Wild and Unruly

Chapter 1

There were cattle in the road.

When Louis had arrived at work that morning in his slim tailored suit and too-expensive Tanino Crisci loafers, mocha venti in hand as he pushed through the revolving door of a shiny glass office building in downtown Denver, he hadn't expected that his day would end in cattle. But then he'd run into his boss, fresh from a high-level meeting, and the wheels of his destiny had begun to turn.

"You take care of it, Malik," Zayn had muttered. "That's what they said. As if I can spare a paralegal."

Louis made sympathetic noises as he finished typing up a contract. Zayn Malik was both Louis's boss and his best friend, the most junior associate in Anne Twist's seemingly endless fleet of unfairly attractive corporate lawyers, and he was also a constant grump. Not to mention the most beautiful man most people were likely to run into on any given day, all coal-dark eyes and cut cheekbones, which tended to result in Louis feeling a bit invisible whenever they were out together. He compensated by being loud.

"Send Nick," Louis shrugged. "Get him out of my hair for a while."

Zayn rolled his eyes, letting the corners of his mouth twitch up into a smile. "Nick's not so bad, Louis."

"He started a week before me and thinks that gives him the right to order me around. Send him away." Louis made a shooing motion. "Let him commune with nature; maybe it'll change him." Louis's nose wrinkled involuntarily at the word nature. He was comfortably cosmopolitan by choice and intended to stay that way; no mud and fertilizer for him, thanks. Nick could go roll in it.

"He's really not that bad," Zayn chuckled. Always the diplomat, Zayn. But he had assigned the job to Nick in the end, telling him to go home and pack a bag after booking him on a last-minute flight out to Sheridan, Wyoming.

There was oil in the ground, apparently. National Energy Group -- one of TwistCorp's largest subsidiaries -- was buying up the mineral rights to parcels of land from several cattle ranches out near the Bighorns and had run into an unexpected hiccup. One of the sellers was suddenly getting cold feet, though the transaction had long since been brokered. National Energy's CEO was now demanding that TwistCorp send a notary out with documents to witness the sale.

"The largest of the newly discovered reservoirs is on this guy's land," Zayn said as he walked Nick to the elevators, hastily getting him caught up on all the particulars. Louis trailed behind them, absentmindedly typing out a text on his phone. "Three times the size of what's under the neighboring ranches, according to seismic surveys. It's 2.3 billion dollars and six months of work down the drain if we don't get a signature." Louis's eyes widened. He'd worked on big deals before, but none in the ten-figure range.

"Who's the seller?" Nick asked, just as he rounded a corner and ran straight into Anne Twist herself. She was the founder and CEO of TwistCorp, and as such had everyone's balls firmly in hand. "Oh!" he blinked, gawkishly. "Excuse me, ma'am."

"My son," she replied.

"Pardon?"

"The seller," she said, reaching up to pat her signature French twist with a brusque, manicured hand, "is my son." There was a hint of aggravation in her voice, but it was mixed with beleaguered affection. "He's been avoiding the whole thing for weeks, says he never agreed to the terms of the contract." She paused, gaze flicking from Nick over to Zayn and then behind Zayn to where Louis had been attempting to discreetly eavesdrop. He felt his shoulders fold inward involuntarily.

"This is your man," Zayn said, reaching up to clap Nick on the back, "He'll have the deed signed and notarized by tomorrow, or Thursday at the --"

"No." Anne's eyes narrowed on Louis as though she were working out a complicated chess problem. "Send the cute one."