Coldhearted Boss(42)

“The book doesn’t matter.”

“But you already hate me.”

I don’t refute that.

Right now, I hate what she’s doing to me. I hate how I’m reacting to her. There’s a lot of hate tangling with lust and it’s hard to separate one feeling from another. Maybe I do hate her. Or maybe it’s the exact opposite.

“I’ll buy you a new one,” she insists, nodding along with the idea. “Yes, that’s what I’ll do.”

I don’t point out that we’re about three hours from the nearest bookstore and I don’t think Amazon ships to cabins in the middle of the woods.

Her attention falls to my hand on her arm and I should drop it, but I don’t. Instead, my gaze moves over her, up from her bare feet and shapely calves right to the point where her white towel cuts across her bare thighs. A drop of water runs down them and I’m seconds from doing something very bad.

“You look deeply disapproving right now,” she says, actually sounding amused. “Like everything about me offends you.”

I try to relax my features, but it’s no use.

“Did you stay here all weekend?”

There’s a long pause before she replies diplomatically, “Will I get in trouble if I say yes?”

“I don’t know.”

Her eyes are suddenly lit with an inner twinkle of mischief. “Then…I don’t know.”

Paired with her long dark lashes and high cheekbones, her teasing words make it impossible to suppress the lazy smile spreading across my lips.

Her gaze catches there, and that’s the moment I step away and release her arm. I know what it looks like when a woman wants a man, and Taylor and I are not here in this cabin for that reason.

The warring emotions inside of me yank my heart in different directions as I head for the door.

“Let me know when you’re dressed,” I say gruffly, tugging a hand through my hair and slamming the door open harder than necessary. It bangs against the side of the cabin, the sound too loud and too sharp, making it look as if I can’t control my temper. I’ve never had an issue until now.

I sit on the top stair and train my eyes on the forest, cooling off, thinking of my grandma and baseball. When that doesn’t work, I think of my grandma playing baseball, and when Taylor walks out a few minutes later, I don’t even feel the effect she has on me. Not at all. Dressed in loose jeans and a t-shirt, she’s still barefoot. I’m looking at her pink-polished toes when she speaks up.

“I’ve decided to come back and sleep in the cabin. I know you won’t exactly love having me here, but I don’t really see another option unless there’s another vacant cabin somewhere else.”

I look back out along the trail, giving her my profile. “It’s fine.” I don’t ask where she’s been sleeping. Chances are, I won’t like the answer anyway. “However, I don’t want you staying here on the weekends again.”

It’s not safe for her to stay out here alone, not only from a liability standpoint for the company, but for her own wellbeing.

Still, she bristles at the brusque order, turns around, and heads right back into the cabin only to return a few minutes later with her shoes on and her damp hair thrown up in a ponytail. She brushes past me on the stairs without another word and walks down the trail back to camp.

When I stand and reenter the cabin, I’m met with a heavy scent of her body wash. It’s like the entire place has been steeped in it. On the window sill, propped up and fanned out to dry, sits my paperback. Below it, wildflowers sit in a bucket on the desk.

It suddenly hits me that I’m doing something I’ve never done before: living with a woman.

Of course I’ve had girlfriends stay over at my house in Austin and leave their things behind, a jacket here, an earring there. In my last relationship, we were together a few months. She wanted commitment and promises and a ten-year plan. I wanted nothing of the sort.

Suddenly, the tables are now flipped, and I know how it feels to want someone who seems just out of reach at all times.

Taylor is elusive and wild, a clever little cat. I couldn’t predict her next move if there were a million dollars on the line.

I’m glad she left when she did because otherwise, she’d see me right now, touching the flowers she picked with utter bewilderment, like I’ve never seen flowers before in my entire life. Because, the thing is, deep down, I’m not at all mad that she moved back into the cabin. I’ve wanted her here with me since the beginning. It’s why I had them assign bunkhouses in the first place.





After unpacking my clothes and getting prepared for the week ahead, I go on a long run. Taylor’s back in the cabin when I return, sitting up on the top bunk, cursing her phone before launching it halfway across the room. I reach out and catch it before it collides with the wall.

“Bad reception?” I ask with an arched brow.

Her cheeks are flushed with fury from having been caught during her little outburst of anger.

“Yes. This entire cabin is a dead zone—no, this entire camp! Sometimes I’m able to pick up a signal near the mess hall, but even that’s not reliable. How do you get service all the time?”

“Well for one, my cell phone is from this century,” I say, handing hers back. “And I also bought a signal booster. It’s necessary out here in the woods.”