Ride the Cowboy
Description
She's his best friend's daughter. She's twenty-one to his forty-three. She's engaged to another man. And she's about to make him break every rule he's ever lived by. When a doctored scandal destroys Manhattan socialite Adison's reputation overnight, her father ships her to Texas for two months of "character building" on his best friend's ranch. No money, no escape, and definitely no seducing Jake Sullivan-the devastatingly hot, forty-three-year-old rancher who's supposed to teach her humility. He owes her father, including protecting his wild daughter from making mistakes. Even if she's the biggest temptation he's ever faced. Even if every lingering touch and heated look is unraveling two decades of carefully maintained control. But Adison didn't survive being publicly destroyed just to play it safe. As their hostile sparks ignite into an undeniable attraction, their clash of worlds becomes a dangerous game. Jake is tormented by a past that ties him to her family and tries to push her away, convinced she's just a ghost from his past. Yet, Adison's bravery forces him to choose: protect his past or risk everything for a love that could either destroy them both or finally set them free.
Chapter 1
Feb 10, 2026
Adison’s POV
Three a.m. scrubbing at my face like I could erase the last six hours along with my foundation, and the thing about scandal is—it moves faster than you do.
My phone kept lighting up on the marble counter. Buzz. Buzz. Buzz. A metronome of social execution.
I didn't need to look to know what was happening. The photos Marcus doctored were already viral. Me, allegedly wrapped around my best friend's fiancé in a coat check room at the Metropolitan Museum gala.
But the internet doesn't care about the truth. It cares about the spectacle.
So I chose ice. Because ice didn't crack. Ice didn't beg.
Ice certainly didn't explain that this asshole had cornered me in a museum corridor himself. His hand on my throat and his other hand somewhere it had no fucking right to be.
The Metropolitan Museum's charity gala had been my stage for years—I knew every marble column, every shadowed alcove. I'd thought I was safe there.
Stupid.
Men like Marcus didn't need permission or privacy; they simply took what they wanted and rewrote history to suit their narrative.
The texts kept coming. Friends who weren't really friends, choosing sides like it was a game show. ‘Bitch, what were you thinking?’ and ‘Marcus said you've been obsessed with him for months’ and my personal favorite, ‘I always knew you were a whore.’
Nobody asked for my side. Nobody ever does when the narrative is this good.
I'd learned young that explanations were weakness. That society girls who defended themselves too loudly were labeled difficult and hysterical. Desperate.
Better to be ice. Better to let them wonder.
By seven a.m., I'd migrated to the dining room because staying in my room felt like hiding, and Wards don't hide. We face firing squads with good posture and our grandmother's pearls.
Dad was already there, reading The Times like this was a normal Thursday.
Like his daughter wasn't currently trending on three different social media platforms.
"Adison." He didn't look up. "Sit."
I sat. Poured myself coffee I didn't want, added cream with hands that didn't shake.
See? Perfectly fine. Completely unbothered.
"We need to discuss your situation."
My situation. Like I'd gotten a bad grade instead of publicly crucified by a man who'd tried to assault me.
"There's nothing to discuss," I said. "Marcus set me up. The photos are fake. Anyone with basic critical thinking skills could—"
"It doesn't matter." He finally looked at me, and God, when did my father get so old? "True or false, the damage is done.”
"So that's it? He wins because Rothwell is a better liar than I am?"
"This isn't about lying, Adison. It's about the mess you've created." His tone remained infuriatingly level, boardroom-calm. "Charles's family is threatening to pull out of the engagement. Governor Pemberton doesn't want his son associated with scandal."
"Charles can go to hell. You’re the one who arranged this engagement anyway. Marcus cornered me. He—"
"Adison." The word was a wall. "Marcus has texts. DMs. A very convincing timeline of you pursuing him. His lawyers are better than the truth."
The coffee tasted like ash, when I took a nervous sip while Dad set down his newspaper with surgical precision, before delivering the bomb.
"I'm sending you to Texas. To Jake Sullivan's ranch. Two months."
The laugh that came out of me was sharp enough to cut. "You're joking."
"Do I look like I'm joking?"
He didn't. He looked like every other Manhattan power player making a calculated move. Damage control. Strategic retreat.
