Page 24 of Parading the Cowboy Billionaire (Bluegrass Ranch 4)

“You didn’t.” She blew out her breath and looked at Lawrence. She glanced away quickly, a little laugh coming out of her mouth. “My boss did that, and my ex-boyfriend. I just got frustrated this morning when I got the text that said the party tonight was couples-only, and it came in literally five seconds before you opened the door.”

Lawrence nodded. “How long have you had this job?”

“A year or so,” she said.

“The boyfriend?” He couldn’t believe he’d asked that.

He didn’t need to know that, and he was surprised when she answered with, “We’d only been dating a few months, but we’ve known each other a lot longer than that.” She looked at him, her eyes sliding down his chest to his knees and then his boots. “You know how couples aren’t really couples for a while? Until they have this strange talk about how they are dating exclusively, and now it’s suddenly okay to call a man your boyfriend? Or in your case, a woman your girlfriend?”

“I, uh, haven’t dated for a while,” Lawrence admitted, heat spiking in his face. “I do know what you’re referencing, though.”

“I’d been with Brady about ten months,” she said. “But we weren’t officially dating until January. So just a few months.”

Lawrence nodded again, glad Mariah wasn’t crying anymore and that her voice had returned to normal. They’d spoken on the phone a few times, and she’d never been nasally.

“I could be your boyfriend so you can go to the party,” he said, completely shocked as the words came out of his mouth.

She pulled in a breath and swung her eyes to his, hers wide and surprised too.

“I have no idea where that came from,” he said, jumping to his feet. Miraculously, his phone rang, and he looked at it. “It’s Cayden. We should get to the meeting.” He walked away from her before he could say or do anything else that was completely insane.

What are you doing?he asked himself, the voice in his head belonging to his brother.Who says they’ll be someone’s boyfriend so they can go to a barbecue at their boss’s house?

He shook his head, glad her footsteps sounded behind him as he retraced his steps to the conference room. He held the door open for her like a perfect Southern gentleman, but he couldn’t quite meet her gaze.

“Ah, we’re all back,” Cayden said, his voice big and booming and filling the room. “Come in, come in. Let’s get this show on the road.”

Lawrence took his spot at the table, which happened to be directly across the table from Mariah’s. Their eyes met, and another entire conversation happened in that single second of time. Then he glanced away as Cayden said, “I’m going to go through my vision for the event, and I need everyone to identify all the holes. Then we’ll work on plugging them.”

7

Mariah Barker could listen to the smooth, powerful voice of Cayden Chappell for hours. She could look at his brother for a lot longer than that.

She couldn’t believe she’d had a complete mental breakdown this morning. She hadn’t wanted to break-up with Brady; he’d ended their relationship on Monday night after a date that Mariah had actually thought went well.

She never saw things coming, and her eyebrows drew down. She told herself to focus, because the was an important client, and she needed every advantage she could get with her boss at The Gemini Group. That text from Dr. Biggers had just been a really rotten cherry on top of a melted sundae.

The barbecue tonight is only for couples, the text had read.I’m sorry to hear about you and Brady. I thought you were a handsome couple.

That was it. No,you’re not invited anymore, though that message was crystal clear.

Mariah had been working to get invited to Dr. Biggers’s parties, barbecues, dinners, and lunches for months. She’d never realized that those getting the invites were in relationships…until that morning.

Shock and anger had swept through her faster than she could blink, and when she’d looked up and seen Lawrence standing there, all she could see was the phony smile of Dr. Biggers.

Embarrassment continued to swirl through her, and it only intensified every time she looked in Lawrence’s direction.

I could be your boyfriend so you can go to the party.

He’d back-peddled quickly from there, and Mariah was still trying to figure out what he’d meant by that. He probably was too.

She honestly wanted to go back in time and redo this whole week.

She’d attended two of Dr. Biggers’s parties, and she’d gotten new assignments at both of them. She now knew why some of her colleagues seemed to advance quicker than she had. They literally had more opportunities than their weekly Monday morning meetings to get clients. She’d thought they’d brought those accounts to the firm themselves, but she’d been wrong. They simply had spouses or partners and got invited to cider tastings.

The desperation in her voice when she’d saidI need my jobechoed through her whole body. She hadn’t been lying; she just wished the person she was going to be working with for the next four months hadn’t heard her say it in such a way.

“All right,” Cayden said. “That’s it. That’s what we’re thinking for the event. What do you see that I can’t see?” He flipped his presentation to a blank screen and positioned his fingers on the keyboard.

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