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I peered in the side mirror of the catering van, watching as my fiancé escorted my former client and new enemy out of the historic theater. For a split second, the vultures were distracted. And I ran.
What surprised the hell out of us was seeing him on TV, rescuing a reporter out of rubble while he was deployed. But it worked out well for them. Now, Bree and Gracie were over the moon to be getting a cousin.
She left New York for greener pastures, and I kept climbing the ladder until the day I took a metaphorical stiletto to the face and tumbled down to rock bottom.
“Pleasure to meet you both. I’m Silas Griffith.” He pointed a finger at the looming presence behind me. “I’m that one’s daddy, and a soon-to-be grandaddy—again—to this one.” He pointed to Becks’s belly.
“Why is there mud?” Tripp huffed as he pulled his foot out of the pile with a disgusting squish. Christian chuckled. “Hate to break it to you, but that’s not mud.” The stench hit me immediately and, from the looks of things, Tripp realized it too. “Shit,” he said with disgust. “There you go, buddy. Now you got it right,” Christian said in the most placating tone possible.
“Look at that,” Christian mused with a flat expression. “You live up to your name.”
Because his name is Tripp 🤣🤣
“I’ll get it, Cass,” I grunted as I stepped up to help. Her head snapped so hard I was surprised she didn’t give herself whiplash. “It’s Cassandra.” I chuckled as I unloaded the rest of her five suitcases. “Alright, Princess.”
“I can get my bags,” she insisted. I stepped closer. “Just because you can, doesn’t mean you should have to.”
“His name is Mickey. He’s real sweet.” “There’s a cow in my house!” “Pet cow.”
“And why are there—” she blinked in disbelief “—are those pool noodles on his horns?” “He’s clumsy. It keeps him from breaking shit on the property.”
Maybe Becks could do me a solid … again … and let me crash with her and her husband. Then again, she was pregnant. Pregnant people grossed me out.
Girl same
I reached for my door handle, but he beat me to it. “Rule number one. You ride in my truck; you let me open the door.”
I don’t know how you were raised, but my parents taught me to open doors for ladies. That’s what my daughters will expect.” I slid out. The heels of my Manolos sunk into the dirt. “And here I was, thinking you’d be the ‘wait on the porch with a shotgun’ type. Or just lock them in their rooms until they’re forty.” He chuckled as he slammed the door shut. “Don’t tempt me.”
I never understood the baby thing. Why would a woman voluntarily put herself through nine months of hell and eighteen years of parental prison? I knew, without a shadow of a doubt, that I was not a baby person. Or a kid person. Or a teenager person. Or a young adult person.
Finally another FMC I can relate to at least in terms of pregnancy, it’s so hard to find fmcs who don’t want kids
Christian had a brown man bun, beard, and heavy dad bod with a curved belly.
Becks grinned and gently smoothed a hand over her bump as it moved like an alien was inside of her. Oh God. My stomach roiled. That was so fucking gross.
Then there was me. Too sensitive for his own good. Chris needs to toughen up. Comments like that had always been written on my report cards as a child. The ranch had always been my safe place. It was a haven. I loved the quiet. I treasured the lack of people for miles and miles.
Then I lost Gretchen. My world ended the day a cop pulled down the long dirt drive, stirring up a dust storm with his tires. Gretchen had been on her way home from the grocery store. It was her weekly solo trip into town; leaving three-year-old Bree and one-year-old Gracie with my mom so she could have a few hours of peace to run errands. Hit by a drunk driver. Gone in seconds. And just like that, I became a single father. A widower.
I’m busy building my empire, not adding clout to his last name. Be your own happily ever after and you don’t need a prince to save you.” “You’re so cool,” Bree whispered in sheer reverence.
“What am I gonna do with you?” His gruff timbre sent shivers racing down my spine. The breath snaking off his beard was intoxicating. Christian Griffith was not my type. Besides, I was taken. Kind of. But my body didn’t give a damn about logic. My skin prickled like I had touched a live wire.
Shit girl me too
“Nice pajamas,” he clipped as he turned away from the door. A breeze danced over my bare shoulder where the strap of my satin camisole kissed my skin. But the breeze didn’t stop there. Crap. I tugged the quilt up, covering the side of my boob that had spilled out of my top.
