Page 5 of Parading the Cowboy Billionaire (Bluegrass Ranch 4)

Anything to not have to face the fact that he’d kissed her, wished her well on vacation, and then dropped her without another word.

He twisted the doorknob and let her go through first. Ginny immediately kicked off her heels, because one of her ankles was throbbing from her fall. Her palms stung, and everything felt out of place.

She made it to a small settee from the 1600s that had been reupholstered in the ugliest fabric on the planet. Her mother loved it, but Ginny did not, so it got stuck in here. If Mother wanted it, she should take it to the mansion where she lived alone.

Ginny was so tired of being alone.

Her emotions stormed, and before she could contain it, a sob wrenched itself from her throat. She lifted her foot to her knee and started massaging her ankle, though it wasn’t hurt that badly.

“Ginny,” Cayden said. “Can I get you anything? A drink. Some medication.” He actually looked around like this storage room would have anything like that. It didn’t look like a storage room, so she could understand his desire, she supposed.

“No,” she said, looking down at her stained dress. The scent of fish hit her squarely in the nose, and a fresh wave of tears got triggered.

“Sweetheart,” he said softly, coming closer to her.

“Don’t you dare call me that,” she said, lifting her eyes to his. She was so tired of being so proper all the time. She wanted to rage and scream. She wanted to tell him what she really thought of his behavior. Then, she wanted to eat ice cream and tell her dogs all about it, probably while she cried.

She stood, raising herself to her full height, though she was nowhere near as tall as him. “You have a lot of nerve, Mister Chappell, coming here.”

“I got an invitation for this event.”

“You never called.” She folded her arms and fixed him with a hard stare.

He glared right back at her. “Last time I checked, phones make outbound calls too.” He took a step toward her.

“I wasn’t going to call someone who wasn’t interested,” she said.

“Neither was I.”

They stared at one another, and Ginny’s anger started to ebb away. “What happened?” she asked.

Cayden opened his mouth to say something, then promptly bit it closed again. She’d never known him to keep his mouth shut when he had something to say. He’d told her multiple times that he was interested in her, and that he wanted their relationship to be more than him escorting her to fancy parties.

He looked away, the indecision plain on his face despite the low lighting in the room. Watching him, she could feel his tender heart and his sexy vulnerability. She tasted him on her lips again, something that had been haunting her since their New Year’s kiss.

“Let me tell you how it looks from my end,” she said, her voice powerful but not loud. “You came to my New Year’s Eve party. We danced and laughed. We kissed, and it was amazing. Then you left, and I went on vacation. When I got back, you didn’t call. The one time we spoke, you said you were worried about Trey, the Sweetheart Classic, and the horses-of-all-ages sale at the ranch.”

She stopped and took a long breath, blowing it out slowly as if she were doing one of her yoga exercises. “I figured you were quite busy, so I left you alone, thinking you’d call when things wrapped up. You didn’t.”

Familiar nerves ran through her. Ginny had grown up with a cruel father and a proper mother, and she knew what inadequacy felt like. She’d been inadequate since the moment of her birth, and it was something she had not overcome yet.

With Cayden, though…he’d always made her feel like royalty, like her life was a gift to him personally. She hadn’t realized how much she’d needed that—neededhim—until he was suddenly gone.

“I apologize,” he said stiffly, still not looking at her.

“You apologize?” She took several quick steps toward him and touched his chest. “Look at me.”

He swung his head toward her, but ducked it, not truly meeting her gaze.

“You don’t say, ‘I apologize.’ That’s somethingIsay.”

“I don’t know what you want from me,” he said.

“I want the truth.” She pressed her palm against his chest again, not really pushing him, but needing to get his attention somehow. “Tell me what happened.”

He lifted his eyes to hers, anger and danger there. “I don’t want to tell you.”

“If you met someone else, just say so.”

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