Chapter 10
CHAPTER TEN
Morning light crept through half-drawn curtains. Dust motes swirled in the pale light, tossed about by the soft hum of the heater. I inhaled deeply. Cedar and salt—his cologne, our skin—mingled on the sheets.
Gage’s arm draped over my waist, warm and heavy with sleep. Each exhale tickled the nape of my neck, sending a smattering of goosebumps down my spine. I traced the veins on his forearm with my fingertip, memorizing the map of him while I still could.
I hadn't expected him to stay. That wasn’t what we did. The first time, we'd accidentally fallen asleep, but when I woke just before dawn, he was gone. The next time, he’d stalked out the door before I’d even pulled my dress back into place.
And last night? It was supposed to be a booty call—nothing more.
This thing between us was purely physical. Temporary.
That was what I told myself, anyway.
But now, as I lay here listening to the steady rhythm of his breathing, the lies I’d wrapped myself in began to unravel, thread by thread.
His eyelashes fluttered against my shoulder blade. He shifted, his stubble scraping gently against my skin. “If I stay any longer—” The words vibrated through my back, his voice sandpaper-rough, as his fingers tightened slightly at my hip. “—I’m not sure I'll be able to leave.”
I turned beneath his arm, the sheets rustling as I shifted to meet his gaze. My fingertips found the sleep-warm hollow of his collarbone. “Who said you have to?”
He smiled—that crooked, devastating thing that always made my pulse trip—and rolled on top of me, bracing himself on his forearms. “In that case…” he murmured.
The kiss that followed wasn’t rough or hurried like our kisses last night. It was slow. Deep. A claiming of a different kind.
And when he moved inside me, it was with a tenderness that undid me completely. This time, he wasn’t just taking; he was giving.
When I came apart beneath him, it wasn’t with fire but with something quieter. Something dangerous.
Later, when the sun was higher in the sky and he was gone, I couldn’t stop replaying it all—the way we’d come together last night with desperate hunger, then lain in the dark afterward, trading stories about this place and what it meant to each of us.
I’d told him the truth: that I wasn’t here to change Bridger Falls, but to honor it.
That the resort was my love letter to the valley, not a threat to it.
I wanted people to leave this place feeling like they’d left a piece of their heart behind.
I wanted to protect everything I loved about this valley—the same way he did.
And he’d confessed his fears, too. That people like me, with money and vision, had a way of loving places to death.
But somehow, between the words and the silences, we’d found common ground—a bridge between his roots and my dreams. For the first time since he’d discovered who I was, he’d looked at me without that wall of betrayal in his eyes.
And then this morning, he’d made love to me with such tenderness that I couldn’t help but wonder if I’d been wrong all along about what this was.
About us.
By the time I made it into work, my body felt pleasantly sore, every ache a reminder of him—this infuriating, impossibly good-hearted cowboy—and how easily he’d taken up space beneath my skin.
I dropped my bag next to my desk and started up my laptop, adjusting the collar of my cream silk blouse as the Bellrose Hospitality logo flickered to life on the screen. A notification pinged, reminding me of my standing video call with my father.
When his face appeared, he looked every inch a high-powered CEO—immaculate black suit, perfectly knotted tie—but the moment he smiled, I saw Dad instead.
“Siena, sweetheart,” he said warmly. “I heard the contractors wrapped up the final punch list late last night.”
“They did.” I couldn’t help but smile. “The Alderwood will be ready to open the day after Thanksgiving, just as planned.”
The words left my mouth on a small breath of disbelief, because somehow, against all odds, it was true.
Every sleepless night, every fight with the contractors, and every time I’d second-guessed taking on such a large project had all led to this.
There’d been moments I’d sat in this very office long after everyone else had gone home, staring at schematics or budget breakdowns and wondering if I’d taken on more than I could chew.
My speciality within the Bellrose brand was small, luxury boutique properties built from scratch.
Not sprawling, five-star resorts where every whim can be catered to.
But seeing it all come together had been worth every headache. Every doubt.
Dad’s brows lifted slightly, a quick flicker that told me he hadn’t entirely expected me to pull it off. But then his expression softened into something close to admiration. “Impressive.”
I didn’t need him to say it to know it was true. What I’d done here was impressive.
I’d taken a run-down, forgotten property and turned it into something extraordinary.
I’d earned the respect of a skeptical crew, charmed local vendors into taking a chance on us, and managed to win over even the most stubborn of critics—including a certain cowboy I’d never imagined would come around.
“Honestly…” I exhaled, my voice softening. “I’ve never loved a project the way I love this one.”
Dad leaned back, the corners of his mouth softening. “That’s good to hear.”
“Obviously, I fall a little bit in love with every hotel I open,” I admitted. “But this one, it’s different. This place came from my heart. It wasn’t just a project; it’s been my passion.”
The look he gave me made my throat tighten. “When the board asks for my recommendation about succession, I intend to tell them you’re the one to take over when I retire.”
A small laugh bubbled out of me. “That’s going to go over phenomenally well with Bryce and Connor.”
“Leave your brothers to me,” he said with that familiar glint of steel in his eye.
For a moment, I just smiled at him, letting the weight of his words sink in.
All the years of clawing my way out from under my brothers’ shadows, of proving that I was as good as them—no, even better, because I was a woman operating in a male-dominated industry with all the bullshit that entailed—were finally paying off.
Professionally, I’d never felt more on top of the world.
Personally, though?
That was a different story.
I’d never wanted the things other women seemed to crave.
Marriage. A family. My work had always been enough—my first love, my constant companion, the thing that made me feel most alive.
But sitting here now, listening to my father tell me he was proud of me, I should have been ridiculously, gloriously happy.
But was I? The answer should have been an immediate yes. Instead, something felt strangely hollow. Like maybe I’d built my entire life chasing one kind of fulfillment while ignoring another.
