Chapter 12 Valentina
TWELVE
VALENTINA
Seduction’s never been a challenge for me—even when it should’ve been difficult, I’ve never struggled to turn people on. It’s one of the few things I consider myself to be natural at.
With as much forced practice as I had at a young age, I should be a natural—I should be the fucking most seductive person alive.
So why won’t McCrae just give in already?
Are we not two hot, horny, and equally depraved people? What could he possibly have to lose by sleeping with me?
“Are you gay?” The inside thoughts come out as words before I have a second to swallow them. Instead of showing the shame coursing through me like fiery poison, I double down.
Because if I’m not toxic, I’m dead.
“I’ve never seen you with a woman, is all.
” I shrug, leaning against the stall door, and watch McCrae’s back turn from hard muscle to stone, already coated in a thick layer of sweat, proven by the way his shirt clings to his skin.
His muscles ripple beneath the fabric, bunching and flexing as he fills fork after fork with shavings and manure, tossing them into a wheelbarrow.
I note, with great irritation, he’s not wearing his sling. It’s like the damn thing doesn’t exist; if it wasn’t for him cringing every time he lifts the rake, I’d think he was completely healed.
“Why aren’t you wearing your sling? Does it make you less manly or something?” He doesn’t respond, and at this point, I don’t expect him to. What can I say to really piss him off?
It’s only nine in the morning, and rivulets of sweat pour down his temples, across the various tattoos peppering his face and neck, disappearing beneath the neckline of his shirt.
I watch one particular droplet race out of view, and I imagine the path it takes, racing all the way to his waist line. Just like I wish I could do.
He pauses, wiping his forearm across his forehead, the bill of his cap pressed against his neck.
I lick my lips, leaning forward. “Why do you wear that if you’re just going to turn it backward?”
It’s a slutty look, honestly—I’ve always preferred well-dressed, tailored men to dirty, hardworking ones. But something about the honesty of it all, of seeing one’s labor go from mental to physical, is secretly amazing to me.
I still hate this ranch and everything it stands for.
But I don’t hate watching McCrae working on it. Or Santos, for that matter.
At first, I hired him because I could see how pissed off it made McCrae.
But now, it’s more than that—I kind of like the guy.
He’s a hard worker, charming in the most mischievous kind of way.
He looks at me and doesn’t see my past full of evil mistakes.
He just sees a snobby, rich woman who still whines when she gets dirt under her fingernails but likes to flirt whenever given the chance.
He doesn’t see how broken I am. And I’ll admit, I like how that makes me feel.
“Heelllooo.” I knock my toe against the wheelbarrow, but McCrae just grunts. To my surprise, though, he flips the hat forward, squeezing the bill so tightly, I'm afraid it’ll snap.
Is that what he wants to do to my neck?
No. He thinks I’m too fragile.
I slump back against the wooden stall, the motion sending a thumping noise through the wood, and McCrae quickly looks back at me, his eyes wide. His expression is worried for a split second before he turns back around, ignoring me as if I didn’t exist in the first place.
Interesting.
“If you’d tell me how to help, I’d do more than just watch you work up a sweat. Although,” I lick my lips again, making sure to smack them for effect this time, “I do love seeing you working up a sweat.”
He begins to grumble something under his breath, his rhythm of scooping, throwing, scooping, throwing, picking up to a maddening pace. A twinge of excitement races through me—he’s about to crack, and we can put this silence behind us.
Instead, he sighs. “Why don’t you take the truck to the dealership like you talked about and trade it in for something you actually like? Make yourself useful for once.”
As soon as he says the words, I hear the inhale of breath. He freezes, like he’s balancing a shard of glass on his head or something, too afraid to even exhale for fear it’ll crack.
He sees me as that glass.
I stand straight and stomp from the barn without another word.
Because fuck him. I am that piece of glass—too breakable, too weak, too transparent.
And apparently, useless too. Something I’ve never once been. I’ve always been the person who showed up to work the earliest, stayed the latest, did the jobs no one else would do. Because failing is as great of a sin as having a weakness.
“V, wait up,” McCrae calls out from the barn.
Feeling both pathetic and rejected, I hurry my steps, yanking open the truck door and jumping inside before he can say something else that’ll undoubtedly make me feel even weaker than I already do.
A cloud of dust fills the rearview as I peel out of the driveway—and I don’t miss the look of pity on McCrae's face as he fades away.
Slumping into a chair, I try to focus on anything other than how sticky the table beneath my hands feels.
I hate dive bars. I hate towns with dive bars. I hate people who go to dive bars.
Lucky me, Moztecha, Texas has one bar, and guess what? It’s a fucking dive.
I wave at the bartender, an older woman who’s wrinkled tits fall out the top of her black tank top as she jerks the shaker, nodding in my direction.
She looks like your typical, dive bar bartender.
If I wasn’t so desperate to wash away the day, I’d be anywhere but here, relying on her to make me a drink that’ll undoubtedly poison me.
The slimy dealer’s face comes flashing through my mind. He sneered and swindled me, standing far too fucking close with a cologne that made me want to gag. He was a typical man, rubbing up against me like I was a fucking genie, and if he rubbed long enough gold, would come out.
I fucking hate men.
So even though my stomach turns at the thought of sitting here in this bar, I don’t move.
I need to get fucking drunk before I attempt going back to the ranch and facing McCrae. Or high. Fuck—I need to do both—numbness being the only reprieve I can confidently rely on.
