Total pages in book: 102
Estimated words: 100226 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 501(@200wpm)___ 401(@250wpm)___ 334(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 100226 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 501(@200wpm)___ 401(@250wpm)___ 334(@300wpm)
From New York Times Bestselling author Kristen Proby comes the final installment in her beloved Wilds of Montana series, featuring a small town, marriage of convenience, second chance love for the ages!
I have loved Millie Wild for more than eight years. Since that summer long ago when we were inseparable, stealing moments, keeping our love a secret.
And my girl has hated me for just as long.
When my father found out about my love for Millie, the daughter of the rival family next door to us, he threatened everything I love the most if I didn’t let her go. My father didn’t give idle threats.
I had to hurt her to save her.
And for eight long years, I stayed away. But now, my father is dead and buried, leaving a caveat in the will that in order to inherit what’s rightfully mine and my sisters’, I have to marry and stay that way for one full year.
There’s only one woman in the world that I would consider saying I do to.
Millie is happy with her life, owning her coffee shop, enjoying her family. I deserve her glares, her snarky comments. Every moment of pain, from her or self-inflicted, is mine to own. She deserves so much more than me, standing on her doorstep, asking her to marry me. To help me.
But she says yes. Yes to one year of being mine, and I plan to show her that she’ll be mine until the stars fall from the sky.
With the name Lexington, I know that I’ve caused pain for not only Millie but the entire Wild family. Will I be able to convince my wild rose that I’m in love with her for all of the right reasons, or will the centuries-old family rivalry tear her away from me?
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PROLOGUE
HOLDEN
Eight Years Ago…
It’s been the best fucking month of my life.
I’ve spent every spare minute with Millie Wild and all her young, innocent beauty since I ran into her at the farmer’s market four weeks ago. She’s home for the summer from college, and like a moth to an inferno, I couldn’t stay away from her.
She’s too young for me. All my instincts scream that at me daily.
She may be an adult, but I’m pushing thirty, and I should stay away from her. At nineteen, she’s too young.
Not to mention, she’s the only daughter and youngest child of John Wild, my father’s arch nemesis. Our families have a hundred-year-old feud to maintain, so the likelihood of either of our parents sitting back and agreeing to this match is less than zero.
But I’ll be damned if I can stay away from her.
“I don’t want to go back to college,” Millie says with a sigh. We’re not on either of our properties, on the off chance we get caught. Instead, we’re sitting on a pile of blankets in the back of my truck at my good friend Brooks Blackwell’s ranch. The sun has gone down, and the stars are starting to come out.
“We still have a week,” I remind her. Her head is in my lap, and I’m brushing my fingers through her long, soft chestnut-brown hair that feels like silk against my skin. “We’ll do whatever you want before you go. Name it.”
“Except we can’t actually go on a date.” She narrows her eyes up at me. “This family feud shit is stupid, Holden. Who cares if our great-great-grandparents hated each other? Everyone needs to get over it already.”
“I couldn’t agree more.” I drag my fingertip down the bridge of her nose. A coyote howls somewhere off in the distance.
I can’t stop touching her. For a month, it’s been impossible to keep my hands to myself. Whether I’m holding her hand or touching her hair or sitting like this, memorizing her gorgeous face, I need to be in constant physical contact with this incredible woman.
But I haven’t slept with her. Because once we do that, there’s no going back, and I don’t want to push her too far before she’s ready. I don’t ever want to do anything that might make her pull away from me or run in the other direction.
“Holden?”
“Yes, Rosie?”
That makes her smirk. She told me a couple of weeks ago that her favorite flower is a wild rose, and now, that’s how I think of her. My little wild rose. It’s appropriate, given that her last name is Wild.
And when I want to see that sweet smile, I call her Rosie.
“I’m not going to see you for a while, am I?”
I sigh, not wanting to think about what’s going to happen after she returns to Bozeman to go to school next week.
“I wish I could come out there every weekend to spend a couple of days with you, but I have to be here for my sisters.”