Branded

by Stacy Gail

  Dear God, he actually had the gall to talk about respect, after the way he’d publicly spanked her on the bottom... “Look—”

  “That’s why I’m glad it was my ass you grabbed that night, Celia,” he went on, talking over her until the mortification crushed her words into nothing. “I’ve thought about that night over and over for months. Aside from the obvious, you know what keeps me awake at night?”

  If it were possible to die of embarrassment, she had to at least be suffering a near-death experience. “I can imagine.”

  “I said, aside from the obvious. What keeps me awake at night is the thought that you could’ve grabbed someone else’s ass when you were falling-down drunk and completely vulnerable. Anything could’ve happened to you that night. It was a damn lucky thing that instead of making a move on some other guy, that little hand of yours found my ass to feel up.”

  Yep. Definitely time to shake off her mortal coil. “I don’t want to talk about this anymore.”

  “Too bad, because we’re talking this out until I know for certain we understand each other. That’s the main reason why I brought you back here, to make sure I had your attention.”

  “Oh, you have it, and I understand everything just fine.” Like how she wanted to seep through the cracks in the wooden deck and never see the light of day again. Yeah. She totally understood that.

  “No, I don’t think you do.” He draped his arm over the back of her chair. He didn’t touch her, but he was so close every nerve in her back instantly became hypersensitive. “Look at me.”

  “Actually, I’m done with dinner, and even more done with this conver—”

  “Look at me, Celia.” The order snapped out so authoritatively she couldn’t help but do exactly as he instructed, her gaze bouncing up to meet those vivid green eyes that somehow had the power to hold her breathlessly in place. “I want you to look at me so that you’ll understand I mean every word I’m saying.”

  “I’m looking.” And for some reason, what she saw made her heart beat her half to death.

  “I wasn’t yanking your chain when I said I’ve been allowing you to avoid me. At the time, it was convenient to let you work all things Brody out of your system without interference, because not only am I eight years older than you chronologically, I’ve also got some serious fucking mileage on me that makes me a thousand years older even than that. I didn’t need the hassle of a fresh-faced twenty-something kid acting on a big-ass, Brody-worshipping crush.”

  Seriously, why wouldn’t he just shut the hell up? “Then you’ve got nothing to worry about, pal. You’re the last man on earth that I would ever crush on.”

  “I’m fucking thrilled to hear you say that. Little girls crush. Full-grown women know better. I’ve got no time for the one, and all the time in the world for the other.”

  “At the risk of repeating myself,” she gritted out so stiffly her lips barely moved, “you don’t have to worry. You’re not so irresistible that I’d once again make the boneheaded mistake of grabbing your ass while working on this project.”

  His gaze sharpened. “Let’s table the option of ass-grabbing for the moment. Are you saying you’ll agree to do the Pure Angus project?”

  She sighed gustily and tried to think of all the lovely money a project like he was proposing would bring in. “I’m saying that if I decide to do it, we’ll never even be in each other’s company.”

  “How do you figure that?”

  “My work is done in my home office. Once I’ve completed initial proposals and storyboards for any campaign, I send them to the client via email for feedback, and we proceed from there with emails, Skype or phone calls. That’s how my job works.”

  “That’s not how this job is going to work.”

  She straightened in her seat, trying to dominate her space. But that was a tall order when Ry dominated the freaking world just by sitting there in all his glorious, billionaire-rancher Brody-ness. “Guess what? I know how my job works better than you.”

  “Not in this case. You said it yourself.” He shrugged, and somehow that action had him invading her space even more, his shoulder brushing against hers. “You may have heard about our operation your whole life, but you don’t know Green Rock Ranch. I want you to get the feel of it so completely that everyone will be able to understand the spirit behind the product we’re selling just by looking at what you’ve created. To do that, you need to experience that spirit for yourself.”

  She gave him a leery look. “What exactly does that mean?”

