Claim Me, Cowboy

“Noted.”

The way he said it made her think he wasn’t necessarily going to comply with her wishes just because she had made them known. He was difficult. No wonder he didn’t have an actual woman hanging around willing to marry him. She should have known there was something wrong with him. Because he was rich and kind of disgustingly handsome. His father shouldn’t have had to put an ad in the paper to find Joshua a woman.

He should be able to snap his fingers and have them come running.

That sent another shiver of disquiet over her. Yeah, maybe she should listen to those shivers... But the compensation. She needed the compensation.

“What am I going to do...with the rest of my time?”

“Stay here,” he said, as though that were the most obvious thing in the world. As though the idea of her rotting away up here in his mansion wasn’t weird at all. “And you have that baby. I assume it takes up a lot of your time?”

“He. Riley. And yes, he does take up a lot of time. He’s a baby. That’s kind of their thing.” He didn’t respond to that. “You know. Helpless, requiring every single one of their physical and emotional needs to be met by another person. Clearly you don’t know.”

Something in his face hardened. “No.”

“Well, this place is big enough you shouldn’t have to ever find out.”

“I keep strange hours,” he said. “I have to work with offices overseas, and I need to be available to speak to them on the phone, which means I only sleep for a couple of hours at a time. I also spend a lot of time outdoors.”

Looking at him, that last statement actually made sense. Yes, he had the bearing of an uptight businessman, but he was wearing a T-shirt and jeans. He was also the kind of physically fit that didn’t look like it had come from a gym, not that she was an expert on men or their physiques.

“What’s the catch?” she asked.

Nothing in life came this easy—she knew that for certain. She was waiting for the other shoe to drop. Waiting for him to lead her down to the dungeon and show her where he kept his torture pit.

“There is no catch. This is what happens when a man with a perverse sense of humor and too much money decides to teach his father a lesson.”

“So basically I live in this beautiful house, I wear your ring, I meet your family, I behave abominably and then I get paid?”

“That is the agreement, Ms. Kelly.”

“What if I steal your silverware?”

He chuckled. “Then I still win. If you take off in the dead of night, you don’t get your money, and I have the benefit of saying to my father that because of his ad I ended up with a con woman and then got my heart broken.”

He really had thought of everything. She supposed there was a reason he was successful.

“So do we... Is this happening?”

“There will be papers for you to sign, but yes. It is.” Any uncertainty he’d seemed to feel because of Riley was gone now.

He reached into the pocket of his jeans and pulled out a small, velvet box. He opened it, revealing a diamond ring so beautiful, so big, it bordered on obscene.

This was the moment. This was the moment when he would say he actually needed her to spend the day wandering around dressed as a teddy bear or something.

But that moment didn’t come either. Instead, he took the ring out of the box and held it out to her. “Give me your hand.”

She complied. She complied before she gave her body permission to. She didn’t know what she expected. For him to get down on one knee? For him to slide the ring onto her fourth finger? He did neither. Instead, he dropped the gem into her palm.

She curled her fingers around it, an electric shock moving through her system as she realized she was probably holding more money in her hand right now than she could ever hope to earn over the course of her lifetime.

Well, no, that wasn’t true. Because she was about to earn enough money over the next month to take care of herself and Riley forever. To make sure she got permanent custody of him.

Her life had been so hard, a constant series of moves and increasingly unsavory uncles her mother brought in and out of their lives. Hunger, cold, fear, uncertainty...

She wasn’t going to let Riley suffer the same fate. No, she was going to make sure her half brother was protected. This agreement, even if Joshua did ultimately want her to walk around dressed like a sexy teddy bear, was a small price to pay for Riley’s future.

“Yes,” she said, testing the weight of the ring. “It is.”

Two (#ua1f8a811-e73c-5aa7-845b-669e96871dfd)

As Joshua followed Danielle down the hall, he regretted not having a live-in housekeeper. An elderly British woman would come in handy at a time like this. She would probably find Danielle and her baby to be absolutely delightful. He, on the other hand, did not.

No, on the contrary, he felt invaded. Which was stupid. Because he had signed on for this. Though, he had signed on for it only after he had seen his father’s ad. After he had decided the old man needed to be taught a lesson once and for all about meddling in Joshua’s life.

It didn’t matter that his father had a soft heart or that he was coming from a good place. No, what mattered was the fact that Joshua was tired of being hounded every holiday, every time he went to dinner with his parents, about the possibility of him starting a family.

It wasn’t going to happen.

At one time, he’d thought that would be his future. Had been looking forward to it. But the people who said it was better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all clearly hadn’t caused the loss.

He was happy enough now to be alone. And when he didn’t want to be alone, he called a woman, had her come spend a few hours in his bed—or in the back of his truck, he wasn’t particular. Love was not on his agenda.

“This is a big house,” she said.

Danielle sounded vaguely judgmental, which seemed wrong, all things considered. Sure, he was the guy who had paid a woman to pose as his temporary fiancée. And sure, he was the man who lived in a house that had more square footage than he generally walked through in a day, but she was the one who had responded to an ad placed by a complete stranger looking for a temporary fiancée. So, all things considered, he didn’t feel like she had a lot of room to judge.

“Yes, it is.”

“Why? I mean, you live here alone, right?”

“Because size matters,” he said, ignoring the shifting, whimpering sound of the baby in her arms.

“Right,” she said, her tone dry. “I’ve lived in apartment buildings that were smaller than this.”

He stopped walking, then he turned to face her. “Am I supposed to feel something about that? Feel sorry for you? Feel bad about the fact that I live in a big house? Because trust me, I started humbly enough. I choose to live differently than my parents. Because I can. Because I earned it.”

“Oh, I see. In that case, I suppose I earned my dire straits.”

“I don’t know your life, Danielle. More important, I don’t want to know it.” He realized that was the first time he had used her first name. He didn’t much care.

“Great. Same goes. Except I’m going to be living in your house, so I’m going to definitely...infer some things about your life. And that might give rise to conversations like this one. And if you’re going to be assuming things about me, then you should be prepared for me to respond in kind.”

“I don’t have to do any such thing. As far as I’m concerned, I’m the employer, you’re the employee. That means if I want to talk to you about the emotional scars of my childhood, you had better lie back on my couch and listen. Conversely, if I do not want to hear about any of the scars of yours, I don’t have to. All I have to do is throw money at you until you stop talking.”

“Wow. It’s seriously the job offer I’ve been waiting for my entire life. Talking I’m pretty good at. And I don’t do a great job of shutting up. That means I would be getting money thrown at me for a long, long time.”

“Don’t test me, Ms. Kelly,” he said, reverting back to her last name, because he really didn’t want to know about her childhood or what brought her here. Didn’t want to wonder about her past. Didn’t want to wonder about her adulthood either. Who the father of her baby was. What kind of situation she was in. It wasn’t his business, and he didn’t care.