Page 144 of The Guy Who Stole My Ranch

Courtney watched them go, then she turned toward me with a triumphant look on her face. “Ha! I told you they’d crumble.”

“You did.” I grinned.

“You two should have warned me,” Adam said. “If you’d been any longer, I would have laid our proposal for them on the table.”

“That’s what he was for,” Courtney pointed at me.

“What took you so long?” I asked.

Courtney swept into a chair and crossed her legs. “I had them get me the footage from your visits.”

I blinked. “My visits?”

“Yes.” She tapped the table with a manicured fingernail. “When I was there, there was a smoking hot man who showed me around and was super flirty. Lucky for us, I know better than to engage with anyone who we’re in negotiations with.” She glared at our father. “But it got me thinking.” The image on the screen changed to one of myself and a woman with long blond hair. I vaguely remembered her from one of my visits.

Courtney circled a hand in the air. “She looks like Carlotta.”

I frowned. “She does.”

“That’s because Matthew planted her there to try and tempt you.” The video started, and while the woman wasn’t as pushy as Katrina had been, she had paid a lot of attention to me. “She’s all but throwing herself at you, and you ignored her.”

I never let a pretty face interfere with work. I’d learned that the hard way from my father.

Courtney looked from our father to Adam and then to me. “Don’t you see? He was trying to entrap all of us.”

Adam frowned. “That’s quite the accusation.”

“The evidence is right there.” She pointed at her computer.

Our father sat back with a smug look on his face. “I told you I didn’t touch her.”

Courtney opened her mouth, but I beat her to it.

“Father, you don’t get to speak. Just because she was more in the wrong than you were doesn’t mean what you did—what you do—is right.”

“What he said.” Courtney jerked her thumb at me, then she stared hard at me. “And you need to realize that they threw three attractive women at you, and you didn’t even notice. Remember the conversation we had about being like our parents?”

I swallowed hard as that came rushing back at me. Yes, I’d behaved badly at the ranch, but I’d learned. What I hadn’t done was ever cause a scandal. I’d never considered being like my father, probably because I’d been afraid to end up like him and that any marriage I stepped into would be unhappy.

“You’re nothing like them,” Courtney said.

She meant him, and I nodded gratefully as I felt tears stinging the back of my eyes.

At that moment, Matthew and his lawyer came back in. “Can your father and I have the room?”

“As long as Adam stays as well,” I said.

“Agreed,” Richard said.

Courtney grabbed her computer as I picked up my bag from the floor. I held the door for her, and a few seconds later, we were standing around a corner so we couldn’t see them, and they couldn’t see us.

Courtney was breathing hard but had a wide smile on her face. “That was fun!”

“Why didn’t you become a lawyer again?”

“Because lawyers are boring.”

I thought about Brooke. She wouldn’t have been a boring lawyer.

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