Chapter 4
CHAPTER FOUR
My father’s voice was unmistakably displeased as it came through my speakers. “You’re telling me we don’t have a full kitchen staff three months out from launch?”
“Not entirely, sir. No,” Claude Dupont, Senior Vice President of Human Resources for the Bellrose Group—the luxury hotel chain my grandfather had founded nearly a century ago—answered from his corner square on the video feed.
“We’ve got line cooks locked in and an executive and sous chef under contract, but we’re still without a pastry chef or front-of-house manager.
We’re working to fill in the gaps as quickly as possible. ”
“And failing,” my older brother Bryce muttered, leaning back in his chair. “So much for your big pitch about operational readiness, Siena.”
I locked my jaw, my molars grinding together as the familiar zing of annoyance flared.
Still, I made sure not to let them see it, even as heat prickled beneath my collar.
I smoothed my hands over my thighs beneath my desk and kept my tone calm and professional when I spoke.
“The issue isn’t operational readiness—it’s housing.
The local market can’t absorb our staffing needs.
If you’d read the report I sent two weeks ago, you’d know that’s a regional challenge, not an internal oversight. ”
My oldest brother, Connor, always quick to cut me down, snorted. “You’d think the Vice President of Expansion and Development would’ve considered that during site selection.”
I curled my hands into fists on top of my thighs, my nails no doubt leaving little half moons embedded in my skin, but I didn’t rise to Connor’s bait. This was his favorite game—twist the situation to make me look bad in front of our father, then act like he was only doing his due diligence.
“We did account for housing,” I said evenly. “But the copper mine’s unexpected expansion triggered a labor surge we couldn’t have predicted. As a result, rental inventory at a certain price point dried up in under six weeks. It’s a real estate bottleneck, not a planning failure.”
“Oh, sure. Blame the miners.” He rolled his eyes, his voice full of condescension. “Why take responsibility for dropping the ball when you’ve got a convenient excuse?”
“Connor,” our father cut in sharply. “That’s enough.” He turned his attention to me, his expression softening. “What do you need, Siena?”
His show of support was both a balm and a blade—comforting in the moment, but dangerous in the long term. I might feel better now, but I’d pay for it later. My half-brothers would make sure of that.
I cleared my throat and sat up straighter.
“Bellrose should offer a housing stipend for eight staff members or reopen discussion around temporary onsite quarters. I’d also like permission to increase the signing bonuses for both the pastry chef and sous chef positions.
If we don’t act now, the new luxury ski resort in Big Sky will definitely poach them. ”
My father rubbed his chin, visibly considering my proposal. “Send me the numbers. I’ll review them with Claude and Shirley this afternoon.”
Connor leaned forward, his eyes narrowed and lips curled in disbelief. “You’re not seriously—”
“We’ll discuss it offline,” our father said, his tone brooking no argument. “Now, if there’s nothing else, I have another meeting to get to.” He jabbed a button on his computer, and the video feed cut out. And then, with a tap of a button, his square vanished from the screen.
The others followed—one by one—until I was left alone with my reflection in the now-black monitor.
I sat at my desk for a long moment, the silence pressing in on me.
Outside, the wind whistled across the ridge.
My temples throbbed. I pulled off my glasses and pinched the bridge of my nose, trying to stave off the migraine I felt gathering like a storm behind my eyes as I replayed the last twenty minutes on a loop in my head.
I hated asking for my father’s help, but I didn’t know how else to keep this launch from sliding off the rails. More than any project in our portfolio I’d been a part of, The Alderwood at Bridger Falls had to succeed. If it didn’t, I didn’t know what I’d do.
I hadn’t clawed my way to this position to become a footnote in my brothers’ legacy.
I’d bled for Bellrose—in some cases, quite literally.
And now, the weight of proving I deserved to become CEO when my father, the irreplaceable Richard Bellrose, retired in a couple of years was so heavy that I sometimes felt the pressure might actually be too much to bear.