  “It means that you’re going to learn what life is like at Green Rock Ranch. You’re going to breathe it in, wallow in it day and night, learn it like the back of your hand. By the time I get things the way I want them, you’re going to feel like you’re a part of Green Rock Ranch, and it’s a part of you.”

  She couldn’t imagine anything more unlikely. “That sounds like it would take a tremendous amount of time.”

  “It’ll take as long as it takes, but I’m thinking you’ll enjoy it. After all, you enjoyed tonight, haven’t you?”

  “What does tonight have to do with anything?”

  “Look around you,” he invited with a sweep of his hand. “Nature’s beauty at its finest, in perfect harmony with good people who chose to settle here and make it their own. Excellent food that’s all local, from the hops that made the beer that was brewed onsite, to the steak on your plate—Green Rock steak, in case you didn’t know. Bitterthorn, Green Rock Ranch, this whole region...it’s an entire culture. We know how to take care of ourselves, and we’re damn proud of how we go about it. This is what I want the world to see, Celia. And I want the world to see it through your eyes.”

  His words unlocked a surprising flow of memories of the life she’d lived in Bitterthorn before it had all gone to hell. The pleasure of working in her garden; the spontaneous block parties; the community barbecues at the park; the decorating of the town’s living Christmas tree in the town square. Most of her memories weren’t glamorous, and they wouldn’t fit into a more urban lifestyle, but that was irrelevant. The simple pleasures that country life offered were something she understood all too well, just as she was certain she had the talent to make the world understand them, too.

  “I’m not saying yes,” she said, though even she could hear the softening in her tone. “But I’m not saying no to you, either. Can you give me twenty-four hours to decide whether or not this campaign is a good fit for me?”

  “Sure.” He leaned back, as confident as any conqueror, and his smile returned with a strangely predatory vengeance. “Just as long as you don’t have a problem with me trying to convince you every step of the way that nothing in this world is going to fit you better than what I’m proposing. As of now, I’m starting a campaign of my own.”

  Chapter Three

  Within minutes of pushing through the heavy Dutch door to her place and turning on the lights, Celia’s phone rang.

  Ha.

  Naturally.

  She threw an aggravated glance toward the multitude of large, double-hung windows all along the wall of the converted barn’s great room. Then, with a resigned sigh she kicked off her shoes, grabbed the phone out of her purse and collapsed onto the secondhand roll-arm couch she’d piled high with furry throws and cloud-soft pillows.

  If she had to have this conversation, she might as well get comfortable.

  “Let me guess,” Celia began by way of greeting. “Pauline called you the moment she saw the lights were on in the barn. Gotta say, if I’d known moving out to the Padgett farm was going to put me under constant surveillance, I would have shopped around a little harder for a place of my own.”

  “So what if Pauline called me to let me know you were home?” Lucy Jax’s voice came through loud and clear, torn between irritation and amusement. “It’s not every day that one of the Brody boys drops in on my favorite artist an
d asks her out to dinner. Especially that particular Brody boy.”

  “Trust me, there’s nothing about Ryland Brody that’s boyish. He’s all man, from start to finish.”

  “Really? Do tell.”

  Good Lord. “There’s nothing to tell, Lucy.”

  “I’m not convinced. After all, it’s a quarter to ten. That must have been some dinner you two had, since it wasn’t even six o’clock when you left the shop. Dare I ask what you two have been doing for almost four hours?”

  “I wouldn’t want to bore you with the details.”

  “Trust me, I wouldn’t be bored.”

  “He took me to The Spot, Luce.”

  The other woman’s gasp was sharp before there was a beat of condemning silence. “Wow.”

  “I know, right?”

  “Was he an asshole about it, honey?”

  “Yes. No. I don’t know.” With a gusty sigh, Celia settled deeper into the pillows and considered falling asleep right there for the night. “Did you know I can’t even think about that night without getting sick to my stomach?”

  Lucy made a stricken noise. “Oh, Cel.”

  “It’s true.”

