Duke was waiting for her when Ari walked into the kitchen first thing in the morning. She half expected to wake up and realize it was all a dream. She studied him through lowered eyelashes. If he was a dream she didn’t want to wake up yet.

He looked delicious leaning against the counter, his booted ankles crossed and a cup of coffee cradled in his hands. He had on a dark t-shirt under an opened plaid button down. Faded jeans hugged his legs. He hadn't shaved yet and the shadow on his jaw only heightened the sex appeal radiating from his golden skin.

How the hell was she supposed to act normal around the man who’d made her orgasm three times? Mortification climbed up her spine.

“Morning.” Her voice sounded more like a squeak.

He grinned as his gaze moved slowly up and down her body. Molly had sent up the periwinkle sundress this morning for their first photo shoot. It hugged her breasts in a corset style, while the skirt flared out and hit just above her knees. The kitten heels in white had straps that hugged her ankles.

Much more fancy than Ari had expected, but it was their engagement photo after all. Goosebumps broke out over her skin. Marriage. Was she seriously going to do this?

“Cream and sugar?” Duke asked, pouring a cup of coffee for her. The rough timbre of his voice did crazy things to her insides. So did the sight of his ass in those jeans. God he was perfect.

If she did in fact agree to this insane idea, she had to remember that it was all a publicity stunt. She’d be a fool to think it was anything more than that.

“Just cream.” Ari was pleased at how solid her voice sounded.

After he handed her the cup, he motioned for her to sit and then joined her at the farm table. The table was huge, yet he sat down right next to her. The heat from his body, the scent of soap and man filled her nostrils, made her entire body vibrate.

She grabbed her cup and held it between both hands.

When he ran a finger down over her bare shoulder, she shivered. Coffee sloshed over the rim of the cup and she set it down quickly. “I’m not sure about this. I haven’t agreed to anything yet.”

Duke sighed and pulled his hand away. “We’ll take some pictures, shoot some video today, and when we’re done, you can give me your answer.” He stood and put his cup in the sink.

Ari watched him, fighting back the sigh that threatened every time he was around. It was like being in the kitchen with Thor. If Thor had on tight blue jeans and a button down.

Duke turned and caught her staring. Heat burned into her cheeks.

“You shouldn’t say no before you even have a chance to see what life on a ranch is like. I’ll be your personal tour guide today.” He stressed the word personal and her face grew hotter. That man didn’t seem like the kind who would apologize for anything, much less his shameless flirting.

When he lifted an eyebrow, the challenge was clear. How did he know she would never back down? She stood, her half empty cup clutched in her hand. When she met his stare she lifted her chin. “Guess you’ll have to really wow me today, to make me agree to all this.”

His eyes darkened and his gaze turned downright hungry. “I think I already wowed you plenty, but okay Boston. I’m game if you are.”

“So what exactly do you do on a working ranch all day?” She needed to distract him, to catch her breath before she agreed to this crazy plan without Duke even doing anything.

His low chuckle spread like warm syrup through her veins. He knew he had her. A man like him, he’d know exactly how to get a woman where he wanted, she had no doubt. Ari almost snorted out loud. All a man like him had to do was lift those full lips into a sexy grin and women probably threw their clothes at him.

“Molly wants us to take a few still shots on the front porch, then a few more near the barn, and then I have a few of my own little ideas. I’m going to get it all on video for the fans.”

“Fine,” she agreed. “As long as you don’t have me do anything too embarrassing.”

“You’ll do as I say,” he told her.

He strode two steps and was in front of her before she even took a breath. His fingers wrapped around the back of her neck and his lips were one hers, the searing kiss taking away every rational thought in her head.

His tongue stroked boldly over hers and she leaned against his chest, her fingers tightening in his shirt. He fisted her hair harder and the tiny bites of pain made her moan into his mouth.

She felt him grow hard against her thigh. Flashes of last night filled her mind. Would it really be so bad? Maybe she should say yes to everything right now and they could go back to her room. She smiled against his lips and he finally pulled back rested his forehead against hers.

His eyes were almost black and his breath puffed against her now swollen lips. His grip had loosened and he moved his thumb up and down the back of her neck.

No one had ever claimed her like that before.

“We should get started,” she said on an exhale. If they stood in the kitchen much longer she just might drag him back upstairs.

Duke brushed his lips over hers one last time, the touch fleeting and soft. That kiss disarmed her almost as much as the ravenous one. Her hands shook as she loosened them from his shirt. She had to take a few steps back and regain some perspective. There were too many emotions swirling around inside her to be objective.

