Chapter 5
CHAPTER FIVE
ASHA
The Spanish sunrise is too beautiful for how I feel.
I've been awake for an hour, maybe more, watching the light creep across the marble floors of this obscenely expensive hotel suite.
My neck hurts, my back hurts, and the decorative throw blanket I used did absolutely nothing to counter the chill from the air conditioning. I slept like crap.
The past forty-eight hours have been a blur.
I'm married, but for the first time in my life, I feel truly alone.
I chose to marry my enemy, to lie to my friends, to go to war with my father.
Alone has been my default since boarding school.
Even the fakest of friends were still friends, someone to sit with, who needed me, even if it was for their own gain.
I knew I had someone if I wanted to play the game.
Now, I have Trigger, my new husband, a new game, but the problem is I don't know if I can win this one.
The way he looked at me during our vows.
The way his hand was steady when he slid a ring onto my finger while mine trembled.
The way he acts like this marriage is real. That's what terrifies me most.
He's not treating this like a business arrangement.
Not really. Sure, he went along with all my terms, agreed to everything I demanded: separate quarters, professional boundaries, one year and done.
But he doesn't act like a man who's planning to walk away in three hundred and sixty-four days.
He acts like a man who's already decided I'm his.
The confidence in his voice last night when he said "you're my wife" like it was a fact of nature, not a legal technicality.
The way he tried to insist we share the bed, not out of desire, but out of this possessive courtesy.
Like, of course his wife wouldn't sleep on a couch.
It was as though the very idea was offensive to him.
Then there was the way he called the concierge, taking my request for space and bending it to his will while somehow still giving me what I wanted. This is me meeting you halfway.
I clench my fists, and my nails dig into my skin, the pinch of pain pushing out the thoughts that keep coming back to him.
This can't happen. I can't let it. I have a plan.
Get my land back, honor my mother's memory, fulfill the contract, and walk away.
Letting him in or letting anyone in, for that matter, isn't part of that plan. Because people let you down; they don’t stay.
And even if they did, I have no room for anything else.
"Asha, we need to be on the road by—" Trigger's words die the second he sees me standing in front of the window. I see the way his eyes trail over my body, hear the subtle stutter in the intake of his next breath, and my heart skips a beat. This can't happen.
"You better stop looking at me as though you like what you see," I snap before dropping his gaze and cutting across the room to the kitchen. "Unless this outfit isn't suitable for today's meeting, I'm ready to go."
"Trust me, sweetheart, if I liked what I saw, you'd know it," he tosses back, walking toward the front door. Opening it, he holds it with his foot. "Your outfit is acceptable. Let's go before you ruin it by speaking again."
I grind my teeth. He truly knows how to get under my skin, but this side of him I can deal with. This side allows me to keep my walls intact.
Pausing in front of him, I say, "If you don't want me to speak, you'd better caffeinate me into submission."
Something dangerous flashes in his eyes. He bites the corner of his mouth, barely suppressing a smirk. "Submission. Noted." He leans in until I can feel his breath. "When I want you silent, I won't need coffee to do it."
I force myself to keep walking, ignoring the heat creeping up my neck.
I hate how my skin feels too tight, how aware I am of him beside me.
We're supposed to be playing the perfect couple, but this tension humming between us feels dangerously real.
And that terrifies me more than anything he could actually say.
"We should probably talk about our story," I say, breaking the silence as we sit in traffic in the back of a town car.
"Our story?" he questions, not bothering to look up from his phone.
Of course he's not taking this seriously. "Yeah, our story... If you think these people aren't going to ask us casual questions about how we met, over lunch and as we tour their ranch, you're not as smart as I thought you might be."
"We already have a story. No need to change it," he states, like it's the most obvious thing in the world.
"Enlighten me, because I'm not sure why we actually went through with getting married if it was to come all this way and tell them we got married to seal the deal."
That gets his attention. Finally. He shifts slightly, and I can feel his gaze on me even though I'm staring straight ahead at the traffic.
