The Heiress's Heart, Reclaimed By Love

I am the sole heiress to a Texas oil empire. To protect me, my father adopted seven boys who were meant to be my future, and I was in love with their leader, Jax, my intended fiancé.

But it was all a lie. I overheard them confess they were only playing along to secure my fortune for Daisy-Mae, the girl Jax truly loved.

The humiliation was relentless. Jax sabotaged my saddle, breaking my leg. He publicly shamed me at an auction, buying a million-dollar necklace for her after freezing my funds.

The final blow came at my birthday party, where a private video of me crying over him was broadcast to hundreds of guests.

He did it all for her. Even when I exposed Daisy-Mae's plot, he confessed to her crimes to protect her, then offered to marry me as a bribe to buy my silence.

He thought he still had power over me.

But in front of everyone, I looked him in the eye and delivered the killing blow.

"I stopped loving you a long time ago, Jax."

Then I turned to the one man who had defended me, Sterling Prescott, and announced, "The man I'm going to marry is him."

Chapter 1

Scarlett POV:

"Dad, I've decided. I'm going to marry Sterling Prescott."

The words hung in the air of my father's study, thick and heavy as the Texas heat. The scent of old leather and his expensive cigar filled my lungs, a smell that had always meant safety. Now, it just felt suffocating.

Cormac O'Connell put down his crystal glass of whiskey, the ice clinking softly. His weathered face, carved from years of commanding the Golden Thorn Ranch and a vast oil empire, was a mask of confusion. "Scarlett, honey, what are you talking about? You love Jax. You've loved him since you were a girl."

He gestured vaguely towards the window, as if the seven men he'd adopted for me were standing right outside. "And if not Jax, there are six others out there who would walk through fire for you."

A bitter laugh almost escaped my lips. Walk through fire? They wouldn't even walk across the yard for me unless it served their own purpose.

My mind flashed back to last night. The memory was a shard of glass in my gut. I'd been heading to the stables to see my horse, Midnight, when I heard their voices drifting from the open window of the cowboys' bunkhouse. Laughter, low and cruel.

Wyatt Miller's voice was the clearest. "She's such a fool. Still thinks I jumped from the hayloft that time to impress her." He snorted. "I was just trying to scare her off so she'd stop following me around like a lost puppy."

Another voice, Colt's, chimed in. "Works like a charm. Just act like the biggest jerk you can be. She hates loud music, so I blast it. She hates dirt in the house, so I track it in. The more she hates me, the better. It keeps things fair for the rest of us."

Fair. The word twisted inside me.

"Fair for what?" I had whispered, my hand pressed against the rough wood of the bunkhouse wall.

"For Daisy-Mae," someone else said, and the tone shifted. "She's the only one who actually sees us, you know? Not just what we can do for the ranch. Jax is the only one not playing the game. He has to marry the princess so our sweet Daisy-Mae can keep her place here. Poor bastard."

The pieces of my life, the ones I thought were a beautiful mosaic of love and family, shattered into a million ugly fragments. Years ago, grieving my mother, my father adopted seven promising boys from foster care. They were meant to be my protectors, my future, the heirs to my empire. Jax Braxton, the smartest and wildest, insisted they also adopt his "sister," Daisy-Mae, the girl who'd been with him through it all.

All those years, every time I felt a spark of jealousy towards Daisy-Mae, they had ganged up on me, calling me petty and spoiled. They'd made me believe I was the problem. They had gaslighted me into thinking their coldness was a challenge, their indifference a test of my love.

A noise from the garden had pulled me from my frozen shock last night. I followed it, my heart a leaden weight in my chest, towards the old stables. And there, silhouetted against the pale moonlight, was a sight that burned itself onto the back of my eyes.

Jax had Daisy-Mae pinned against the stable wall, his hands tangled in her blonde hair, kissing her with a desperate, consuming passion I had only ever dreamed of receiving.

I heard his voice, a low growl meant only for her. "Even if I have to marry her, you know you're the only one for me. She'll get a ring and a title. But my heart, my love... that will always be yours. I'll never give her any of it."

Scarlett POV:

"They don't love me, Dad," I said, my voice flat and empty. The memory of Jax's words had scraped me hollow. "They never did. It was always for her."

I took a steadying breath, pushing down the last tremor of pain. There was no room for it anymore. "I have a second request."

My father watched me, his eyes full of a dawning, terrible understanding. "Anything, Scarlett."

"Freeze their funds. All seven of them. And hers," I said, the name Daisy-Mae feeling like poison on my tongue. "The O'Connell family doesn't support parasites. They are ranch hands, nothing more. They will earn their keep or they will leave."

He nodded slowly, a muscle ticking in his jaw. "It's done. And the day you marry Sterling, I'll have them all escorted off this ranch. I won't have them lingering, trying to stake a claim on what is yours."

