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If he weren’t a billionaire, he’d have lost his shirt today on the damn horse, and that was unacceptable

Shaking his head and shoving his fists into his pants pockets, Harun weaved in and out of the crowd around him The luxury box at the doas spacious, but he wanted to go out to the crowd He had some so-called trainers to berate, and for the actual owners of the steeds, there was the socializing after Maybe it was a tradition held over froland This was all sport of course, another way for the landed and the wealthy to show their prowess off

If Harun could rateful With a losing set of horses, and the general lack of understanding about the ins and outs of Kentucky society, he got the cold shoulder at all of these post-race soirees

This afternoon was no different As he milled around the party room, laid out with a collection of chilled shrimp, cocktails, and even pâté, the rest of the crowd parted from him like Moses and the Red Sea It half made him want to breathe quickly on his hand to make sure it wasn’t his breath, but that would have been too e Besides, it wouldn’t have helped He didn’t reek; he just didn’t kno to break into the close-knit Kentucky racing society, and having a losing glue stick for a race horse wasn’t helping matters

Serving himself a plate, he smiled politely at a few men and woave him the time of day Part of hi, that he’d just give in to his cousin’s advice and give up the horse drea him more closely to his mother than he’d ever been before and, frankly, there was soifted at soate The led, theout of it Sheikh Harun Bahar had never wiped out co

to be that time

The entrance of two people—an older er woman—interrupted his contemplation The crowd cheered and a few of the allon hats at their arrival No one had to tell hi, the famous Cutter Family Until now, he’d only spied their lead trainers at the events The ruery, and the daughter, whose naritty Even though White Lightning had trashed hihly before, he’d never seen the people who kept the prize rasp

Gerald, despite his liht Part of hiery was either elderly or had seriously scarred and bruised hi—almost silver—hair and crow’s-feet prominent with his ruddy tan, he seemed fairly healthy for an old farmhand and horse breeder Whatever procedure had kept him down these past ariousness No, he was slapping the others on the back and raising a toast of Kentucky bourbon to the celebratory er than life It made it too easy for the woman beside him, in her plain black dress and veiled hat, to melt into the wall paint behind them

But only a fool would see past her

Her eyes were a striking shade of blue, like the Aegean Sea, and they sparkled with intelligence as she started h the crowd Her cheeks were rounded—cherubic, as his mother would say—and it complimented her obvious curves Her torso overall was sleek but her hips were generous, and Harun shifted on his feet, trying to calers into those hips, i nature lead the Miss Cutter was extraordinary, and that was hard enough The fact that both of the heroes while he was just another competitor who’d been left in their dust chafed him

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 agotheh 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 shrih to send Yehan into apoplexy

“Oh, Sheikh Bahar, you don’t have to be so upset,” Betty McGivens said

She was the one person a elite who ever made an effort to speak with him She was tall and y, a bit too thin for his taste, and her nose was pinched in a way that reminded him soy He was al and underhanded of high society in Europe and in Dubai He knew a gold digger ed every radar he had He knehy she fawned over hih 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