One Night Bride by Marika Ray
8
Remington
I needed to regroup.
Yesterday did not go as I’d planned. Esme wasn’t the carefree woman I met in Tahoe. She was so much more. And that woman wasn’t too excited about being married to me. Had to admit, the horror I saw in her expression when she found out we were legally married hurt my male pride a bit. When the day came that I hitched myself to a wife, I envisioned she’d at least look at me with vague fondness, not repulsion.
My stomach growled again, and I figured I’d either have to venture out of the guest room or eat my arm. Esme disappeared last night, leaving me to fend for myself, which was fine. I was a grown man and capable of figuring things out in a new town by myself, but I didn’t feel comfortable snooping through her house, nor did I have a car at my disposal. I ended up stuck in my room working until almost midnight with no food since Esme’s mom gave me a sandwich when I was still looking for the right address.
I popped open the guest room door and stuck my head out, assessing. I heard Esme’s voice—not yelling, which was a good sign—down the hallway. Stepping as lightly as I could, I headed in that direction, coming to a door slightly ajar. Esme sat in a white leather chair, her back to me, a large monitor in front of her on the rustic desk I could have sworn I saw once in a design magazine. Two huge lights in black boxes and a camera were set up to the side of her desk. The windows beyond her desk showed a panoramic view of the ocean below.
If the term Lady Boss had a mascot, it was her.
She was the queen of her office.
She was fucking hot.
She was also in the middle of a call with a client, a detail I finally noticed when she stuck her hand out to the side, out of the camera range, and motioned for me to go away.
I backed my head out of the doorway and ventured downstairs. Maybe she had some eggs and toast, or some cereal I could eat. I wasn’t picky, I just needed some damn food. As I walked through her house, I finally looked around and observed it all in detail. The view was amazing, the house was gorgeous, and the designer furnishings were impressive. My wife had money.
“Casing the joint?” a sweet voice asked from behind me.
I swung around and found Izzy, Esme’s sister and roommate, sitting at the bar in the kitchen. She was smiling, so I thought that meant she was teasing me. At least I hoped so.
“I’m just impressed. Twenty-four and she has all this. Didn’t seem like the money came from your parents, so it must be all her, right?” Her parents’ house, while nice, wasn’t anything that should be in a magazine.
Izzy’s smile broadened and I could see the love she had for her sister. They were also amazingly alike in looks. “Yep. This is all Esme. She’s always been a type A personality. She had a lemonade stand when we were kids. Dang, we made bank every summer. It was Esme’s idea to lure them in with twenty-five-cent lemonade, but then we’d have brownies and cookies priced high. I think we single-handedly kept the town dentist in business with all the cavities.”
I chuckled, imagining Esme as a little girl, barking out orders and hustling customers. “The more I get to know her, the more impressed I become,” I admitted, having a seat at the bar next to Izzy.
She shoved the pink bakery box over the granite counter, offering me a donut. “She comes by it naturally. Our father is the chief of police of Auburn Hill and has been for as long as I can remember. Oakley, whom you met yesterday—she’s the short one with her hair pulled back all the time—she became law enforcement just like Dad. Esme, well, she went a different direction, but just like Dad, she wants to be a leader. She is a leader. It’s online, and it’s women, but she’s always been someone you want in charge. She gets shit done.” Izzy looked out the window in the kitchen wistfully. “She’s a force of nature.”
I swallowed the bite of donut. “And as her twin sister, what does that make you?”
She spun toward me, her lips lifting into a grin again, like she was delighted I’d asked. “Everything in nature needs its opposite.”
I tilted my head, making a guess. “So, that means you’re the quiet before and after the storm. Just as important, if not needed even more than the storm. Understated power.”