It was a start. My chest felt a little less tight.

As I left the study, I nearly collided with Daisy-Mae at the top of the grand staircase. She was dressed in a pristine white sundress, her blonde hair in innocent-looking braids.

"Scarlett!" she chirped, linking her arm through mine. Her touch felt like a snake coiling around my skin. "I was just coming to find you. Will you take me to practice barrel racing today? Please?"

I yanked my arm away from her as if I'd been burned. "Don't touch me."

The smile on her face flickered for a second before it was replaced by a look of profound, theatrical hurt. Her lower lip trembled. "Scarlett, what's wrong?"

Before I could answer, she took a clumsy step back, her heel catching on nothing at all, and tumbled dramatically down the last few steps of the staircase with a pained cry.

She landed in a heap at the bottom, just as Jax and Colt emerged from the dining room.

"Daisy-Mae!" Colt shouted, rushing to her side. He glared up at me, his face contorted with rage. "What the hell did you do to her? You pushed her, you vicious bitch!"

Jax was already kneeling, gently helping Daisy-Mae to her feet. She leaned against him, sobbing. "No, no, Colt, it was an accident. Scarlett didn't mean it. She's just... upset about something."

Her fake defense was more damning than any accusation. It painted me as the cruel, unstable heiress and her as the forgiving angel. The other cowboys, drawn by the commotion, now stared at me with open disgust.

Later, at the racetrack, the performance continued. Jax completely ignored my presence. He spent the entire time with Daisy-Mae, his hands on her waist as he showed her how to hold the reins, his voice a low, encouraging murmur.

When it was time to dismount, he did something that made the air leave my lungs. He knelt on one knee in the dust, offering his broad shoulder as a step for her. She placed her small, booted foot on him without hesitation and gracefully slid to the ground.

I remembered, years ago, when I was learning to ride, my father had told Jax to do the same for me. Jax had refused. My father had grabbed him by the collar, forced him to his knees, and hissed, "You only kneel for your wife, son. And one day, that will be her."

Now, he was kneeling in the Texas dirt, but not for his future wife. He was kneeling for his whore.

Scarlett POV:

The sight of Jax on his knees for Daisy-Mae was a physical blow. A hot, angry pain flared in my chest, and I spurred my horse, galloping away from them, away from the lie my life had become.

I pushed my stallion, Midnight, faster and faster, urging him over the practice jumps. The wind whipped tears from my eyes. Maybe if I rode hard enough, I could outrun the hurt.

We approached the highest hurdle. I leaned forward, ready for the familiar weightless moment of the jump.

But instead of soaring, there was a sickening snap.

The saddle strap gave way. The world tilted violently, and I was thrown, hitting the hard-packed earth with a force that knocked the breath from my body. Pain, white-hot and blinding, shot up my leg.

Midnight, panicked, reared up, his hooves thrashing the air just inches from my head.

My protector, my guardian, the man who was always supposed to be watching my back, was a hundred yards away, his attention still fixed on Daisy-Mae. He hadn't even noticed.

"Jax!" I screamed, my voice raw with terror and pain.

His head finally snapped in my direction. He moved then, a blur of motion, grabbing Midnight's reins and wrestling the terrified animal under control.

The next few hours were a haze of agony. My leg was broken. In the ranch infirmary, as the doctor set the bone, Jax stayed by my side. He was quiet, his face grim. When the doctor left, he took over my care with a meticulous attention that was almost suffocating. He fluffed my pillows, brought me water, and sat by my bed, watching me with an intensity that made my skin prickle.

A foolish, treacherous part of me wanted to believe it was concern. That seeing me hurt had finally woken him up. But I knew better. His love, if it ever existed, flowed in only one direction, and it wasn't towards me.

One night, unable to sleep, I hobbled on my crutches towards the small bathroom down the hall. The infirmary was quiet, the only light coming from a single lamp in the corridor. As I passed the open doorway of the supply closet, I heard voices. Jax's and Wyatt's.

"You took it too far this time, Jax," Wyatt said, his voice low. "A broken leg? Are you trying to kill her?"

My blood ran cold. I froze, pressing myself against the wall, hidden in the shadows.

Jax's reply was flat, devoid of emotion. "I just loosened the strap. I thought it would slip, scare her a little. Teach her a lesson for making Daisy-Mae cry. I never thought the whole damn thing would snap. It was a miscalculation."

A miscalculation.

Wyatt sighed. "And all this?" He gestured back towards my room. "The concerned fiancé act?"

"It's damage control," Jax said, his voice like ice. "I screwed up. Now I'm fixing it. It's my responsibility."

The crutches slipped from my numb fingers and clattered to the floor. The sound echoed in the silent hallway like a gunshot. Inside the closet, the voices stopped.

He had sabotaged my saddle. He had done this to me. On purpose. And his care wasn't love. It was payment for a debt.