Chapter 15 #2
We hadn’t talked about how to act around his family, so we defaulted to careful. He passed plates across the dinner table like a polite host. I kept my distance. But the second we were alone in a hallway or the kitchen cleared out, everything changed.
On our second night back, he caught me outside the upstairs bathroom. He backed me into the wall with his good arm and kissed me like he’d been waiting all day. His calloused hand had just slipped under the hem of my shirt when heavy boots hit the bottom of the stairs.
We sprang apart so fast I knocked a picture frame crooked. By the time Colt reached the top of the stairs, I was staring at it like it was the most fascinating landscape in Wyoming, and Brock had already slipped into the bathroom.
“You two are weird,” Colt muttered as he walked past.
We were. And the worst part was, I didn’t want to stop. I wanted more of this—the stolen seconds, his mouth at my ear, the way my heart raced every time we almost got caught. It was exactly the kind of thinking that was going to get us in trouble.
It was getting far too easy to forget I was here to do a job. Fortunately, my agency was happy to remind me.
The next morning, I was sitting on the porch steps with my coffee when my phone buzzed against the wood. Avery’s name lit up the screen. I stared at it for a long second, seriously considering throwing it into the bushes before I finally answered.
“Sienna! There she is.”
Her voice was warm, which immediately put me on edge. Avery being cheerful was like that eerie, dead quiet right before a thunderstorm.
“Hi, Avery,” I said carefully. “What’s going on?”
“Sit down. You’re going to love this.”
I stood up.
"That alley video hit twenty-three million views yesterday. The guys over at Outlaw are practically foaming at the mouth, and they just handed me their new idea."
"Okay. What is it?"
"They want to make you his official publicist! So congrats, you've just been promoted." Before I could even process the word promoted, she kept talking. "Everyone is obsessed with the cowboy and the woman he saved. So they’re asking for all the new videos to feature the two of you together."
The coffee went sour in my mouth. "Define 'feature together'."
"You know, couple stuff. The internet's decided you're a thing. Have him put you on a horse, you wear some cute boots, feed a cow a carrot or something."
I sat down on the step after all. "That’s outside my job description. I can’t just go on camera like that."
“Which is why they’re paying you for it. Ten thousand at the end of the contract.”
The air left my lungs. Enough to cover half a year of Mara’s tuition. Enough that the word no stuck in my throat.
"Is it really a good idea for me to play his girlfriend on the internet?" I asked instead.
"Nobody said girlfriend. God, you're so literal. Just look cozy next to him and let the comments do the work. People want to believe it? Let them believe it. A little mystery is better for engagement anyway."
“So, I’m the product now. My whole job is staying behind the camera, and now you want my face all over his campaign. Who’s going to hire me after that?”
She sighed like I was being intentionally dense. "Sienna, trust me, in six months no one remembers your name, so relax."
Over the speaker, the screech of the L train rattled past her office window. Sitting on a quiet porch in Wyoming, it sounded like it was coming from another planet.
“It’s the easiest ten grand you’ll ever make,” she said. “You smile, you let him do the cowboy thing, put his hands on your waist, whatever sells the fantasy, and you post it. It's not like I'm asking you to sleep with the guy." A short laugh. "Just don't actually screw him. But you know that."
I dragged a hand down my face. “Before you send anything, I’ll have to run it by Brock. He’s not going to want to do scripted couple content. He barely tolerates cameras as it is.”
“He already agreed.”
My hand dropped. “What?”
“Outlaw called him this morning. He said yes. I’ll send the terms over later today.”
I didn’t say anything. I couldn’t.
He’d said yes. This morning. Without saying a word to me.
I’d been here before. Liking someone this much had already wrecked my life once.
The scary part wasn’t that Brock might hurt me. It was that he probably wouldn’t, and I was going to do something reckless anyway.
“Sienna? You still there?”
“Yeah.” I cleared my throat, forcing my voice back into something professional. “Send the terms. I’ll look them over tonight.”
“That’s what I like to hear. Talk soon.”
She hung up.
I sat on the step for a long time, the phone hot in my hand, trying to gather up whatever professional boundaries I had left. Then I went to find him.
He was in the tack room, leaning against the workbench and wiping down a saddle with one hand.
The heavy smell of oiled leather and dust hung in the warm air.
When my shoes scuffed the concrete, he looked up.
His eyes caught mine, warm and pleased, and for a second I forgot why I’d come in here at all.
I crossed my arms. “My boss just called.”
He tossed the rag onto the bench. “Yeah? What’s the damage?”
“They want a whole campaign built around us doing couple content. And, she told me you already agreed to it this morning, without saying a word to me.”
“They caught me off guard. I didn’t think—”
“I’m not mad about the campaign, Brock.” My voice came out sharper than I meant. I forced myself to take a breath. “I’m scared.”
That stopped him. He stepped around the table. “Of what?”
“Of this.” I gestured between us, then toward the open door and the ranch beyond it. “We have to be careful. Not careful like the last few days, sneaking around hallways and getting lucky. Careful for real.”
“You want me to look at you like you’re nobody.”
"Like I'm your PR manager," I corrected, though the word tasted sour in my mouth. "Or rather, your publicist now, as they’re calling me. Because to your family, and to my agency, that’s what I am.”
“Same damn thing and you know it.” He took a step closer, jaw tight.
“And how long are we supposed to do that? You want me to lie to my family forever? Sit at my own dinner table every night pretending I don’t want to touch you, then go stand in front of a camera and act like it’s all just for show?
” He shook his head. “I’m not built for that, Sienna. ”
“You have the best blank face I’ve ever worked with.”
“Not with you.”
He said it so simply that I had to look away for a second.
“Then don’t hide that you like me,” I said. “Twenty-three million people already watched you dive under a horse for me. That ship has sailed. Just hide that it went further than that. Because if anyone figures out it’s real—” My voice caught. “I can’t afford to get fired.”
He was quiet for a moment. When he spoke again, his voice was lower. “I’m not good at that. The sneaking around. The lying with a straight face.”
I opened my mouth to say something, but my eyes caught on his shoulder. He held it stiff. The anger that had been burning in my chest flickered and went soft.
“I don’t want you to lie either,” I said, quieter now. “I just… I need us to be smart about this, for both our sakes.”
Out in the barn, a horse shifted in its stall, the sound muffled through the wall. Brock looked at me for a long moment, his lips pressed firm, like the words were costing him something.
“I know what you’re risking,” he said. “So okay. We do it your way.”
He held his hand out between us. A handshake. Like we were closing a deal.
I almost laughed. I reached for it—and he didn’t shake it. He pulled until I came up off my heels and into him.
His mouth found mine, slow and thorough, his hand sliding up into my hair. I forgot every careful thing I’d just said.
When he finally pulled back, he set me gently back on my feet. He reached past me, picked up his brown felt hat from the workbench, and settled it on his head.
“Last one with the door open,” he said. “Starting now.”