“You do know the difference between people and animals, right? You eat animals.” I choked on a laugh. “You can eat people, too. Particularly women. Or did your fiancé not do that for you, Princess?”
“She ain’t a Griffith,” he spat. I pointed a finger at him. “Neither are you, son. You’d better remember that.” I eyed the cluster of ranch hands as I pointed toward the office. “She carries the weight of my name. She’s a Griffith to you.” They nodded in agreement. I turned back to Jackson. “If you so much as look at her wrong and she wants you gone, you’re gone. Have I made myself clear?”
the phrase ‘posture like a princess, hips like a whore?’” Christian’s laugh was dark. “That was the saying I was taught with. My girls got the G-rated version.” His hands pressed against my waist, and I could feel the rhythm of my hips matching Libby’s strides. “Hips like a hula hoop.”
Her hair slid to the side as she laughed. She sounded so fucking pretty when she did that.
“I know you didn’t have enough whiskey in your ice cream to give you a hangover, so this attitude you have with my girls? Cut it out.” Cassandra made eye contact with me as she wrapped her hand around mine and yanked the coffee pot out from under the machine. “I don’t have an attitude.” “My house. My rules. If I say your attitude sucks, then it sucks. Fix it.”
I knew I was living on borrowed time. Bree was a teenager and Gracie wasn’t far behind. Soon, they wouldn’t want their dad to fix their hair in the morning. Maybe that’s why I put so much effort into learning how to do it. I wanted them to need me. I wanted to be enough.
“Miss Parker,” I stated, slamming my palm on the top of the steering wheel to catch her attention. “You cannot swear around my girls.” “You swear in front of us all the time, Dad,” Bree countered. Just fucking great. Cassandra snorted. “I don’t think I’m contributing to the delinquency of a minor by saying the F-word, when she’s probably seen cows doing the deed since she could walk.” “Sometimes,” Gracie said without a care in the world. “But sometimes the cows are artificially incinerated.” “Inseminated,”
“Are you on the payroll?” “No, ma’am,” Gracie said with more assertiveness than I had ever heard her muster. “Is that kid your responsibility?” she pressed. “No, ma’am!” “If he wants to be a problem, what are you gonna do?” Cassandra snapped. But it wasn’t a question spawned out of irritation. She was a coach. A drill sergeant. Gracie beamed. “Let him run around on fire.” Cassandra blinked at Gracie, stunned, before turning to sit back in her seat. “This family is so weird.”
Before I could get another word out, Gracie beamed at Cassandra. “Bye, Miss Cass. Have a day as pretty as you are!” And with that, she skipped down the sidewalk, laughing with her sister.
Cass I decided that “Daddy Griffith” makes me think of your father, so I changed your contact to “Cowboy Daddy.”
“You paid for me?” Cassandra asked abruptly when we hit the sidewalk. I unlocked the truck and put her shopping bags in the back before opening her door. “Yeah.” She paused in front of me instead of climbing in. “Why?” It wasn’t curiosity. It was blatant mistrust. “Because I thought it’d make you happy,” I said simply. “You’ve had a time of it out here, and if I can do something easy like that to make it better, I will.”
“Why does it look like someone dumped a bucket of water on your head?” She groaned. “I’m trying to make myself go into labor. I did a five-mile walk around the property.” “Why on earth would you want to do that?” I shuddered. “Granted, I’m not sure what possessed you to get pregnant in the first place.” Becks snorted. “My husband’s big di—”
he walked behind me and braced his hands on the desk, trapping me between them as he reached for the desktop computer mouse. “Sit tight. I just have to print something off.” I stiffened as his chest pressed against the back of my head. Becks pointed between Christian and me and wiggled her eyebrows as she mouthed, “Oh my god!”
“Momma’s got the girls up at her house, so you’re on your own for dinner. You good with that?” Mickey, the long-horned menace squeezed through the door and lumbered into the office. “Only if I can cook the cow that’s currently taking up residence at my desk.” A chorus of voices came on the line from different radios. “Get lost, Mickey,” they said together. Slowly, he backed his bovine ass up and retreated outside.
