Chained (Roman Holiday 1)

It had been a mistake to chain herself to the tree. She should have called for reinforcements. All those people who came back to Sunnyvale every year, who loved it as much as she did—surely they would help if they knew. They had more experience, better connections, and she always did best as part of a crew.

That was where her talents lay: bringing people together, motivating them, smoothing out any little wrinkles to help a group pull together toward a common goal. She was a team player, not an oddball loner of the sort who could launch a successful solo protest.

Too bad this hadn’t occurred to her yesterday when Gus was still around. She might have told him that she was not remotely the sort of person who could live in a redwood for four years. A village of redwoods? Yes. Totally. She would be the one who started the Redwood Village Softball League.

But alone in a tree?

Fuck no. She’d never last.

“Yeah, that was more or less my whole pitch,” she admitted.

“You should have saved yourself the effort.”

A pickup truck pulled into the lot. Ashley recognized it even before Noah the contractor got out and hailed Roman with a lazy wave. Another car arrived, followed by a Jeep.

The crew. They were showing up to begin their day’s work of tearing her heart out of her body and driving over it with the scarred metal treads of their diesel-fueled implements of destruction.

Ashley’s shoulders sent a howling pain-memo to her central nervous system, and it took her a second to realize it was because she’d sat up, straightened her spine, and tossed her hair behind her shoulders. She’d done it without planning, without thinking. Her defiance was visceral, a full-body NO that seemed to have little to do with logic.

You should have saved yo

urself the effort.

Such a perfect line, delivered with such perfect blankness. She ought to feel defeated. Obviously, she was defeated. This man would roll right over her.

But her posture seemed to be insisting that the only reasonable answer to a line like that was Screw you, buddy.

She wouldn’t let him take the only place she had from her. Not ever, if she could help it, but definitely not today.

Lifting her chin, Ashley met Roman Díaz’s scary brown eyes. “The thing is, though, I don’t need a pitch. I’m in your way, and I’m not moving until you agree to send the machines home and call off the demolition.”

Roman rubbed one hand over his clean-shaven jaw.

He walked away.

“Hey!” she called. “Where are you going?”

He turned around to walk backward, casual as could be. “I’m going to talk to my crew. Then I’m going to send somebody over to give you a drink of water. And then, once I’ve made sure you’re in no danger of dying on me, I’m going to ignore you until you beg me to cut you loose.”

Ashley watched him turn without breaking stride, graceful and dangerous as a swordsman. He strolled toward the parking lot, briefcase swinging gently in his grip. When he was within verbal range, Noah said something, and Roman broke into a huge, easy smile.

A devastating smile.

She’d known it would be devastating, and it totally, completely, absolutely was. Just as bad as she’d figured. Worse.

Damn it all to hell.

Ashley took a deep breath, but then she couldn’t figure out what to do with the air. Or her face. The only sound she could make was a sort of stupefied huff.

This evil Latino Canadian land developer was an opponent ten times more formidable than she’d imagined.

CHAPTER TWO

Roman held out his hand.

“Right now?” Noah asked.

“I won, didn’t I? Pay up.”