Weston chuckled. “There’s no reason to freak out; she spilled the beans last night.”
“She failed to mention that to me.”
Hadley’s brother took a long drink of iced tea. “Must have slipped her mind when she told you about how she’s finally starting up her own consulting business.”
Something scratched against the back of Will’s brain, that you’re-about-to-get-fucked-over alert. When he’d explained his “assumptions” to Hadley, she’d acted as if she’d understood that always-on-edge feeling that a person just couldn’t shake and what it meant when he said it wasn’t there with her.
But what if what she’d really picked up on was a vulnerability that he hadn’t meant to admit to—one that a smart hustler like Hadley could exploit? It’s what he’d do in the boardroom. He’d discover the weakness and find a way to use it to get what he wanted. Of course, he was doing it to improve the company and the lives of those who worked there. She was doing it to fatten her bottom line.
The iced tea sloshed in his gut and his shoulders tensed until he could feel the pinch all through his body. He wanted to hurl.
“Now that she’s finally got the money to set up shop,” Weston went on, “there’s nothing that will stop her. Hadley’s always been determined and ambitious like that. She deserves to be happy in all parts of her life, don’t you think?”
All Will could hear beyond the white noise blaring in his ears was Hadley saying last night that she was done pretending.
Is this what she meant? Had she finally gotten the cash from Web without having to secure a wedding ring first? And was she really on the pill? Mia had thrown a fake pregnancy at him—and he’d told Hadley. Was she one-upping that and going for the real thing? Why go through all the trouble of faking falling in love, waiting for a wedding, and then having to deal with the person long enough to get the good alimony payout when a surprise baby would accomplish the same thing?
Web had said there was something he needed to tell Will about Hadley—was it a warning? He’d told Will to have a good time. He’d never said Will should fall in love.
An icy certainty chilled him from the inside out and his body—making him feel a bit like it belonged to someone else—started to loosen up. He had to hand it to Hadley, it was a helluva plan. He’d never seen it coming. Too bad for her that he did now.
Finishing off his sun tea, Will eyed the woman who’d gotten past all his defenses and slid the shiv right between his ribs without him ever seeing it coming.
“She definitely deserves something,” he told Weston as he set his empty glass on the table and headed for Hadley.
Keeping the smile on his face was work, but he managed as he strolled across the room to where Hadley stood with her mom and sister. Hooking his arm around her waist and pulling her in close, he looked down at her as if she wasn’t due an acting award.
“Do you guys mind if I steal Hadley for a little bit?” he asked.
“We’re done here,” Stephanie said. “Go ahead, she’s all yours.”
Yeah, a few minutes ago, he’d been a big enough fool to think that she was. What a fucking moron he’d been.
…
Something was very off. Will had been all smiles and soft touches inside the barn, but as soon as they walked out in the hot summer sunshine, his jaw had squared with tension and he’d let go of her hand. They marched in silence down the path to the cabin as the breeze that was always blowing across the prairies and twirling her hair around her face, smacked it against her cheeks and got strands of it stuck in her lip gloss.
“Is everything okay?” she asked as she tugged the strand away and tucked it behind her ear.
He held open the cabin door. “Let’s talk about it inside.”
The bed was still a mess of tangled sheets, and her bra from last night was still on the floor where it had fallen last night. The vibe inside now, though, was completely different. Edgy. Cold. Harsh. Rubbing her palms up and down her arms, she went through every possible scenario for what could have happened. The worst-possible scenario landed like a punch to the gut.
Whirling around to face him, fist pressed to her belly, she asked, “Did something happen with Web?”
Will’s left eye twitched, but that was all the reaction he had. “Web’s fine. When were you going to tell me about your business?”
The words were innocuous, but that didn’t stop the icy dread slithering through her veins. Something was wrong, really wrong. She stood there in the middle of the cabin with the man she’d fallen in love with, and it was all she could do not to cry and she didn’t even know why.
