It made him burn.
Maybe he needed to get a shot or six of bourbon, too, let it burn down his throat before he went completely mad. As his eyes watched Miss Cutter flit about the room, the rest of him was seated in a club chair in the far corner. These people had long ago made it clear he wasn’t welcome among them, so he was determined to stay only long enough to be polite, and then go back to his own facility to shout at his trainers, idiots that they were. Across the way, by the food service, Yehan, his old servant, scowled back at him. It had fallen on Yehan over the years to teach him manners and, in turn, it had fallen on Harun to break every single rule repeatedly. Scowling in a corner and shoving shrimp in his mouth was probably enough to send Yehan into apoplexy.
“Oh, Sheikh Bahar, you don’t have to be so upset,” Betty McGivens said.
She was the one person among the Kentucky racing elite who ever made an effort to speak with him. She was tall and willowy, a bit too thin for his taste, and her nose was pinched in a way that reminded him somewhat of a weasel or a rat. That probably wasn’t a bad analogy. He was almost thirty, and he’d met the most scheming and underhanded of high society in Europe and in Dubai. He knew a gold digger maneuvering for position when he met them and Betty pinged every radar he had. He knew why she fawned over him for about half an hour every time he attended a race, though the idiot Yehan smiled and waved as she approached.
Old fool is probably hoping I’ll finally settle down, as if I’m interested in that.
Still, she was the only one who would talk to him, so maybe she’d be at least somewhat useful. After all, he did want to know more about the Cutters and how they’d trained horses who’d basically swept this season and were Kentucky Derby favorites for the coming year. But more, he wanted to know the name of the girl with the eyes like the ocean who had suddenly stirred his interest.
Betty, after all, was the type who knew everything about everybody and was more than happy to share it.
“Miss McGivens, what a pleasure,” he said, forcing himself to choke out the words.
“Oh, my sheikh,” she said, feigning a high pitched giggle that grated against his ears. If she was aiming for coquettish, then Betty was missing her mark. “I’m always happy to make time for you. It’s been far too long since you’ve been in Kentucky.”
“I’ve been busy.”
“I suppose,” she said, laughing again and managing to brush her hand against his shoulder. “But it’s so much less fun without you around. You bring something exotic to all our affairs.”
He forced a smile. “I don’t want to let my other companies and investments go to ruin,” he said.
“But you need to be here more. You won’t get the horses running without some on-the-ground work with them.”
“I have trainers for that.”
Betty shook her head, dark black curls falling into her eyes. “Well, sugar, surely you don’t think that barking orders through a phone or over email half a world away is going to keep everything hands-on, do you?”
“I used to think that.”
“And that’s why Midnight Special—”
“Midnight Runner,” he corrected.
“That’s why the horse came in dead last,” she finished. “The owner should be there, really make sure they haven’t been done raw by the trainers. It’s easy to claim you’ve got the best in the state, but actions speak louder.”
“I’m beginning to learn that.”
“Well, our farm has some of the best. The Cutters don’t win every race, now do they,” she huffed, her voice low and gentle.
He narrowed his eyes at her. “They seem to, though I saw your horse come in second.”
“Almost neck and neck,” she groused. “But our hands are about as good, and it’s all about combining resources. People know about your mother’s stock, about the thoroughbreds from half a world away. It’s why some people still bet on Midnight, hope against hope. There’s just more to winning a race or having a great stock than DNA. You need the right trainers—the real kind—and the right connections.” She moved her hand to stroking his chest and only his desire to learn more kept him from peeling the uninvited appendage off of his front. “I’d be more than happy to really start working with you. I’ve offered before.”
“We were breaking ground on the luxury casino and golf resort back home. I didn’t have time to properly consider your offer,” he hedged. It didn’t matter how many times Betty offered. She was a snake hiding behind a gentle and meek lamb persona, that gold digger he’d spent a decade avoiding. He wasn’t going to come to her for racing help, not now. “What can you tell me about the Cutters?” He nodded toward the older man. “I thought he was sick.”
“He had a hip replacement, risk of all this riding,” she said, shrugging, a pout puckering her lips in a sour fashion. “Not the most interesting thing about him.”
“What is?” he asked, hearing from her words exactly what she wasn’t saying. There was a story here, and he wanted to find out all of it.
“That he’s got a gambling addiction. He was at every race until he was sick, tons of ones his horses weren’t even in. My friend Janey said that her high school friend…anyway…it doesn’t matter how I know, but it’s bigger than horse racing, darling. He’s been betting at slots and playing way too much poker. They’re broke.”
“How can you keep winning and be broke? Their horses are worth a fortune!” he said, stroking at his chin.
“They are, and that’s why Daddy can’t wait for the inevitable, when the farm goes under and we can buy the horses at auction prices. We really will be the best farm in Kentucky then. Such a shame, you know? Here he is setting piles of money on fire all while Samantha is working so hard to save it.”
He frowned back at the girl, no the woman, with the sea blue eyes. “His daughter doesn’t know?”
“No, it’s the biggest open secret in Lexington but she’s clueless. I don’t think even her own hands have the heart to tell her or maybe Gerry’s hidden it from them, too. But everyone who’s anyone knows. There’s not a race or a match he won’t bet on, and he’s not exactly psychic. Man can hardly pick a winner. If he could, he wouldn’t be up to his eyeballs in debt.”
Harun digested that, grateful in a way for Betty and her Southern belle routine, for her need to tell people everything, and far more than they’d actually asked. After all, knowledge was power, and now he had a ton of it to wield over the best farm in Kentucky. They had the trainers and the expertise he needed, the old name that still gained respect and acceptance in Lexington, even as Gerald seemed to be determined to shatter it with all his gambling losses.
But they needed financing.
And Betty hadn’t been completely wrong about him needing a hands-on approach for things, about how he’d been too naïve just hiring staff and letting them run things from far away. No, at least for a while he needed to be here to reshape his farm holdings and ensure his newest, pending merger was going to be a success.
“It’s just a shame. When the farm goes under this year, you can tell that Sammy’s gonna be crushed.” Betty said all the right words, but there was an eagerness in her tone that belied the implied intent.
“Hmm, could you introduce me to Gerald Cutter?” he asked.
She turned to him, eyes wide. “Why? I told you they’re completely out of it, everything’s going down in flames. You know that our outfit is far better run, would make for a better alliance,” she purred, her tone promising things that a weaker man would fall for.
He was not a weaker man.
“Because I have a business proposition for him, and for Samantha as well.”
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