Taming The Cowboy (She's in Charge Book 4)

by Layla Valentine

  Calvin

  A job is a job.

  Right?

  That was what I’d told myself going in. That was what I’d told myself every time the details on the job got weirder, and more “unique,” and more suspect.

  A job was a job…but after two weeks in the role of “Dallas,” aspiring country musician returned to his rancher roots, I was uncomfortable as hell. And not just because I had been lying to a good woman the entire time.

  “It’s like this, Calvin. The lady you’re going to be coaxing information from is worth well over a billion dollars. Even if having to share some of her secrets loses her some market share, maybe causes her a little embarrassment, it will be an inconvenience at best. She may not even notice the loss.

  “What we want is to know how she’s grown her business so fast and enjoyed such stability in the middle of the biggest economic shakeup since the 1920s. Nobody has it that well, especially no relatively new player. She must be cheating somehow. Gaming the system. Your job will be to find out how she does it.

  “Our client will pay a great deal of money to get this information, Calvin. It’s not very invasive, and like I said, it won’t hurt someone like her one bit.”

  Desperate, hungry, short on sleep and long on hope, I had gone along with it all. Honestly, I had believed him. Especially that talk about how a little industrial espionage would be a mere inconvenience to a fucking billionaire.

  But then I had met Ruth. And talked to Ruth. And seen the light grow in her eyes when she looked at me. And almost overnight, she had gone from an anonymous rich woman I had no reason to care about to a real person I had a hidden agenda with. One I was quickly coming to realize, she didn’t deserve to have aimed at her.

  Actually, thinking about it, I was pretty certain that what we were doing wasn’t legal at all. Even if what I was doing could get spun by a lawyer as quasi-legal, or something I hadn’t known the legality of, I would be at least partly liable. And I’d probably deserve it. The whole thing increasingly felt…wrong.

  And not just because kissing Ruth had set off fireworks inside of me that I hadn’t felt since I had been a teen.

  I’m so tired of lying to her. But now I’m caught up in it. If I come clean, I’ll end up in all kinds of trouble: legal, financial, and she’ll hate me as well.

  I was an idiot to let myself get into this position.

  Maybe I wouldn’t have been quite as uncomfortable if she wasn’t so fucking adorable. So smart, so dedicated, and full of big dreams. She was the whole package, even before you got to how smoking hot she was or how sweet her lips tasted.

  But she was. And that just made it all that much worse.

  I took a swallow from my glass and winced, coughing slightly and banging on my chest. I was day-drinking again, in the heat: bourbon on the rocks, not beer. The mix of burning and cold in my throat was the only thing besides the drunkenness I was chasing that could distract me enough from my dark thoughts.

  The whole thing was one giant, elaborate act orchestrated by my unknown employers. I was sure they were high-level corporate; they paid in printed checks through a business bank that only dealt with high rollers, with the name of some corporate drone from a subsidiary on my weekly payment.

  And those checks were fat. Fatter than they should have been for a role that had been described to me as “a solo performance for an audience of one.” Fat enough that the first one had been a gigantic wake-up call.

  This wasn’t reality TV. This wasn’t experimental theater. This wasn’t a prank. This was a blatant act of industrial espionage, and a mind game played with an innocent woman that I really liked. And I had never had stronger second thoughts about anything in my life.

  But here I was, still taking their money…and still lying to Ruth.

  I had a lot of reasons to stay put and keep working. I kept thinking about the debts hanging over me, about how I had promised myself I would make it as an actor no matter how many auditions I had to plow through or how many tables I had to bus.

  And then there was that speech the man who had signed me had given me. About how Ruth was so wealthy and successful that she would probably make back any potential losses in a matter of weeks. What was immensely valuable to them was a mosquito bite to her.

  But my betrayal wouldn’t be. Not with the way she looked at me.

  Damn.

  I took a long swallow of my bourbon and ice water. The heat felt like it was going to smother me to death, and the burn from the booze just gave it sharper teeth. The ice cubes were no match for either, down to slivers before I could drink down the two fingers’ worth of Four Roses mingling with them.

  I spent months not even being able to afford whiskey. Now I could buy three bottles of the good stuff with what I have in my pocket, and not enjoy a single sip.

  How does success taste to you now, “Dallas”? You fucking sap.

  I felt a little sick thinking about it. My employers had me dead to rights in a bad situation because I needed the money that badly, and because I was now a party to their illegal shenanigans. They could drag me down with them. They knew they had me, too.

  I drained the tumbler and stared down into it, fighting down the urge to fling it into the farmhouse’s small fireplace. I was just drunk and frustrated enough that it sounded like a good idea.

  I closed my eyes and tried to focus, going back over the briefing I had received a month ago, after I had signed all the papers that I thought were legally binding. Signs of something completely above board. Now I realized what they really were: evidence. Evidence that I, the guy otherwise most likely to blow the lid off this whole bizarre con job, would go way out of his way to suppress.

  The plan had been simple. They knew that Ruth had been planning a vacation to a certain resort and that the ranch next door was for rent. They had rented it, staged it to look like it had been mine for months, and given me two weeks to settle into character as the friendly, flirty neighbor who would catch her off guard.

