The Billionaire's Ballet: A Contemporary Billionaire Friends to Lovers Romance (Friends with Benefits) Read Online Free Page B

on the rump. “Glad to see you up on your horse. We wondered if you were going to be all citified.”  
    I laughed. “You can take the girl out of the country…,” I said.
    “Glad to see they haven’t taken the country out of the girl.”
    My boot fit nicely in the stirrup, and I swung my leg over Jezebelle’s back. “You ready, my lady?” I asked, rubbing her head.
    She stepped lively as Sawyer walked ahead and opened the gate for us. “Take her out for a spell. Bennett likes to walk her on the trail.”
    I nodded, urging Jezebelle forward.
    He’d mentioned Bennett twice now. There were a lot of horses in the barn. Bennett had a powerful former racehorse that was technically his. Or at least he used to. I wondered why he rode mine.
    As we trotted out across the open pen, I thought about that last night when Bennett caught me confessing my love for Quinn to my horse. He had promised me she would be taken care of.
    I just hadn’t expected he would do it himself.
    One of the horse handlers waved at me and jogged ahead to open the gate to the back lot. The trail through the mesquite trees and brush had been there since the estate had been a real ranch.
    Prettying up the barn and cleaning up the grounds had transformed a working ranch into an estate. Maybe I’d hoped my clothes and poise would do the same for me.
    But nobody was fooled. Least of all me.

Chapter 5

    One thing about nature is that if nobody touches it, it doesn’t change.
    As Jezebelle picked her way along the trail, my heart soared with the recognition of each detail I’d treasured when I was a girl.
    “There’s the ghost tree,” I told my horse, pointing toward a great towering oak with a giant knot in the bark that looked like a screaming woman.
    “And elephant rock!” The big gray stone had a deep smooth indentation along a curve, leaving the impression of an elephant trunk.
    Jezebelle tossed her head as if feeling my energy. I nudged her into a trot and the breeze cooled my face as we moved faster along the trail.
    I wanted to shout out loud. My soul felt very full. The emotion was rare for me. Sometimes I felt it when I nailed the perfect pirouette or during a ballet, when I became completely, almost supernaturally, in sync with a line of dancers.
    But this was so much easier.
    The very idea made me laugh. It was true. I had to work very hard for the happy moments in New York. The rehearsal and performance schedule was grueling. The relationships between the dancers vacillated wildly between best friends to cutthroat competition. The travel was exhausting and yet you had to perform no matter how you felt, jet-lagged or not sure about the foreign food or down with a cold.
    This happiness was effortless. Jezebelle was doing all the work.
    I ducked beneath a sprig of a tree branch that jutted out into the trail. When I lifted my head, Jezebelle suddenly slowed.
    “What is it, girl?”
    We rounded a curve and I saw him.
    Face to face.
    Horse to horse.
    Bennett.
    Serious as always.
    I drew Jezebelle up short. Bennett also halted his racehorse.
    We ended up side by side, facing opposite directions. Like the night I left, Bennett’s gaze slid down my body, taking in the red tank top and jeans.
    “You left behind the suit,” he said.
    “So did you.”
    He glanced down at his riding outfit. No cowboy look here. All water-wicking advanced outdoor wear. It fit him like a second skin.
    He was muscled and way more buff than I would have pegged a businessman like him to be. He must take his workouts as seriously as he did the company.
    “Not very Texas of you,” I said.
    He shrugged. “I don’t wear togas in Rome either.”
    I had nothing to say to that. Jezebelle nickered and pranced, feeling anxious so close to the stallion. I drew up the reins and patted her neck.
    Bennett shifted his horse over a little. “It looks like New York agreed with you.” His eyes slid over me again.
    My body zinged with a tremor that moved from stirrups to