The Romeo Arrangement

I should’ve realized Dad was going to open their stalls, getting them ready for the trailer.

I should’ve just had an effing brain.

“Grace, I’m sorry,” Ridge says suddenly, raking me with this deep blue gaze. “For this morning. Accusing you of that media leak…I don’t know what the fuck I was thinking. Actually, I do. It was Hollywood hitting me in the face, everything I wanted left behind, and I panicked. Jumped to conclusions I shouldn’t have.”

I’m frozen.

Just when I thought nothing could make me feel worse, boom, there it is.

It’s not nearly as absurd to believe I’d ratted him out when I think about it.

He’s rich, famous, and reclusive.

Who wouldn’t want everyone and their dog to know they’re staying at his ranch? What scummy gutter reporter wouldn’t want inside baseball on the tragic boy actor who’s turned into a haunted man?

Practically everyone.

I’m sure he’s encountered his share of deranged fans, too, like the girls who came after him when he was America’s favorite teenage vampire heartthrob. Strangers on a selfish mission to upend his already messy, mysterious life.

Hello, I’m deranged!

“Grace, I—”

“Don’t say it, Ridge. I’m the one who should be sorry.” I keep my gaze glued to the windows, searching the area lit up by the headlights for the horses. “I know what your privacy means to you, and should’ve realized that when you got after me. It’s just…” I’m searching for a justification, a reason why I believed he’d use me as a tool for his career.

Stupid, I know.

All signs point to him meaning it when he calls himself retired.

“I’m the one who started it and got up in your business,” he says. “I told Jackknife Pete we were engaged that night at the bar, so…I get how you thought I’d told others, too.”

“But you wouldn’t have,” I argue. “You came here for privacy, a clean start, and now, thanks to me, you won’t have it any longer.”

I’m downplaying it so much. The reality is far worse.

And that reality slaps me across the face when he looks at me, his eyes twin blue fires, and asks, “Tell me one thing, Grace. Who the hell’s at the top of the pyramid? Who’s the real man after you?”

I instantly know he’s referring to Dad’s comment this morning. My stomach churns so hard bile rises in the back of my throat.

It’s the least he deserves, isn’t it?

An explanation.

He’s done so much for me, and now he’s wrapped up in the same sick chase I never would’ve wished on my worst enemy.

Without him, Dad and I would be—I clamp my back teeth together. I don’t even want to think where we’d be without Ridge Barnet right now.

“I told you, Dad hooked up with bad people years ago. Their leader is a man named Clay Grendal. I honestly don’t know the specifics, Dad never told me how they worked or what they did together, he never wanted me to know everything. What I do know is…Dad was involved when he worked at the railroad. He helped them with cargo, I think, probably tweaked manifests and oversaw transfers and such.”

“Yeah, he couldn’t have been in deep. They wouldn’t have even let him walk away,” Ridge says.

I nod weakly. “I don’t know what happened, but Dad decided to break away while he could. I was young, still a teenager then. We moved out of the city to the farm. Life was good, and then Mom got ill. Health insurance couldn’t cover everything, much less what she needed to really be comfortable and keep Sellers’ Pumpkins going. So Dad refinanced the place, but it still wasn’t nearly enough.”

I have to stop. Swallow. Blink back the tears.

He reaches over the center console, grasping my hand. “It’s okay. Now that everyone knows where you’re at, including this Grendal trash, we can fix it. The bastard just played his hand.”

It isn’t fair.

How those words coming from a heart in the right place can be so dead wrong.

Doesn’t he understand this isn’t one of his movies?

It isn’t that easy.

The ice-cold confidence in his voice chills me to my toes.

My throat locks up. I squeeze my eyes shut, holding back tears.

Nothing gets better with Clay knowing where we are. I’m sure he knows how to take Ridge apart piece by piece to savage my protector, my shield, my island of sanity.

Because of me, the next article those gossip mills write might be an obituary.

12

No Buts (Ridge)

I give Grace’s hand another squeeze before releasing it to hold the steering wheel, needing both hands to keep the truck steady on the rough unpaved roads between the fields.

She’s had one hell of a day.

It’s my job to make sure it ends without another death blow to her heart.

I have to find those damn horses.

Can’t help but feel partly responsible for this slip up, too, even if looking after Nelson took priority and nobody could’ve remembered what happened in the barn.