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“What?” he asked, curious why she’d be upset with him already.
“You left me to handle the meeting with the ranch manager on my own this morning, even though yesterday you said you’d be there.” She tugged the glasses from her head and stuffed them inside her leather handbag. “They’re trying to plan a welcome reception to introduce Salazar Media to the owners, and I didn’t know anything about it. I would have appreciated being better briefed on the client.”
“Bear in mind we’re both having to deal with unexpected circumstances this week.” He had no desire to cross swords with her now, not when he was still angry with his brother for being a no-show, and with himself for not knowing how important the ranch had been to their father. “The next time Devon sends you on a spying mission, Lily, just tell him no.”
“I’m not a spy,” she retorted, her blue eyes taking on a darker hue now that she was upset. “We’ve been over this. When I filled in for Devon, I foolishly hoped I could help the two of you reconcile and maybe save the company in the process.”
“If you represent his interests and not mine, how are you a good choice to negotiate a reconciliation? And either way, that’s not happening.” Marcus was taking the company, end of story. He moved around to the driver’s side of the utility vehicle and slid into the seat. “Why don’t you get in touch with Devon and ask him to send you back to New York?”
She hesitated then, after a moment, moved toward the passenger seat and sat down. It was a good thing the vehicle had no doors, excusing Marcus from ushering her in and out in a gentlemanly fashion, because her nearness got under his skin.
Whenever she moved, that damn diamond ring on her finger refracted light beams into his eyes like a weapon of deflection.
“I asked him that already.” She reached down to one side of the seat and retrieved the safety belt, tugging it around her narrow waist. “He refused.” When the latch clicked, she glanced up at him, her blue gaze sliding right past his defenses. “So it looks like you’re stuck with me.”
Lily was grateful Marcus didn’t try to talk to her on the ride home.
Sulking about her job felt like the right thing to do on this day when nothing had gone right. Her fiancé had awoken her with a text message at three in the morning to let her know that his obligations to the family business in the UK were going to continue into spring, so unless she wanted to come to London for the holidays, they wouldn’t be seeing each other anytime soon. Another time, she might not have been so upset, since she had a lot of new work obligations herself, but in light of how hard this trip was testing her, the blasé tone of Eliot’s message had filled her with doubts. Wouldn’t he miss her? Did he have any plans to ever discuss the wedding date her grandparents kept pushing her for?
Of course, when she fell back asleep, she had wildly inappropriate dreams about Marcus, which filled her with guilt and left her exhausted. Then there had been the morning meeting Marcus had skipped to take a private tour of the ranch, and her message exchange with Devon, who had told her in no uncertain terms he needed her in Montana this week.
Not to spy, obviously. But like his father, Marcus could be a bit of a wild card. He was a charismatic leader, and she guessed that Devon worried he might try to start his own company and take “his” clients with him. Lily guessed that, aside from helping Marcus set up the new account, she was also on-site to keep a dialogue open between the Salazar men. To remind Marcus that the branches of the company had worked together effectively in the past, and could do so again.
After indulging her frustrated thoughts for ten minutes, Lily forced herself back to the present, only to realize that Marcus wasn’t heading back to the main lodge. The scenery around them had changed, going from sweeping vistas to dense fir trees. The earthy scent of damp leaves and pine needles filled the air as small brush snapped under the vehicle tires.
“Where are we?” She sat straighter in her seat, trying to see through the network of branches.
She’d seen hints of the ranch pastures earlier on her ride with Coop, but this looked very different.
“We should see the Bitterroot River soon.” Even as he said it, the vehicle broke into a clearing, and a wide expanse of water came into view. “You looked like you needed a breather as much as I did.”
“I—” She didn’t know how to respond to that. They were the first words she could remember him speaking to her on this trip that weren’t confrontational. “Thank you.”
He braked to a stop close to the river’s edge, along a narrow strip of rocky beach. The water glittered in the sunlight like a jeweled ribbon winding through the land.
“I could use a few shots of this.” He reached alongside her leg, his brief touch startling her for a second before she realized he was retrieving the camera bag at her feet. “Do you mind spending a few minutes here?”
