My hand dropped. “What?”
“Outlaw called him this morning. He said yes. I’ll send the terms over later today.”
I didn’t say anything. I couldn’t.
He’d said yes. This morning. Without saying a word to me.
I’d been here before. Liking someone this much had already wrecked my life once.
The scary part wasn’t that Brock might hurt me. It was that he probably wouldn’t, and I was going to do something reckless anyway.
“Sienna? You still there?”
“Yeah.” I cleared my throat, forcing my voice back into something professional. “Send the terms. I’ll look them over tonight.”
“That’s what I like to hear. Talk soon.”
She hung up.
I sat on the step for a long time, the phone hot in my hand, trying to gather up whatever professional boundaries I had left. Then I went to find him.
He was in the tack room, leaning against the workbench and wiping down a saddle with one hand. The heavy smell of oiled leather and dust hung in the warm air. When my shoes scuffed the concrete, he looked up. His eyes caught mine, warm and pleased, and for a second I forgot why I’d come in here at all.
I crossed my arms. “My boss just called.”
He tossed the rag onto the bench. “Yeah? What’s the damage?”
“They want a whole campaign built around us doing couple content. And, she told me you already agreed to it this morning, without saying a word to me.”
“They caught me off guard. I didn’t think?—”
“I’m not mad about the campaign, Brock.” My voice came out sharper than I meant. I forced myself to take a breath. “I’m scared.”
That stopped him. He stepped around the table. “Of what?”
“Of this.” I gestured between us, then toward the open door and the ranch beyond it. “We have to be careful. Not careful likethe last few days, sneaking around hallways and getting lucky. Careful for real.”
“You want me to look at you like you’re nobody.”
"Like I'm your PR manager," I corrected, though the word tasted sour in my mouth. "Or rather, your publicist now, as they’re calling me. Because to your family, and to my agency, that’s what I am.”
“Same damn thing and you know it.” He took a step closer, jaw tight. “And how long are we supposed to do that? You want me to lie to my family forever? Sit at my own dinner table every night pretending I don’t want to touch you, then go stand in front of a camera and act like it’s all just for show?” He shook his head. “I’m not built for that, Sienna.”
“You have the best blank face I’ve ever worked with.”
“Not with you.”
He said it so simply that I had to look away for a second.
“Then don’t hide that you like me,” I said. “Twenty-three million people already watched you dive under a horse for me. That ship has sailed. Just hide that it went further than that. Because if anyone figures out it’s real—” My voice caught. “I can’t afford to get fired.”
He was quiet for a moment. When he spoke again, his voice was lower. “I’m not good at that. The sneaking around. The lying with a straight face.”
I opened my mouth to say something, but my eyes caught on his shoulder. He held it stiff. The anger that had been burning in my chest flickered and went soft.
“I don’t want you to lie either,” I said, quieter now. “I just… I need us to be smart about this, for both our sakes.”
Out in the barn, a horse shifted in its stall, the sound muffled through the wall. Brock looked at me for a long moment, his lips pressed firm, like the words were costing him something.
