novelxo A Photo Finish: Chapter 3
Two years earlier . . .
AM I really about to do this?
I nibble on my bottom lip and let my index finger hover over the mouse. On one hand, this is a colossally bad idea. This could backfire in so many ways. But who am I in the grand scheme of things? A twenty-five-year-old with little to show for herself—except a distinct lack of life experience and independence.
Growing up on a farm smothered by an overprotective dad and three older brothers will do that to a girl.
But now I’m here. On Canada’s West Coast. New job under my belt, new place to live, lots of possibilities on the horizon. Now I need to get to know myself. To rack up some experiences and push my boundaries.
I’m not sure why posting a nude on Clikkit—an online forum with millions of users who dabble in a wide range of interests—is that thing, but it seems risky . . . a little bit exciting . . . and a lot out of character. Which is what I’m going for. I’m tired of being sheltered. I want to feel exposed and uncomfortable without someone here to leap in front of me.
I want to do something young and stupid. Plus, I’m horny and lonely.
I click the button with force. The pad of my finger slaps against the mouse loudly. I immediately feel myself blush. It starts at my toes and creeps up my body. It pools between my thighs and crawls up over my chest before staining my face with its heat.
I can’t believe I just did that.
The image stares back at me. It’s taken from above as I lie on my bed. You can’t see my face and I’m wearing my panties, so it’s not too outrageous. Okay, you can see my small breasts, but in Europe people go to the beach like this all the time. It’s no big deal—or at least that’s what I keep telling myself. The warm morning lighting is nice on my features, and it’s sensual. Usually, I’m hard on my body. Usually, I think everything is a little too small, not what I’d consider ‘womanly,’ but in this picture . . . I feel sexy.
So, fuck it! Look at my tits, world. See if I care!
I almost immediately consider deleting it. But the new Violet Eaton will not give in to that voice in her head, and my new internet alter ego, Pretty_in_Purple, doesn’t give two shits about that voice either.
I slam my laptop shut, shove my feet into my paddock boots, and jog down the stairs from my apartment above the barn at Gold Rush Ranch before I can change my mind.
Present Day…
My mental checklist is overflowing as I pack the last of what I’ll need into my little Volkswagen Golf. The one with rust patches above the wheel well and the chewed corner of the seat from when my favorite ranch dog was a puppy. The one I packed up and drove away from my family home when I finally set out on my own a little over two years ago. Some people might see a car that belongs in a junk pile. Me? I see my golden chariot to independence. I love this little car and everything it represents.
I stand back to assess everything I’ve stuffed into the back seat and blow a loose piece of hair off my face. It’s the first big race day of the season, and I’m trying, poorly, to keep my nerves at bay. This season is my shot, my chance to prove myself as a real jockey. To prove that my Northern Crown wins last year weren’t just a stroke of freshman luck. This job is supposed to be fun. Hard work, but fun. But today it just feels overwhelmingly heavy. The pressure weighs on me like an invisible lead vest. Even getting air into my lungs feels like it takes concentration.
I force myself to take a mental inventory of what’s all here and shake my head when I realize what I’ve forgotten. “Shit. Right. My silks.”
How great would that have been? Showing up to the track in Vancouver—which is at least an hour and a half from the farm here in Ruby Creek—without my Gold Rush Ranch silks. The black and gold uniform I wear every single race.
Shaking my head as I march back into the barn, I head down the long hall of offices toward the laundry room at the end. I live in a small apartment above the barn so I just do my laundry down here. I grew up on a proper ranch, in the dirt and snow, usually with hay in my hair, so the thought of washing all my clothes in the same machines used for the hairy horse laundry doesn’t bother me at all.
I’m almost to the door when I hear it.
“Violet.”
That voice. The low rumble of it. The threat woven into it. The man behind it. I swear my feet grow roots that shoot out and bind me to the ground. My heart knocks violently in my chest like it’s trying to get out and run away. And quite frankly, I don’t blame it. I want to get out of here too.
He wasn’t supposed to be here yet. I was supposed to be gone down the highway by the time he showed up. He was supposed to be out of my life. I was supposed to have left him behind. Forgotten him.
But I haven’t. I’ve warred with myself, wrestled and fought. Been with other men to prove to myself that I’m fine. But one word out of his mouth, and I seriously wonder if I am. I could run and hide, but that’s not how the new me handles this. The new Violet isn’t a shrinking Violet. That’s what I keep telling myself anyway.
Maybe one day it will feel true.
So I suck in as much oxygen as I can and hold my head up high. I refuse to let this man make me feel small or embarrassed. We have a shared past, but we’re both adults. This will be fine.
