime, I want to go through any paperwork you might have on the horse sales and Travis. Also, I’d like to see the ranch. Is that possible?”
A whole day with her where I’m unable to touch her? Sure, sounds like a great day.
“Yes, that’s possible.”