And while women around the world are still mourning the loss of this international bachelor, men are salivating, placing bets on who will draw first—and last—blood.
With so much on the line for these two men, it will certainly be a clash of the tycoon titans!
DIMITRI’S GREEK-ACCENTED VOICE rose above the hum of the crowds as he read the article out loud, clearly just for the hell of it.
‘At least they didn’t mention Bartlett by name,’ he noted.
‘I doubt very much that it was by mistake or from some inherent sense of propriety. This has the stink of my father all over it,’ Antonio growled.
‘He must be desperate if he’s willing to risk such exposure, given how notoriously private Bartlett is,’ Danyl reflected, looking out at the race course from the balcony of the hospitality suite set aside for the Winners’ Circle.
Discreet servers had placed trays of delicate food there, none of which was appealing to Antonio at that moment. He shifted his sunglasses back over his eyes.
Danyl turned in his seat beside him, pinning him with a powerful gaze. ‘You have something to hide?’
‘No,’ came Antonio’s terse reply.
Danyl gave a spectacularly un-regal grunt in response, and placed a Bloody Mary on the table in front of him. ‘Hair of the horse that bit you, so to speak.’
Antonio ignored them both and took a mouthful of the thick, spicy tomato juice.
‘Virgin?’ queried Dimitri as Danyl rolled his eyes.
The sting of tabasco sauce caught Antonio in the back of the throat and he forced himself to swallow the drink through a throat thick with convulsions.
‘For God’s sake, Dimitri.’
The sounds of the crowd and the announcements over the Tannoy drifted up from the race course below.
‘Did anyone see Mason this morning?’ Antonio asked, when in truth his mind had been searching for Emma. Emma whom he’d left sleeping in the hotel room while he’d sneaked out like a thief.
‘John was guarding her like a dog. He wouldn’t let anyone near her this morning. Said something about not letting us “psych her out”.’
‘Us or you, Danyl?’ Dimitri asked. ‘You still haven’t said how you know her.’
‘I still haven’t said that I do know her.’
Antonio let the sounds of his friend’s light-hearted squabble fall over him as he tried to block out the memory of Emma’s sighs of pleasure that still, even now, thickened his blood.
He clenched a fist, trying to regain control of his errant body. He couldn’t believe what madness had overtaken them last night. He’d promised her only one night, but now he wondered if he could keep that promise. It wouldn’t last—it couldn’t. He would only end up hurting her, letting her down, drawing her deeper into his own need for revenge.
‘You might want to put that glass down, Antonio,’ Dimitri said, his words cutting through the emotional fog that was surrounding him.
‘Mmm?’
‘The glass. If you carry on, it might just crack.’
Antonio looked down to see white knuckles encasing thin glass and put the drink back on the table. Danyl was looking at him with a raised eyebrow, wry curiosity painting his features.
‘Dare I ask how the Bartlett deal is going?’
‘Actually, our meeting went very well. Even after my father made his surprise guest appearance.’
Concerned silence met his statement. Danyl and Dimitri were watching and waiting for the explanation they knew he would give them. They alone knew the depths of his hatred for his father, the true extent of which he hadn’t been able to confess to Emma.
They greeted his account with an anger and fury that matched his own. And Michael Steele’s treatment of Emma was high on their list of his crimes.
‘Are you sure you want to go that way?’ Dimitri asked when Antonio confessed the action he had directed his PI to.