Total pages in book: 141
Estimated words: 128313 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 642(@200wpm)___ 513(@250wpm)___ 428(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 128313 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 642(@200wpm)___ 513(@250wpm)___ 428(@300wpm)
That moan she’d emitted in the passenger seat when I’d turned on the massage function . . . Christ, it was burned into my brain. I wanted to hear her moan like that under my tongue while I made her fall apart.
No! Stop.
But my brain didn’t want to listen.
Breathless, I tipped back my head and tried to forget the fact that Hallie had said she’d started to jump because of me (and Henry). That she’d met me before I was jaded and permanently angry. That was the person she admired, not the fucking arsehole I was right now. She probably couldn’t stand me now. I wasn’t a good person to be around these days. My stomach turned. I hated how much the thought of Hallie disliking me affected me.
Fuck!
I turned off the shower and climbed out. I’d kept the bathroom window open, and the cold air bit at my bare skin. Determined to put an end to this obsession with my new, young, fucking stunning rider—because shit, she was seven years younger than me—I vowed to stay away from her. I just needed distance. She would leave on tour soon, and I could get back to finding out who was trying to destroy the Knightons.
Dressing in jeans and an olive-green wool jumper, I threw on my padded wax jacket and my flat cap. I wouldn’t go to the arena today where Atticus, Hallie, and Sage were shooting the action shots. I’d leave it to Marco. Leon was going to be there to ensure the jumps were correct and adequate. Plus, I had a meeting with Alexis Hobbs, for my sins. Daughter of Richard Hobbs, the biggest horse dealer in our sport. For years he and my father had done business. The Hobbs bought many of our foals for foreign markets.
They were some of our biggest buyers. Like me, Alexis had taken the reins of the family business after her father had a heart attack and decided to retire. But where Richard was a gentleman—ruthless, yet a man of his word and honest—Alexis was anything but.
Not a week after my father died, Alexis had offered to buy the entire Knighton enterprise. I’d flat-out refused, of course. That only made her more tenacious. Alexis Hobbs was money mad and drunk off power due to her now-elevated status in our industry. She was ruthless in business.
And she’d been trying to fuck me since I was twenty years old.
Ten years my senior, she’d borderline stalked me in my early years on the circuit. My resistance only seemed to make her more determined. There wasn’t a deal that Alexis didn’t land once she set her mind on it, and with me, she had been denied my business and my cock. A woman like that didn’t take too kindly to rejection.
Despite our history, I couldn’t afford to alienate one of the biggest buyers in the UK, so today’s meeting was a necessary evil. I left my home and followed the path to the Knighton stud farm acreage. We had a family office there too, and all breeding and horse-buying business was done from there. The main house was strictly for family.
Twenty minutes later, I was sat at my desk in the family office, a coffee in hand, when there was a knock on the door. “Come in,” I called, and Charlotte, the stud farm’s manager, opened the door and cast me a tight smile.
“Mr. Knighton, Ms. Hobbs is here for your meeting,” Charlotte said, but was pushed aside as Alexis stepped through like a woman who never had a door closed to her.
I gave Charlotte an apologetic look, and she shut the door, leaving us alone.
“Jasper,” Alexis said, dressed head to toe in designer country attire—a tight tweed trench coat, belt pulled tightly at the waist. Her long burgundy leather boots disappeared under the hem of her jacket, and her hair was fastened in a tight bun. Alexis Hobbs was a prime example of how a very attractive person could be made ugly by their fucking appalling personality.
I got to my feet to greet her, but Alexis waved me off and sat down opposite me like she owned the room. I took a deep breath and sat down too. Her eyes were immediately fixed on me. “Can I offer you a drink, Alexis?” I said, trying to keep things cordial.
“No, I’m fine,” she said, and placed her vintage Birkin at her feet. Alexis’s head tipped to the side as she regarded me. “You look like shit, darling,” she said with her usual directness.
I huffed a laugh. “Don’t hold back on my account, Alexis,” I said dryly. I truly did not care what she thought of me.
“I’d still fuck you, though,” she said bluntly and sat back in her chair. Her eyes hooded, she crossed her legs, and I was sure it was her attempt at seduction.