A Cowboy for Holly

Chapter 3

Holly had never dreamed that Ben would come to New York.

Their two weeks together in Montana had been like a dream. She'd fallen fast and hard for the man she'd thought was a hardworking cowboy and hadn't even second-guessed her decision to sleep with him almost immediately.

That wasn't like Holly at all. She was more the slow and steady type when it came to relationships. She had never—before Ben—jumped into bed with a man she barely knew.

But from the first, Ben had been...different. It was as if a part of her had always known him. There was an almost instantaneous connection between them that had only grown deeper and richer the more time they spent together.

And as the end of her vacation had loomed, Holly had been trying to think of a way to stay. To leave behind her lonely life in New York for a chance at something more with a magnetic cowboy who lit up her insides like a Fourth of July fireworks show.

Then she had found out the truth. That he wasn't a struggling cowboy—he was a billionaire. That he had lied to her from the beginning. So, with her heart aching, she'd run for home. Back to safety. Back to what was familiar and what she was sure of. Her house. Her job. Her friends.

She had never expected to see Ben again, and having him here, now, was staggering. She knew she had done the right thing in leaving him, but even so, her body was betraying her with every breath. Her blood was buzzing and her heartbeat was thundering in her own ears.

But she wasn't about to let her own hormones dig an even deeper hole for her heart to fall into.

"I have to go back to work," she said.

"Fine." He was still scowling. "What time do you get off?"

"Why?"

He laughed shortly and gave a quick look around the crowded street. "Because we're not finished talking. So, what time do you get off?"

She could stall. Refuse to answer him. But the best way to handle this, she knew, was to meet him, say what she had to say and then get him out of her life. Before she did something completely stupid and slept with him again.

"I'm off at five."

"All right." He nodded. "I'll be here. We'll have that talk."

She watched as he tugged his hat back onto his head and settled the brim low enough that his wonderful brown eyes were completely in shadow. It wouldn't be easy, she thought, to be alone with him. But it was the only way.

As she turned toward Waverly's Auction House and headed back to work, his gaze followed her.

***

Ben felt like a jackass.

Finding out that it had been his own fault that she'd left the ranch was really putting him in a foul mood. If he'd told her the truth in the first place, none of this would be happening.

"Then again," he muttered, "if she'd known the truth from the jump, you never would have let her get close."

True enough. He had spent years fending off women more interested in his bank account than they were in him. So when Holly had assumed he was a simple cowboy...he'd let her.

He scowled as he stared down Fifth Avenue.

Now that one little lie had come back to bite him in the ass and he had to figure out a way to make it right. He turned his gaze briefly to the Waverly Auction House. Good thing Holly had told him all about her job, he mused. But even if she hadn't, he would have found her anyway.