Spinning on one heel, I turn and march back to the office I just passed. The one that has sat empty for years. I stop just inside the doorway, partly because I don’t want to go any further and partly because I’m reeling. All it takes is one look at Cole Harding, sitting behind a desk in a dark suit, spinning the cufflinks on his shirt, for me to lose all the bravado I just puffed myself up with. I literally feel it roll right off me like someone has doused me with a bucket of cold water. My body’s reaction to him has never been normal, and today is no exception.
The inky hair, the gray eyes, the square shoulders, the sad tilt to his mouth. He crosses his arms under my gaze, and I roll my lips together at the sight. Just the way he moves, so sure and so calculated, drives me to distraction. There’s so much power coiled in every inch of his body. A soldier’s body.
His biceps are where my eyes land, and where they stay. They’re incredible. I wonder how they’d look completely bare, how they’d feel wrapped around me. I hate myself for even going there. But I keep my eyes trained on them, because it’s less unnerving than looking him in those soulful eyes. Silvery pools, deep and haunted and swirling with so much. The ones full of anger, and pain, and sorrow. Those are a much bigger problem for me. And for my heart.
“Violet.” He says my name like it’s a sentence, a full thought. Like I should know exactly what he means when he says it. But I don’t know anything where Cole Harding is concerned. I think I actually know less than anything. Other than the hair on my arms is standing up like there’s an electrical current running over me, and my stomach is flipping like I just shot down off the high point of a roller coaster. Which is apt, because my history with Cole is nothing if not a roller coaster.
“Everyone calls me Vi.” I hate how quiet my voice comes out. I hate the way my name sounds on his lips, too formal and too familiar all at once.
His eyes rove my body, but he doesn’t smile. It’s not appreciative. It’s more like he’s assessing me, like I’m a mess that needs cleaning up and he’s trying to figure out how. Shame lurches in my gut, flashes of the way he talked to me once and how it warmed me to my bones pop up in my head, but I do my best to will it away. I’ve worked too hard at moving on to go down that rabbit hole again.
“I’m not everyone,” he says plainly.
I hiss as I suck air in, trying not to sound like I’m gasping for it. Trying not to give away the fact that he’s just winded me with his words. Blood rushes in my ears and pools in my cheeks—like it always does. You look so fucking pretty in pink. He’d told me that once, and now it takes every ounce of my strength not to let my mind and body wander back to that day.
“What do you want, Cole?”
His eyes flash, and his body goes rigid right as his jaw ticks. Like somehow I’m the one who’s annoying him when he’s the one who called me in here. He could have kept his mouth shut, and I’d have been none the wiser. We could have avoided this entire encounter.
“I just want to make sure that we’re on the same page. That we can continue to stay out of each other’s way while I work out here. That you can keep things . . .” his eyes slide down my body and then back up, “professional.”
Professional. Nothing between us has ever been professional. He’s seen me naked, trampled my heart, and then showed back up out of nowhere with nothing but cool looks and mocking words and now expects me to keep things professional? Indignation flares up in me over the fact that he feels entitled to dictate how I should conduct myself. Like I don’t come up against enough of that in this industry as it is. It’s a sore spot, and he should know. I spent long nights telling him about my childhood. About how I struck out on my own. And now he’s going to waltz in here and talk to me like that? No way.
“Let me be clear, Cole.” This time I don’t let my voice waver, and I don’t stare at his biceps. I stare right into his steely eyes. “This is my place of work, and I am nothing if not professional. The way you’re talking to me right now? It isn’t professional. So, I’m going to continue doing exactly what I have been for the past year and you can stay out of my way. Think you can manage?”
His body snaps back slightly, and his eyes go wide. Like he didn’t see that coming. Didn’t see me coming. And he lashes out at me for it. I see the flash of insecurity on his face right before he spews his words back at me. And it’s that hint of sorrow that takes the bite out of them.
“Pretty in Purple was so sweet. What happened?”
I shake my head at him sadly. Because when it comes down to it, that’s what I feel when I see him, when I think of him. Sad.
“Seems like you mistook Pretty in Purple for a doormat.”
I look at him just long enough to see the forlorn look on his face, the crack in his cold exterior, before I turn and walk away. The spear to my damn heart. Golddigger85 is just as lost as he was before, just as complicated. Just as broken. And I’ve already decided I won’t tolerate the way he lashes out. We all make choices. That’s what he told me once, and he wasn’t wrong.
It’s why I moved on. It’s why I disappeared without a word. It’s why this awkwardness between us now is on him, not me. My head knows exactly what choices to make where Cole Harding is concerned.
But my heart?
It’s not so sure.