  “Don’t beat yourself up about it, please. Everyone does stupid things when they’re drunk.”

  “There’s stupid, and then there’s what I did.” Celia stared up at the high exposed beams of the converted barn that was her home, and scowled. “Up until the night when I made a huge ass of myself in front of the entire world, I had a totally normal social life that I took for granted, when I wasn’t going gaga for the Brody brothers.”

  “Gaga is a good term for it. Boy-crazy is another. But you were especially insane over the Brody brothers.”

  “True enough. But I got cured of that particular insanity that night of my party.” The discomfort of her skin burning with humiliation forced her back to her feet before she set the couch on fire. “Maybe that’s a good thing, since I kind of crushed on all the Brodys at some point in my life.”

  “Crushed? Girl, you became a drool machine every time the Brody boys showed up.”

  Celia snorted. “A drool machine?”

  “Are you denying it?”

  “Hell, no. Ry, Fin and Des were my rock stars when I was a teen. I can’t tell you how devastating it was, having Ry smack me down the way he did—figuratively, and literally—right there in public.”

  “That man went way overboard,” came the staunch reply. “I had hoped that when Ry showed up at the shop wanting to take you to dinner, he was going to finally apologize for his behavior that night. Did he?”

  “Ryland Brody? Apologize?” Celia nearly choked. “Are you kidding? Do the magnificent land barons known as the Brodys even know the meaning of the word?”

  “So you grabbed his ass and announced to everyone that he was what you wanted,” Lucy groused. In agonized silence, Celia cringed all over again as the long-ago scene played in spectacular high-def through her mind. “Most men would be flattered that a pretty young thing like you was brave enough to admit she wanted him. But what does that dickhead do? Pulls you to the center of the room so everyone can see, smacks your hands a bunch of times, then finishes with a swat to your bottom.”

  Celia squeezed her eyes shut. “Don’t forget what he said with each smack of my hands—naughty children shouldn’t touch what they don’t own. I swear, I have nightmares with those words ringing in my ears, and his disbelieving laugh afterward.”

  “Even now I can’t believe he did that. That was way over the top.”

  “I should’ve had him arrested for assault,” she grated furiously, then dropped her head into her free hand with a miserable sigh. “But then, of course, Ry would have been well within his rights to have me arrested for the same thing.”

  “What? Don’t be ridiculous.”

  “Think about it, Lucy. Technically speaking, what I did was sexual assault.”

  “For heaven’s sake, Cel, that’s absurd.”

  “Why is it absurd? Guys can get sexually harassed and assaulted just like women. That’s what I did to Ry, in front of his brothers and everyone else who was there that night. Would you call it absurd if our roles were reversed, and he was the one who’d done the drunken ass-grabbing?”

  Lucy made a frustrated sound. “Not to be too double-standard-y on this, but I think it’s different for men.”

  “Not when it comes to wanting to be treated with basic human decency and respect—something I didn’t do when I groped Ry’s ass like a fool. And in all honesty, he barely tapped me. He didn’t hurt anything but my pride, but I’m the one who hurt my reputation. I, a mere commoner, had dared to touch one of the kings of cattle. I guess I should feel lucky I wasn’t tarred and feathered by the whole town for not knowing my lowly place.”

  “Honey, you’re not lowly.”

  “Compared to the Brody family, with their thousands of acres, and fancy cars, and planes, and mansions, and God knows what else, I’m most definitely lowly.”

  “Then everyone else in Bitterthorn is too, Cel,” Lucy murmured, and the sympathy in her tone somehow only made the pain worse. “So...if Ry didn’t ask you out to apologize for being a douche, what was tonight’s dinner all about?”

  “He wants me to do some work for Green Rock Ranch. Promo stuff,” she added without enthusiasm, moving to the small home stereo where her MP3 player was docked. Picking up the remote, she cycled through her playlists, too restless to really focus on anything but the bitter upset churning inside. “It sounds like a huge project. Considering what I charge per hour, I’d be an idiot to turn it down, especially since I’m getting ready to pull up stakes.”