  And then she caught me off guard. Hot damn. I couldn’t help smiling at that despite my mood. But even that little spark of horny happiness died under the pressure of my dark thoughts.

  Back then, with all the secretiveness, the big smiles, the signing bonus out of a Hollywood fantasy, I had still seen a few red flags waving. They had met me in a fancy Dallas hotel and given me names that were probably fake, and a business card that only had a phone number on it. They had fed me steak and lobster and kept pouring the wine, until I had started nursing my glass as slowly as a senior citizen to keep myself from getting wine drunk.

  And they had talked. Sounding so reasonable. “She’ll barely notice you stealing her ideas. You’ll just pretend to be that interested in her and her work. Then you can end things, make it into a vacation fling she’ll remember fondly. She’ll never even suspect you were pumping her for information if you do your job right.

  “And in return, we’ll make all these debts go away, and give you a nice fat paycheck on top of it. What do you say?”

  I had signed the papers. I had, in spite of all my wanting to think of myself as smart and ethical, swallowed all the bait so deep that now I couldn’t get the hook out. Even now, sitting on the couch in my rented farmhouse in the middle of my fake life, I loathed myself—but I still wasn’t walking away.

  At this point, I had a lot of questions for my employer. A whole lot.

  How is this harmless? To her? To me?

  My gut was screaming louder and louder that it wasn’t with every sweet day that I spent with Ruth. I could feel that discomfort grow the closer I got to her.

  But I couldn’t back off of her. She felt so right in my arms, it felt so right to make her smile. How could I not end up drawn to her?

  The attraction I showed for her was supposed to be an act. But it wasn’t. It hadn’t been since our first conversation, when I had gone from knowing only what my employer had told me to actually knowing Ruth a little. And now that I knew her more…I would h
ave come down on her side of things even if my sense of right and wrong wasn’t tormenting me.

  It made me loathe myself.

  And when she learned who I really was and what I had been doing, she would drop me right on my ass, and I would damn well deserve it. I would deserve every single bit of anger that she decided to throw at me.

  I need to come clean, or I need to get out of this and leave. Before we get any closer. All the “innocent questions” I had asked her had made it clear that unlike me, Ruth didn’t have any dirty secrets—not in her business and not in her dealings with others in general.

  Hard work, attentiveness, standing up for her employees, coming through for her clients. Ruth was smart, ethical, and dedicated. Those were her “secrets”—qualities that guys like my employers would probably never understand the value of.

  To them, everything was a matter of numbers in a ledger: the financial bottom line. How much cash would need to be waved in front of a starving failed actor to get him to con an innocent woman? How much would the potential lawsuits cost them if she found out, versus how much they stood to gain?

  I laughed suddenly, bitterly, and got up from my couch to go refill my glass. The number they seem to think they stand to make from doing this to her must be pretty damn high for them to take the risk. I’m sure Ruth’s lawyer is the type that sharpens his teeth before going to court.

  But they were in for one hell of a surprise when I turned around and told them that her big secret was taking pains to do what they never would. To be who they would never be. A good boss, a good businesswoman, and a good person.

  And someone I wanted in my life for good…while knowing that I was going to lose her, and she was going to hate me. It was only a matter of time. And every damn day that went by, I thought less about the money and being desperate, and more about how learning about my deception would hurt her.

  Ruth would never believe that I had come to her with a mouth full of lies and yet somehow fallen for her in the meantime. She would never believe just how much I wanted to come clean, and fix this, and start over…unless I had the balls to do it and face the consequences.

  And hurt her.

  God. I caught myself standing at the fridge with the freezer blowing cold air over my face, laboring in the heat just like the air conditioner. I really can’t keep doing this. But it sure seemed like I was stuck.

  I sent an email to my agent, asking a pile of questions. What would they do if they learned that Ruth’s secret “cheats” were simply best practices that anyone could adopt, but which took work and personal effort from management? What if all I had to tell them were things they would never want to hear? Could I just give my report, back out of any more spying, and try to salvage what I could of the situation?

  Was that an option?

  My agent’s answer was quick and curt. If I broke my contract, I would have to repay everything they had paid me, cover the ranch rental fees, and pay a penalty. It had been right there in the fine print when I had signed. Whatever my opinions on the legality of what they were doing, I would quickly be forced into a position by their legal team that I would have to settle or be ruined.

  I sat back in my office chair, staring at the words on my screen like I was hoping they would change into something else. The commitment was for a minimum of two months, depending on the length of Ruth’s vacation. That whole time, I was to stay in character. The whole time, I was to report on what I learned about Ruth.

  If I didn’t, my employers would crush me. That much my agent didn’t even have to spell out.

  For the first time in a long time, I didn’t want to spend the evening with Ruth. Not because I didn’t want to see her smiling face, but because I knew I didn’t deserve it.

  I was screwed, I deserved it for signing with these bastards without a good look at what I was agreeing to, and all I could do now was go through with it.

