Chapter 10
Rowe
“So, how was it?” Cristina asks when I’m back in the living room.
I drop onto the quilts and exhale the curtain of bangs from out of my eyes. “This is either the smartest thing I’ve ever done or the stupidest.”
“It might not be the stupidest, but it’s by far the craziest.”
“Thanks,” I say sarcastically.
She stretches her legs out in front of her. “I don’t know what you’re so upset about. The hottest, richest guyevershows up to help you like he’s a gift from God, and you’re mad about it?”
“He definitelythinkshe’s a gift from God.”
“He sort of is.” She glances up from her phone. “Are you going to tell your mom?”
“No. At least, not for a few days. No point in getting her hopes up in case this falls through.”
“Don’t think like that. Think positively. Heck, it would be my dream to snap my fingers and have some hot guy drop onto my doorstep.” She pauses. “Think it’ll work?”
“No.” Tallulah pads over and snuggles against me. I stroke her and murmur, “He says no piggycorns in the house.”
“That hot brute,” my bestie says with a dramatic eye roll. “What other torture did he make you agree to? Being chained to the bed while he runs a feather over your naked body?”
I explode with laughter. “No. Nothing like that. I locked him in the shamper. Don’t look at me like that. I have to make sure he’s not dangerous.”
“The first hot guy to come around in forever, and you lock him up with posters of eighties pop bands? Are you trying to torture the man?”
“Maybe.”
“Good God, what am I going to do with you?”
“I don’t know.”
“That’s it!” She throws her arms up. “You officially need a reeducation on men. I mean, you can’t deny that he’s good-looking.”
I shrug. Of course I don’t deny that. But he’s also smug, arrogant, horrible, conceited, privileged—all things that I can’t stand.
“Do you think he wants us to tell anybody that he’s here?” she asks.
“No. Since he’s trying to win his family’s company, it might give him an advantage if word gets out. This way it’s more fair if he wins.”
“Not if, Rowe—when.Whenhe wins. When he wins and you get to keep the farm and give Luke a huge middle finger.”
I hope so. But every time I think about Luke taking my farm, my stomach gets all knotted up. So, for that reason, I shove the thought away and stroke Tallulah’s head. “Pane said to keep his identity a secret—as best we can.”
Her mouth makes this part-grimace, part-cringe thing. “But people will ask who that hot man is.”
“Then I’ll lethimtell them.”
Now Cristina full-on grimaces.
“What? Have you already said something?”
She pulls her feet up to her chest. “I may have told a few people about him. Don’t panic. Not many. Just a couple.”
That could mean Cristina has only shared this with a few people. Or she could have toldmorethan just a few people. It could also meanthat the people she told will blab toall the wrong people, and word will spread faster than a fire doused with gasoline.