Izzy paused for a long moment, a whole universe of emotions flickering through her eyes before putting her hand on my shoulder. “I see how you look at Esme, and while I know she’s not happy you’re here, I wish you luck. You’ll need it with her, obviously, but I think you might be good for her.” She shrugged and stood up, pulling her hand back. “Plus, I like you. And everyone knows if you get her twin to like you, it’s only a matter of time before Esme does too.”
She shot me a wink and walked out, humming a tune under her breath.
I turned back to the donuts and chose another one, considering Izzy’s words. I’d have to watch that one. She was quiet, but she didn’t miss a thing. She’d already picked up on the one thing I hadn’t let myself think about last night.
What if I wanted this marriage with Esme, not for the release from working the ranch, but because I actually could see myself falling for the woman?
My cell buzzed in my pocket, cutting me off from that dangerous thought. It was my younger brother, Ruger, calling, which meant it was probably something about the ranch. I’d been gone almost five days, after all.
“Hey, man,” I answered around the donut in my mouth.
“Hey,” Ruger’s slow drawl came through the phone. “I know you’re out there putting your plan in motion, but we got a problem here.”
My stomach clenched. “What is it?”
“Know those assholes to the east?” I nodded, though Ruger couldn’t see me. “They were up in that biplane again this morning, buzzing the ground. Some of the herd got scared and stampeded right through the fence which toppled a few more posts. We got about ten miles of fence down. Dad and I got the cows back in but they won’t stay in. I hate to ask you, but we need your help, man.”
“Of course. I’ll have Wayne fly me back right now.”
We ended our call, and I waited until he’d hung up before I let out the sigh I’d been holding in. It wasn’t my brother’s fault they needed an extra set of hands. It was still my family’s ranch, no matter that I had plans to leave it soon. Also not his fault that this little emergency was coming at the worst time. Things were a bit delicate with Esme at the moment.
“Sorry about that. I meant to touch base before I started my client session, but I didn’t want to wake you up either if you planned to sleep in.”
Esme breezed into the room, abruptly stopping her babbling. She kept wringing her hands, though. She looked just as professional this morning in a dark emerald blouse, black pants with a patent leather belt, and black stilettos that made me think of things I shouldn’t.
I stood up and grabbed her hands, stilling her movement. “It’s all good. Izzy fed me donuts. I have a crazy question for you.”
She raised an eyebrow. “Most of the things that come out of your mouth are crazy.” Referring, of course, to showing up on her doorstep yesterday and telling her we were married. And I wanted to stay married.
I grinned. Yep, I liked this girl. “I have an emergency back home in Wyoming on the ranch and I need to fly back to help out. Come with me.”
She reared her head back. “Wyoming? Come with you?”
I nodded, squeezing her hands, pleased she didn’t pull them away. “Exactly. You can still do your client sessions from the ranch. We have excellent Wi-Fi. And this way, we can get busy on filing for that annulment. If you don’t go with me, we’ll lose time and it seemed like you were in a rush for it.”
That was a bald-ass lie, but I was a desperate man. Desperate to have more time with her, to get to know her, and to prove to her we could be good together. I wouldn’t know and she wouldn’t know unless we spent some time together. What better way than to introduce her to my family? After all, I’d met hers. It was only fair.
Esme slid her hands away and paced back and forth through the kitchen. I watched her go, seeing the cogs and pins spinning in her brain as she thought it through. She was probably making a cost-benefit analysis of the trip, getting stuck in a mental decision-making process that ignored entirely what her gut was saying to her.
I was about to tell her she could even bring her fancy lighting and camera setup if she really needed it when she spun around and slapped her hand down on the counter.
“Fine. Let’s go.” She held her finger in the air. “But only because I want that annulment as soon as possible. Do you think they have a rush fee?”
Somehow, someway, I’d need to postpone filing the annulment as long as possible. Best way to distract Esme, I was finding, was to kiss her senseless. I rubbed my hands together.
“I’m really looking forward to this trip,” I said, feeling completely honest about that statement.
