Page 4 of The Rancher's Vengeful Heart

Pick up someone's trash like it was something nothing out of the ordinary, and if that wasn't enough, the woman also made no attempt to reclaim her spot. And the moment she went straight to the end of the queue to line up again, that was it for him.

Finally.

For two years now, Lucius had lived like a monk, but his celibacy was not by choice at all. It was as if he had suddenly woken upone day, and the women he used to find attractive had become repulsive.

Everything about them had seemed too fake and contrived. Everything they cared about had seemed shallow to Lucius while everything they didn't care about made them undesirably callous in his eyes.

For two years now, no matter where he went and what he did, all the women he met did nothing to him.

They were all as appealing as dry, hard logs.

Untilher.

His gaze narrowed when he noticed her lips moving...in rhythm with the tapping of her feet.

Ah.

She was listening to something, her ears plugged with wireless buds. He studied the silent movement of her lips, and the words were surprisingly easy to read.

We've Only Just BegunbyThe Carpenters.

An interesting choice...which made it all the harder for Lucius to fight off the urge to take a photo of her with his phone.

Because that was all it would take.

He only needed to send her photo to his security team, wait an hour or so, and he would have in his possession a report that covered all the basics about her.

Name. Age. Address. Job. Email. Criminal history.

But if he was willing to wait an entire day, he would know more than that.

Depending on how much he was willing to pay—-

He could know everything about her.

Everything.

And his whole life, that was how he had always been with the women he fucked.

He needed to be in control, and he never risked leaving anything to chance.

Until now.

Because there was just something about this woman...

Something that made him want to ignore all his usual protocols...

And just go after her, the old-fucking-fashioned way.

Chapter One

VALENTINES IN FOXTOWN.

Tassy told herself this was good progress, never mind if she had needed a good 20 minutes just to come up with the title of her report.

Progress was progress, period.

3 words down, 997 to go, but who was counting? She was only forty minutes into her two-hour layover in Dallas, and that was usually more than enough time for her to finish writing, editing,andproofreading her report.

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