Chapter 1 The Proposal #2
I stare at his hand on my wrist before forcing myself to meet his eyes. The contact sends electricity racing up my arm, and I hate that my body still responds to him like this. After everything. After nothing. He's serious.
I moisten my lips. "Depends."
"On?" he challenges, and there's an edge to his voice now, something raw breaking through that careful control.
"Conditions," I answer, my sigh full of nerves and frustration and years of unanswered questions. I'm giving him an out, a way to laugh this off, to prove that I'm right, that this is all just a cruel joke.
"Such as?" he presses, and damn him, he sounds genuinely interested. Like my answer actually matters.
God, I don't even know where to start. My pulse is racing.
Is he serious right now? Are we really having this conversation?
I scan his face for any sign of mockery, any hint that he's enjoying watching me squirm.
Then laughter near the bar steals my attention.
Bingo. At least that decision is easy. I don't need alcohol to make bad decisions, but it helps.
"Want a drink?" I nod toward the bar, watching him carefully.
He purses his lips in thought, and for a moment, I think he's going to refuse, going to drop my wrist and walk away and prove that this was all just him messing with me. "Only if you take the flowers."
I can't help but roll my eyes at his antics, even as something in my chest loosens just slightly. Before I can second-guess myself, I snatch the bouquet out of his hand, gripping it so tight my knuckles go white. "Drink now."
"As you wish," he says, and there's something in the way he looks at me, something warm and familiar and terrifying that makes my breath catch, but I don't let him see it.
Can I trust this? Trust him? I don't know. But I'm about to find out.
I slide onto a stool, placing the bouquet on the polished wood surface between us as he settles beside me, close enough that his knee brushes mine.
The casual contact shouldn't affect me this much.
But it does. And from the way his jaw tightens, the way his fingers tap once against the bar top, he feels it too.
"Tequila," I tell the bartender. "On the rocks with a twist."
I'm not usually a straight shooter, but I started the night with it, and I need something strong for this conversation.
"Make it two," Trigger adds.
We sit in charged silence until our glasses arrive—and even after that. I need the liquid courage warming my veins before I open my mouth. I take a long sip, then another, before finally turning to face him. "The land lease expires in one week."
"I'm aware," he says, his face impassive.
"Of course you are. You own it." My grip tightens on the glass. "Decades-old family feud, rival ranches…" I trail off the next words, catching in my throat. "It's all I have left of her," I laugh. "Must be quite satisfying for you. After all, I didn't make high school easy."
"You think I want this?"
"Don't you? Our families have been enemies for—"
"Twenty-five years," he interrupts, and I furrow my brow at the number. I have no clue where he pulled it from, and he doesn't give me time to figure it out before adding, "But we haven't. Not always."
His insinuation that we were ever more than enemies keeps me quiet, and I wait to see if he'll say anything more. I pulled off my mask at prom, and I'm certain he was the man behind the other, but I can't help but feel he's still hiding behind it.
"You left," he finally says.
"There was an accident," I say, eyes forward as I take a long, deep swallow, allowing the burn to do its job of uncoiling the tension wound inside of me just enough that I might actually survive this conversation.
As he raises his glass to his mouth, I can't help but wonder if his silence is purposeful.
Maybe he wasn't referring to prom. We've crossed paths more than once since my best friend started dating his brother.
Trigger made ignoring him impossible, playing games he knew would get under my skin.
I made ignoring him an art form in return.
But the fact remains: neither of us has brought up high school. Neither of us has mentioned that night.
I have my reasons for not calling him out.
I wait. I can't help it. It's who I am. I believe every cause has a beginning, and I didn't know where his started. I didn’t have the pieces I have now.
I didn't know why there were years of silence, and now suddenly he's everywhere I am.
So, I waited, and now I know. The lease.
"I called," he says, his glass hitting the bar with too much force. Liquid sloshes but doesn't spill.
"That's a lie." My laugh is sharp and humorless as I take another sip.
"How could you know that?" His body shifts toward me, his knee knocking against mine under the bar. The contact sends a jolt through me that I refuse to acknowledge. "You blocked me." He states it matter-of-factly, like it's evidence in his defense.