“Come on, Hadley, don’t hold out on me now.” Each word came out hard and cold, completely erasing the Will she thought she knew. “The gig is up—we both know you’ve been working on this little plan of yours for months.”
She had no idea what was going on. How he’d found out about the loan from her parents or why he was so mad about it. “Will—”
“And last night, that was for insurance obviously.” His lips curled upward, but it wasn’t any kind of thing that could be called a smile. “A nice touch. I mean, some people might say it was a step too far, but the Holt fortune is pretty big.”
Getting trampled by the bull in the north pasture couldn’t have hurt more than that accusation thrown out so casually that the cruelty was doubled. It sent her two steps back and reaching out for the wall to keep her balance.
“That is bullshit,” she finally got out, her voice hoarse.
Will let loose with a harsh chuckle. “Come on, you said it yourself: it was time to stop pretending.”
What. A. Bastard. Heat rushed up from somewhere deep inside her, a reservoir of fury she didn’t realize she possessed. “That’s what you think I was talking about? My nonexistent gold-digging scheme that you’re obsessed with?”
“Vigilant, not obsessed,” he snapped back. “Really, I think you should be proud of yourself, of just how you were almost able to pull it off.”
“The level of assholery here is epic.” Not to mention the case of emotional whiplash she had now—it had been what, a few hours since he signed his note with Xs and Os? Wow. He must have really meant everything he said.
“I agree.” He stalked forward, not getting anywhere near her but still moving around the room like a caged animal. “You really should have picked a brother and stuck with it.”
“You need to get your head out of your ass and stop assuming that everyone out there is just waiting to fuck you over. Grow up and learn that not everyone in the world is waiting to fuck you over, but with your shit attitude you sure do make it tempting.”
“I’m sure you’d like me to think that this was just my imagination.”
“Seriously, what is wrong with you?” She clamped her jaw shut so tight, her molars would have winced if they could to keep the angry tears building up from falling down her cheeks. For someone who’d spent most of her life faking that everything was perfect, she sure had been fucked over by someone who put her skills to shame. Fuck her, she’d believed him. She’d believed in them. She was an unrivaled moron. “I thought I’d been wrong about you, that I could just be me, that’s what I meant about not pretending. I thought we had something real.”
He scoffed. “The most dangerous lies are the ones we tell ourselves, darling. Then again, I bet that just makes you a more convincing gold digger.”
“Get out.”
“What, you don’t want to try to convince me of your down-home country truthfulness?” he asked, smirking as if this was all just a game.
Each word was salt getting ground into all the jagged wounds in her heart and at some point in time, a woman had to know when she’d reached her limit. Fuck this. She may not be perfect, but she was a better woman than he deserved.
“I’m done wasting my time with you.” She tossed him the keys to the rental. “Just go. Follow the gravel road to the highway and then your phone GPS will start working well enough to get you back to the airport.”
He paused inside the open door, keys in hand and a smug look on his handsome face. “What? No goodbye kiss for the road?”
“You really are the worst, Will Holt,” she said, truly meaning every single word of it for the very first time ever.
The bastard just took off his black cowboy hat and sent it sailing onto the bed. It landed with a soft thump in the middle of all the twisted-up sheets, a final fuck-you to what she’d been foolish enough to think meant something. Then he walked out the door and drove off in the rental.
Hadley kept it together until the dust cloud kicked up by the car’s tires disappeared. Then, with a silent cry, she let the tears flow.
Chapter Nineteen
Still seething and his gut a block of ice, Will boarded the plane back to Harbor City. The entire drive back to the airport, he’d spent mentally reviewing every single second of the trip, looking for what he’d missed, that telltale sign of Hadley’s true plan. Like some kind of masochistic fool, though, instead of finding the answers he wanted, he kept remembering the softness of her hair, the way she smiled when she didn’t think anyone was looking, and her absolutely hilariously awful drawing attempts during Pictionary.