Send the problematic daughter somewhere she can't make things worse.
"I have a wedding in four months," I pointed out, though we both knew I was negotiating from a position of zero leverage. "Fittings. Planning. Charles—"
"Charles needs time to determine if this marriage remains viable. His father suggested… distance."
Distance. Political speak for ‘your daughter is toxic right now and we're reconsidering this arrangement.’
"And if I decline this generous offer?"
Dad's expression achieved new depths of neutrality.
"Then you're financially independent. Immediately. No credit cards. No trust fund access. No apartment. You're welcome to test the job market with an art degree and a scandal that's currently at twelve million impressions."
The art degree. Another highlight from Richard Ward's Greatest Hits of Parental Decision-Making.
I'd wanted astronomy—had the grades, the passion. Even the acceptance letter to Columbia's program that I'd hidden in my underwear drawer like contraband.
But future political wives didn't study astronomy. They studied art history and nonprofit management, smiling through fundraising dinners without looking like they'd rather be anywhere else.
"You don't believe me." Not a question. "About what actually happened with Marcus."
Something moved across his face—guilt or indigestion, hard to distinguish.
"I believe this situation requires careful navigation. Jake's ranch is private, isolated. No paparazzi. No social media. You work, you reflect, and when you come back, we fix this."
We. Like he'd be the one fixing anything. Like I wasn't the one whose life was currently imploding in real-time.
But I had no real choice. We both knew it.
Twenty-one, financially dependent, with no practical skills beyond speaking fluent French and knowing which fork to use for oysters. Manhattan didn't offer many career opportunities for disgraced socialites.
"Fine." The word tasted like surrender, but I forced it out anyway. "Two months."
* * *
The town car felt like a moving coffin. Dad rode with me, probably afraid I'd bail at the last second. Or maybe experiencing some vestigial parental guilt about shipping his only daughter off to Texas like she was a problem to be solved.
"Jake's a good man," he said, staring out the window at Manhattan traffic. “He'll take care of you. He’s my oldest friend. "
The phrase carried weight I didn't fully understand.
Dad rarely talked about Jake Sullivan beyond occasional mentions of their childhood together, back when he summered on his grandfather's Texas property and Jake's father worked the ranch.
"By making me shovel horse shit?" I scoffed.
"By teaching you there are consequences to your behavior."
Not the assault. Not being targeted by a predator.
My. Fucking. Behavior.
"I know you think I'm handling this wrong." His voice carried an unfamiliar quality. Almost apologetic. "But I love you, Adison. This situation is extraordinary. You need to carefully consider your behavior moving forward."
There it was—the underlying assumption that I'd somehow caused this. That better choices, more careful conduct, would have prevented Marcus Rothwell from cornering me, from staging his elaborate setup, from weaponizing his privilege against mine.
"If you love me so much," I said quietly, "why didn't you ask my side? Why didn't you want to hear what actually happened from your own daughter?"
He flinched. Small movement, quickly controlled. "I'm protecting you the only way I know how."
Protection. Interesting interpretation for exile.
Here's what nobody mentions about being a Manhattan socialite: the constant male attention. The hands at parties, the lingering looks, the men who see dollar signs and connections and a decorative accessory for their ambitions.
I'd learned young to weaponize it. To use their interest while maintaining complete control. Twenty-one and still a virgin, not from any purity doctrine but from fundamental trust issues.
Every guy who looked at me saw everything except the actual person. So I'd kept that one thing for myself, that one piece they couldn't have or commodify or use in their networking strategies.
Probably the only authentic thing about me.
The jet waited at Teterboro, all leather and money and impersonal luxury. Dad hugged me—brief, awkward, checking a box on his parental obligation list.
"Use this time wisely."
I boarded. The door sealed. Manhattan disappeared below, and I I replayed the Marcus situation methodically.
The corridor. His hand. His breath saying, ‘Nobody will believe you.’ The photos. The perfectly constructed lie. The weaponization of narrative against reality.
Fury crystallized into something useful. Something strategic.
They wanted me exiled? Fine. I'd take the exile.
And then I'd return to Manhattan and systematically dismantle Marcus Rothwell's entire existence.
Ride the Cowboy
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