Page 23 of Parading the Cowboy Billionaire (Bluegrass Ranch 4)

The door behind him opened, and Cayden asked, “What are you doing? We need her.”

“I was apologizing,” Lawrence said, barely glancing at him. Mariah was going to come back any moment now.

When she didn’t, Cayden hissed, “Go get her,” and stepped back inside as one of the marketing execs asked him something.

Lawrence was fairly sure following Mariah was a bad idea. He felt stuck between a rock and a hard place, but he walked away from the conference room. That would keep Cayden off his back at the very least.

Mariah wasn’t in the lobby, and he glanced down the other hallway, which led to their sales offices. They didn’t open until ten, and the hallway sat in darkness. He couldn’t imagine Mariah had gone that way.

He pushed outside, the sunshine bright this morning. Thankfully, a breeze blew, and Lawrence reached up to press on his hat so it wouldn’t get stolen.

She wasn’t out here either, but her car sat next to a fancy, black SUV, as well as his and Cayden’s pickup trucks.

“Lord,” he prayed quickly. “Where is she?” He didn’t get an answer, but his logic told him there was only a couple of places she could be. Down the dark hallway or around the corner out here.

He called, “Mariah?” and walked to the end of the building closest to him. There were no benches or anything here, and she wasn’t anywhere to be found.

Lawrence returned to the building and turned down the hall toward the sales offices. Only a few steps later, he heard sniffling, and he slowed his gait. “Mariah,” he said softly.

“I just need a minute,” she said, her voice high-pitched.

He paused and pressed his back into the wall. There were couches outside the sales offices, and she’d obviously found one. He wished he had something to make her feel better, but he literally didn’t know a thing about her—other than she liked to put smiley face emojis at the end of her emails.

After what felt like a long time but was probably only a half a minute, she said, “I need my job.”

“I’m not going to say anything,” he said.

“I’m normally very professional,” she said, her voice cracking again.

“I’m sure you are.” He closed his eyes and prayed for help. “Do you want to give me some context?”

“You’re my biggest client,” she said. “I’m going to do a good job for you.”

“I meant about the chauvinistic boss.”

Several more seconds went by, and Lawrence suspected Cayden would lose his temper soon enough if Lawrence didn’t get Mariah back into that conference room.

“Do you only invite married people to your company parties?” she asked. “Or people with boyfriends or girlfriends?”

“No,” Lawrence said, though Bluegrass didn’t really have company parties. “That’s ridiculous.”

“That’s my boss.” She sighed. “He’s having a barbecue tonight, and I was invited…until my boyfriend broke up with me. So you know, I’m just having a great week.”

“I’m sorry,” Lawrence murmured. A break-up was hard enough.

“My boss talks business at his personal events,” she said. “It’s how I got this assignment, and you guys are huge. At least Dr. Biggers made it sound like you were. I was thrilled to take you on, and I wouldn’t have gotten it had I not been there.” She sniffled, and Lawrence couldn’t stand her being by herself.

“I’m coming around the corner,” he said, and he waited for her to say he shouldn’t. She didn’t, and Lawrence took a few more steps to get around the corner. The couches he’d been expecting appeared, along with the pretty woman he’d been conversing with via email or phone until today.

“Can I sit?”

“I suppose,” she said, her eyes trained on her hands.

“I don’t want to freak you out any more,” he said. “Cayden’s probably going to text me within five minutes, and he’ll want to know where we are and when we’ll be back.”

“I’ll be ready,” she said, straightening her shoulders. “I’m sorry. Really.”

“I didn’t mean to make your bad week worse.”

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