"You took too long." I pivot on my stool, turning fully to face him.
Our knees brush again, but I don't pull back.
I don't give him the satisfaction of seeing me retreat.
His gaze holds mine, something flickering in those dark depths—regret, maybe, or anger that I won't make this easy for him.
We're close enough now that I can count his breaths.
"I went to your house before that." His voice drops lower, rougher. "Your maid answered the door and said you were in Louisville.” His lips pinch together before he adds, “You never left Louisville,” accentuating the last four words like they're an accusation. Like, somehow, I'm the one who lied.
He’s right. I didn’t know he'd called, nor did I know he'd shown up at my ranch, asking about me, but I do know about his visit to my house in Louisville and the night he spent talking with Sydney, my bonus best friend that came as part of the Laney package. But his pointed charge now confirms he doesn’t know I came back after that night.
The glass grows slick under my tightening grip, but I don't look away. I won't give him that either. "I don't care to dig up the past." I set my glass down with deliberate precision.
"Then remind me again, why are we having this drink?"
"You know why." I try to shove down the humiliation and anger battling inside me. "Maybe I should be asking why you’re entertaining it?" I say, more for an underhanded jab than anything, but a good fucking question, nonetheless.
He shrugs. "I need a wife," he says plainly before taking another drink of tequila. I know him well enough to know when he's bluffing. He's not.
"Wait…you're serious."
His eyes snap to mine and tell no lies.
"What could you possibly need a wife for?" I ask.
"For a merger. They're an old, traditional family. The patriarch won't do business with unmarried men under forty. It shows a lack of commitment and stability."
Right. I drop my gaze to my glass. Of course, he has an angle. I'm not sure why I thought he wouldn't. I have one too.
"Why me?" I ask, trying to pull more information out of him, since he's not giving me much to work with. I know he's not telling me everything.
"It's practical. You need a husband to keep your land. I need a wife to secure my merger. We both get what we want."
"For how long?" I ask.
He furrows a brow. "What do you mean?"
"I mean, how long do we have to pretend to be husband and wife?"
"Oh, there's no pretending, sweetheart. You're taking my last name. That's forever."
There it is, that nickname that makes my blood boil as much as it makes me squirm in my seat, hating the way it slithers like a caress down my spine, but I shove it off.
"Absolutely not. One year. One year and we go our separate ways."
His eyes narrow in question. "I know you've read the lease, but did your lawyer fail to tell you about the deed? A year does nothing for you. If we divorce, you don't have any rights to the land. Hale land can't be sold. I can't give it to you. You have to stay or…"
"Or?"
"Or produce an heir. Our child would then be entitled to the land."
"You are literally insane. That's not happening," I say before finishing my tequila in one go and setting the empty glass down hard enough to get the bartender's attention, where I tap my glass for a refill.
"One year gives me enough time to find another way.
My dad kept this from me. If I had more time—"
"You think he hasn't already done everything in his power to keep it?"
"No, actually, I don't." I meet his gaze. "He never told me marrying a Hale was an option, so you'll have to excuse me if I don't think he's done everything in his power to ensure I don't lose the last pieces of my mother."
His eyes hold mine for a beat, and in them I see sadness. I quickly turn away. I don't want him to pity me. I don't need someone feeling sorry for me, and besides, we both know his childhood wasn't all rainbows either.
"Fine, a year," he agrees as he signals to the bartender to refill his glass too.
"But there will be conditions."
He holds up his finger, signaling me to wait as the bartender finishes pouring his new drink. With a full glass, he says, "Name them."
"Separate bedrooms. This isn't a real marriage."
His jaw tightens before he takes a slow swallow. "Agreed."
"No one can know it's fake."
"We can't go from not talking to head-over-heels and expect no one to bat an eye."
"Have you been with anyone?"
His eyes widen, and he brings his hand to his mouth to keep from spitting out his drink. "If you're worried I can't perform in the bedroom, don’t be. One night, and I promise my name will be the only one you remember."
