I stifle a snort. Lorne fumes.
“I can assure you, whatever you saw was a trick of bad lighting.”
Colt roars with laughter. “Whatever you say, peanut.” He leaves Lorne fuming as he turns to Deirdre. “No but really, what the fuck are you doing here?”
“I told you, checking out my new property.”
Colt tenses. She smiles.
“I mean with just one month left, and…” she glances around. “Well, I don’t see any fiancée, Colt. Where are you hiding her?”
He scowls.
“Ahhh, that’s right. You don’t have a fiancée. Which means per our contract, in one month, your property becomes all of our property. And since it just takes one co-owner to force a sale?” Her lips curl wickedly. “As I said, it’s going to be a lovely golf course. Maybe you should start working on your short game.”
I blink in shock. Holy shit. If she wasn’t “Satan” for cheating on him—with this guy Lorne, no less—she certainly is for this crap. If Colt doesn’t have a fiancée in a month’s time, she gets to sell his land? I mean what the fuck is that?
“You know my lawyer is going to fight that,” Colt grunts.
His ex-wife laughs. “Well, good luck with that. Heir clauses only work if you have a kid, Colt. Or at least even the first steps towards that. And again, I don’t see a fiancée, do you?”
I quickly yank my phone out to google whatever the hell an “heir clause” is. A second later, my jaw drops. Holy shit, it’s actually a thing. It seems it’s a legal thing where a forced merger or sale is null if the primary partner has an “heir” to inherit the item or property being argued over.
In non-legal-mumbo-jumbo, it means if Colt had any kids, or at least a wife or fiancée, he could stop Deirdre from forcing the sale of his property. But he doesn’t, obviously, and apparently the clause ends in a month.
In one month, Satan here will swoop in, force a sale of his amazing ranch, and turn it into a freaking golf course. I frown. And with that goes my free place to live.
“Where is your fiancée, Colt?” Deirdre laughs. Even pathetic Lorne starts to chuckle.
“I mean honestly, where is she? Do you have her chained in the barn—oh Colt,” She put on a fake sympathetic look. “You do know you can’t legally marry one of your horses, right?”
I tell myself it’s because I desperately need a free place to stay and don’t want to lose that. I try and convince myself that what I’m doing is just because I hate bullies. Or that since I’ve recently been cheated and screwed like Colt was, that I’m extra sympathetic to him being raked over the coals like this.
It’s not because I want him. It’s not because when I look at him, butterflies flutter around inside of me, and my core clenches with heat.
Certainly not. Definitely not those things.
But whatever lies I tell myself, what happens next happens. I don’t think, I just act. I march out of the stable and head right over to the three of them.
Colt spots me first, and his brow furrows. “Tan—”
“Who the fuck is this?” Deirdre snaps, interrupting.
She turns to glare daggers at me. I just smile and walk right over to Colt.
“Colt!” she shrieks. “Who the hell is this?!”
He frowns. “Who I spend time with is none of your concern, Deirdre.”
“It damn well is!” She hisses. “Who is this little tramp?!”
Like I said, maybe it’s that I’ve been fucked over as hard as Colt has. I try to be adamant with myself that it has nothing to do with being horribly attracted to him. Or that I can still feel his hands and lips on me.
“Tansy,” I jut my hand out, glaring her right in the eye. “Colt’s fiancée.”
The whole scene goes deadly silence. I can feel Colt whipping his head around to stare down at me. But I don’t look at him. I just smile in Deirdre’s face.
“What?!” she screams furiously. “His what?!”
Colt is still starting at me, frowning slightly. But when I glance at him out of the corners of my eyes, I spot a grin starting to tug at the covers of his mouth.
“It’s just…” I sigh whimsically, smiling as I slink against him. I tremble inside as my hand slides around his waist. I turn, ignoring the thumping of my heart as I kiss the bare skin of his arm, beneath his t-shirt sleeve.
I’m milking it to fuck with her, of course. But seriously, she deserves to be fucked with.
“It’s just been a dream,” I gush. “We know it’s fast but…” I smile and look up at him. “What can I say? It was love at first sight, right honey?”
He’s still just staring at me in a mix of shock and amusement. But he catches on quickly. “Uh, yeah,” he smiles. “First sight.”
“I mean, sometimes you see someone for the first time, and it’s like they’re just…” I smile. “Bare to you. You know?”
Colt snorts next to me.
“Just no games, no armor…”
“No clothes,” he grunts.
I smile at her as she scowls back. “Yeah, just like that. Plus…” I put on my biggest shit-eating grin. “I mean, the sex is amaaaazing.”
Deirdre says nothing. Her botoxed lips thin as much as they can. Her eyes narrow at me.
“Get in the car, Lorne,” she hisses.
“Hey, great to have you stop by, Deirdre,” Colt grins. “I’m glad I could talk to you about Tansy face-to-face.” He turns to level his grin at Lorne. “I mean we’re all adults here, right?”
“This isn’t over,” Deirdre fumes. “This…” She shakes her head, looking like she might explode.
“So I guess I’ll have my lawyers talk to yours about putting the paperwork in for that extension, huh?”
She whirls back on him. “This is bullshit, Colt, and we both know it!”
“Is it?”
“I was born, but it wasn’t fucking yesterday,” she spits. “This is not your fiancée.”
“Sure she is.”
“That’s a load of crap!”
He shrugs. “Is it?”
Before I can