"It's the same lie we already committed to telling our family. Star-crossed lovers, two kids who fell in love before they knew the meaning of the word, torn apart by circumstance, brought back together by fate," he recites.
Star-crossed lovers. The words make something twist uncomfortably in my chest. I hate how easily he says it, like it means nothing. Like we mean nothing. Which we don't. Obviously. This is business. So why does it bother me?
"Okay…" I draw out the word frustrated, feeling like I'm walking into this business meeting that he's expecting me to help him land blind. "Who are we meeting and why did we have to come to Spain for it?"
He puts his phone in his pocket, finally sensing I'm not going to let this go. "We are here to meet with Arora Heritage. They currently only operate in Spain. I'm looking to partner with them and expand their reach in the US."
"Why would you want to partner and split profit? Hale Ranch is already international."
"I need support. Bull breeding is new territory for me. I'm sure I'm ahead on the curve, considering Hale Ranch is an elite horse breeder, but—"
"Wait, back up. Bull breeding? Since when—why wouldn't your father and London come to this meeting?" I'm stuttering through my questions as I try to wrap my mind around this news.
"They don't know. My father refuses to give me his blessing, and I'm trying to keep London out of the crossfire.
He and my father have their own projects, side hobbies that have become full-blown businesses.
They left the horse operation almost completely in my hands.
I have my Uncle Baylor keeping the books, but for the most part, I'm the one overseeing the day-to-day.
It's what I was born into, and I'm not complaining.
I've had a good life, considering it didn't start out so great, but that doesn't mean I don't want something for myself.
Something I'm passionate about. Something that fuels my soul, something to feel connected to, something that's mine. "
I understand this. I sympathize with this.
I was born into this life too. It's what my family did, therefore it's what I do.
Even if I tell myself I chose to be a vet because it's what I wanted, ultimately it was influenced by what I was born into.
I love horses, but I also wanted to please my father, to carry on our traditions, and to continue building a legacy.
"I get that," I say softly. "But bulls… Why? Are you planning to ride again?" I ask, remembering the charity ride I watched him partake in. That night lives rent-free in my mind for countless reasons, but the top one is the way my heart felt like it stopped the second I saw him get kicked.
"I can't say I'll never ride again. There's something about being on the back of such a powerful animal, an inexplicable rush, a high that grounds you even as it lifts you up.
You feel big and small all at once. It's a fleeting taste of power, yes, but also a sobering reminder of how small you are, how little control you truly have. "
He crosses his leg. "But the plan is to breed them, not ride them.
The business model is more sustainable than horse breeding.
The selection process is rooted in genetics rather than performance, actual science, not tradition and ego.
You studied genetics because you wanted to be a step ahead when picking horses.
With bull breeding, that work would actually be quantifiable.
You'd be focused on long-term herd improvement and sustainability, not chasing ribbons and reputations.
Horse breeding is still decades away from breaking free of its performance-based hierarchy. "
He has a valid point. Ironically, it's the same one I've been giving my father for years.
Genetics over performance. Data over gut feeling and family names.
The horse world won't change in our lifetime, not really.
Too much money, too much tradition, too many egos wrapped up in the old way of doing things. But bulls?
I shift in my seat. "You make it sound simple."
I anxiously twist the gold band that now sits on my left hand, and my eyes catch his watching the thoughtless move.
The weight of his gaze makes my skin prickle.
The night he put this ring on my finger, I'd wondered how it ended up in his pocket, why he had it, who it was meant for, because its current resting place couldn't be where he'd intended it to be.
The look in his eyes now seems distant, like he's thinking about the broken plans that now sit on my finger, and I can't take it.
"Whose ring am I wearing?" I ask, my voice sharper than I intend. I need to know what I messed up. I don't want secrets between us. I know I'm not his forever, but I don't need surprises when we get home and whoever this ring was meant for shows up.
"It was my grandmother's," he says, his voice void of any emotion.