He Scorned Me, Now I’m a CEO He Can’t Afford Chapter 05

He Scorned Me, Now I’m a CEO He Can’t Afford Chapter 05

When Lena woke, she was in the ranch infirmary.

The air was thick with the smell of disinfectant.

A blue curtain separated her bed from the rest of the room, but voices carried through it easily.

The first voice she heard was Clara’s, choked with tears.

“Wyatt, that was so reckless. You could have been trampled trying to save Lena. Do you realize that?”

Then came the teasing from the others.

“Wyatt, don’t tell me you’re actually starting to like her? Why else would you risk your life like that?”

A moment of silence fell outside the curtain.

Lena’s heart, against her will, stopped.

Then she heard Wyatt’s voice.

Cold, hard, and familiar.

“Don’t be ridiculous. I saved her because I didn’t want her holding today against Clara and trying to ruin her application to the Davis exchange program.”

The air went still.

After a moment, Clara asked softly, “Really? That’s all?”

“What else?” Wyatt’s tone was sharp with impatience. “Do you really think I’d be interested in someone like Lena? A girl who knows nothing about the land and lives for Austin parties?”

*Knows nothing about the land.*

*Lives for parties.*

When the words hit her, Lena felt nothing.

Before, a casual remark from Wyatt—*you’re so loud*—could keep her up all night, hurting.

Now, the heart that had once beat only for him had finally gone still.

She slowly closed her eyes and exhaled.

So that was why he’d saved her.

Fine.

Then she owed him nothing.

Fortunately, their injuries were superficial, and they both left the infirmary that day.

The next day, the entire ranch was in a flurry of activity, preparing for storm season: reinforcing stables, clearing the yards. As was tradition, Wyatt brought a crew from Rattlesnake Ranch to help.

Lena’s stepmother assigned her the job of cleaning out the innermost tack room, a space piled high with junk.

It was the dirtiest, most exhausting task available.

She said nothing, just expressionlessly tossed dust-covered saddles and rusty horseshoes into a cart.

Until, from the bottom of a broken wooden crate, she pulled out a package carefully wrapped in oilcloth.

She opened it.

Inside was a brand-new pair of handmade leather gloves.

Soft deerskin, fine stitching, and a small rattlesnake branded into the wrist guard: Wyatt’s family crest.

“My God.” Hank, who had come in to help, recognized them instantly. “Lena, you finally finished them? I remember you staying up for nights on end to get them done for Wyatt’s birthday. Pricked your hands raw, you did.”

Wyatt, who was passing the doorway with an armful of hay, stopped dead in his tracks.

He suddenly remembered.

A month before his birthday last year, Lena had run up to him and grabbed his hand, carefully wrapping it with a tape measure.

“What are you doing?” he had asked, frowning as he tried to pull away.

“Don’t move.” She had held on tight, her eyes bright. “I’m making you the best riding gloves you’ll ever own. Better than anything you can buy. I guarantee you won’t ever want to take them off.”

After that, she’d been a whirlwind of activity, tracking down the best leather, hiding out in the stables, teaching herself to sew with old tools.

He’d seen her prick her fingers with the heavy needle more than once. She’d just frown, stick the finger in her mouth for a second, and keep working.

He had thought it was just another one of her whims.

He never imagined she had actually finished them.

Wyatt’s fingers curled. He was about to say something when—

“Ah!”

A scream came from the other side of the room.

It was Clara.

Wyatt immediately turned and rushed over.

“What happened?”

A piece of raised wire fencing had sliced open Clara’s arm. Blood was pouring from the wound.

“She’s bleeding so much!”

The girls around her panicked, looking for something to press against the cut, but everything was covered in dust and hay.

“Use that!” someone shouted, pointing at the new gloves in Lena’s hand. “That looks clean. Use it to stop the bleeding!”

Wyatt froze and instinctively looked at Lena.

He expected her to refuse.

After all, she had spent countless nights making them.

But Lena merely placed the gloves on a nearby wooden bucket, her expression as calm as still water.

“Do whatever you want.”

In that instant, a strange pang hit Wyatt’s chest.

He remembered the undisguised excitement in her eyes every time she had mentioned the gloves.

But now, she truly didn’t care.

Before he could process it, Clara let out another sharp gasp of pain.

Almost on instinct, Wyatt grabbed the gloves, strode over, and pressed them firmly against her bleeding arm.

When he snapped back to himself, a large patch of the cream-colored deerskin was already soaked in blood.

Lena watched the scene unfold, then smiled.

It was a faint, cold smile.

She turned to leave.

But just as she reached the door—

“Ah!”

Clara let out an even sharper scream, her whole body trembling.

“It hurts! It hurts! There’s something in the gloves! It stabbed my wound!”

Wyatt’s head snapped around.

In three long strides, he was in front of Lena, grabbing her wrist. His face was a grim, frightening mask.

“Lena,” he said, his voice like ice, “what did you put in those gloves?”