The Barefoot Groom: Bachelor Billionaire Romance (A Last Play Companion)

by Taylor Hart

  Hunter’s fist clenched, and his eyes flashed with annoyance. “Yeah, watch your back.”

  Sterling’s laughter rippled through the air.

  Cooper laughed too, thinking of how angry Hunter had gotten when Sterling kept asking Summer out. Honestly, Cooper didn’t know if Sterling asked her out to tick Hunter off or because he liked her, but either way, it got a reaction out of Hunter every time.

  Hunter cocked an eyebrow and took a swig of wine. “Watch out Cooper. He’s not lying. He’ll try to take your woman when you’re not looking.”

  Chapter 7

  The next morning London got up, taking extra care with her appearance. She actually ironed her white shirt and put on flashy jewelry she’d brought for the socials. She told herself taking extra care with her appearance had nothing to do with Cooper Harrison.

  Sure, she would be attending another one of his classes today. One on “The Art of Manifesting.” But she wasn’t attending it to see him. No, she was attending it to keep furthering her research.

  It’d touched her yesterday—the things he’d revealed. She couldn’t quit thinking about him the rest of the day. Not to mention how it felt to be near him, smell the Irish Spring of him. To have his hands in her hair and his lips against hers. The feel of his light stubble against her cheek.

  Exhaling a long breath, she put her hand to her stomach and tried to get a handle on herself. She’d never…felt like this so quickly for someone.

  Yes, she’d liked Dillon. Had a crush on him before he’d even asked her out. But this…the lyrics to ‘Let it Go’ flashed through her mind and she shook her head.

  No. No. No.

  That was not real.

  Fairytale kind of love did not exist.

  She sat on the hotel bed and pulled her computer to her, pulling up the article she’d written last night. The one that revealed all the things about him she would never reveal. The one that Marcia would want. The one that would get her the bonus and promotion.

  It’d come out of her like water being freed from a dam…freely, without remorse, demanding it topple out onto the page.

  It was a beautiful article…but the most beautiful part of it was the pain in it. The sacrifice he’d given to do the right thing for Nadia.

  It tortured her. As much as reading Romeo and Juliette the first time when she’d been ten.

  She’d written it to get it out of her mind. To free it. To free herself. She’d found from an early age when she wrote her feelings, she could move on.

  That’s what she’d done.

  Now, she went to the file and deleted it.

  Poof.

  It was gone.

  Relief spread through her.

  Closing her computer, she thought about how to to find another angle on him. Something she could give to Marcia and be able to still live with herself.

  Something that wouldn’t hurt him.

  Her phone buzzed, and she saw Marcia’s number.

  “Hello.” She really didn’t want to talk to her boss.

  “How’s the debunking going?”

  She hesitated, wondering how she would slant the article so she could live with herself and make Marcia happy at the same time. “Good.”

  Marcia laughed. “Whatever. Don’t be modest. I saw the article.”

  Crap. Double crap. She’d forgotten her files were tied to the shared file server.

  “What?”

  “It’s hilarious. I can’t believe you actually snuck into his hot tub, and he didn’t tell you who he was.”

  Her heart hammered into her chest. No. No. No. “The article isn’t accurate.”

  “Why?” Marcia demanded.

  “Because I listened to him yesterday, and he was really good.”

  “Just because he’s a good presenter doesn’t mean our audience, Rage’s audience, won’t want to hear the personal experience of how the master manipulator got manipulated.” She cackled. “Wow, you really went for the jugular on this one. All that stuff about his wife. I’m proud of you.”

  “Wait, no, it’s not right.”

  Marcia let out a breath. “What are you worried about? I told you I love it.”

  “No!” She snapped. “Look, I … you can’t publish that. I took advantage of what he said to me in private.”

  “You mean about his wife only coming back to leave him.”