I give him a dramatic eye roll. "Please, did you forget condition number one? There will be none of that. I mean, have you been in a relationship since…" I clear my throat, suddenly a little uncomfortable, and pick up my glass, swirling the contents for a distraction. "Since high school?"
His knee bumps mine, drawing my eyes back to his.
I watch his throat work as he swallows, but it's the contact.
The heat from his knee burns, and my mouth goes dry.
There's always this dance between us, this magnetic pull neither of us will acknowledge.
The air between us crackles, charged with everything we're not saying.
"I'm more interested in your answer."
"I don't do relationships." I bring my glass to my lips. "I'm a solo act."
I take a drink and hold his eyes as they look so deeply into mine that it takes real effort not to fold.
"Same." He finally breaks our stare.
"If this is going to work, you have to be honest with me. You expect me to believe you haven't slept with anyone? You literally just gave me a rundown of your ability to please women."
"That wasn't the question. You asked me if I've been in a relationship, not if I slept with anyone."
"Fine. Have you?"
"Yes." He takes a slow sip, letting the silence stretch until I want to scream. "But nothing that mattered. Never the same person twice." He stops himself, jaw working like he's revealing too much. Then he just waits, watching me with those intense eyes.
"Good. Then we lie."
"Lie? I'm not sure I'm following." He leans in, resting his elbow on the bar.
"This needs to be real. No one can know I'm marrying you for anything other than love. It needs to be convincing. And when I say no one can know, I mean no one. Your brother, Laney, Sydney, and my dad—especially him—they all need to believe we are madly in love."
His eyebrows rise, and his dark eyes sparkle with genuine amusement, but he doesn't laugh.
Instead, he runs a hand through his hair, once, then twice, the way he does when nothing is sitting right with him.
"How exactly do you plan on selling the people who are closest to us that you and I are head-over-heels in love with our track record.
Hell, you've gone out of your way to ignore me since you returned to Bardstown. "
"Easy." I swirl the contents in my glass before taking a drink. "It's a tale as old as time. Two star-crossed lovers who fell in love the first time they met. Fate said our paths were meant to cross, but our circumstances, not a lack of love, have stood in the way."
It's not until he stops drumming his fingers on the bar top that I realize I leaned in too. My knees are now fully between his spread legs, my shoulders hovering above his thighs. I pull back sharply, putting deliberate space between us, and it doesn’t go unnoticed.
His jaw tightens, and his gaze drops to where my hand grips the bar, white-knuckled as I try to ground myself. When he looks back up, something flickers in his eyes before his expression goes carefully blank.
"You know if you want people to believe the lie, you're going to have to act like you love me." He nods toward the bartender still hovering nearby, wiping down glasses close enough to overhear. Then, his hand covers mine.
I can't help but watch as it slowly envelopes mine.
The callused pad of his thumb traces lazy circles on my wrist, and heat quickly crawls up my arm and spreads through my chest. He waits until my eyes find his, the air between us intensely charged as his other hand finds my knee.
His palm sears through the thin satin of my dress.
I pinch my lips together not only to quiet my protests but to silence the gasp building in my throat.
His teeth teasingly graze his bottom lip like he's actually enjoying touching my body.
"You're going to have to get used to me touching you.
You'll need to pretend to like it." His hand begins to drift up my thigh with an achingly slow pace as he leans closer still.
Close enough that I can almost taste the tequila on his lips.
"You're going to have to kiss me," he murmurs, his eyes dropping to my mouth where my lips part on instinct.
It would be so easy to lean in and take what he's offering.
I lick my lips, and his eyes track the path of my tongue with predatory focus.
Damn it, I hate that he's already so good at lying, how he already looks like he wants to kiss me.
How part of me wants to let him. I can't let him see that he has the power to affect me, especially when he shouldn't.
I press my hand flat against his chest, putting needed space between us. "Does that mean you're saying yes?"
He draws in a sharp breath, and just like that, the haze breaks.
He straightens in his seat, physically pulling himself back from whatever edge we were teetering on.
Reaching for his drink, he takes a long pull as though he's using those seconds to rebuild his composure.
"I agree, but I have a condition of my own. "
I quirk a brow. "Name it."
"You marry me, right here, right now."