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WILD EQUESTRIAN STEPSISTERS ROMANCE STORY 🐎🐎🔥🌶️❤️‍🔥 START READING NOW & GO FROM VANILLA TO WILD HOTNESS LEVEL: 4/5 ⬇️⬇️⬇️⬇️⬇️ CHAPTER 1 Zara’s POV "What the fuck, Dad?" There was a silver Range Rover in the driveway with two strangers climbing out of it, and my father was fixing his cufflinks like he hadn't just blown up my entire life via text message. Twenty minutes earlier, he'd texted me. Coming home with Sage and her daughter. They'll be staying with us. No call, no explanation. Just a notification. As always, I don't even deserve proper notice. Through the window I could see them — a blonde woman in a black dress dabbing her eyes with a tissue, and a girl about my age in ripped jeans and a messy bun. She wasn't even looking at the house. Her head was already turned toward my stables. Don't you dare look at my stables like they're yours. "Language, Zara." "You got married?" My voice cracked and I hated myself for it. "Without telling me?" "Sage and I have been seeing each other for a few months. She lost her husband recently — we kept the ceremony small, out of respect for her mourning." Out of respect for her mourning. But not for your daughter, who found out by text twenty minutes ago. "Her daughter rides dressage," he went on, like we were discussing the weather. "Maxine. She is eighteen, just your age. Candidate for Master of Sport." The ground slipped from under my feet. Another rider. In my stable. Under my father's roof, where every win I'd ever earned hung framed in the hallway and still wasn't enough to hear I'm proud of you without a but stapled to the end. Just don't tell me that because of her I'll have to try even harder to win my father's favor. The front door opened. Sage walked in clutching her purse with both hands, looking like someone who'd been told to smile at a funeral. Then the girl stepped in behind her, took one look at the ceiling, and whistled loud enough to echo off the walls of my foyer. "This place is insane." She spun in a slow circle. "Mom, are you seeing this? There's an actual chandelier." A chandelier. She's losing her mind over a chandelier. I had an Olympic bronze medal upstairs that my father walked past every morning without a glance — but sure, let's all get excited about the light fixture. "Zara. This is Sage. Your stepmother. And this is Maxine." Maxine stuck her hand out. Full arm extension, big grin, the whole deal. "Hey! Call me Max. Everyone does." Maxine’s POV What an arrogant, stuck-up, ice-cold bitch. That's what ran through my head as I followed Zara toward the stables with the biggest smile I could manage. She'd thrown my nationals score at me like a weapon, looked at me like I was dirt on her precious floors, and now she was three steps ahead acting like I’m unworthy of her. Message is clear: I should be grateful she was letting me breathe the same air. I wanted to grab her by that perfect ponytail and ask her who the hell she thought she was. Instead I kept smiling, because I couldn't mess this up. Not this time. After my dad died, I stopped eating for a week. Stopped talking. Stopped going to the barn. But the real problem wasn't me — it was my mom. I found her on the bathroom floor at three in the morning a few days after the funeral, not crying, just sitting there staring at the tiles like she'd forgotten how to stand up. She said she'd handle it. She didn't. For about two months it was just me in a quiet house with a woman who forgot to buy groceries and sometimes forgot I was there at all. Then she met Ben. And suddenly she had a reason to get dressed again, to smile, to put on lipstick before leaving the house. When she told me we were moving to his ranch, she held my face in both hands and said, "This is our fresh start, baby. Please — just try to make it work. For me." She'd lost enough. If this fell apart — if I picked fights with Ben's daughter, if I gave anyone a reason to push us out — my mom would go back to that empty house and that bathroom floor. I couldn't let that happen. So the plan was simple. Be warm, be funny, be so relentlessly nice that nobody could find a reason to send us away. Smile big enough and people eventually smile back. But Zara Walsh was not smiling back. She was three steps ahead of me on the gravel path with that ridiculous posture — straight spine, chin up, every muscle in her body knowing exactly where it belonged. Even the way she walked looked like dressage. I jogged to catch up. "This property is unreal. How many acres is it?" "Sixty." "Sixty, wow." I looked out past the paddocks toward the treeline. The sun was low and everything had gone gold and warm. The kind of light my dad used to stop the car for so he could take a picture on his phone. My chest ached just thinking about it. "My dad would've loved it here." Zara didn't respond. Didn't slow down. Didn't even turn her head. Like I hadn't said anything at all. Okay. Different angle. "So the Harrington Classic — are you competing too? Maybe we could train together sometimes. I know you're way more advanced than me, but—" "It would be weird." She still didn't look at me. "I don't train with amateurs." I swallowed that one and smiled through it. "Fair enough. But if you ever change your mind—" "I won't." We passed a second paddock where two dark horses grazed side by side. I wanted to stop and look at everything — this place was the most beautiful thing I'd ever seen — but Zara moved through it like wallpaper. "Can I ask you something?" "You're going to anyway." "What's Ashton like as a trainer? He seems really—" "Oh my god, stop." She spun around so fast I nearly walked into her. Her jaw was clenched, nostrils flared, and those pale green eyes were cutting right through me like I was made of glass. "Stop asking me questions. Stop trying to be my friend. Stop acting like we're going to braid