Because the reality was that despite how good it felt when Duke kissed her, she was still his employee and this was all just a paid gig that had an end date. She might walk away with a fat paycheck, but could she leave her heart behind in Montana if it came down to it?

It took all her control to push her feelings down and smooth her dress. “I’m ready. We should do this before we lose the light or something.” She forced a smile and stepped toward the door, and Duke moved in next to her, his hand settling on the small of her back. Despite her desire to remain impartial, his touch sent a wave of heat through her body.

“The photographer’s waiting outside, but I’ll be shooting the video after that. I told Molly it would look more authentic if I did it.”

Molly. The woman who hired her to come and pose as Duke’s girlfriend. Reminding her once again that this was just a job. Ari hated the way it made her guts twist. Why did it have to feel so damned real?

“Oh, before I forget.” Duke stopped and pulled her in front of him. He reached inside his pocket and pulled something out. It wasn’t until he brought her hand closer and slipped it on her finger that she saw it was a ring. A ring. A beautiful round diamond surrounded by a halo of tiny sapphire stones.

Ari stared at it. Tears burned the back of her eyes.

It would have been easier if it had been a huge gaudy five carat diamond.

She tugged on her hand but Duke refused to release her. Her watery gaze met his concerned one and she swallowed against the lump in her throat.

“I know you haven’t decided yet, but it’s for the pictures. Would look strange if they were engagement photos and no ring on your finger.”

His logical explanation was like a splash of cold water on her unstable emotions. She curled her fingers and finally pulled free from his touch. Her smile was too wide, it hurt her cheeks, but she sucked in a breath and moved past him.

“Hey, Boston.”

She didn’t turn around. Couldn’t let him see how much his words had hurt because she had no right to feel hurt. When she stepped out onto the porch a woman stood there with a fancy camera around her neck.

“You must be Arianna, the happy bride to be,” the woman said with a smile. “Congratulations.”

Ari shrugged and murmured something unintelligible. The photographer didn’t seem to notice her discomfort.

Everyone shook hands and the next hour past in a flurry of photos where Ari was forced to stand wrapped up in Duke’s arms, pretending that she was the happiest woman on earth when she felt like there was a huge sign on her forehead blinking LIAR.

Susan the photographer, deemed the session perfect and promised to email the photos to Molly as soon as she got back into town. After she left, Ari felt Duke’s gaze resting heavily on the back of her neck.

Her lips were still tingling from that last picture, one of them kissing. It had been Duke’s idea. Susan had shown them the picture and the way Duke cupped her head, the way her hands dug into his shoulders, it really looked like she and Duke were in love.

At least they’d have no trouble convincing anyone.

“Ari.”

She loved the way Duke said her name, expanding the R in that drawl of his. He moved past her and opened the front door, then bent down and stood back up, holding a pair of cowboy boots.

“You might want to put these on for the next part of the shoot.”

What she really wanted to do was collapse into bed and sleep. For a year. And they still had the entire day together--no make that an entire month--if she agreed to his plan.

“What exactly are we doing next?” Ari sat on the porch swing and pulled her sandals off. There was a pair of new socks tucked into one of the boots, which looked brand new too. They were a soft buttery brown with buckles and engravings up the length.

She had no idea how much boots cost, but they looked very expensive.

“This is a working ranch, and even though this part is mainly for the tourists, there’s still things that need to get done every day. I’m going to show you what we do around here.”

Ari pulled on the boots and sighed in relief. They were seriously the most comfortable shoes she’d ever had on her feet. No wonder cowboys lived in them.

“Should I change my clothes too?”

“Duke’s hot gaze ran up and down her body. “Nah. I’m liking this look right here. City meets country.”

She cleared her throat. “Well, this city girl has never stepped foot in a barn, much less milked a cow.”

Duke cleared his throat, seemingly annoyed with her assumption. “No milking on this ranch, Boston. We raise beef steers. And wheat and corn. We feed everyone, staff and guests, from our own stock when we can, and there’s gardens and chickens too.”

Pride filled his voice and Ari’s eyes widened in amazement. She’d never really given much thought to where the food on the grocery store shelves came from, and now she was standing right in the beating heart of it.

A few dozen ranch hands milled about, some in the barn, some in a small pasture where a few horses grazed, while still others were leading a couple towards a souped up four wheeler that looked like a golf cart with a back seat and a canopy.

She couldn’t take in everything fast enough and questions burned the end of her tongue. “What are they doing?” She pointed to the couple.

“Stu is taking them out to watch the separating in the north pasture today.”

He may as well have been speaking Greek. She didn’t understand a thing he just said. “Do you have the city version of that sentence?”

