The Grumpy Boss Cowboy Billionaire

Chapter 5

Emma

Back in the master suite, I plugged my headphones into my laptop, opened my music app, and hit play. With the resonant sounds of heavy bass and electric guitars wailing in my ears, I pulled up an internet browser. I needed to switch gears. Seeing him with his shirt off, the way the black ink stood out against his tan skin, had made me want to run my tongue over each one. I wondered what he would taste like with the sweet musk of the whiskey vanilla soap he used.

Song after song buffeted my eardrums as I continued to follow the research rabbit hole. Pulling out a yellow legal pad, I scribbled down a note based on what I’d found. As much as I resented the way he romanticized the Old West, I found myself striving to see what he saw and feel what he felt. The tattoos on his body proved there was some reverence for the history, and his insistence on the park being a place where kids could come to feel like they were staring in an old western movie had a certain element of whimsy and excitement.

As the hours ticked by, I became aware of the throbbing of the muscles in my neck and back.

Click. Click. Tap. Tap.

Victor wanted Hollywood. He wanted the Iconic West: Dirty Harry, Rooster Cogburn, Wyatt Earp, and the shootout at the OK Corral. And that's what I would give him, but I also wanted to offer more than that. A real tangible look into the past. I scribbled down some more notes, rapidly filling the page, and then flipped to the next. I clicked on a link and began scrolling, scanning over image after image of the original park. Emil Castile was an icon of his era.

His movies made him a god in the eyes of this town and the construction of the amusement park earned him the honorary title, The King of Cactus Creek. For decades there was hardly an issue of the local paper that didn't feature him in some capacity. The park remained in full swing until the early nineties and then business trickled to nearly nothing. By two-thousand, the park sat empty and neglected and that was where the story seemed to end until now.

I took out my phone and looked at the pictures I'd taken during the tour Victor had given. Photo after photo depicted the ghost town of amusement rides, decaying and crumbling. In the foreground was the old Western Saloon. With some more digging, I found a YouTuber that had tried to sneak into the park to make an urb-ex video. But he'd been promptly caught by security and escorted off the premises.

He had a massive following, and I wondered if I reached out to him and allowed him to make the video if it would at least get word out that the park still existed. Free advertizing... The liability might be an issue, but with a few waivers signed, I bet we could work something out. The clock read twelve-thirty-eight when I finally came up for air from my hyperfocus.

Sitting back and stretching in my chair, I blinked furiously against the tears that had formed in the corners, attempting to battle the threatening dryness from not blinking. As I twisted my head side to side, allowing the vertebrae to pop back into alignment, I leaned back against my chair backrest and looked over my notes.

My body yearned for sleep, but every time my eyes started to drift closed, images of Victor's shirtless torso, and the way the light played off the defined muscles of his abdomen would pop into my mind, making me shift uncomfortably. I was a grown woman, and the fact that my body was betraying me over a man was not okay. This was work. I needed to focus on work.

I tore the filled pages into small squares, a singular idea on each piece, then grabbed a pushpin and pinned it to the bedroom wall. One after the other, I put up the notes, and created a visual map of information in neat rows and columns. The history on its own was fascinating enough to me, but to make it work, I'd have to find a way to incorporate fun and escapism. Something that would allow families to make memories that would last a lifetime.

Victor said that people only want history at a surface level. While that might be somewhat true, I still believed that they would care about the people who made this place significant, if we did it right. I grabbed a different colored piece of paper and scribbled an idea onto it, then tore it off the paper and stood, walking to the wall and pinning it too.

It was missing something. I needed to show how everything tied together. Padding over to the en suite bathroom, I grabbed a spool of floss from the countertop. Returning to the bedroom, I measured out a length of floss and tore it off, tying one end to the pin on the idea, then strung it into the pin attached to the historical fact below it.

Every idea needed a clear tie to the cultural information pinned to the left and slightly above it. Yes... This was going to work. I continued this pattern, writing, pinning, and tying until I ran out of bedroom wall space, save for that cohabitating behind the dresser and bedside table. Unwilling to move furniture, I took my seat at the desk and studied the visual web I had created.

I had no idea if Victor would go for any of this. He wanted bells and whistles, with recognizable cowboy icons and famous Western themes. But the man was so incredibly fickle, everything needed to be exactly what he wanted it to be or else he would complain, and ultimately nix the entire plan.

“Must be nice,” I grumbled, imagining what it would be like to walk into a room and instantly have weight attached to my opinions.

I sketched out some plates of food, authentic to the time with a gourmet twist, then grabbed the colored pencils out of my laptop bag, and colored them in. Those sketches got cut out and pinned on the wall as well, then tied in with floss.

Standing back, I took a long drink of water. The clock on the bedside table read three-forty-eight. I stretched my arms above my head, and looked over at the wall, strung with intersecting strands of green floss, purple squares, and yellow-striped asymmetrical squares. There were writings and sketches, pinned and linked with thread.

Could this really work? Could he really see the middle ground and say yes to this plan? I pulled a granola bar from the pocket of my bag as the clock flipped to four o’clock in the morning. I permitted myself a giant yawn, then grabbed my computer again, pulled up my email list, and started typing.

By five, I had gotten responses from eight of the twelve vendors I had contacted for demonstrative meetings. I finished notating the dates and times of the meetings on my notepad, noticeably thinner than it was when I came up here after dinner. Hands on my hips, I stared up at my plans with pride. This was culturally sound, historically accurate, and publically appealing, plus it would allow Victor tax breaks and write-offs for supporting local businesses and charities. The only question was whether or not he would see the value in it.

I thought of his elegant face and the angular planes of his shoulders and considered our interactions—the electric attraction that sparked intensely between us. But then again, he may have that with everyone. I was, after all, no great beauty, with generous curves, stretch marks on my hips, thighs, and stomach, and a shock of dark, wild curly hair. Combine that with my stereotypical nerd glasses and freckles, and inability to shut up about historical events—it made my dating life a bit sparse. And by that I mean non-existent.

I almost laughed when I thought about Victor’s flaws—the man was wealthy and handsome as all, but he was an emotional wreck and had some major daddy issues. I chewed my lip, thinking of his mouth. I would not mind that mouth on me, so long as he wasn’t talking about his version of the Old West. With a sigh, trotted over to the bed, flopping onto it.

There’s enough time to get a little sleep before I need to meet Victor in the foyer for work. Just a couple of hours was all I needed... Yeah, I can do that. I set my alarm before drawing the throw blanket up over myself for a minute, closing my eyes to rest.

Again, my mind went to Victor’s handsome lips and where I’d like to put them. He was not my type. I'd never been into cowboys or billionaires and he was both. Not to mention, he was my boss, and I wasn't into that power-play stuff. Still, my exhausted mind and body didn't seem to care about my sensibilities.

A vision of him in the moonlight, holding his hand out, flashed behind my closed eyes. His lips were full and inviting. Wild horses, running over the desert hills behind him. He looked like the hero from an old western. I giggled quietly, allowing the dream to take shape.