  The only comfort I could take was that I knew I would end up handing exactly zero dirt on Ruth over to my employers. No secret deals, no favors, no payoffs, no other creepy, corrupt forms of persuasion. Just good business.

  Oh yeah. That’s the last thing they are going to want to hear. It means they have to actually work. Make sacrifices.

  I stared down into my freshened glass of booze. How many fingers was I up to? Six? If I continued, it was going to fuck me right up.

  That’s fine. Better than thinking. But again, I was definitely spending the night alone.

  I didn’t want Ruth to see me like this.

  Chapter 11

  Ruth

  “Profits for this quarter are holding steady despite the disruption.” My assistant Bella’s voice came through my laptop with an odd little echo. Though the ranch’s internet connection was the most solid money could buy out here in the country, that wasn’t saying much. “There’s still good press coming in about the convention speech, but it’s been tainted by this campaign. People like train wrecks, and so—” I missed a word or two as the screen jumped slightly. “At this rate, media coverage may outlast the actual problem.”

  The glitchy internet connection wasn’t the only thing bothering me during this early afternoon meeting. The ranch resort was exactly as advertised…but I wasn’t an outdoorsy person. I only wanted to be, and it was taking me longer than expected to get used to spending long periods in the baking heat outside. Right now, the air conditioner was laboring as hard as it could just to keep the air tepid instead of oven-hot.

  I kept my outward cool anyway. “So you’re saying that the whole problem that drove me out here is dying down this fast?” I clarified.

  I was pretty proud that I was back to business even with everything going on. Neither heat nor internet issues made up the worst distraction I was facing. Oh no. That one gnawed at me even as I fought to look fresh and alert in my linen suit.

  For the first time since we had met, Dallas had missed an evening with me. No contact, no explanation, just broken plans. It had left me spending part of the evening and this morning mulling what I might have said or done to lose his interest.

  I hadn’t been able to come up with anything…but then again, I didn’t actually know him that well. Something had to have happened to cause him to suddenly go radio silent. He didn’t seem to be a capricious person, but people could be funny about the most random things sometimes.

  Whatever the problem was, I hoped I could smooth it over. Meanwhile, Dallas wasn’t answering my occasional text, so I had no choice but to push him out of my thoughts. I just had to keep doing it over and over again, hoping each time that it would actually stick.

  Despite all of that, my voice stayed smooth and I kept my game face on. The distraction I had shown in my one-on-one with Gregory a week ago was gone as I faced my board in a video conference. I had to impress upon the board that I was still fit for leadership despite the stress of those internet-furor-based incidents.

  So far, so good—even when my stomach stayed in knots.

  Gregory sat beside me, just within view of my laptop camera, and Bella appeared in a small square among the larger-framed faces of the board members. Aside from being held remotely, the entire meeting had been pretty routine. Only after the usual subjects had been covered did the topic turn to anything unusual.

  “Yes, that’s correct,” one of the board members was saying as I forced myself to focus on him. Steve Roche was small and wizened and had a thick Boston accent. “According to our IT and security people, including the statements in the report that Gregory provided this morning, the death threats and other reactionary responses have dropped off to almost nothing. I wouldn’t say it’s safe to come home just yet, but it’s certainly promising.”

  “The subjects in question have a strong tendency to obsess, so they’ll likely still be noisy about something long after it loses relevance to the general public,” Gregory rumbled at my elbow. “The fact that their interest dropped off this quickly is, again, unusual. Especially with the extra press coverage.”
>
  There was an edge to his raspy voice. Though he had to be eager to go home to his family, he was the last one to suggest I end my forced vacation early. The report he had sent out had emphasized how unusual it was that the threats had stopped so quickly, but the board was apparently reading what he had produced very, very selectively. No wonder he sounded a touch annoyed.

  But like me, he was a professional, and so we both sat through the board’s petty dismissal of the facts without kicking up a single word of fuss. Just the facts restated—and again, dismissed.

  “We’ve considered your theories on the matter, and the board is not convinced. It is possible, of course, that this group was stirred up by a professional astroturfer or agent provocateur, possibly working for one of our rivals. However, we’d really like to see more actionable evidence of this before we look into turning the matter over to our legal team.”

  Gregory grunted acknowledgment, clearly keeping his own counsel about the board’s decision. “Understood.” He quieted, but I saw the flash in his keen blue eyes.

  I couldn’t blame him. Because Gregory was “the help” so far as the board was concerned, they often fell into snotty dismissal when he had some input they did not want to hear. Fortunately, none of them would dare do that with me.

  I stepped in, speaking up for him. “Is there an alternate theory for why these threats started disappearing as soon as I did?” Personal feelings aside, simply dismissing our security head’s assessment of the situation was just irresponsible.

  “Not as of yet.” Roche looked just a touch disgruntled at the bit of pushback, but I didn’t really care; I was within my rights to get clarification on the issue, and the board knew it. “We’re having our analysts go over the data between today and tomorrow.”

  “You do that,” I said. “There may well be something that we haven’t yet uncovered about this situation. But whatever it is, the board is correct on one thing: we can’t act without adequate information.”