Page 23 of The Rancher's Code

What everyone would say about me?—

Words escaped me, as a crushing feeling now weighed on the center of my chest. I brought a hand up to my chest, trying to still the sudden flood, but it was no use. I was going to drown in this awful, awful feeling, and there was nothing I could do about it?—

“Cole? Cole!” Dylan’s voice floated somewhere above me, as he came around behind my desk. He gently placed a hand on either side of my face, forcing me to look up at him. “Are you okay? What’s going on?”

“Nothing’s going on.”

“Okay, well, you practically ran out of lunch, and it looks like you were just having a panic attack, so?—”

“Shouldn’t you be doing your job?” My response came out cold. “Isn’t that what Amber is overpaying you for?”

“We’re back to being mean to me again? Really?”

“It was a mistake.”

“What?”

“Everything. All of it. It was just a mistake,” I pressed. “I should have never touched you.”

“But you did touch me. Multiple times.” Dylan’s eyes narrowed. “And you told me that you knew what you wanted.”

“I was wrong.”

“Look, I don’t need some big romance from you, okay? But you can’t just act like everything that happened between us was?—”

“There’s no point in even talking about this, Dylan,” I interrupted. “We both know this was never going to be anything real, anyway. I’m about to be the CEO of a billion-dollar corporation. Committing to anyone or anything right now besides the company is a complete waste of time. There’s also the fact that I’m going to be a walking target for gold-diggers and opportunists.”

“Is that what you think I am?” Dylan sounded hurt. “A gold-digger? An opportunist?”

“Dylan—”

“You kissed me first, Cole.” His voice shook as he spoke. “What the fuck? You touched me first!”

“I can only say I’m sorry so many times for that?—”

“You haven’t even said sorry once!” He exploded. “I don’t understand you at all, Cole! I gave you every opportunity to just… not go down this path. But you kept insisting and pushing and?—”

He stopped himself, holding up his hands. “You know what? It doesn’t matter. You’re right. There’s no point in even talking about this.”

“Dylan, I just?—”

“Nope. I’m done with this.” Dylan shook his head. “And you’re right about one other thing, too. I have a goddamn job to do.”

“Dylan. Dylan!”

I was standing outside of Dylan’s cabin in the middle of the night, feeling like an idiot, chockfull of regret. Even if I didn’t think we could really be together, I still shouldn’t have gone about it the way that I did, being as hurtful as possible.

What is wrong with me?

Maybe my dad was right about the self-sabotaging. Because I’d called things off with Dylan, I’d been distracted the rest of the workday, just wanting to find him on the property and offer up a full apology. I just wanted him to know that it wasn’t abouthim, it was about me, that I’d worked so hard for one thing in my life, and I wouldn’t know what to do if it slipped out of my hands.

He could understand that, couldn’t he?

I knew how hard he worked to become the wedding planner that he was. It was probably the only reason he was still willing to work with my sister, despite her increasingly impossible requests. He liked to push himself, to challenge himself to be even better.

Because he loved his job. Because he couldn’t see himself doing anything else.

That was how I felt about Stratton Ranch.

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