each other's hair." I opened my mouth but she wasn't done. "If you think you're staying here long, prepare to be disappointed." Her voice was shaking, and not from fear. "My father has gone through five wives. Five. Pretty soon he'll realize he doesn't need your mother either, and you'll be packing that suitcase again." My smile dropped before I could catch it. For a second I just stood there, stunned, like she'd actually hit me. "That's a really cruel thing to say." "It's an honest thing to say." She tilted her head, almost curious. "You should be thanking me. Nobody else here will tell you." Be nice. You promised Mom. If you fight with this girl, you lose everything — the ranch, the horses, the chance at Harrington. And Mom goes back to the bathroom floor. "Your mother seems sweet, by the way." Zara's voice had gone light, almost casual, which somehow made it worse. "Very… accommodating. I'm sure she was accommodating with the last man too. Some women just need someone to lean on." My throat closed up. "Don't talk about my mom." "Why not? She married a stranger three months after burying your father. That's not grief, that's—" "Stop." "—desperation." Something snapped. The nice-girl rope I'd been white-knuckling just broke clean in half. "At least my mother knows how to love someone." My voice came out low and hard, nothing like me. I thought about the foyer — how her father hadn't touched her, hadn't looked at her, hadn't said one warm word. "At least I had a parent who actually wanted to be in the same room as me." Zara's whole face changed. The ice cracked and for half a second I saw something raw underneath — something young and startled and terrified — before she sealed it shut again. She moved so fast I didn't register it until my back hit the wooden beam. Her hand was on my throat, not squeezing but pressing, pinning me against the post like I was a horse she was backing into a stall. Her face was inches from mine and I could smell her — sweat and something clean, expensive soap or lotion. Her eyes were locked on me and they weren't cold anymore. They were burning. My brain short-circuited. Because when a girl who looks like Zara Walsh puts her hand on your throat and pins you to a wall, your body doesn't fight and doesn't scream. It goes warm. What the hell is happening to me. "Do you want to know what your future looks like?" Her voice was low and controlled, almost a whisper. I could feel her breath on my mouth. "You're nobody. You'll spend a few months here riding my father's horses, dreaming about a championship you're not ready for." I tried to speak and nothing came out. "I watched you in that stable." Her thumb shifted against my pulse point. My heart was hammering so hard she had to feel it. "You couldn't stand still for thirty seconds. You touched three different things before anyone spoke to you. You fidget, you ramble, you lose focus mid-sentence." She leaned closer. "Dressage is about control. You don't have any." My eyes burned. She was right — she was right about all of it. I wanted to shove her off me but I couldn't move, and her hand was warm on my neck, and this was the most confusing moment of my entire life. "So here's my advice." She let go and stepped back, smoothing her jacket like nothing had happened. "Forget about the championship. Enjoy the stables, enjoy the view, take some pretty pictures for your friends back home, and fuck off." She turned and walked toward the door without a single glance back. "Enjoy your little vacation, Maxine." The stable door shut behind her. I stayed pressed against the beam with my throat throbbing where her hand had been and my legs barely holding me up. A tear rolled down my cheek and I wiped it away hard. She was wrong. She had to be. I wasn't a nobody — I was here because I'd worked for this since I was seven years old and my dad put me on a horse and I never wanted to get off. Okay, Zara Walsh. You don't want to be my friend. You want a war. I wiped my face one more time and stood up straight. Fine. But I'm going to make you like me anyway. And that's going to be so much worse for you. Zara’s POV "What do you mean she's staying in my room?" My father doesn't stop walking. I have to match his pace down the hallway, half-jogging to keep up, which is exactly how he likes his conversations — on his terms, at his speed. "It's temporary. Just until we finish the guest wing." "Temporary? Dad, her suitcase is next to my bed. Her clothes are in my closet. I woke up this morning to the sound of her breathing three feet from my face." "Then you'll both have to manage." Manage. For twenty years, everything on this property has been mine — the stables, the arena, the horses, the schedule. I've never shared a single thing because there was nobody to share with. And now I'm supposed to manage? "She can sleep in the guest cottage. Or the study. Or literally anywhere that isn't—" "She's staying in your room, Zara." He checks his watch without breaking stride. "I also need you to let her use Rembrandt for training." I stop walking so fast my shoes squeak on the tile. He doesn't even glance back. Rembrandt. My horse. The one I spent three months earning — three months of patience, standing still, letting him come to me. My father handed him over like a welcome basket without asking me. "You gave her my horse?" "He's not your horse. He belongs to the ranch." He finally slows at the top of the stairs. Turns to face me. "About Maxine — I need you to be nice to her. Please." Please. My father doesn't say please. He says do it and you do it. The fact that he added that word means this matters to him. Not me — the situation. The new wife watching how his daughter behaves. "I don't need another scene like the one with Lydia," he adds. Three years ago, I made his girlfriend cry at a dinner party. She packed her bags the next morning. My father didn't