For the first time since I got here, I don’t have a response.
And that is what scares me the most.
Chapter 5
Maddie
The cabin smells like cedar and heat.
Like him.
I stand just inside the doorway, arms crossed, watching Ethan move like he owns every inch of space—which, apparently, he does.
He doesn’t look back at me right away. Just shrugs out of his jacket, sets it on the back of a chair, moves toward the counter like I’m already accounted for. Like me being here is a done deal. The moment I saw him I wondered why he’d posted an ad for a bride, but now I know. He’s controlling, detached, downright bossy and rubs me all the wrong ways. And maybe a few of therightones.
“You always this… welcoming?” I ask.
His mouth twitches, but he doesn’t turn. “You always this difficult?”
“I don’t like being told what to do.”
“Then you picked the wrong place to run to.”
I push off the door, boots thudding against the floor as I step farther inside. “I didn’t run.”
That gets his attention. He turns slowly, eyes dragging over me in a way that feels like a hand—heavy, deliberate, impossible to ignore.
“You showed up on my mountain scared and alone, offering to be my bride,” he says. “Call it whatever you want.”
My spine stiffens. “I’m handling it.”
“Yeah?” he murmurs. “That what you call finding photos of yourself left outside your door?”
I hate that he knows that. I hate that it still makes my stomach twist.
“I had a plan,” I say.
His brow lifts. “Yeah? What was it?”
I open my mouth. Nothing comes out. Because I don’t have one. Not a real one.
His gaze sharpens, like he’s watching the realization land in real time.
“Thought so,” he says.
I step closer, refusing to let him have the upper hand that easily. “I didn’t come here to be talked down to.”
“And I didn’t invite you here to play games.”
We’re closer now. Too close.
The air shifts—tight, charged, like something’s about to snap.
“Then maybe you should’ve said no,” I fire back.
His eyes darken.
“Not how this works.”