“The hands are taking them to a separate pasture. Usually they do most of it on four wheelers, but we have a team that goes out on horseback to give city people the wild west version.” He said this with an eye roll.

“So it’s not all like in the movies, huh?”

Duke snorted. “We’ve got some of the most advanced machinery working the fields now. Hundreds of thousands of acres of corn and wheat would never get harvested on time if we used manual labor, but for some reason, the people who come out here want to experience the way it all was done fifty years ago.”

He laid his hand on her lower back again and guided her toward the largest barn, a bright red monstrosity that was bigger than the schools in Boston.

“The buildings you see right here are mostly for the guests. We have bigger barns spread out over the property that house the machines and crew that run them. That’s where the real work takes place. Hell, we’ve got a chuck wagon over there that guests go nuts over. It’s part of the “sleeping under the stars package” or some crazy thing Molly came up with.”

The derision in his voice made Ari stop walking.

“Obviously you don’t like the idea of all this, the tourist part of the ranch, so why do it at all? You don’t strike me as someone who does anything he doesn't want to.”

Memories from last night filled her head and a blush crept up her cheeks. The things he’d done to her…that he must have wanted to do to her if she was correct.

“There are a lot of things I want.” His voice had gone low and husky, his drawl thick in every word. After a few seconds of staring at her, he exhaled roughly and dragged his hat off. It seemed to break whatever spell had fallen between them. “But sometimes you have to do other things, compromise.” He practically spat the word as if it was a profanity. “I employ an awful lot of people around here, and I can’t do it just with the ranch part of things.”

He looked out past the barn to where the land stretched out further than she could see. So much space. How the hell did he not get lost out there? Maybe there were signs or something.

“This place is my life so I’m willing to do just about anything to make sure it’s successful,” he concluded.

The bubble of emotion in her chest deflated and her shoulders sank. Of course he’d do anything, even something crazy like get married to a stranger, because this was his life. In a month she’d be back in Boston, her part in all this over, but Duke would be right here, working on his ranch.

This was his true love.

Not a woman but a plot of land.

She envied his dedication. It had taken her two years of indecision before she finally committed to college. Even now, she second guessed her major. What if she paid all that money and gave all her time and she hated what she was doing?

Ari looked around. Every person she saw had a job to do. Everyone here looked happy. Content. Well, everyone except Duke, but she knew that was because he obviously wanted to be out there working. He’d said as much.

“We can get a few videos and then you can go do whatever it is you do,” she told him. “You don’t have to babysit me all day.” Suddenly unsure, Ari twisted her hands together and waited. What had seemed like easy money a few days ago was a lot more complicated now.

Duke settled his hat back on his head and reached out to take her hand. Her skin burned where he touched her. Why did she have to be so damned attracted to him? Pretending would be a hell of a lot easier if she didn’t want to melt into his arms every time they touched.

“We need to make this look believable. No one but Molly knows what’s going on so every ranch hand and guest has to believe we’re in love. That means we’ll be spending a lot of time together, Boston. Like it or not.”

He gave her hand a tug and she stumbled forward, close enough to brace herself against his chest.

Duke dipped his head until their lips were only an inch apart. His gaze burned into hers and she couldn’t look away. When he stared at her like that, so intense and full of hunger, her knees went weak.

She always thought she’d end up with a guy who wore a suit, maybe who worked in a bank or office somewhere. Duke’s ruggedness drew her unexpectedly like a moth to a flame. Suddenly she preferred jeans and boots to a fancy suit. Rugged chiseled features over softness.

Would it be so bad to give in and just let this all happen?

“Might even have to kiss a few times, to make it look good,” he said.

Her gaze dropped to his mouth. Ari darted her tongue out to wet her bottom lip. Fire exploded in Duke’s eyes and he drew in a harsh breath.

“You are a fucking temptation, Boston,” he whispered hotly against her lips. His free hand snaked out and wrapped around her waist, pulled her close until she was pressed against his entire front.

Her hand was trapped between their bodies but the other had a mind of its own and slid around his neck. She tangled her fingers in the hair at his nape.

“Didn’t expect this...didn’t expect you.” He said it almost to himself right before his mouth crashed down over hers. He took her with a possessiveness that made her gasp. He swallowed the sound.

It wasn’t until the revving of an engine broke through the haze that he pulled away.

Ari looked over Duke’s shoulder and saw a man leaning out of the four-wheeler and the couple with him all staring at her and Duke. They all had grins on their faces.

“We should probably shoot those videos.” Her voice came out breathless and she forced her fingers to relax and let his shirt go. Duke followed her stare and then pulled his hat off and dipped his head.

