The movement out of the corner of my eye was what caught my attention, maybe some kind of internal warning that danger was near.
The snake was staring at me with interest.
I didn’t really have the same interest, at all. And I had no idea how I was meant to act with a snake staring at me.
So I just stared back.
I remembered the movie where I’d played a heroine in a situation similar to this. Granted, it had been an apocalyptic movie where animals had taken over the earth and snakes had evolved to have venom that could kill humans instantly, but still. In the movie, the snake and I had a long and intense stare off. The director had wanted it to be me staring death in the face and having death measure me for my worthiness.
In the movie, of course, I was destined to save the human race, so the snake let me be.
This was not a movie.
I was not destined to save anyone. I didn’t have enough worthiness to tip any scales, so the snake struck.
He had been too hard on her.
Duke knew that the second she’d recoiled from his words as if he’d struck her. Although, she’d recovered quickly. Managed to wear the mask that he now understood was her second skin. She had managed to pretend those words hadn’t hit, hadn’t drawn blood.
But too late. He’d seen what she didn’t want him to, what she’d made sure was invisible to the world—her vulnerability.
It took everything he had not to go to her, not to take her in his fucking arms and comfort her.
He had practice being cruel, shutting off emotions. It was a survival tactic in a world that used emotions against you.
And fuck if he didn’t feel emotions for her.
Before they’d set foot on this ranch, those emotions were nothing but dislike, varying degrees of it, and that niggling fucking need he had to claim her, one that only made him dislike her more.
But then she’d changed. She’d morphed into something else entirely. Her falsity melted off her face with an ease that Duke didn’t think Anastasia even realized. It was so drastic that it shook Duke, right to the core. Something in the dirt here, something in the air, had melted everything cold from her skin and showed her for who she was.
His parents loved her. His grandmother adored her. And his brother was almost in love with her. Only because the rest of his love was reserved for the woman who left him.
Despite what it seemed like on the surface, this was not normal.
His family were good people, polite. But they didn’t warm to people that easily, especially outsiders. Not like they’d done to Anastasia. They saw everything in her that Duke hadn’t, but that was because she showed them. She seemed unable to hold on to the mask she’d worn in Hollywood.
And that was fucking dangerous.
Because Duke had already been attracted to her.
Even before all of this.
She was a fucking knockout.
He was only human.
But her personality had worked against that. She had been rude, snobby, and cold, not enough to soften his hard-on—she was that beautiful. Forget your morals, forget your name beautiful.
Duke had managed, of course. To hold on to the healthy dislike instead of grasp the attraction.
That was until she’d set foot on the ranch.
Yeah, she’d changed then.
And everything turned into a battle. As if he wasn’t already fighting being back at this place.
Seeing how quickly she took to it was torture.
No, sleeping next to her with that fucking little slip of a nightgown, that was torture, and that was saying something, coming from a man who’d done the things he’d done, who’d survived the things he had. Even more so when she fell into unconsciousness and came to him in his sleep.
He waited for it.
He fucking craved it.
And he didn’t gently push her away like he should’ve. Fuck no. He held on to her. He sniffed her fucking hair. And then he fought every instinct he had to stop himself from waking her up with his lips on her neck, with his lips on her panties.
So he was angry when he saw her taking that photo with his grandmother. It was stupid, yeah. But Duke had also spent his entire life with his grandmother. He knew how convincing she could be. Shit, when he was twelve, she’d managed to get him to steal fireworks and let them off in the middle of the night as a punishment to someone who’d dared offer her a senior discount at the store. He’d obviously taken all of the blame for that.
So yeah, he knew that things could easily get out of hand with her.
He wasn’t angry about the photo, the fact that the simple thing could’ve put Anastasia and his entire family in danger.