Mockery for certain, but maybe fun. Maybe something fresh and exciting. Maybe…
Julia Silva.
All the air in my lungs vanishes as I stare down into the dark irises of a woman I haven’t laid eyes on in over two years. Not since she left my suite without a single word. I didn’t need a thank-you note or anything, but still, it had stung.
The last time I saw her, she’d looked at me with apprehension—possibly even disgust—and today? Today she is looking at me like she’d rather be anywhere but here.
I open my mouth to say something, but words fail me. Because I wasn’t expecting her. Not in a million years.
Inky, straight curtains of hair frame her face, aviator sunglasses perch on top of her head. She gives me a pinched smile, and those big brown eyes are borderline apologetic. Her fingers tangle together near the waistband of her wide-leg jeans, a navy-and-white-striped button-down tucked neatly inside.
I find myself staring at the pink polish on her toenails peeping out of her sandals. It’s the same pink they were that night on the cruise. I remember it vividly. I’d been fucking panicked when her legs went limp. Her feet—with painted pink toes—bobbed lifelessly as I carried her to my room.
“Hey,” she ventures cautiously, most likely wondering why the fuck I’m staring at her feet like I have some sort of fetish.
My head snaps up to cover for getting lost in thought, and I meet her gaze, which searches my face for a reaction.
I work hard to keep my features blank, clamping my molars together to keep from letting my jaw hang open.
The truth is, I don’t know how to react to her. I’m caught off guard—something that doesn’t happen to me often. We may have had a run-in, but that was two years ago and in the wake of that, we both seem to have functioned as though nothing happened at all—and that’s fine by me. Because I know she’s not her brother, but fuck does she look like him.
And I hate Theo Silva’s stupid, happy face.
That smug little prick kicked my ass at finals this year. A win that has done nothing but add to the friction of our rivalry. A win that had my biological dad, Carl, berating me like I’d lost on purpose just to embarrass him personally.
I left the WBRF finals with a bigger chip on my shoulder than ever. Ready to show up next year and prove that you don’t need to be sport royalty or a bull-riding nepo baby to make a legacy for yourself.
“What the hell are you doing here?” I finally ask, because I can’t for the life of me figure out why Julia would come around to our place. We live on opposite sides of the valley and move in very different circles.
“We have a meeting.” Her voice crescendos at the end of the sentence as though she’s asking me a question. The bridge of her nose wrinkles. And it takes me a beat to put it all together as I stand here staring.
“You’re the location manager?”
She blows out an audible breath. “Yeah, trust me, I wasn’t expecting you to be the face of Romance Ranch either.”
I give her my best bland look, trying not to let the surging dread within me show. I thought I’d have until the show aired next year to hide from the embarrassment of this gig.
But now I have to contend with knowing Julia is surely going to tell Theo, who is surely going to tell his shitty best friend, Rhett Eaton, and they are both going to take a whole lot of pleasure in mocking me when the season starts up again. Our rivalry has turned downright hostile over the last couple of years, and as much as I secretly get off on needling them, I do not want to give them more ammo to come after me with than they already have.
And this? This is shit-talking gold.
My plan is for next season to be my last—if I can make it work. I want to win the whole thing and go out with a bang. Retire with a body and brain that aren’t totally ruined by hitting the dirt too many times.
Just once. I don’t need endless wins, but I want to be able to call myself a WBRF champion.
This show will air after that. So I don’t have to deal with the guys on the circuit mocking me mercilessly.
I’ll pretend to find true love for the cameras, and then I’ll dump the winning girl and disappear into a peaceful, hardworking life here in Emerald Lake. No competitors, or media, or Carl, who is constantly on my ass about winning just because he never could.
“Are you going to let me in?”
“No,” I mutter, before stepping out toward her. I come close enough that she’s forced to step back, and I gently shut the door behind myself.
I lean back against the door and cross my arms, a motion she mimics as she cocks a hip. Her body language screams attitude. Right now, she reminds me more of the girl who gave me a condescending once-over than the terrified, combative one who woke up in my room.
“I don’t want to work with a Silva.”
She nods, lips pressed together as though she’s keeping herself from saying something she shouldn’t.
“Yes, well, as Mick Jagger once famously said, ‘You can’t always get what you want.’ ”
My tongue pops to the side of my mouth as I glare back at Julia. “No.”
All she does is roll her eyes and let out a beleaguered sigh. “Listen, this is like a fucking dream job for someone who just graduated. It has nothing to do with you and everything to do with my career. You are just a character on a reality TV show. I’m not partaking, which means you’ll be too busy to even notice me. So, can you like… I don’t know. Buck the fuck up?”
I blink once for dramatic effect. “ ‘Buck the fuck up’?”
“Is ‘grow the fuck up’ better?”
My jaw drops ever so slightly. “Excuse me?”
“You don’t like my brother. My brother doesn’t like you. But I don’t care. You two are constantly after each other like little boys on a playground. It’s exhausting. You guys can go measure dicks, or whatever it is you like to do to each other, later. When I’m not present. This is a great opportunity for me, and I’m just doing my job. Like a grown-ass woman with professional goals. Because”—she pokes me firmly in the chest with each word—“I. Don’t. Care.”
My chin drops as my gaze locks onto the offending finger. “We would never measure dicks. He already knows his is smaller.”
She smiles, reaching up to pat me on the shoulder condescendingly. “Guess that big dick of yours didn’t help you win the championship this year though, huh?”
My tongue pushes into my cheek as I refrain from responding to that dig. She’s right. I shouldn’t take my frustration out on her. So I retreat, reaching behind myself to open the door. “Go ahead. Go get the lay of the land so you and Theo can have a good laugh about it later.”
She moves to step into the house but draws up short, head tilting as she regards me. “I wouldn’t do that.”
“Do what?” She smells fresh, like laundry soap.
“Disclose anything about this—about you—to my brother.”
I arch a brow in her direction, signaling that I don’t believe her.
“Did you tell anyone about that night?”
A pit forms in my stomach as I recall that night on the ship—like it always does. “No. Didn’t seem like my story to tell.”
Her eyes search my face as though she’s looking for something. The truth, perhaps. But that is the truth.
“Did you tell anyone?” I ask, curious. My head cocks as I recall an interaction. “Because once I asked Theo how you were doing. I genuinely wanted to check in. He told me to go fuck myself, though, so I got the sense he didn’t know.”
Her lips twitch as she carries on smoothly. “I told a counselor at the university. She helped me a lot. Other than that, it wasn’t something I wanted to rehash with my family or friends. Nothing happened. Onward and upward.”
I stare back at her, wondering if that’s the truth or just what she’s convinced herself of. Because it seems to me that something did happen. But I also understand not wanting to share every bit of trauma—God knows I don’t have a leg to stand on with that. So I settle on, “I’m glad to hear it.”
