Free Curvy Girls: Claimed By The Cowboy (The BBW and the Billionaire Rancher) by Georgette St. Clair Page A

much ruder than bringing your own meal when somebody’s cooked dinner for you. I see your wife wasn’t brought up any better than you were.”
    Ludmilla’s green eyes glazed over with fury, and Clayton’s knuckles turned white as he gripped his fork.
    “If I eat her food, then I will look like her,” Ludmilla smiled poisonously, speaking in her heavy Eastern European accent. “Like the cows that graze on these mountains.”
    The temperature in the air abruptly dropped fifty degrees and Ty pushed his chair back, rising slowly to his feet, with murder in his eyes. Ludmilla scooted her chair closer to Clayton’s, sudden fear flashing across her face.
    Lilly shrugged, picking up another forkful of mashed potatoes. “That’s right, I enjoy what I eat, and I’m perfectly happy with what I look like,” she said calmly. “And so is my husband, whose opinion is the only one that I care about.  You have to starve yourself all day, every day, to look like you do, and I see you staring at food all the time like a chained up dog ready to pounce.  That can’t be a lot of fun.”
    And she put the buttery mashed potatoes in her mouth and smiled blissfully.
    Heaven.
    She was a damned good cook, and she knew it.
    Ludmilla watched with hungry eyes, and swallowed hard.
    Slowly, Ty sat down again, but his expression was like thunder. “Watch how you talk to my wife, or I’ll physically pick you up and throw you off our property on your bony ass,” he gritted out at Ludmilla, who glowered down at her salad, not meeting his eyes.
    “This is my property, not yours.” Clayton leaped to his feet, hands clenched into fists, and Ty followed suit.
    “You haven’t won a fight with me since you were sixteen, and now you’ve gotten soft, city boy. Let’s go,” Ty snapped.
    Winston leaped to his feet, throwing down his napkin.
    “Enough!” He barked.
    They all turned to look at him.
    “Ty, your brother contacted me with some serious accusations. He claims that you have entered into a fake marriage, a marriage of convenience, because you wanted to inherit the ranch. After your marriage, he hired a private investigator, who uncovered this.”
    Winston had brought his briefcase to dinner with him, resting it on the floor against the table leg. Now he opened up his briefcase and pulled out a piece of paper, which he handed to Ty, who looked at it, expressionless.
    Abigail leaned over to see, carefully keeping a neutral expression on her face as nausea swelled up inside her and threatened to choke her.
    It was a printout of a society paper article from a Madison, Wisconsin, newspaper. It showed Ty standing next to a beautiful woman in a red gown, with her hair swept up into an elegant blonde updo, at a rancher’s charity auction to raise money for a children’s summer camp. The caption underneath the article identified her as Jeannette Little, his girlfriend.
    It was dated a week before Ty had arrived in Cross Creek.
    Abigail felt her heart drop into the bottom of her stomach. Was Ty’s girlfriend waiting for him back in Wisconsin, riding out this silly fake marriage until Ty had secured his ownership of the ranch?  She looked so perfect next to him. The Ken and Barbie couple.  
    Abigail forced a smile on her face, but her heart hammered so hard against her ribcage that she was afraid that it was visible to everyone in the room.
    Ty shrugged, and handed the clipping back to Winston. “I dated Jeannette off and on for a few months. Our relationship was over a month before this picture was taken, but she’d already signed us both up to appear at this charity auction, and she begged me to go, said she’d be humiliated if I didn’t attend after she’d told everyone that I would.”
    “She told me that you were still a couple when you landed here in Colorado,” Clayton said, his smile gloating, triumphant.
    “I’m not surprised she’d make up something like that. She wanted more from me, and she’s a girl who’s used to