  “But?”

  “But,” Celia acknowledged, “just being around Ry is enough to make me break out in hives. I don’t know if the remembered humiliation is worth the money.”

  “Only you can know that for sure,” came the sympathetic answer. “God, sometimes I really hate this little town of ours.”

  That made Celia’s brows inch up. “I know why I hate Bitterthorn, but why would you say that?”

  “Are you serious? The same reason you’re so determined to get away from here. Bitterthorn’s great, but every now and again something comes up, and people get so damned judgmental without knowing all the facts.”

  “A few good souls are still out there, you know,” Celia reminded her, though even she could hear the lack of enthusiasm in her tone. “It’s only the eligible men who, one by one, slowly came to the conclusion that I deserved to be ignored.”

  “It’s not fair. There have been way bigger scandals than a sweet drunk girl goosing a handsome guy in a bar—the former mayor cleaning out the city’s coffers and claiming it as severance pay. The arson that took down Thorne Mansion. Hell, Keir Brody bringing his bastard son Des to live with his family, then plowing himself and his wife into the ground with his crappy pilot skills. You giving Ry Brody’s heinie a squeeze is small potatoes. I just don’t get the overreaction.”

  “That heinie belonged to a Brody,” Celia reminded her, though even she could hear how flat her tone was. The fact was, she didn’t understand the out-of-proportion response either, but she was done questioning it. “Obviously I overstepped my bounds.”

  Who knew what her life would have been like if she’d just kept her stupid hands to herself that night, Celia thought after hanging up and focusing her attention on the playlists. All things considered, her life probably wouldn’t have been that much different. Things were just a lot more...solitary now than they’d once been.

  But it was her increasingly solitary life that was becoming intolerable.

  The change that had come about had been so subtle at first that she hadn’t even noticed what was happening around her. A few missed calls here, an unanswered wave across a parking lot there. An unanswered smile, or someone abruptly leaving a room or a shop jus
t as she entered.

  Little stuff. Hardly noticeable in the grand scheme of things.

  But...

  She’d noticed.

  For a long time she’d tried to convince herself she was being paranoid. But when someone she’d dated in high school wouldn’t even talk to her while fueling up their cars at the local gas station, she hadn’t been able to lie to herself any longer. Slowly but surely over the span of months, the few male friends she’d had in town had vanished off the radar. And it wasn’t just that they weren’t keeping in touch with her, or forgetting to respond to calls or text messages.

  They were actively avoiding her.

  Once she’d faced the problem, she’d racked her brain trying to pinpoint exactly when it had begun. As far as she could tell, that weird shift in her life had started around the time she’d dared to grab a handful of Grade-A Brody ass.

  As fine as that ass was, considering what the consequences had been she wasn’t sure it had been worth it.

  If she’d had the money and the work portfolio, she would have blasted the hell out of town when she’d finally realized what was happening. Clearly she’d been rejected—hell, publicly spanked—by Ry Brody, so if he didn’t want her, why would anyone else? No wonder her social life had gone down the tubes. At least in a big city she’d be anonymous. She could reinvent herself. Start all over again.

  Just the thought made her smile.

  The moody strains of Alicia Keyes’s “Fallin’” murmured through the speakers. After listening for a few beats, she left the remote on the rustic dining table and closed her eyes to let the notes flow over her frayed nerves. Music had always been her personal salvation, but even as she slow-swayed her way to where she’d left her shoes and picked them up, she had a feeling that not even her go-to mood modifier would do the trick.

  Ry had her so twisted up she’d be lucky to get to sleep by dawn.

  Her phone sounding off again was hardly a surprise, but when she picked it up she frowned at the unfamiliar number. She would have bet her next commission her landlord and friend, Pauline Padgett had decided to tag-team her once Lucy had gotten all the information she could out of her.