Distributed Release Upcoming I fell in love with your rope skills. I stayed because, somehow, he took my heart and made it his. Callum Valentine didn't want to listen. So again? When a man is calling a woman fat in front of your desk, it's kind of hard not to intervene. Especially when the prettiest creature in town is called fat. Desi just wants to be left alone. After an ugly divorce, she thinks she is free. So her ex takes it upon herself to continue making her life miserable, giving Desi no choice but to take it or leave. In fact, her bags were almost packed when Callum stuck his nose into the most embarrassing spectacle the town of Kilgore had ever witnessed. The moment he declares her his and off limits, everything changes, and definitely not for the better. As if things couldn't get any worse than being called a pitiful, fat heifer in front of the hottest man she's ever seen, Callum has to go and say she's his, and they have to play a game she doesn't have. sure you want to be playing. But before her eyes, things change. And suddenly the rules of the game are not clear. And they're crossing boundaries that none of them see coming. Chapter 1 Why does chocolate need to make you fat? Why can't celery make you fat? - Desi Desidara's Secret Thoughts Dragging divorces. What's more boring than seeing your ex-husband date the woman he cheated on you with? Or, more precisely, being there. Although he didn't see me, thank God. I look down at my lap, hoping beyond hope that if I don't maintain eye contact, that means he won't...but I should have known better. Mal Stevens and Marjorie Christmas are idiots. If they could find a way to make my life harder than it needs to be, they would. Even worse, they would embarrass me if they could. That is, when they walk, they torture me mercilessly. "Well, hello, Desi-Massa," I hear my recently divorced ex-husband practically scoff. Desi-Massa. God, if there was a way to exclude one word from human language, it would be the word 'mass'. About a year and a half into our marriage, when I started to gain weight, Mal started using creative and inventive words to remind me that I wasn't six anymore. Even worse, he shared these words with his now-girlfriend, who is also delighted every time she uses the word and I recoil. I slowly look up, I know what I will find when I do. Mal's cruel gaze focuses solely on me. "Hi, Mal," I say softly. "How can I help?" His lips lift into a sneer. "You can help me by telling my father that you no longer need money." My eyebrows rise. "I can't," I say. "If I don't have money from you, I can't pay for the house, and you know it." A payment on the house he forced me to buy. A house payment that, if I could, I would give up in a heartbeat. The only problem is, no one in their goddamn mind wants to buy two thousand acres and a ten thousand square foot house. Hell, I don't even know why the hell I agreed to buy it, but here I am, up to my eyeballs in debt, with a slim chance in hell of unloading a house I neither want nor need. "Yes," he scoffs. "You keep telling yourself that. And I will continue to write checks every month for ridiculous reasons." He pauses. "I hope you like next month's check." I grimace, not knowing what to say to that. "Do you want to know why?" Marjorie practically laughs. No, I don't. I have a feeling they are going to share the information with me whether they agree or not. So I just sit there, patiently waiting for them to ruin my day even more. "Oh, she doesn't look happy, Mal." Marjorie laughs. I want to punch her in the throat, with the hand that still has the tan from my wedding ring. Too bad I hadn't said ring yet, otherwise I was sure to rub it in her face. At this point, I'm truly okay with Mal. The only problem is that Mal thinks I'm still swayed by him. Honestly, I'm not. I am upset. Angry that I wasted a year of my life dating him, and two years of my life married to him. Even more, I wished I hadn't thought he'd be a good father when I first saw him with his nephew. If I was being honest, it was Mal's nephew who first caught my attention. He was two years old and wore boots, a cowboy hat and spurs. He was riding a horse and fell. I, being an educational person by nature, had gone to help the little cowboy. And that cowboy stole my heart, along with his uncle about ten seconds later. Unfortunately for me, I didn't realize that his uncle was the player that he is. I also hadn't realized what kind of spoiled brat he was either.