  Closing her eyes, she pinched the top of her nose, her heart racing. “Marcia, listen to me—”

  “Oh, no, London. You can’t go soft on me. This is the article. The exact one. Rage is publishing it.”

  London’s mind whirled, trying to figure out possibilities. “He likes me.” She blurted out.

  “What?”

  “He … wants to get to know me.” Her stomach churned. Now she was really messing things up. She’d just told Cooper she couldn’t date him because of a boyfriend.

  “Really?”

  The only way to deter Marcia would be to offer her more. “Yes. I’ll find out more, re-write the article, and make it better. Just don’t publish what was on the server. Please.”

  “Hmm …”

  London could see her staring at the screen, wondering if she should send it off. “Are you kidding me, Marcia?” She found being as brassy to Marcia as she was to her was the only way to get through to her. “This could be big. Huge. Give me the week, I’ll get you a series of articles.”

  Marcia let out a long breath. “Fine. But whatever you give me better be huge or this article is as good as already read by the American public.”

  “Fine.” London’s hands felt clammy, but a knot of determination formed in her gut. “It’ll be so good you won’t even remember the first article.”

  An hour later, London sat in the back of the large auditorium, waiting for Cooper’s presentation. She’d skipped breakfast, knowing she wouldn’t be able to eat with this hanging over her.

  How could she have been so stupid? What was she going to do? She had to figure out how to write a series on him that was interesting and nice?

  It was mean. It was everything Marcia had wanted. Closing her eyes, she thought of how awful it would be if the article she’d already written ever got out and how it would hurt him.

  Cooper moved to the center of the stage, already barefoot and spread his hands wide. “Today, I want you all to think long and hard about something that’s not talked about very much—manifesting.”

  He paused. “Many of you might think this is some hocus pocus thing. But, I’ll tell you it’s not magic. It’s not silly, and it’s not like anything you’ve ever done.”

  London was intrigued. She’d read a bit about manifesting, but there was something about the energy in the auditorium today, something about the intense way Cooper Harrison spoke to them.

  “You see, everything starts in the spiritual world. I know some of you will say—I don’t believe in that. Well, I’m asking you to suspend your disbelief. I’m asking you to get curious, childlike. When you were a child, at some point you asked where did I come from? Where was I before I was here? According to your belief system, you were taught a certain answer. But what I have found after studying many beliefs and major religions is this: most religions are in agreement on one thing. As Pierre Teilhard de Chardin said, ‘We are NOT human beings having a spiritual experience, we are spiritual beings having a human experience.’” Combing his hand down his scruffy face, he looked thoughtful.

  Listening and watching, London found her crush deepening. It wasn’t anything serious though. She’d always been this way after all. Attracted to men who spoke about “thinking things.” In college, her roommate would ask her which professor she had her latest crush on. She’d been on the debate team at the University of Nebraska too. That meant she’d spent a lot of time around public speakers. She was hard on people who stood in front of a room. They had to have presence, and they had to know what the heck they were talking about. Cooper Harrison had both.

  He put his hand in the air. “Think a
bout how Einstein would take naps in the afternoon. It was said that he would go to sleep with nothing in his mind, and he would wake with his mind filled with solutions. He said these ideas came from something NOT in his mind. Then he would transfer the ideas to physical reality.” He let out a breath and scanned the crowd.

  Their eyes met, and he paused. The side of his mouth turned up in his trademark grin, and he nodded to her.

  Major butterflies filled her. She couldn’t help but smile back at him.

  Cooper turned to another section of the room. “ Suspend your disbelief and believe that everything is possible or might be possible. That it is within your reach. That you only have to delve into your mind and pull it to the physical realm … then … anything is possible.” He clapped his hands together, and she felt the jolt of electricity hit the room. “If you can pause your mind’s criticism and believe that anything is possible, you have just created it. Push a bit more, and let yourself believe that you can manifest anything you want. Then a relationship will be there too.”