Especially since no matter how hard I worked, how many deals I closed, or how often my father told me he believed in me, it wasn’t just his decision. The board would have final say. And if my half-brothers had anything to do with it, that vote would never swing my way if I failed here.
They’d been rooting for my failure ever since the ink dried on my first promotion. Every slip in schedule, every minor delay, was ammunition in the war they’d declared on me from the beginning of my tenure with our father’s company.
I slumped back in my chair, the leather creaking beneath me as another gust of wind rattled the windowpane behind me, sounding like it might crack under the pressure.
Frankly, it sounded like I felt.
I sat there for a long time, staring at nothing and trying to convince myself that I was fine. That I could make this work. That I had to.
But the truth was, I was tired—the kind of bone-deep exhaustion that came from constantly defending my right to be here. From having to prove—over and over and over again—that I belonged.
A question—impossible to ignore—managed to creep in: was any of it even worth it?
The friends who’d stopped calling after too many canceled plans. All the long, lonely nights. The empty bed. The loneliness I’d learned to carry like it was a part of me and not something I chose each and every day.
It was that thought that brought Gage Mercer crashing back into my mind. Not the way he touched me, though God, that was unforgettable. But the way I’d felt with him, brief though our encounter had been.
Safe. Cherished. And above all, wanted.
My breath hitched as I remembered the sound of his voice in my ear, telling me how badly he needed to be inside of me. The quiet, commanding way he took me apart and put me back together again.
God, what I wouldn’t give to feel that again.
I’d almost said yes when he asked me out the other day. The word had sat right there on the tip of my tongue, but I couldn’t afford to be distracted. Not now. Not with everything on the line. And Gage Mercer was the human embodiment of distraction.
I let out a bitter laugh, pressed my hands to my face, and groaned, long and low with frustration. I needed a break before I went crazy sitting here, alone.
I pushed up from my chair and crossed to the window, bracing my hands on the sill.
Outside, the ski slope behind the resort was covered in feet of snow just waiting for our opening day, pine trees standing sentry in the bright lights illuminating the paths.
The wind had picked up, stirring powder into low, drifting clouds that ghosted across the property and vanished into the trees.
It was beautiful in a way that made me feel lonelier than ever.
I dropped my forehead to rest against the glass and exhaled slowly, a cloud of condensation forming on the glass, as I tried to shake off the sharp pressure building behind my eyes.
I didn’t want to cry. I didn’t have time to cry.
But the ache sat heavy in my throat anyway, a reminder of just how close I was to the edge.
A few minutes later, I turned and made my way across my office, reaching for my coat and purse. I needed to get out of here.
By the time I pulled into the snowy driveway of the rental farmhouse just off Bridger Creek Road a couple of hours later, the sun had long since dipped below the ridge, leaving the sky an inky black with pinpricks of starlight.
I sat there for a long minute with the engine running, my palms gripping the steering wheel, unsure if I had the energy to go inside and do it all over again tomorrow.
I hadn’t eaten since lunch, but the idea of food made my stomach churn. My inbox was probably overflowing again by now, but I didn’t have the strength to check.
A few weeks ago, I could still tell myself that I was doing something meaningful out here.
That I had a vision. Now all I could feel was the stress weighing heavily on me and the panic in my limbs whenever I passed locals in town.
No one ever looked at me funny, not really, but I still felt out of place.
As if I was trying to fit in somewhere I didn’t belong, and everyone could see right through all my attempts otherwise.
Eventually, with a long, gusty sigh, I turned the car off, grabbed my bag, and made my way up the porch steps and into the house.
I kicked off my sky-high heels and dropped my keys and bag in the foyer and made a beeline for the shower, where the water scalded my skin until the sting overpowered every other sense.
I scrubbed my skin mercilessly, trying to wash away the stress of the day …
of my life. Rid myself of the feeling that no matter how far I climbed, I was always one small step away from falling—no, being shoved—back down the hill.