Could I have both—the professional success I’d worked so hard for and something softer, more personal?
But the thought of even wanting more terrified me.
“Dad?” I asked before I could overthink it. “Can I ask you something personal?”
He tilted his head, curiosity flickering across his features. The corners of his mouth eased, and he leaned back in his chair like a man settling in for a good story. “Of course.”
I hesitated for only a moment, then blurted, “How did you know you were in love with Mom?”
For a heartbeat, his face went still. Then a slow, boyish grin spread across it, softening the lines around his eyes, making him look ten years younger.
“I knew almost instantly,” he said, his voice dropping into something warmer, gentler. “I couldn’t stop thinking about her, even when I tried. She was just… there. In everything. The sound of her laugh, the way she saw the world. When I was around her, I felt lighter. Happier.”
He chuckled under his breath, the corners of his eyes crinkling the way they did when he was lost in an old, happy memory.
“With your mother, who I was or what I did for a living didn’t matter.
I wasn’t Richard Bellrose, heir to the Bellrose fortune.
I was just Ricky, the customer she couldn’t get rid of.
Your mom gave me everything I needed to just be … me.”
Something in my chest went very still.
Because suddenly I realized that was exactly how Gage made me feel, too.
From the start, I’d been drawn to him in a way that I couldn’t explain, like something inside of me recognized he was what I’d been seeking without even knowing I’d been looking.
And yes, the sex was fantastic. Hot and electric and everything I’d ever let myself fantasize about.
But it wasn’t just the fucking. It was everything the type of sex we had together represented.
My need for someone to own me. To ground me.
To take my body to places I couldn’t go alone.
To push me when I didn’t think I could take another second more … to make me take more.
Someone who didn’t let me shy away from my desires, but rather, confront them head-on.
No, not just confront them, but embrace them.
A man who let my need for submission live alongside my need for control.
My need for that slight edge of pain to live alongside the softer moments afterward, when I came back to myself.
To be praised. To be cuddled. To be adored.
But beyond the sex was the banter. The conversation. Even when he was furious with me, he still managed to give me something beyond the physical. Pieces of himself that I didn’t think many others saw.
He listened to my ideas. My fears. The things I’d only ever said out loud to my own reflection. He called me out when I hid behind my ambition, and somehow it didn’t feel like judgment—it felt like being seen.
He teased me about my control-freak tendencies, but never once tried to take my power away from me.
Instead, he made space for both sides of me—the woman who could run an entire division of a hospitality juggernaut with an iron fist, and the one who wanted a man’s hand fisted in her hair, pushing her to her knees to choke on his cock.
And when we’d talked last night—about the land, about what it meant to both of us—I realized it wasn’t just chemistry pulling me toward him.
It was understanding. It was respect. He didn’t agree with me on everything, but he got me.
The parts of me I’d hidden under years of polish and ambition.
The parts that were messy, impulsive, and far too human.
Maybe that was why being with him scared me so much. Because for the first time, I wasn’t hiding behind anything.
With Gage, there were no expectations, no performative smiles, no image to protect. He didn’t care about my last name, my pedigree, or the empire I’d been born into. He saw me—the woman beneath the polish, the ambition, the armor.
And being seen like that, so completely, so effortlessly, was both freeing and terrifying.
Because when he looked at me, it wasn’t with awe or calculation. It was with quiet recognition.
Like I was someone worth knowing.
Worth keeping.
Worth loving.
The thought made my throat tighten.
“Sweetheart,” Dad said softly, pulling me back to the present.
“From the look on your face, I’d say you might know a thing or two about that.
” His eyes crinkled at the corners, the same way they always had when he was trying not to smile.
“This wouldn’t happen to have anything to do with that cowboy from the restaurant, would it?
The one you swore you were completely immune to? ”
My breath left me in something between a sigh and a laugh, all my practiced composure slipping away in the face of my father’s quiet understanding. “Yeah,” I admitted. “That’d be him.”
His smile deepened, gentle and knowing. “I thought so.”
I hesitated, my throat thick, then said the words that had been sitting heavy on my tongue all morning. “Daddy, I love him.”
There was a long pause, filled only by the faint crackle of the gas log across the room. Then his expression softened into something I’d never forget—tenderness, pride, and a kind of recognition that made my chest ache.
“Siena,” he said quietly, “I know you’ve always believed you didn’t need love.
You remind me so much of myself at your age—driven, determined, convinced that success was enough to fill every empty space.
” A small, wistful smile tugged at his mouth.
“But it’s a lonely path. One I didn’t realize I was walking until I met your mother and saw how empty it felt without someone to share it with. ”
He leaned forward, his voice steady, his words sure.
“You don’t have to choose, sweetheart. You can have both—the life you’ve built and the love that makes it worth living.
Don’t turn away from that out of fear. Success is wonderful, but love…
” His eyes softened, shining faintly. “Love is what makes the rest of it mean something. There’s nothing else like it in the world. ”
My eyes stung, and I blinked hard, forcing a watery smile. “You make it sound so easy.”
He chuckled, the sound laced with fondness. “It wasn’t. But it was worth it.”
We said our goodbyes a few moments later, and when the screen went dark, I sat there for a long time, staring at my reflection in the glossy black. The same woman who’d stared back a thousand times before, but for the first time, I wasn’t sure I recognized her.
It was me… and yet not. I was changed in some deep, fundamental way.
I closed the laptop and leaned back in my chair, pressing my palms against my eyes until colors bloomed behind them.
“This can’t be happening,” I whispered into the empty office, my voice catching on a laugh that wasn’t quite a laugh at all.
But even as I said it, I knew the truth: it was happening. Had happened already.
I’d fallen for Gage, and I didn’t have the faintest idea what to do about it.