  Uncertainty filled her. This part of his presentation didn’t make sense to her because you can’t manifest Mr. Right. She jotted down some notes about it. Granted, she’d been trained in debate and her career to notice the odd things. The things that made the arguments fail, but there was no way to account for controlling other people. She thought of Dillon and became more upset. Had she somehow manifested her fiancé cheating on her? No!

  Yes! This could be her angle. She’d found a fatal flaw. This would be much better than dishing dirt on the guru, betraying the guru. This would be simply dealing with a faulty argument.

  For the rest of the day, London bunkered down in her room trying to find different ways she could write a series of articles that were interesting without making him look bad. She wrote an article about the manifesting class and how she thought it was fantasy, unless all bad things were products of this manifesting too. How could that be right?

  She proceeded to go through death and disease—were people in charge of that? She felt more horrible with every word she wrote. She hated it. Hated that she was here and doing this.

  Then she thought of her almost nonprofit organization and pressed on.

  She could get through this, get the bonus, and then quit and go … somewhere and hole up and figure out the perfect nonprofit fundraising techniques.

  Her life would matter.

  She wouldn’t make the same mistake as the previous night. The new articles went to her personal laptop hard drive and not to the server. She’d be crazy to trust Marcia.

  By dinnertime, London was hungry, but she didn’t want to go down and talk to anybody. She decided to simply go through the dinner line and eat by herself out on the grass somewhere on the property.

  Going through the line, she saw Dante at a table filled with a bunch of men and women. He caught her eye and smiled.

  Weird. She didn’t smile back, simply looked away. He still gave her that weird vibe. Maybe it was just her, or maybe she was being ultra judgmental. Dillon used to tell her she was too judgmental of people. She didn’t know. All she knew was that she didn’t want anything to do with him. She snorted. She should have been more judgmental of Dillon.

  Getting her plate of food, she ducked out and headed away from the dance floor part of the property. She took a cement path to a large garden. The sun was starting to go down, but the cool air felt good. She liked that about Wyoming. It wasn’t cold, but it wasn’t too warm. It was just perfect in the evening. There was no getting away from it. Wyoming felt fresh.

  There was an old English maze garden. She followed the path and ended up in the center on a bench.

  It felt good not to be cooped up in her hotel room. Instead of sitting on the bench, she sprawled out on the grass next to it, stretching her legs wide and putting the food in front of her. She hadn’t done her Pilates for the past couple days and felt stiff. Taking a few bites, she breathed in the roses planted next to the bushes.

  The orderliness of the garden fit him. That and the peace of it.

  All she could think about was Cooper Harrison. How he’d looked in the hot tub the other night. The sleekness of him in his swimsuit. The confident way he’d joked and teased with her. The feel of his broad shoulders as she’d pulled him closer.

  She felt awful. She believed she had done the right thing, telling him she had a boyfriend. It was better this way. It would hurt more if she debunked him and he thought they were more than … The word didn’t come.

  More than what?

  It didn’t matter anyway, she was here to write a story!

  Sure, okay, she guessed she would consider him a friend.

  But he was a billionaire. Their social circles weren’t even in the same universe. Like she would ever even see him again after this conference. Honestly, she probably wouldn’t even see him for the rest of the conference.

  At least, not up close and personal like yesterday.

  Memories of the second and third times she kissed him rushed into her mind.

  Finishing her dinner, she pushed her plate to the side then lay back on the grass, letting herself soak up the last of the sun.

  On autopilot, she pulled in a leg and stretched, then the other leg. She pointed and flexed her toes. Reaching up over her head and stretching her whole body, she was about to pull her legs over her head and stretch into a pose when she heard something.

  Opening her eyes, she sat up quickly. “Is someone there?”

  Cooper made the last turn to the center of the garden.

  Of course, he was barefoot. Immediate surprise and a wide grin flashed across his face. “Well, hello.”