speak to me for two weeks. Not as punishment — he genuinely forgot I existed. Two weeks of being invisible to the only person whose attention I've spent my whole life earning. I can't go through that again. I'd rather swallow glass than spend another two weeks pretending I don't exist in my own house. "Fine," I say, and I hate how small my voice sounds. "Good girl." He turns back to the stairs. Already gone. Two words and I'm his again. Twenty years old with an Olympic medal and I still roll over for a pat on the head. So now I'm standing at the arena fence at seven in the morning with my coffee going cold, watching Maxine Walsh warm up on my horse, after sleeping in my room, wearing boots she left in my wash stall. And I'm trying not to lose my mind. She's good. She's annoyingly, effortlessly, infuriatingly good. I want to throw my coffee across the arena. Her seat is natural — not trained, not drilled, just there. The horse reads her before she finishes asking. She's sloppy in places, but the raw talent underneath is obvious. I trained for fifteen years to make my body do what hers does without thinking. "She's something, isn't she?" Ashton leans against the fence beside me. He's the only person I let into my space. The one who brought me a cupcake when my father forgot my birthday, the one who noticed my back was getting worse before I told anyone. "She drops her left hand every time," I say. "Sure. But watch her passage." I don't want to watch her passage. "I've been thinking…" Ashton says, and I already don't like his tone. "A friendly match. You and Maxine. Short program, scored on basics. Good way to see where she's at." I look at him. "You're joking." "Why would I be joking?" "Because I don't compete with amateurs. It's embarrassing." "It's training, Zara. Not the Olympics." "I've been to the Olympics." "Which is why it shouldn't bother you." He grins. That easy, warm grin that usually makes me feel like the world isn't completely terrible. Right now it makes me want to throw my coffee at him. Maxine trots over to the fence, barely out of breath, cheeks flushed, looking annoyingly alive. "Was that okay?" she asks Ashton. Then she glances at me. "Hi." I don't answer. Don't say hi to me like we're friends. You're sleeping in my room and riding my horse and I'm supposed to smile about it. "Perfect timing," Ashton says, grinning at her. "I was just telling Zara — friendly match. Short program. What do you think?" Her eyes light up. She looks at me like I'm a birthday present. "Seriously? Oh my god, yes. I would love that." "I didn't agree to this," I say. "Scared?" Maxine tilts her head. Always smiling. I set my coffee down so hard it splashes. "Excuse me?" "If I had a bronze medal and someone asked me to compete against a nobody, I'd probably say no too. Safer that way." She's goading me. And it's working because the idea of backing down from this girl who's been here five minutes makes me want to scream. "Fine." I set my coffee on the fence post. "Twenty minutes. I'll get my horse." When I ride into the arena on Monarcha, Maxine is already in position on the school horse. She's sitting taller now. Focused. The fidgeting is gone. Good. At least make it interesting. Ashton calls the program. We ride side by side — working trot, collected trot, extended. I keep my eyes forward but I can feel her next to me. At the first halt, Maxine catches my eye. "Your horse is gorgeous." "I know." "What's his name?" "Monarcha." "What does it mean?" "It means focus on your own ride." She snorts — a weird, ugly laugh that catches her off guard. Something twitches at the corner of my lips and I kill it before it gets anywhere. We move into canter work. My half-passes are clean, my transitions sharp. Maxine's timing is off on the flying changes — but on the final centerline she adjusts her seat and the horse collects like he's been doing this for years. The piaffe is rough, but it's there. She found a piaffe on a school horse in a training match. I've seen girls train for years without finding that. She just — did it. Like it was nothing. Ashton claps once. "Beautiful! Both of you. I'd call that a tie." It wasn't a tie. I was better. My technique was cleaner, my transitions tighter. A tie means he's being generous to her, which means he's being unfair to me. "Let's get a second opinion." Ashton waves toward the arena entrance and my blood goes cold. My father is standing at the gate. Arms folded. I have no idea how long he's been watching. "Ben, what do you think? Who took it?" My father looks at Maxine. Then at me. Then back at Maxine. "The new girl has something," he says. "Real instinct. Reminds me of how I used to ride before my injury." He compared her to himself. He never compares me to himself. I'm his project, his investment, his product. She gets to be his reflection. "Zara, your centerline was a half-second late on the final transition. Watch that." A correction. He gave me a correction while he gave her a compliment. Twenty years of training and the best he can do is tell me what I did wrong while telling a stranger she reminds him of himself. Maxine is looking at me. I can feel it — her eyes on the side of my face, watching me absorb this. She sees it. She sees exactly what just happened and I want to disappear into the ground. I gather my reins. Straighten my spine. Force my voice flat. "Good match. I need to take Monarcha out — he gets restless if he doesn't trail ride after arena work." I turn my horse toward the exit before I do something stupid — like drag this girl off her saddle in front of the one person whose please is still ringing in my ears. "Wait for me!" Maxine's voice rings across the arena. I don't turn around. I press Monarcha into a trot and head for the tree line. She follows me. Of course she does. CONTINUE READING>>>>>>

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