His attention was fixed on his camera, where he turned dials and adjusted settings. She watched him for a moment, intrigued. She tried not to think about the fact that her knee still tingled from the barest contact with his knuckles. She’d never thought of Marcus in that way until yesterday, and now she wasn’t sure how to ignore the attraction that lurked too close to the surface. Something strange had happened between them yesterday. Something more than just Marcus accusing her of spying for his brother.
“Sure.” She told herself to go for a walk along the water’s edge. Anything to put physical distance between them. But she couldn’t seem to stop watching him as he lined up a shot of the river partly framed by a wavy tree branch. She could see the whole image on the screen that took up most of the camera’s back. “That’s a great shot. You have a really good eye for composition.”
His hands stilled on the camera for a moment. Then he turned his gaze her way.
“My brother once informed me that I have a talent for art because I only have to please myself, whereas he has the better disposition for business because he cares what other people think.” He went back to work on his camera, shifting a few dials to take the same picture with different settings.
She knew Devon could be cold. Calculating, even. But she’d always appreciated his levelheaded practicality. She was wired the same way.
“Do you think there’s any merit to that idea?” Lily knew she’d never have any hope of helping these two warring siblings reconcile their interests unless she understood Marcus better. She told herself that’s why she wanted to know.
Overhead, a bird wheeled in circles before diving into the water with a splash. The air was cold today, but the sky was a perfect, unspoiled blue in every direction.
“I agree Devon is a people pleaser, and I’m not. That doesn’t necessarily mean he possesses a better head for business.” He clicked the shutter a few times, capturing new images of the water before refocusing on another bird searching for a meal.
It was interesting to watch him work. Salazar Media had its roots in the digital world, with the brothers on the forefront of engaging online audiences in constantly changing ways.
“Devon excels at pitching our services to big business. You drive the creative side.” She couldn’t understand why he didn’t see that the two of them needed each other. “That gives the company balance.”
“But I’m not interested in balance.” He shot images in fast succession as the bird dived to the water. “I don’t care about generating the biggest possible bottom line. I care about challenging myself and finding new outlets that interest me. That’s what keeps art vibrant. That’s what puts our business on the cutting edge.”
Setting the camera on the seat between them, he turned toward her, giving her his undivided attention.
“But the business shouldn’t be all about you,” she said softly. The company had grown rapidly in five years, and they now had satellite offices around the country. They were talking about going global.
She’d climbed the ladder fast at her job, and she owed much of that to how quickly Salazar Media had expanded.
“Why not? It was my brainchild. My work that started it. The company wasn’t meant to be a business opportunity for the whole family, just an outlet for my art. Now I can afford to buy my brother out.” He leaned closer, warming to the topic. “I’m done compromising my vision for his.”
In the river, a fish jumped and splashed in the slow-moving water.
“Salazar Media isn’t just you and Devon anymore. There are whole offices full of employees whose livelihoods would be hurt if you scaled back.” She wondered if he’d thought this through.
“You think I should let Devon buy me out of Salazar Media and start over on my own?”
That’s what he’d taken away from her comment? She’d never met anyone who thought like him before.
“Of course not. You’ve earned a strong reputation and the respect of industry professionals. You wouldn’t want to walk away from that.”
“Which isn’t a problem for someone who doesn’t care what other people think, remember?” He leaned back against the door, studying her from farther away. “Maybe you’ve got too much in common with my brother to understand that. You’re a people pleaser, too.”
She stiffened.
“It’s not a matter of pleasing others.” She wasn’t sure why they were talking about her. She wasn’t the one threatening to break up the family business. “But I do care how my choices affect others.”
“An artist can’t afford to care about that. I have to be impervious to criticism in order to keep creating art.” His knee bumped hers as he shifted, reminding her of that keen awareness she had for him. “I have to passionately believe in my choices in spite of what anyone else says.”
“That makes sense.” She crossed her ankles, giving him more room. Only to be polite, of course, and not because she was worried about the way his touches affected her. “But you don’t need to become so completely self-absorbed that you discount the preferences of others.”
“But creating work that I’m proud of requires me to be relentlessly honest with myself.” His dark eyes seemed to laser in on hers. Challenging her. “If the court of public opinion fell away, and there was no one else in the world to approve or disapprove of what I’m doing, would I still make that same choice?”