As the bartender takes my order, I hear the seat next to me scratch against the floor before I feel the heat of another’s body fill it. All I want to do is be alone—I certainly don’t need some trashy, small town hick hitting on me too.
“Listen, I’m not interested,” I hiss, turning to pin the newcomer with my most venomous glare. I’m met with easy green eyes and a smirk to match, her expression far more devious than her girly appearance gives her credit for. I bite my tongue.
“Good. You’re not really my type.” Faith waves at the bartender. “I’ll have what she’s having. And a water.” She looks at me again, waiting.
I squirm under her scrutiny. “Are you babysitting me?”
She stares at me as if she’s chewing over the question with great consideration, and then she shrugs. “Do you need babysitting?”
“No.” I flash my teeth at her.
“Good. I just wanted to get a drink. I don’t feel like hearing you bitch anyways.”
I watch her, almost too shocked by her bluntness to form words. Finally, I relent. It might be nice to have someone to drown my sorrows and shame with—not that I’d ever admit it.
“Why are you wanting to drink?” I grumble, taking a sip of the cheap tequila and not even bothering to hide my wince. It really does taste like shit. Is there a floaty in my glass?
Faith barks a laugh, and I jolt. “Why does anyone want to drink?”
“Rejection. Anger and bitterness. Loss or sadness. Loneliness." I stare at the floaty.
I refuse to meet her gaze. I didn’t mean to say all that—it makes me sound more pathetic than I already feel, but I can’t take it back now.
“He said you might be in a shit mood, but that’s just fucking depressing. I only drink to have fun, to celebrate, to fuck.”
Tequila spews out of my nose.
At first, I want to laugh, but then, I’m hit with a wave of confusion. He called Faith—not me—to fix his fuck up.
“What’s your deal with McCrae?” I should sound bitter, but I don’t feel bitter. I’m curious, and I don’t know what to make of it.
Faith takes a long, purposeful drink. “He’s yours.” It doesn’t answer my question, and yet, it answers it plenty.
What if he wasn’t mine?
“So you are babysitting me,” I bite out, resenting the fact that she’s here because McCrae called her, not because she wanted to be. Because she pities me too.
“We’ve established you don’t need babysitting. I’m here to have a drink with my friend.”
Her friend. Two words, and I feel the oxygen evaporate. I haven’t been anyone’s friend in twenty years—other than McCrae, but I don’t know if I can even call him that.
My mouth flops like a fish on land. I don’t know how to feel, much less what to say.
Saving me from having to figure it out, Faith leans over the bar top, talking loudly above the twanging music. “Hey Sharron, where’s Jared tonight?”
Sharron shoots Faith a conspiratory wink, her painted lips smacking around gum. “Didn’t you hear? He ran off with some older woman—all the way to Colorado!”
“What? Really?” Faith gasps.
Sharron nods vigorously, her eyes lighting with the realization she’s about to be the one to divulge this particular piece of gossip.
I roll my eyes. Small fucking towns.
“Yes, girl! He followed her there, and then she had the audacity to dump a kid on him and leave.”
“You’re kidding?” I’d agree with Faith; sounds made up to me. But I refuse to act remotely interested in small town gossip—I don’t know who Jared is, and I don’t care.
“Poor guy. He’s only a kid himself,” Shannon says solemnly, wiping the inside of a glass with a rag so dirty, it looks to have been used on a toilet seat only moments before. I fight off a gag.
“Is it his baby?” Faith continues. Why does she care?
“Oh no, it’s a teenage girl. Very strange.”
My eyebrows shoot together at that—a teenage girl left with some man who’s not even her blood relation?
“Surely that’s not fucking true,” I interject, memories floating unbidden to the surface of my mind.
I feel the familiar icy pricks cover my skin, my lungs aching with the feeling of being full of liquid.
“He’s a good guy,” Faith reassures, patting my arm. She doesn’t look at me, but I have the feeling she can sense my growing panic. “He’d never hurt a soul—as good as they come, really.”
I open my mouth to tell her even the best ones can have secret dark sides when a familiar voice fills my ear to the left. “Sounds like a good thing he’s gone. Less competition for me.”
My skin instantly heats, but I refuse to turn. No one should have this kind of effect on me—filling my stomach with butterflies and making my heart race like I’m some love sick teenage all over again. I don’t believe in such things anymore. They’re weak, and Reyeses have no weakness.
“Santos, what a surprise.” Faith winks at him, but when her eyes find mine, I can’t help but think she doesn’t find it surprising at all. Her eyes are full of knowing, and I hate how deeply she seems to understand me.
“Couldn’t let you girls have all the fun. Can I get three shots of tequila, my lovely bartender?”
Shannon’s smile turns feline as Santos compliments her, and a sudden rush of jealousy wells inside me. I squash it instantly, turning to face the mischief maker with a glare.
“Are you following me too?” I sneer.
His lips twitch, his mustache going lopsided as he allows a sinful grin to twist his face. He leans in closer, his breath fanning across my heated skin. “And what if I am?”
I shake my head, forcing myself to ignore his taunt. It’s all a way to get under my skin—it has to be.
It’s one thing to flirt with him around McCrae—there, it has a purpose, a safety net. But here, it feels far too real, and the truth is, I want it to be real.
I want him to desire me. I want to allow myself to desire him.
But I still know nothing about him, not really, and for the first time, that scares me. What secrets could he be hiding under that perfect exterior?
And how could he use them to hurt me?