“Are you saying I’m a candidate?” I asked breathlessly.
“It troubles me you keep emphasizing that word, but I’m seeing you understand the importance of it, so I can confirm you absolutely are. Now, does that trouble you?”
Okay, he’d had to heft me up in that saddle, something he did with ease, but I wasn’t sure he’d be up to doing it again if I got off Noelle and did a dozen cartwheels in the sheep field.
So I focused on something else.
“You know…already, that I’m a candidate?”
“I would hardly walk you to the breakfast table with a love bite I gave you with all my sisters in attendance if you weren’t.”
“Chassie says you warn them about the ones who aren’t the ones.”
His mouth tightened but he loosened it enough to say, “Very much seeing the disadvantages of you being so close to my sisters.”
“Battle,” I called.
His gaze sharpened on me. “I would also hardly keep my sister’s best friend in my bed for thirty-six hours if I didn’t feel deep feelings for you, doing it understanding those feelings will only grow deeper.”
Why was I on a fucking horse?
And…
Would he beg off if he saw me do a dozen cartwheels in a sheep field?
“Oh my God,” I snapped. “Can we get off the horses so I can ride you in a field?”
A slow, very naughty grin formed on his lips. “Sheep shit in this field, darling.”
“Gross.”
“Indeed.” He clicked his tongue and kept going.
So I did too.
“So, these candidates will have to know it’s The Downs, Burleigh House, and the Talyn family forever, and be all the way down with that, correct?” I asked, just to be sure.
“Are you ever going to stop emphasizing the word ‘candidate?’”
“Does it bug you?”
“Yes.”
“Then, no.”
He grunted in annoyance.
It was fucking adorable.
“To answer your question, yes,” he said. “And they lose if they have an issue with it.”
“As in, they get kicked to the curb.”
“Absolutely.”
“I bet Chelsea wasn’t at one with sharing The Downs and Burleigh House,” I muttered.
“The girls were told she wasn’t the one before I even brought her here when I was seeing her.”
