Page 79 of Parading the Cowboy Billionaire (Bluegrass Ranch 4)

Lawrence waited until he was back in his room, the door closed, before he said, “Easy for you to say, Duke. You went out with one blonde last night and have a date with a different one tonight.”

He paused in the middle of the room and looked at the boots lying beside the bed. Nope, he wasn’t going to wear those. He kicked them under the bed and went to his closet to get out a pair of sneakers. Mariah would hate these, and he put them on anyway.

She’d texted to say she’d be wearing a flowered sundress in navy and white, and wouldn’t they look so cute if he wore a red shirt?Like the flag, she’d said with a smiley face.

“So cute,” he muttered, stripping off the red shirt he’d already put on. He didn’t even like the color red, because it made his skin look pinker than it really needed to look, ever.

He pulled on a black plaid shirt that had big boxes of white in between the black ones. Faint yellow pinstripes ran down and across in the white parts, and he felt more like himself instantly.

He skipped brushing his teeth, because he wasn’t going to kiss Mariah anyway, and he went downstairs to find Ginny standing in the kitchen, a wooden spoon in one hand while she licked something off her fingers on the other.

She grinned at him, a bit of color coming into her face. “Heya, Lawrence.”

“Evening, ma’am,” he said. He was used to seeing Ginny Winters in the homestead. She and Cayden had been engaged since the Smash, and she loved to cook until he came in from the administration building.

Then whoever was around would eat, and she and Cayden would spread out their wedding plans on the dining room table and talk and talk and talk.

“Going out with Mariah again?”

“Again?” he asked. “We haven’t been out in weeks.”

Ginny lowered the wooden spoon. “Oh, I thought… You’re right. You left last week, but then you came back.” Her dark eyes fired questions at him, but Lawrence couldn’t even answer the ones already swimming in his own mind.

“I’m sorry,” she added, turning back to the bowl she’d been stirring.

“No, I’m sorry,” he said with a sigh. “I’m just in a mood, because I’m going to break up with her tonight.”

Ginny didn’t turn back to him, and he appreciated that. “You are? Things aren’t going well?”

“I think she’s only using me to go to her company parties.”

Ginny did face him again then, her eyes wide. “Have you asked her?”

“We sorta talked about it a while ago,” he mumbled. “At Blaine’s wedding, wedidagree to use the relationship as a way for her to get to her boss’s parties, but in my head, the agreement ended once the Smash did. Then we’d become a real couple, because she wouldn’t be working for us anymore.” He watched Ginny absorb the information, her mind obviously working much faster than his ever had.

“She had some sort of personal policy against dating clients,” he finished.

“Now she doesn’t want to go out,” Ginny said.

“Doesn’t seem like it.”

“Maybe she’s really busy?” Ginny guessed. “When Cayden first asked me out, I was so busy with the Harvest Festival at Sweet Rose, I put him off.”

“I don’t know,” Lawrence said, but he seriously doubted it. Mariah seemed to have plenty of time to go for coffee with friends after work, or get her nails done, both things he’d seen on her social media this week.

He gave Ginny a small smile and reached up to touch his hat. Mariah had tried to get him to not wear it once, but he’d done it anyway. She hadn’t said anything again, and Lawrence wondered how she’d react if the tables were turned.

He couldn’t even imagine texting her and telling her what to wear for their fake date that night—to an apple-tasting party, of all things.

No wonder she wanted him to wear red. When they’d gone to an event over the summer, she’d known the theme was country chic, but he hadn’t. She’d suggested he wear a red and white checkered shirt, and no less than twenty people had commented on how he and Mariah had really played up the theme.

In fact, she’d gotten the biggest case of the party because of it.

Guilt pulled through him as he left the homestead and walked over to his brand-new truck. None of his brothers had said anything, because he had his own money to spend, and if he wanted a two-ton truck, he could have a two-ton truck.

He didn’t like thinking that he’d bought the huge truck to make up for how small he felt inside his own life.

Think about it he did as he navigated across town to the spot where he’d met Mariah several times in the past. A parking lot at an all-night doughnut shop. Lawrence didn’t understand the point of Doughnuts After Dark, but they did have an amazing cake doughnut with maple frosting and a crumb topping.

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