One Night Scandal

Incredibly fulfilling even as it made him want her all over again.

In other words, it was pure insanity.

Brock sank into the mattress beside her, rolling her to his side so they lay together before he drew half of the duvet over their bare bodies.

“That was the craziest thing I’ve ever done.” Her words were softened by the wonder in her voice. The amazement. A hint of a smile curved her lips. “I don’t even know your last name.”

A stir of warning prickled along his shoulders. He’d withheld it on purpose, of course. But it didn’t matter now. She certainly hadn’t been trying to get close to him because he was a McNeill. That much had been established.

Besides, as an actress, she had her own path to fame and fortune.

“McNeill.” He glanced over at her, smoothing a long blond wave away from her cheek. “Brock McNeill.”

Something shifted in her eyes. A recognition, yes. But not the speculative, almost greedy kind that he’d sometimes seen over the years.

No. He could have sworn Hannah Ryder all but recoiled. There was the slightest flinch. A fractional crinkle of her smooth brow. A stillness.

As if the name meant something to her, and not in a good way.

He wanted to ask her about it. Or at least, to talk to her and make some sense of what just happened. But she was already sliding away from him.

“I’m so sorry.” She shook her head. “And embarrassed. But I just remembered I have an early call on set tomorrow.” She slipped out from under the duvet, turning to plant her feet on the floor. “I don’t know what I was thinking. But I guess that’s the whole point. I wasn’t really thinking.”

Perhaps her reaction didn’t have anything to do with his name. Maybe she was just feeling the bite of morning-after regret—far too soon. That much, he could understand. The attraction had caught them like a tornado, touching down with fevered intensity.

He put a hand on her shoulder. “I’ll go in a minute,” he assured her. “Is everything okay? Are you all right?”

“I’m fine.” She nodded, not making eye contact. “I’m just... This is completely awkward, right?” Hopping to her feet, she found her shirt and slid it over her head, the dark T-shirt covering her to the tops of her thighs. “Would you mind if we talked tomorrow, when I’ve got my head on straight again?”

Something was off here. Wrong.

He was missing it, but he wasn’t sure what he could accomplish by staying any longer when she was clearly agitated. He understood that. And she wasn’t the only one feeling rattled by what just happened. He just wished he could be sure that the only thing upsetting her was how fast things had escalated between them, and not something connected to his family name. The McNeills already had enough trouble brewing.

“Of course.” Nodding, he scooped his clothes off the floor and started to dress. “I’ll come by the set tomorrow and we’ll talk then.”

She opened her mouth, then snapped it shut again. Nodding, she pulled an afghan off the end of the bed and wrapped it around herself.

“Sure.” She hugged the blanket tighter while he finished dressing. “And, um, thank you for the ride home.”

He couldn’t help a wry chuckle as he stepped into his boots. “I sure as hell hope the ride isn’t what you remember most about this night.” Leaning close to her, he brushed a kiss over her cheek, wanting nothing more than to remind her that what just happened hadn’t been a fluke. But he understood about early wake-up calls. “We’ll definitely be talking more tomorrow. Good night, Hannah.”

Striding out of the bedroom, he retrieved his hat off the chair and dropped it on his head before stepping into the night. If Hannah was hiding something from him—if she had something against the McNeills—he had every intention of finding out.

Three (#ubdd54d39-9d0e-591e-8751-1677370f3200)

Hannah knew she couldn’t hide from Brock McNeill, but she was tempted to try the next day when he hadn’t made an appearance on the set by midmorning. How could the hottest night of her life have gone so terribly wrong?

The sexy rancher who’d turned her inside out was a McNeill.

Seated in a makeup chair under a canvas tent erected near the barn where she’d been shooting earlier, Hannah tried unsuccessfully to read through a script to take her mind off of Brock. She tried to get comfortable. There was a full-length mirror in front of her, and a cup of coffee stuffed in the mesh drink holder of her chair. Dressed in her period costume—a calico dress complete with petticoats and chemise—Hannah scrolled through the script for a space Western on her phone. It didn’t take a genius to know she was starting to get typecast as a ditz—a role she’d done well once and should have distanced herself from afterward. She played something similar in Winning the West, but she would have taken a role as an extra if it meant getting to work on an Antonio Ventura set. Shoving aside her phone, she wished she could feel outrage about her career. Instead, all she felt was anger at herself for making a selfish decision last night.

How could she have indulged herself that way, putting her own needs before her mission? It had never occurred to her that the casually dressed rancher who personally oversaw his horses could be a member of one of the nation’s wealthiest families. Hannah knew all about the connection between Cheyenne’s ranching McNeills and the Manhattan branch of the family and their lucrative resort chain. She’d also read up on the ties between the Silicon Valley start-up, Transparent, principally owned by Damon McNeill and his brothers.

