“Another year or two.” Anger flew up and shadowboxed her. It grew hot and stuffy in the air-conditioned town car. “Do you mean after we’re married, when the power’s transferred from your generation to mine, which means Marcel, because women can’t wear the pants in the royal family?”

“He didn’t say anything like that, but it is fair for him to want to hold off on making any changes until he’s in control. He’s worked alongside his father for years and has an outstanding education…we trust his guardianship of our family’s business.”

“He cheated on me. He can’t be trusted with anything.” Out the window, she watched the landscape roll by, a world so drastically different from St. Christophe she could hardly believe it existed.

Marcel had failed her horribly, and it enraged her. He knew what this product line meant to her.

“He’s not saying no,” her mother said. “Just not right now.”

“Right. Got it. Not for the next few years, during which I’ll be marrying him, popping out a baby or two, and launching my philanthropy.”

“That’s the presumption, yes.”

This plan they were all so keen on would neuter her. It would take away her passion, her career, her agency, and it burned a blazing path of injustice right through the core of her being. She sat quietly, not wanting to take it out on her mother, who’d surely suffered the same frustrations and sense of helplessness.

But I’m not my mother.

And I’m only helpless if I give up who I am and fall in line.

She needed another solution, and she needed it now.

To get to the private airstrip, they had to cut across a wide swath of meadow bursting with wildflowers. She pressed the button to roll down the window. Eyes closed, she breathed in the sun-baked earth and wildflowers.

She loved Calamity. The warm, dry air, the valley filled with sagebrush, the violent up-thrust of snow-capped mountains. And the quirky people who loved nature and coveted privacy.

And she loved this new flower she’d discovered. She wanted—more than anything—to stay in town longer. This partnership with Brodie might be her only chance to turn her dreams into reality.

But the scariest truth of all? She wanted more time with him. Brodie. Even if nothing ever developed between them, he’d awakened these feelings. She was just so…hungry for them.

Calamity had uncorked her, and the very best bits of her had come bubbling out.

I don’t want to lose that. Not yet. “Mama, I’m not coming home.”

“Oh, Rosalina, you mustn’t punish us for making a business decision. You’ve got so much talent—”

“I know that, and you’re asking me to bury it.” She shifted the phone away from her mouth to speak to Harrison. “Please ask the driver to take me back to the bunkhouse.”