Want Me, Cowboy

His pain. Poppy’s own conflicted feelings.

It was easy to remember her conflicted feelings, since she still had them.

He was staring at her now, those slate eyes hard and glinting with an energy she couldn’t quite pin down. And with coldness, a coldness that hadn’t been there before Rosalind. A coldness that told her and any other woman—loud and clear—that his heart was unavailable.

That didn’t mean her own heart didn’t twist every time he walked into the room. Every time he leaned closer to her—like he was doing now—and she got a hint of the scent of him. Rugged and pine-laden and basically lumberjack porn for her senses.

He was a contradiction, from his cowboy hat down to his boots. A numbers guy who loved the outdoors and was built like he belonged outside doing hard labor.

Dear God, he was problematic.

He made her dizzy. Those broad shoulders, shoulders she wanted to grab on to. Lean waist and hips—hips she wanted to wrap her legs around. And his forearms...all hard muscle. She wanted to lick them.

He turned her into a being made of sensual frustration, and no one else did that. Ever. Sadly, she seemed to have no effect on him at all.

“I’m not trying to mislead anyone,” he said.

“Right. But you are trying to entice someone.” The very thought made her stomach twist into a knot. But jealousy was pointless. If Isaiah wanted her...well, he would have wanted her by now.

He straightened, moving away from her and walking across the office. She nearly sagged with relief. “My money should do that.” As if that solved every potential issue.

She bit back a weary sigh. “Would you like someone who was maybe...interested in who you are as a person?”

She knew that was a stupid question to ask of Isaiah Grayson. But she was his friend, as well as his employee. So it was kind of...her duty to work through this with him. Even if she didn’t want him to do this at all.

And she didn’t want him to find anyone.

Wow. Some friend she was.

But then, having...complex feelings for one’s friend made emotional altruism tricky.

“As you pointed out,” he said, his tone dry, “I’m an asshole.”

“You were actually the one who said that. I said you sounded like one.”

He waved his hand. “Either way, I’m not going to win Miss Congeniality in the pageant, and we both know that. Fine with me if somebody wants to get hitched and spend my money.”

She sighed heavily, ignoring the fact that her heart felt an awful lot like paper that had been crumpled up into a tight, mutilated ball. “Why do you even want a wife, Isaiah?”

“I explained that to you already. Joshua is settled. Devlin is settled.”

“Yes, they are. So why now?”

“I always imagined I would get married,” he said simply. “I never intended to spend my whole life single.”

“Is your biological clock ticking?” she asked drily.

“In a way,” he said. “Again, it all comes back to logic. I’m close to my family, to my brothers. They’ll have children sooner rather than later. Joshua and Danielle already have a son. Cousins should be close in age. It just makes sense.”

She bit the inside of her cheek. “So you...just think you can decide it’s time and then make it happen?”

“Yes. And I think Joshua’s experience proves you can make anything work as long as you have a common goal. It can be like math.”

She graduated from biting her cheek to her tongue. Isaiah was a numbers guy unto his soul. “Uh-huh.”

She refused to offer even a pat agreement because she just thought he was wrong. Not that she knew much of anything about relationships of...any kind really.

She’d been shuffled around so many foster homes as a child, and it wasn’t until she was in high school that she’d had a couple years of stability with one family. Which was where she’d met Rosalind, the one foster sibling Poppy was still in touch with. They’d shared a room and talked about a future where they were more than wards of the state.

In the years since, Poppy felt like she’d carved out a decent life for herself. But still, it wasn’t like she’d ever had any romantic relationships to speak of.

Pining after your boss didn’t count.

“The only aspect of going out and hooking up I like is the hooking up,” he said.

She wanted to punch him for that unnecessary addition to the conversation. She sucked her cheek in and bit the inside of it too. “Great.”

“When you think about it, making a relationship a transaction is smart. Marriage is a legal agreement. But you don’t just get sex. You get the benefit of having your household kept, children...”

“Right. Children.” She’d ignored his first mention of them, but... She pressed her hands to her stomach unconsciously. Then, she dropped them quickly.

She should not be thinking about Isaiah and children or the fact that he intended to have them with another woman.

Confusedfeelings was a cop-out. And it was hard to deny the truth when she was steeped in this kind of reaction to him, to his presence, to his plan, to his talk about children.

The fact of the matter was, she was tragically in love with him. And he’d never once seen her the way she saw him.

She’d met him through Rosalind. When Poppy had turned eighteen, she’d found herself released from her foster home with nowhere to go. Everything she owned was in an old canvas tote that a foster mom had given her years ago.

Rosalind had been the only person Poppy could think to call. The foster sister she’d bonded with in her last few years in care. She’d always kept in touch with Rosalind, even when Rosalind had moved to Seattle and got work.

Even when she’d started dating a wonderful man she couldn’t say enough good things about.

She was the only lifeline Poppy had, and she’d reached for her. And Rosalind had come through. She’d had Poppy come to Rosalind’s apartment, and then she’d arranged for a job interview with her boyfriend, who needed an assistant for a construction firm he was with.

In one afternoon, Poppy had found a place to live, gotten a job and lost her heart.

Of course, she had lost it, immediately and—in the fullness of time it had become clear—irrevocably, to the one man who was off-limits.

Her boss. Her foster sister’s boyfriend. Isaiah Grayson.

Though his status as her boss had lasted longer than his status as Rosalind’s boyfriend. He’d become her fiancé. And then after, her ex.

Poppy had lived with a divided heart for so long. Even after Isaiah and Rosalind’s split, Poppy was able to care for them both. Though she never, ever spoke to Rosalind in Isaiah’s presence, or even mentioned her.

Rosalind didn’t have the same embargo on mentions of Isaiah. But in fairness, Rosalind was the one who had cheated on him, cost him a major business deal and nearly ruined his start-up company and—by extension—nearly ruined his relationship with his business partner, who was also his brother.

So.