His gaze seemed to probe the depths of her soul as he spoke. As though his words, somehow, applied to her.
The people pleaser.
“If you’re suggesting that Devon and I both make our decisions based on larger factors than personal desire, I couldn’t agree more. Your brother tries to do what’s best for Salazar Media.” She felt defensive. Of herself. Of Devon.
“What about you, Lily?”
“I don’t own a stake in the company,” she reminded him.
“I realize that,” he said, more gently. “Consider it a hypothetical question to help put yourself in my shoes.” He stared out at the Bitterroot River again, perhaps sensing that the conversation was getting under her skin. “If you weren’t worried about other people’s opinions, would you still make the same choices?”
No.
The answer was immediate. Definitive. Surprising her with its force.
She had made so many decisions based on people’s expectations of her that it would be difficult to point to those few that she’d made purely for herself. Though her job was one of them.
Still, she would never be able to discount what her grandparents wanted. They’d raised her, taking her in when her mother had quit caring about her. And she would always owe them for that.
But she couldn’t deny that she may have given them too strong of a voice in her future—in everything from her job and her education to, yes, her pick of fiancé. That didn’t make it a mistake, did it? They wanted what was best for her.
In the quiet aftermath of Marcus’s question, she didn’t like the new lens he’d given her to view her own decisions. Because what she saw through his eyes was not the woman she wanted to be.
The autumn breeze off the water suddenly brought a deeper chill, and Lily was grateful when Marcus turned the vehicle back toward the ranch.
Three (#u6755c014-e898-5250-8950-bf44d82c038d)
Just because Marcus had made a valid point didn’t mean she needed to reassess her whole life, did it?
Lily wrestled with his words while she repacked her bags late that night, determined to fly back to New York despite Devon’s insistence that she remain in Montana. Devon might be the person she reported to in the New York office, but his directives held equal weight with his brother’s since they were copresidents. And Marcus wanted her gone. Hadn’t he made that clear from the start? She’d just have to tell Devon that she’d received an order contradicting his. Another reason why the brothers needed to settle their battle themselves.
But that wasn’t her problem. She couldn’t stay here when Marcus had deliberately caused her mental anguish. Accusing her of spying. Stirring an unwelcome attraction.
And then, to top it all off, intimating she’d chosen her fiancé for convenience. For ease. Because Eliot checked all the right boxes.
Not that Marcus had said it in so many words.
She rolled her socks together, lining them up in neat pairs along the bottom of her suitcase, taking no comfort from a ritual that usually helped her feel more in control before she traveled.
“Damn you.” Stressed and out of sorts, she chucked the final pair of socks at the steer horns mounted above the queen-size bed in her suite.
Was she cursing herself? Marcus? Her fiancé, who hadn’t answered the last three messages she’d left for him? She didn’t even know. But it bothered her that Marcus’s words resonated so deeply inside her, even hours after their talk at the river’s edge.
She needed to get away from him and all the feelings he stirred. That had been half the reason she’d started packing. But would that even do any good?
Truth be told, Marcus Salazar didn’t know much about her or her life outside work. He certainly didn’t know anything about her romantic relationship. So she needed to take some ownership of the fact that she’d interpreted his words today as some kind of judgment about her engagement. She’d pulled the meaning out of that conversation.
Which meant…
She was the one with doubts.
Her knees folded, and she dropped down to sit on the edge of the bed.
Staring down at Eliot’s ring on her finger, Lily wondered how long she’d been questioning her decision to marry a man who’d always been more of a friend to her than a romantic partner. Maybe that’s why neither of them had been able to commit to a date. Why it had always been easy to extend their time apart from each other, the way Eliot had done the day before. Perhaps her initial acceptance of four more months apart was another important clue that he was not the right man for her. And that was something he needed to know sooner rather than later. No delays.
She needed to call Eliot again. And keep calling until she got through. Because the engagement had gone on long enough. It was time for them both to move forward with their lives and give up the pretense that a marriage was ever going to happen. She hoped he would see that, too, because she truly didn’t want to hurt him. They’d been friends for a long time before the engagement, and she hated the idea of causing a friend pain. But she knew this was the right thing to do. She slid the heirloom diamond off her finger and placed it on the nightstand, at peace with her decision.
