Hot water sluiced down my shoulders and my back. My hands were braced on the tiled wall in front of me, head bowed. I swiped water off my face, deep breathing to will my body to calm down.

I was a man, and despite all my rage at Camilla, I apparently wasn’t in enough pain to kill the desire flooding my veins.

Every day I spent with Rebecca was a day I grew more attracted to her. Two weeks, twelve hours a day if not more, working side-by-side made it increasingly difficult to hide that attraction.

I had never been around a woman like her. She was strong physically, doing more during the day on the ranch than I’d ever thought her capable based on her lean frame and stature alone. But it was more than her body, how lithely she moved, and how graceful she appeared while she moved cattle or strolled through the barn, or how comfortable she was on an ATV.

It was the serenity I felt being next to her and outside in the fresh air. I ended every day feeling more accomplished than I ever did on a day on set.

The cattle on this farm fed millions of people throughout the country every year. She did something meaningful, providing nutrition, and often at night when she was on the patio, in front of the fire with a glass of wine in hand, she was also perusing farming magazines, constantly learning about new approaches to farming or how to become more efficient.

The ranch and her land wasn’t just heritage, it was in her blood. It was her passion.

I had never seen a woman before so enthralled with something as simple as a hayfield as she was. I could watch her work for hours and never grow tired of it.

Working beside her was no longer about a summer away from the crap in my own life, it was growing on me.

Ridiculous. Two weeks working on a ranch and I was feeling like some homegrown cowboy.

I couldn’t deny my pull to Rebecca any longer than I could will my erection away as I stood in the shower. The damn thing had a mind of its own when it came to Rebecca, the flare of her hips, the curves of her chest, the small waist I’d had my hands on just once when she tripped over a branch. I’d caught her right before she stumbled to her knees but the searing heat from my hands on her, even through the flimsy material of her worn shirt, had stayed with me for hours until I was able to get back to my guesthouse and take care of my physical needs.

Much like I was trying to avoid doing now.

I wanted her. But there was no way in hell she was ready to get even an inkling of where my thoughts went when we were together.

I had to remember that she was someone I was helping for the summer courtesy of my damn agent.

Rebecca wasn’t the kind of woman a man used to slake his physical need. She was a woman to be treasured, cherished, and taken care of every day for the rest of her life.

That man would never be me.

But hell, if I couldn’t have her, I could at least imagine being with her. If I took care of my need now, I’d be able to hide it better later.

The last thing I needed was my attraction to her obvious while we were around her friend Brooke, the human lie detector.

Forgoing my self-control, I wrapped my hand around my length. Closing my eyes, I imagined Rebecca, even when I tried not to. She wormed her way into my fantasies and I didn’t bother kicking her out.

I pictured her thighs, trim and muscled, wrapped around my waist, her back pressed against the tiled wall, her hands digging into my shoulder as I moved inside of her.

I imagined all that long black hair of hers, tangled and twisted in my hand as I slammed my mouth to hers, kissing away her pleasured gasps until her heat slickened walls were clamping around me.

I held her tighter, held myself tighter, thrust into her in my fantasy at the same time I tightened the grip on my erection. I groaned out my release, slamming my hand against the tiled wall as I cursed myself for not being able to stop thinking about wanting to fuck Rebecca, and yet reveled in the way that at least in my fantasies, she was so damn beautiful.

I flipped the spray of water toward my face and turned the water to ice cold.

“Shit. I am so screwed.”

---

“Max, what is this?”

I bit out the question while glaring at my laptop and gripping my phone so hard in my hand it might shatter.

Good news, I found something that could finally settle my erection. I just had to think of my soon to be ex-wife.

“I told her she didn’t want to do this when I caught wind of it, but she’s determined, Cooper.”

I pressed play on my laptop again and Camilla filled the screen. She was sitting in a chair, across the desk from the late night talk show host who I used to consider a friend.

He was also someone she slept with when we were married.

He must have been a better actor than me too because he looked as though he believed the bullshit Camilla was spewing. On late night fucking television to millions of viewers.

Last night.

“This is bullshit, Max. All of it. Why is she doing this?”

“Perhaps she means it and can’t think of a better way to apologize to you?”

I slammed the computer closed and pushed off the bed. He could barely hide the snark in his voice.

“Right. And I bet this doesn’t have anything to do with the fact that her attorney has most likely reminded her, again, how ironclad our prenup is and there isn’t a chance in hell she’s getting anything she wants since we now have a list of at least a dozen men she fucked during our marriage.”

Vomit rose in my throat. A dozen men. Those were the ones my private investigator I hired before heading to Kansas had been able to uncover in two weeks.

How was I so damn clueless I never saw it? Never even suspected it?

Worse, why was I suddenly so blasé about hearing that information?

Through the phone line, Max chuckled. “I would imagine it has something to do with that. What are you thinking?”

“Camilla is a manipulative whore.”

“Ouch, Coop. I know you’re hurting here, but —”

“But nothing. Camilla has proven she’ll do anything she wants, use anyone she wants in order to get her way, and I’m done with her. She gets exactly what she brought into our marriage and nothing more, and there isn’t a single fucking thing she can do to persuade me otherwise, not even begging for my forgiveness on national television.”

Silence filled the phone line and my head. For the first time since walking into my home and seeing Camilla with another man, the thick band squeezing my chest so tightly it hurt to breathe had loosened. Her apology meant crap and giving it while sitting across from another man she had screwed proved it.

She’d do anything she could to get ahead. That was Camilla—nothing but show, and I was the fool for falling for it for so damn long.

Thank goodness no one had discovered where I was yet. Which probably partly explained her flair for the dramatic. She didn’t know where I was and the lack of attention from me had to be driving her crazy.

For a moment I considered backing out of going with Rebecca. If people in town saw that spectacle on television the other night, my face on their television so recently might make it easier to recognize me.

Screw it. I wanted that drink out somewhere with Rebecca, around other people.

“I gotta get going Max.”

“How are things there?”

Difficult and complicated because I wanted to fuck his favorite niece, nothing he could ever know.

“They’re fine.”

“And Rebecca? How is she?”

Beautiful. Admirable. Strong. There were a hundred words I could use to describe her on the tip of my tongue. None I could tell him. “She’s good, Max. And she’s working me hard, just like you wanted.”

Cattle ranching was no joke even if I was starting to enjoy it, but I needed a night off, a night away from being either alone, or alone with Rebecca.

“Good.” I could practically see him smiling through his contented tone. “That’s good. I’m glad you could be there to help her. She’s stubborn, that girl. Take care of her, okay? And yourself.”

“Will do. You’ll get word to my attorney for me then?”

“Anything, Cooper. I’d do anything for you.”

That loosened band around my chest warmed and relaxed further. Max was always a good man. A cutthroat agent, demanding, and successful and he’d ruin anyone who crossed him, but deep down, he was as good as they came.

“Thanks, Max. Have a good night.”

I tossed my phone onto the bed after we disconnected and shoved thoughts of Camila’s latest tactics to the back corner of my mind reserved for politics, which I used slightly more often than talking about the weather.

I finished getting dressed and was at Rebecca's front door at six-thirty, needing that drink at the bar and a night out more than I had ever needed one in my life.