But Christian… He was soft everywhere, but unmistakably strong. His bulk was sexy. Rugged, but still safe. I was drawn to him like a moth to a porch light. I ached to know what it was like to be in his arms. To feel the potent mix of comfort and attraction.
“Hospitality?” She let out a blustering huff. “Cass, there ain’t a shred of hospitality being doled out on this lot. I feed everyone because it’s what I do.” She planted her hands on her hips. “Now you can show up and eat a plate or you can ration whatever leftovers Chris has in his fridge. But this isn’t hospitality. It’s family. Learn the difference.”
“Please?” she begged. “We don’t have a mom to help us with this stuff. Dad tries, but some things require a woman’s touch.” What in Carrie Bradshaw’s world was happening. I pressed my fingers to my temples. “I’m sorry—what kind of eleven-year-old talks like that? I can’t decide if you’re trying to act like you’re three or thirty. And second, did you just pull the dead mom card to try to guilt trip me?” Gracie nodded with an ear-to-ear grin on her face. “Yep. It usually works too.”
“Well, with your dead mom, you’re halfway to being fairytale princesses. It’s statistically impossible to be a fantasy heroine without two dead parents or a dead parent and an evil stepmother. Find some mice and singing birds and figure it out, ladies.”
“Please,” Bree begged in a whisper. “I need something cute to wear to school and my dad thinks Levis and a button-up are the answer to everything.” I turned back to the contact list I was working on. “Still no.” “Fine,” Gracie said. “Will you be our evil stepmother?”
“I’m just saying. An evil stepmother is better than nothing. If we have an evil stepmother, it means we’ll get to go to a ball or kiss a prince or get magical powers. Do you have any poisoned apples? Or a cloak? Those are usually required.” I arched an eyebrow. “You should be very concerned about the state of things if I’m the one feeding you.” I dismissed them with a flick of my wrist. “Be gone, peasants.” They dashed through the living room and giggled all the way up the stairs.
I wasn’t a Hallmark heroine who was banished to a small town and was destined to learn the true meaning of Christmas and the evils of corporate life after being wooed by the local lumberjack.
Sorry to break it to you, Cass…
“I thought you said she left the Carrington Group,” she murmured as she fingered the point of his pressed collar. The corner of her mouth curved in a sickled smile. “You’ve got a little something—” Red. All I saw was red. Red like the empty bottle of merlot between them. Red like the scarlet lipstick on his collar. Red like the crimson bite mark on his neck. Red like the flames of rage that consumed me like a wildfire. Red like the flags I should have seen. Red like the blood I was out for.
“Can we please go? I need cute stuff.” I had shit I needed to get done on Saturday, but I didn’t want the day to end on a bad note. “Your request is noted and is under further review.” She let out a dejected sigh and rolled onto her side. “Hey,” I said as I gently rubbed her back. “I know you’re growing up. Just give me a chance to catch up, alright?”
He’s so sweet 😭
“I think being happy is the best form of revenge. Because that’s something he could never give you or himself.”
“If moving on doesn’t do it for you, I can dig a trench and bury him in a place where no one will find his body. Do you want him in the east pasture or the west?” “That’s more like it.”
“I didn’t love him.” Cassandra sniffed back tears, but they just kept streaming down her face, streaking her makeup. “I just wanted to be loved.”
“What’s the rule?” I tapped a finger on my chin. “Rule number one: if you’re going to kill someone, make it look like an accident, cry at the funeral, admit nothing, and deny everything.” “Jesus, you publicists are dark.” “Don’t fuck with me, Griffith.”
“It’ll clear, you know,” Christian said out of nowhere. “What will?” He slowed up and looked over at me. “The dust storm.” I stared at the chestnut hairs of Dottie’s mane. “What are you talking about?” “All the shit that gets stirred up and clouds your mind. Eventually it’ll settle. You’ll be able to breathe easier.” He looked ahead. “Doesn’t make it better in the moment. Dust storms happen. It’s okay to close your eyes and stumble through.”
“Don’t do that thing where you stare at me until I crack. I hate that.” Christian laughed. “I’m not trying to make you crack.” I rolled my eyes. “Really.” “You fascinate me.”