Hannah had researched all of them carefully before she accepted the film role on McNeill land because of the secret connection between the Ventura family and the McNeills. A connection they’d all hidden so thoroughly, she wasn’t sure how many people even knew about it besides her. Not that Hannah cared about the secrets and scandals of the rich. She’d simply done her homework to find out if the McNeills were potential allies or enemies in her quest for justice for her sister.

And despite all the research she’d completed—even briefly working for the Ventura family’s cleaning service—she still couldn’t be certain. It could go either way. Certainly, Brock McNeill had shown no liking for Antonio. They’d behaved as though they were strangers when they spoke on the set yesterday—one more reason why Hannah would have never taken Brock for one of the McNeill family.

Restless and uneasy, Hannah shot from the chair to pace the temporary makeup and dressing area. She hadn’t gone three steps when Callie raced into the tent, her work apron covered with pins and her usually sleek ponytail twisted into a haphazard knot.

“There you are!” The wardrobe assistant skidded to a stop, one sandal catching on the tassels of a floor mat. Her cheeks were pink with hectic color. “Hannah, you have a visitor on set.” She lifted her dark eyebrows and lowered her voice. “The hot cowboy from yesterday.”

Tension squeezed Hannah’s shoulders even as warmth stirred in her belly. How could she pretend the same ease with him that she had yesterday, knowing his identity? Knowing the McNeills hid a connection to Antonio Ventura, the man she hated beyond reason? Not even Meryl Streep could pull off that kind of acting job.

“He’s here?” Hannah asked finally. Stalling.

She peered into the full-length mirror, wondering if her expression revealed her distress.

Callie stepped closer, looking at Hannah’s face in the mirror. “He said you were expecting him. What’s wrong?”

“Nothing. Just a little nervous, I guess.” She forced a smile, needing to get it together before she saw Brock. If only she understood his family’s link to the Venturas.

Was there a chance her relationship with Brock could help her learn something useful about Antonio? Something that would aid her efforts to unmask him for the monster he was?

Steeling herself for the performance she needed to give for the sake of her sister, Hannah hoped she could extricate herself from an intimate relationship without alienating Brock altogether. Because while she was willing to leverage a friendship to learn anything she could about Antonio, she drew the line at allowing Brock back into her bed ever again now that she knew he was a McNeill.

The rest of the world might not know the truth about the Ventura and McNeill connection, but Hannah had unearthed the secret from a coworker at the Venturas’ cleaning service.

Paige McNeill, Brock’s stepmother, had married Brock’s father under an assumed name. She was actually the missing Hollywood heiress Eden Harris. Daughter of the actress Barbara Harris and director Emilio Ventura. Stepsister to Antonio Ventura himself.

So until Hannah knew where the McNeills stood on the issue of the family they had never publicly acknowledged, maybe it was best to treat all of them—Brock included—like they were her potential enemies.

* * *

Brock knew he should stay away from Hannah Ryder.

Publicly, it made sense to keep the relationship quiet since he didn’t need to draw more attention to his family in the days—hours, perhaps—before a scandal broke. And privately, Brock had yet to figure out the expression on Hannah’s face when she’d learned of his identity last night, so it wasn’t a good idea to get too involved with a woman so clearly rattled by the McNeill name.

Yet here he was on the set of her film before noon the day after they’d met. After they’d parted awkwardly and she’d dominated his thoughts all night.

He paced behind the camera while the set crew worked to change some components in front of the lens. Lights were rolled out of the open barn doors and new lights were rolled in on handcarts and dollies. Props were switched. Hay was raked and “fluffed” using methods that rendered it unusable for horses—glue, silicon spray and filler were mixed in to make the piles look bigger against the walls. The whole place bustled with activity while the actors and director were on break.

Brock had missed seeing Hannah’s scene earlier in the day, but he’d been busy with his family. His brother Carson’s new girlfriend—Emma Layton, a stunt woman for Winning the West—had shared what might be an important clue about a connection between the McNeills and the Venturas, one the blackmailer could be exploiting. Emma’s mother, Jane, had been hinting at the connection in recent phone conversations. Jane Layton had worked as a maid for the Ventura families for years and had been privy to many of the family’s private affairs, but Emma also confided that her mother was emotionally unstable.

So could they trust any information gleaned from Jane Layton?

The McNeill family’s private investigator couldn’t follow up all the blackmail leads fast enough now that the time had almost expired on the threat to expose Paige McNeill’s past. Brock’s father was scared his wife was going to have a nervous breakdown, since she hadn’t yet fully recovered from her time spent in a coma. And Scarlett, Paige’s youngest daughter, refused to speak to any of them while she nursed her anger that they’d somehow forsaken Paige by not trying to work something out with the blackmailer.

Now this.