The woman waved and the man driving sank back into the seat and put the four wheeler into gear. Duke shoved his hat back on, then took her hand.

Ari couldn’t escape the sinking feeling that he’d done that because they had an audience. He said it himself though; they had to appear in love.

“Let’s start with something simple.” He led her inside the enormous barn and down to the feed room where Ari saw large barrels lined against the wall. “That chart tells you who gets what and how much.”

She walked over to the list and saw names along with numbers and abbreviations. When she turned to ask Duke what they meant, he was holding up the video camera. She looked back at the barrels and realized that each one had the same abbreviations on them.

“Just grab a bucket and fill it with the right mixes, then we’ll head out and feed the horses. After that you can turn them out and muck the stalls.”

“Ummm…okay.”

She wasn’t sure what mucking was, but it sounded kind of gross.

With the camera recording, she carefully measured out the feed into what she discovered were labeled buckets, one for each horse. She grabbed two and started down the main hallway to find the right stall. The first, Midnight, was a beautiful black horse who hung it’s over the stall door when Ari started toward it.

The sounds coming from it were a little disconcerting and she set the other bucket down, except she wasn’t paying attention and didn’t notice that a brown horse in the adjoining stall was also eagerly waiting for its breakfast until there was a tug on her hair.

Ari expected that it was Duke, ready to make fun of her, but when she turned, the brown horse had the ends of her hair between its lips. Ari screamed and dropped the bucket she was holding.

Not used to the cowboy boots, she caught the heel on the legs of a bench and tripped, knocking over the bench and catching her shoulder against the side of the stall. As if that wasn’t bad enough, when she went to stand up she somehow stepped into the bucket and wedged the boot into the bottom so hard that it stuck.

She looked like a deranged tin man hopping around trying to get it off without falling over.

“There’s another bucket by your feet if you want to have a matching pair,” Duke said. “Don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone feed horses this way before, but hey, maybe they do it like this in the city?”

“Oh bite me,”Ari snapped. She struggled to pull her foot free and finally sat down on the bench and used her hands. The hair eating horse was reaching for her again and she ducked out of its way in the nick of time.

At the sound of the clanging bucket, the rest of the horses started making noises and more heads poked over stall doors until there were more eyes watching her than at her fifth grade dance recital. A couple of the ranch hands had even stopped and were watching in open mouthed surprise.

Her face burned.

She was supposed to be his fiancé, at least as far as the employees were concerned, and she couldn’t even feed the horses. What kind of ranch wife was she going to make?

Ari glanced at Duke who was watching her with an eyebrow lifted. Waiting to see what she did next.

The damned camera was still running, reminding her that this was all just one giant performance. Gathering as much dignity as she could, she stood and picked up the bucket.

“If you would show me how to feed them instead of sitting there and mocking me, I might actually learn something. Don’t you want your wife to help with the chores? Darlin’?” she taunted.

What she really wanted to do was step closer to Duke and dump the sweet smelling grain all over his head. That’s what would make her feel better.

His smirk widened and the way he looked at her, like he knew what she was thinking and he really wanted her to try it, made her pulse race. It wasn’t anger in his stare that sent her pulse pounding in her ears. It was the look of hot want that went right between her legs and made her nipples tighten.

“You are sexy as fuck when you get riled up, Boston.”

But then the brown horse let out a whinny so loud that it made Ari jump and knock over the bucket once again.

Duke chuckled. But kept recording.

Somehow she managed to feed Midnight and Percy without another incident and then Duke let the other ranch hands finish the job before the horses starved to death waiting for her.

“Why do we have to do this if I’m just slowing everything down?” she argued. Already her arms ached and they hadn’t done anything except feed two horses and lead them outside. The horses were huge and every time one of them took a step, Ari was sure they would step on her foot and break it.

“You should know what goes on at a ranch this size. Any self respecting adult around here knows how to feed animals or clean out a stall. You’ll thank me for this one day.”

Ari snorted. “Like there are that many stalls to clean in an office cubicle.”

The recording light on the camera stopped flashing and Luke lowered his arm. She swallowed when he stepped up so close that she felt his warm breath on her lips.

“What if you never went back to the city?” His eyes bore into hers.

Ari stared at Duke, her eyes widening. When he said nothing else, she exhaled and forced herself to relax. He couldn’t mean...but for the rest of the afternoon, as Duke led her around the ranch and shot various scenes of her doing everyday chores very badly, Ari couldn’t stop thinking about what he’d said.

The hell with convincing the help and guests they were in love, she half believed it herself. If Duke was acting, he belonged in Hollywood.

If he wasn’t...she didn’t dare think what that might mean.