Accidental Knight: A Marriage Mistake Romance(64)

It was like he’d flicked a secret key, opening this doorway I never knew I had.

That first little kiss I’d given him at the table, when my parents were across from us, had been pure impulse. I hadn’t even realized what I’d done until later.

Then Drake struck back hard.

Then he’d plundered me, and I’d been ready to let him take whatever he wanted.

Crazy talk. Let’s call it what it is. But it doesn’t mean it isn’t what I feel.

Our lips just touched, and it’d left me dizzy.

Then, that second kiss on the street, inside the truck...

Holy hell.

I’m surprised my hair didn’t blow back in a ripple.

My toes curled inside my boots. My nipples puckered. My panties desperately needed a change by the time we got home. And then my whole world got crazier than anything it has any business being.

Drake breathed something into me that day, and it’s been there ever since.

Every time I look at him.

Every time I get a whiff of his aftershave.

Every time we brush in the halls.

Every-freaking-time I dare think about more than kissing him.

“Jesus,” I whisper to myself, turning away from the window, doing a quick whirl in the chair.

I set the folder on the desk, having no idea why I’d even pulled it out. I won’t find anything new there, or any answers.

Gramps may have put a lot of things in place. A lot of backups inside backups so I’d inherit everything. Too bad he didn’t include a stipulation that Drake Larkin has to make love to me. Or at least talk to me like a human being again.

I’m crawling in my skin, and this strange, smirky cowboy man is way too good at driving me flipping crazy without even trying.

There’s no way I can live like this for the next six months.

No earthly way.

The most frustrating part is, I brought it on myself, didn’t I?

I’m the fool who started a game I knew I couldn’t win. I hadn’t thought of the repercussions.

My mind was on my parents, and nothing else, when I’d absentmindedly decided to play up my nonexistent relationship with Mr. Bodyguard.

I’ve never had ammo to use against them before. Then Drake happened. The lifeline I’ve needed to stand up against them. To win like Gramps wanted.

Not just for me, but for North Earhart Oil, for my grandfather, and for the whole town of Dallas.

Huffing out a breath, I sit up and turn on my laptop. When I’d talked to Roger on the phone yesterday, he’d sent a company memo out, announcing how I don’t plan on making any drastic changes to North Earhart Oil.

He said it’d be a good way to introduce myself to the entire staff. He told me the communications department could use it to write press releases for the local papers and our partners, too, as long as I gave them some direct input.

So I’d started it after talking to him, but got sidetracked.

No, not sidetracked.

Drake-tracked.

He’s the only thing my mind can focus on for more than two minutes. Ugh.

If I have any hope of making it through the next six months, I have to change that fast.

Logging on to the computer, I click on the document I’d started yesterday and then flip open the three-ring binder Roger gave me so I have things to reference in my letter.

A while later, I’m rereading the two pages I’ve written for the umpteenth time, making small changes when the front door slamming startles me.

Huh? Drake has never slammed a door before, not even when he’s mad.

My heart leaps in my throat.

I push away from the desk, wheeling the chair back so I can see out the open office door. I’m half afraid I’ll see him bleeding, staggering around, hurt from falling off the ladder or something.

But my fear turns into a panicked dread as I hear a familiar clip of heels.

A second later, my mother appears in the entryway, with the same scowl I think she had since the day she was born plastered on her face. Today it’s paired with a navy and white dress, matching shoes, and fresh fury.

She twists, sees me, and marches toward the office. Crap.

There’s not a hair out of place on her head, and her makeup seems as flawless as ever.

I wonder if that’s one of the things she’s always hated about me. That I’d rather wear jeans and cowgirl boots and pony up my hair, with nothing more than a little moisturizer on my face.

Back when I was little, really little, she’d enroll me in beauty contests. The makeup she used to cake on my face stung. My face would burn for days sometimes.

I’d hated the dresses too, and the shoes, and all the hairspray and perfume and pomp and pressure.

Even way back then, as small as I’d been, I knew what a calendar was.

Gramps gave me one every year for Christmas, with the days circled that I’d be here at the ranch with him. I’d look at it every day, knowing I wouldn’t have to go to any pageants on the days that were circled in red.

She enters the room with her heels still snapping against the tile floor, and I remember her anger when I’d come home after spending a whole happy summer here. Gramps asked me about the pageants, because he’d been sent pictures of me all dolled up.

I’d told him I hated them.

He hadn’t said anything to me, but must’ve called her and worked his magic. I was never entered in another one. She’d told me it was because I’d never win and that there was no sense putting so much effort into an ugly duckling.