Picking up her phone, she hit the button to contact him through the video call app.
He answered on the first ring, his dark blond hair and gray eyes flickering to life on the screen. “Just the woman I wanted to speak to. Hello, Lily.”
He wore a tuxedo shirt and black bowtie, though he looked thoroughly rumpled as he sat in an unfamiliar setting. A hotel lobby, perhaps? She saw a few other people in the background, but no one else was dressed like him. His eyes were sleepy and a little unfocused, reminding her it was roughly five in the morning on his end of the world. Was he just returning to his hotel? The dark shadow of bristle on his jawline suggested as much.
Nerves surged as she paced a circle around her suite.
“Hi,” she managed after an awkward pause, surprised to have him suddenly on the line. “I really need to talk to you.”
“Are you upset that I had to extend my stay here?” he asked wearily. “You know I can’t ignore my dad’s wishes when it comes to this stuff.” He plucked at his bowtie, loosening the knot that had already been crooked.
“I’m not upset, Eliot,” she assured him, pausing her pacing to ensure her video image was still and focused on his end. “But I’ve been thinking about our engagement. About our mutual willingness to delay it inevitably. And I really think it’s a sign that we need to call it off.”
He seemed to shake off the weariness, his gray eyes widening as he leaned forward in the seat and shoved a hand through his hair.
“End the engagement?” he asked, a new urgency in his voice, still wrestling with the knot in his tie.
“Yes.” She knew it was the right thing to do, but her stomach tensed anyway. “I’m so sorry to do this long-distance but—”
“What about the merger?” he blurted, forgetting all about the bowtie as he gestured with his hand. Then, as if hearing the way that sounded, he shook his head. “I mean, as much as it hurts to think about ending the engagement, we have more at stake here than just our personal happiness.”
Frustration mingled with wariness and a touch of wounded pride. But, in all that tangle of emotions, she felt relief that “heartbreak” didn’t seem to be an issue for either of them.
“I realize that.” Releasing a pent-up breath, she sank into the window seat, careful not to crush the drawn damask curtains. “But marriage is too big of a commitment for us to make it just for business reasons.”
“We make a great team, though, Lily.” His gaze shifted to something beyond his phone. Or someone. Because he held up a finger as if to say one more minute to a person she couldn’t see. His gaze flicked back to her. “We should at least consider other options before we walk away from the engagement.”
A hurt deeper than wounded pride surprised her. Perhaps it was because Eliot didn’t seem remotely concerned about the loss of love or companionship in his life—just the merger. Maybe he’d never felt anything deeper for her than friendship and fondness.
It didn’t help matters that her intuition told her he was gesturing to a female companion. Not that it mattered now.
“Either we want a real marriage or we don’t.” Lily articulated the argument she’d been having with herself—quietly—for months. “After this conversation I feel certain that you’re not any more ready for that step than I am.”
In the background, she heard a woman’s tinkling laughter. Eliot glanced up in the direction of the sound—aggravated—before refocusing on Lily.
“Lily, please—”
“Rest assured, I’ll return the ring next week. And I’d like to wait until then to break the news to our families.” She wouldn’t keep a priceless family heirloom. Especially from a man whose interest in her seemed more mercenary by the moment.
“They’re not going to be happy with this decision,” Eliot warned her. “Not your family or mine.”
“Which is why I’m going to wait to discuss it with my grandparents until I’m back home next week.” Swallowing hard, she didn’t want to think about that talk yet. “Thank you for understanding.”
“I’m not sure I do.” His eyes went back to whomever he was with. “I’ve got to go, though, Lily. We can talk about this later.”
“That won’t be necessary,” she assured him, grateful to have the conversation over. “Goodbye, Eliot.”
She felt no guilt about punching the disconnect button. If he was actually with a woman, Lily was a little surprised he’d taken the call at all. But she was relieved, more than anything, to have ended things with him.
As Lily felt the weight of the engagement fall away, a new burden settled on her shoulders. Eliot was right that her grandparents were going to be upset with her. Disappointing them was something she’d avoided her whole life, and she knew without question that they would disapprove of the broken engagement. Furthermore, a little voice in the back of her head reminded her, they definitely wouldn’t be happy about how this might endanger the merger of the family businesses.