  Startled, she stood, picking up her dishes. “Oh, hi, sorry. I was just stretching and …”

  She trailed off because he was still giving her that stupid grin. The one that told her he was very happy to see her. “This isn’t a private part of your property, is it?” Honestly, she hadn’t thought about that.

  “No.” Their eyes stayed locked. He cleared his throat. “I like to walk through the gardens before everyone comes out for the night’s festivities.”

  It felt like she couldn’t look away. “I can see why. They’re beautiful.”

  Cocking an eyebrow, he smiled. “I didn’t see you this afternoon.”

  He’d noticed her absence?

  She started moving to the path to go back. “Oh, yeah, I had to do some work so I stayed in my room.”

  Moving in her direction, he stood in front of her path. “Wait.”

  Her heart picked up speed. “I should get back.”

  He didn’t move. “London?”

  She hesitated. “Yes?”

  His grin got even bigger. “Want to go for a helicopter ride with me?”

  Chapter 8

  Did it surprise Cooper that he’d asked this evasive woman with a boyfriend to come with him on his chopper?

  Yes.

  Did it surprise Cooper he’d thought about her the whole day, even though he knew she’d made it perfectly clear she didn’t want to pursue a relationship?

  Yes, a glutton for punishment, that’s what he must be.

  Was he sad she was now with him, spiraling across Jackson Hole with the sunset burning in the background?

  No.

  She laughed, her blonde hair flying in the wind. “This is awesome!”

  They were buckled in, but he hadn’t brought out the helmets. He was just taking them for a little spin.

  Gesturing to his hands on the controls, she shook her head. “I didn’t know you could fly a helicopter.”

  “Oh, there’s a lot you don’t know about the mild-mannered Cooper Harrison.”

  For a second, she looked stunned. Then she broke out into giggles. “Guru by day and flying vigilante by night?”

  He laughed with her, loving how easy and natural it felt between them. Call him insane, but this was what attracted him to her the most. It never felt like he was “Cooper Harrison.” It just felt norma
l. Had since the hot tub. He could talk to her. He could be himself with her.

  She pushed her hands up and waved them out the helicopter and let out a whoop. “This is awesome!”

  He let out a whoop too, loving it. Carefully, he directed the chopper to the helipad above Jackson Ski resort. He had a deal with them to use their helipad when he wanted, and if they had serious accidents in the winter and needed another chopper, his was available to them.

  Taking care, he gently set the chopper down and turned it off.

  Her blue eyes turned back to him, and joy filled her face. “Don’t tell me. Since you’re a bazillionaire, you get to park this thing wherever you want.”

  Nodding to the mountains, he said, “One of the perks, I guess. Let’s get out.”

  Cooper jumped down and then quickly went to her side, reaching up and helping her out. Once again, he admired her grace and beauty. He held her hand for a second until she was situated. “Are you ready for the best view in Jackson Hole?”

  She cocked an eyebrow. “I thought you said where we were the other day was the best view in Jackson Hole?”

  Spreading his hands, he grinned. “You caught me. I guess I better play closer attention to the things I tell you.” He cocked an eyebrow. “Seems like you’re good at finding out the truth.”

  “Guess so.”

  He led her to the side of the helipad. The tram that came up the mountain was next to them, and he could see a group of people getting on the tram to go down. Not wanting to make her uncomfortable, he let go of her hand. “Look, they’re leaving now. This is great timing.” Gesturing to a big rock, the one he often sat on when he came here, he asked, “Want to sit?”

  Their eyes met again, and he thought he saw her hesitating.

  “It’s fine if you don’t.” He put his hands up. “I know you met a boy last week and fell in a crazy love romance. Don’t worry, I wouldn’t try to steal you away or anything.” His heart raced, and he watched her expression shift from hesitant to amused.

  It unnerved him that he felt like a stupid frat boy at the moment. He was all tongue-tied like he’d just started college and it was his first time out with a beautiful sorority girl he wanted to impress. Not that he’d done more than a semester of college before dropping out.