When the water started to run cold, I twisted the knobs and climbed over the lip of the old porcelain tub, drying myself off and then pulling on a thin cotton tee and a pair of soft sleep pants. I braided my damp hair into a thick plait and climbed under the covers.
Despite the long, hot shower, I was still too wired to sleep, but too drained to read.
So I did the one thing I’d promised myself I wouldn’t do—I picked up my iPad and typed Gage’s full name into the search bar, telling myself it didn’t mean anything.
That Googling a man I’d slept with once and turned down for dinner didn’t make me weak. It just made me … curious.
It wasn’t like I didn’t already know the basics of his family. What kind of business woman would I have been without doing my due diligence?
I knew the Mercer family’s history in this area. Knew all about the ranch they called home and how they’d made their money.
But Gage specifically? Who he was personally?
That was the information I was looking for now.
Unfortunately, he didn’t have any social media accounts, at least none that were public. So I had to rely on what I could dig up from local news sources.
The first few results from the Bridger Falls Sentinel were mainly about his older brother, Jake.
Articles focused on ranching life, cattle auctions, and the like.
One article, though, featured a photo of Gage standing beside a man I recognized from the bar that night.
His older brother, Colt, it turned out. In it, Gage was grinning at the camera, his dark hair sun-streaked and his forearms tanned and freckled.
My chest ached remembering how those arms had held me.
Another photo showed him at a summer fair, laughing with a cone of cotton candy in his hand, a brown Labrador retriever pressed up against his leg. The sight of him so happy and at ease in that environment made something twist in my stomach.
I stared at the screen longer than I meant to, my eyes taking in every pixel of the image, wanting to somehow step inside it.
I kept scrolling until I reached another article about his family’s legacy, a nod to their fourth-generation operation and some vague mentions of community service.
And then, buried halfway down the second page of search results, I found it: a two-year-old op-ed about a proposed high-end, luxury subdivision on the outskirts of Bridger Falls that abutted Three Pines Ranch.
The out-of-town developer wanted to dam a tributary where brown trout were known to spawn, which would have impacted the fish’s population in the area’s larger rivers.
I clicked the link and began reading, eventually reaching a part about local opposition, where Gage was quoted prominently.
“This valley doesn’t need more gated luxury communities,” he said.
“What we need is to preserve the land our people have called home for generations,” he continued.
“The folks pushing this don’t care about Bridger Falls.
They only care about profits over people.
That’s not who we are. That’s not what this place is about.
If we’re not careful, we’re going to sell out everything that makes this place special.
Once it’s gone, that’s it. We’ll have lost it forever. ”
My fingers hovered over the screen, my stomach curling tight. I read the quote again, willing the words to change, but they didn’t.
Of course they didn’t.
Gage’s feelings on the topic were unambiguous, and they struck a chord deep in the pit of my belly. His criticisms of that housing developer? Not far off from what I’d pitched to my father last spring: nostalgic Western elegance. Authentic ranch appeal. Experience-driven luxury.
If he ever found out who I really was, he’d hate me.
That shouldn’t matter. But it did.
I closed the cover of my iPad, my fingers trembling slightly—from the cold or from my discovery, I couldn’t say—and slid deeper beneath the covers.
I stared at the ceiling, the unease in my gut spreading.
Bringing him home with me that night had been a mistake.
And falling for him—if that’s what this even was—would be catastrophic.
I’d worked too hard, given up too much, to throw it all away over a man who saw my entire life’s work as a threat to the place he called home.
Still, I couldn’t stop hearing his voice when he told me to come.
The feel of his thumb stroking my hip, the way he’d murmured something flirty and dirty against my neck that made me laugh even as I burned for him. He’d made me feel beautiful. Not polished, not perfect, just … me.
It had been years since anyone had made me feel that safe. Years since I’d let my guard down enough to even try. And now I was supposed to pretend none of it had mattered?
Not for the first time since that night, I wished things were different. That I was someone different. But they weren’t, and I wasn’t, and that had to be the end of my wanting a cowboy with a crooked, sexy smile.