Page 65 of Billionaire Lumberjack's Bride

I bound around to the other side and yank open my door. Whiskey jumps in first, and I slide into my seat, slam my door, start up the truck, and suck in a sharp breath to keep my blood from boiling. “What the fuck is that supposed to mean? Time to think?”

She sets down her bags at her feet without looking at me and offers a shrug. “About how you’ve been behaving.”

I gape at her. “About howI’vebeen behaving?”

Her green eyes finally cut my way, filled with a seriousness and resolve that wasn’t there when we drove down the mountain. “Yes.”

“What aboutyou?”

I throw the truck into drive and pull away from the curb a little too fast, the tires squealing slightly. It draws the attention of several people on the street who cast dirty looks our way. But it isn’t anything I’m not used to around here.

Now, it’s Lyla’s turn to gape at me. “And what exactly haveIbeen doing to you other than cooking for you and cleaning the cabin and helping with your chores and the animals? Tell me what has been so awful.”

She has a fair point there, but none of that is what I am talking about.

For days, she’s given me the cold shoulder, barely acknowledged I’m alive and acted likeIsomehow did something horrible to her when she was the one who damn-near died and almost killed me in the process. And the first chance she got, she started making calls.

Calls that were serious enough that she came back puffy-eyed and angry.

“Who were you on you on the phone with?”

A thousand possibilities ran through my mind during that half hour—from a secret boyfriend to a gossip magazine to the worst option of them all…

Carly to tell her she wantsout.

Lyla turns toward me in her seat and urges Whiskey to lie down so she can see me better. “Excuseme?”

“Who were you on the phone with?”

We reach the stop sign, and I turn to look at her, raising a brow as I wait for her potentially catastrophic answer.

She scowls and crosses her arms over her chest, looking out the window at the road leading up the mountain to my place. “None of your damn business.”

I throw on my blinker and make the turn. “Oh, I think it is my business now that we’re married.”

Lyla scoffs, releasing a sardonic laugh. “Oh, we’re going to playthatgame?” Her head bobs. “Okay, so why don’t you tell me why you moved here at eighteen and have been hiding out on the mountain like a fucking recluse when you could be living in a mansion anywhere in the world? Hell, probably on your own private island? Tell me why you had topaysomeone to marry you.”

Fucking hell.

A low growl slips from deep in my chest, and she flinches but continues to glare at me, heat in her eyes. Any fear she may have had of me early on has quickly been replaced by a fiery defiance that heats something low in my belly.

I return my focus to the road. “I see you’ve been talking to someone local.”

She shrugs again. “So, what if I was?”

“You signed an NDA.”

An important one.

If Uncle Marty or anyone else in the company gets word of our marriage, it would ruin the plan Ronald and I devised. One word out of Lyla’s mouth to the wrong person could end it all before I ever have a chance totryto save Bolton Steel.

“I didn’t tell them anything that isn’t public record.”

I tighten my grip on the wheel. “What happened with my family is none of your business. Why I’m here is none of your business. It hasnothingto do with you and me.”

Her jaw drops. “It haseverythingto do with you and me.”

“How do you figure?”

---