The feed room at the west end of the barn always smelled sweet and warm.
Thick molasses, freshly ground grain, and dry hay mixed with cedar dust drifting through the morning sunlight.
It was a small room.
Isolated.
And the perfect place on the entire Blackstone Estate if someone wanted to hunt down prey trying desperately to run from the truth.
Revan shoved the iron-hinged wooden door open with one sharp push of his palm.
It clicked shut heavily behind him.
Alesya stood between two large wooden bins of rye, holding a small iron shovel and a feed scoop for Phantom’s special blend.
She froze instantly.
Her shoulders, covered in a thin denim shirt, went rigid the moment she caught the scent of cedarwood and bergamot filling the small room.
She didn’t turn around.
She deliberately kept her hands busy measuring grain, as if the six-foot-two man locking the exit mattered less than her horse’s feed.
“You can’t keep running into dark corners every time we fight, Dr.
Vargas,” Revan’s voice cut through the silence.
Low.
Rough.
Thick with the tension that had been hanging between them since the arena sand that morning.
Alesya dropped the shovel into the bin with a sharp clang.
She turned slowly.
Leaning back against the rim of the bin behind her, she crossed her arms over her chest and looked up at him with honey-brown eyes burning cold.
“I’m working, Caldwell.
Unlike you, I don’t have time to play hide-and-seek in grain sacks.”
Revan didn’t answer her sharp jab with words.
He stepped forward.
One step.
Two steps.
His black leather boots hit the wooden floor with the slow, steady rhythm of a predator cornering its prey.
He didn’t stop until his boots brushed hers.
He raised both hands.
His right palm slammed against the wooden wall beside her head, while his left braced against the bin beside her hip.
He caged her completely, trapped between his tall, burning frame.
Alesya held her breath.
The air between them suddenly felt thin, oxygen gone.
The heat of his body still damp with the sweat and anger from the arena seeped straight through her thin denim shirt.
His masculine scent wrapped around her, filling every sense, making her throat go dry.
“Step back, Revan,” she whispered, voice rough, chin lifted in defiance against the dark storm in his gray eyes.
“Not until we finish what we started in the tack room last night,” Revan murmured, his voice dropping to a dangerous low octave right against her lips.
“There’s nothing to finish!” she hissed, chest rising and falling fast, pressing into the narrow space between them with every ragged breath.
“You kissed me because you were frustrated.
You regretted it five seconds later.
And I’ve already forgotten it.”
His eyes narrowed, dangerous.
A thin, dark, cold smirk tugged at the corner of his firm mouth.
“You’ve forgotten?” he whispered.
He leaned in another inch.
His broad chest brushed the curve of her breast through her thin shirt.
The contact was so intimate it sent a shock of pure, unadulterated danger screaming down her spine.
His right hand left the wall.
Rough, calloused fingers settled at the side of her neck, his thumb slipping under her jaw to press gently, devastatingly, against her pulse.
Her blood raced wild beneath her skin.
Fast.
Hot.
Uncontrollable.
“Your body isn’t nearly as good at lying as your tongue, Alesya,” he breathed, warm fanning over her parted lips.
“Every time I get close… your pulse beats like a war drum.”
She fisted the fabric of his shirt over his chest with both hands.
She meant to push him away.
But when her palms felt the wild, matching rhythm of his heart beneath hard muscle… her fingers curled tighter, gripping the fabric in a wordless surrender.
“Enough, Revan…” Her voice broke, torn between pain and rising desire.
“You have another woman picking out a wedding dress for you.
You have a fifty-million-dollar merger to save.
Don’t make me your sin’s escape.”
The words hit him like shards of glass, right through the heart.
Cold guilt coiled tight in his chest instantly.
She was right.
Every touch he gave her was poison—one that could burn both their futures to ash if his father’s fiduciary clause ever came to light.
Revan slowly pulled his hand away from her neck.
He straightened, stepped back half a pace, and pulled back on the cold, arrogant mask that was his best armor.
“Good that you remember where you stand, Dr.
Vargas,” his voice turned flat, ice-cold.
“Because as of this moment, we are strictly professional.”
Alesya froze.
Her honey-brown eyes flickered for a heartbeat at how easily he agreed to the very boundary she’d set.
Pain lingered deep behind her gaze… an old, raw disappointment she tried to hide behind a sharp, bitter smile.
“Perfect,” she shot back, voice trembling with fresh, rising anger.
“That’s what I wanted from day one.”
Just as that poisonous silence settled over them again…
BZZZZT!
BZZZZT!
BZZZZT!
His phone buzzed in his pocket, long and loud.
Revan pulled it out.
The name on the screen made his jaw lock instantly:
HARRISON CALDWELL
He swiped to answer and held it to his ear, never taking his eyes off her.
“Yes, Father.”
Harrison’s voice came through like an industrial lawnmower cold, mechanical, leaving no room for argument.
“Gerald Ashworth just called me,” he said without preamble.
“He saw your practice footage this morning.
He knows Phantom refused the 1.15-meter jump.”
Revan’s grip tightened until his knuckles turned white.
“It was just a rhythm adjustment.”
“Don’t be an idiot, Revan!” Harrison barked, loud enough that Alesya heard him clearly in the small room.
“The WEF Committee moved the Grand Prix qualifier up—to this Saturday, at the Palm Beach Equestrian Center.
If Phantom doesn’t show and qualify in front of the board, Gerald triggers Clause 8.4 that same night!”
Clause 8.4.
Forfeiture of Phantom’s ownership.
Auctioned off to a commercial breeding syndicate.
Revan’s blood ran cold.
“I’ll have him at Palm Beach by noon,” he said, steady and calm on the surface, while panic tore through him.