People were honest here, if you omitted Thaddeus who had greeted her by saying he’d be happy to buy the ranch, now that it was hers, so she could make a fresh start…and hadn’t bothered mentioning he’d wanted to sell it to the developer.
And you’d have to omit her mother, too. And Aloysius. They’d lied to her in the worst way imaginable, though the more time went by, the more she grudgingly admitted she understood.
Right or wrong, they’d lied because of love.
Look what she’d done because of love.
No. Not love. She’d never loved Lucas. She was a liar, too, when you came down to it, but a woman had to tell herself something when she gave her virginity to a coldhearted stranger.
Bebé snorted. Alyssa did, too, and leaned over his neck.
“You’re my one and only love,” she whispered as they headed down the long dirt road that led away from the house.
She urged him into a trot, then a gallop and felt some of the tension drain out of her. She belonged here, on this land, riding her own horse, not playing bedmate for a man who had never even pretended he loved her. Not that she’d wanted him to…
What was that? Something big and black, shimmering with heat waves from the sun. A bull, broken loose from the neighboring ranch? A horse?
A truck. An SUV, big and black and shiny. It was angled across the road with the damned fool driver standing beside it.
Alyssa drew back on the reins. Bebé snorted. He didn’t want his morning run spoiled by an outsider and neither did—
Oh God.
Even at this distance, there was no mistaking the identity of the man. That straight, I-own-the-universe stance. The folded arms. The proud angle of his head.
The Spanish prince was back.
She thought about turning Bebé around but that would be the coward’s way out. Or she could spur him into a gallop again, ride straight on by just like the first time—but the prince, arrogant fool that he was, had walked around the SUV and was standing right in front of it.
She couldn’t ride past him and while riding through him seemed a rewarding idea, spending the rest of her life in jail didn’t. Lucas Reyes wasn’t worth such a sacrifice.
“Come on, sweetie,” she whispered to the stallion, and moved him forward at a slow walk. When she reached the prince, she stopped.
“This is private property.”
“No,” he said politely, “it is not.”
“There’s only one ranch at the end of this road and you’re not welcome there.”
“That does not make this private property.”
Bebé pawed the ground and tossed his head. Alyssa leaned forward, crooned softly in his ear and he quieted.
“You have a nice touch,” the Spanish prince said.
Alyssa said nothing. Did he actually think his compliment had any meaning?
“Especially with stallions.”
A flush rose in her cheeks. She thought of half a dozen rejoinders and ignored them all.
“How did you know I’d be riding this road at this hour?”
“George was most cooperative.”
“George is an old fool. What do you want here, Your Highness?”
What, indeed? Lucas knew why he’d come. Closure. The problem was, seeing Alyssa, he was no longer sure of what that meant.