That finger turned to point at my chest. “You’re a disruptor, Remington Roth, and while that usually leads to amazing growth in a business setting, I’m not sure I like it in my personal life.”
I bit back a grin. “We can circle back to that later, lady boss. Right now, we got a plane to catch and a herd to rescue.” I gave her a pat on the shoulder and spun around to grab my suitcase.
“A herd?” she yelled at my back, sounding horrified yet again.
My booming laugh echoed through the house.
“We’re about to start our descent, sir,” came Wayne’s voice over the intercom.
“Buckle up, buttercup,” I told Esme, who’d been furiously typing on her computer the entire time we’d been on my jet.
She hadn’t made much comment when we’d boarded, even though I saw her darting glances around, taking in all the accoutrements on board. I’d hoped to spend the flight getting to know her, but the laptop was a serious cock blocker. Not that I wanted to know her sexually. I mean, I did, most definitely, but I wanted to know everything about her. The woman. The daughter. The businesswoman. All of her.
She shut her laptop on a sigh and slid it inside her leather carry-on bag.
“When we get to the ranch, I need you to play along with our marriage thing,” I said evenly, testing the waters.
Her head whipped up. “Excuse me?”
I nodded. “We’re married, right? I need you to not say anything about getting an annulment. The story is we met in Tahoe, fell madly in love, and got married.”
Her jaw dropped. “Excuse me?”
She was taking this as well as I thought she would. I fished the velvet box out of my jacket pocket.
“Here.” I opened the box and held it out to her.
Her eyes went wide and her mouth flopped open and closed like a fish. She leaned away from the box like it might jump out and bite her. Why did her reaction have to be the opposite of every other woman? Most ladies would have jumped at the chance to slide a two-carat diamond ring on their finger. All I was asking for was a couple days of acting. Surely she could do that for me.
I pulled back the box and tried to explain. “Listen, Esme. The ranch is a big deal to my family. My parents expect my brother and me to run it when they retire, which is about now. The only way we can get out of running it is if we get married. And well, we’re married. I need you to just go with it for the few days we’re here. Can you do that for me?”
Esme ran her fingers through her hair and blew out a breath. “Why do you want out of the ranch so badly?”
I looked out the window at the huge pastures we currently flew over that were so familiar to me. “I love the ranch. It’ll always be part of me, but I have other goals. Other dreams. The ranch is Ruger’s dream though, so my stepping aside will also give him his dream.”
She blew out another breath. “Well, great. If I say no, I’m blowing up two grown men’s dreams.”
“We’d be indebted to you forever,” I added, shifting closer and extending my arm across the narrow aisle to hold the ring in front of her face again.
She shook her head, but took the ring out, muttering under her breath.
“Wait!” I said quickly, startling her.
I took the ring out of her hand and held my palm out. “Give me your hand. I want to put the ring on.”
She gave me a look. “You know this isn’t real, right?”
I gave her a look right back, mine much more petulant. “I have a license that says otherwise.”
“You’re impossible,” she lobbed at me.
“You’re cute when you’re angry,” I said back.
“Don’t flirt fight with me.”
“You loved it when I flirted with you in Tahoe,” I reminded her, sliding the ring on her finger and feeling something shift in my chest.
Her angry gaze dropped to her finger and her shoulders dropped away from her ears. Something stilled in her, the anger leaving behind something that reminded me of wistfulness.
The plane touched down, the smooth landing I expected from Wayne. I pulled a titanium band out of my pocket and slid it on my own ring finger. Esme looked over, then back at her hand. The plane came to a stop on the runway and I stood, holding my hand out to her.
“Ready to go meet my—our—family, Mrs. Roth?”
“I feel very trapped,” she snapped, standing up without taking my hand.
“I’m sorry.”
She frowned. “No, you’re not.”
I couldn’t help a smirk. “Nope. I’m not. Don’t forget it takes two to sign a marriage license, lady boss.”
“Ugh! Don’t remind me!”