She’d heard Chadwick and Phillip argue before, but that was usually behind Chadwick’s closed office door. Never in front of her. Or in front of anyone else, for that matter.
For once, Phillip seemed to register the threat. He took an easy step back and held out his hands in surrender. “Like I was saying—this Akhal-Teke. They’re most likely the breed that sired the Arabians. Very rare. Only about five hundred in this country, and most of those come from Russian stock. Kandar’s Golden Sun isn’t a Russian Akhal-Teke.”
“Gesundheit,” Frances murmured again. She looked at Serena with a touch of desperation, so they both laughed again.
“He’s from Turkmenistan. An incredible horse. One to truly found a stable on.”
Chadwick pinched the bridge of his nose. “How much?”
“Only seven.” Phillip stuck out his chest, as if he were proud of this number.
Chadwick cracked open one eye. “Thousand, or hundred thousand?”
Serena tried not to gape. Seven thousand for a horse wasn’t too much, she guessed. But seven hundred thousand? That was a lot of money.
Phillip didn’t say anything. He took a step back, though, and his smile seemed more...forced.
Chadwick took a step forward. “Seven what?”
“You know, one Akhal-Teke went for fifty million—and that was in 1986 dollars. The most expensive horse ever. Kandar’s Golden Sun—”
That was as far as he got. Chadwick cut him off with a shout. “You spent seven million on a horse while I’m working my ass off to keep the company from being sold to the wolves?”
Everything about the party stopped—the music, the conversations, the movement of waiters carrying trays of champagne.
Someone hurried toward them. It was Matthew Beaumont. “Gentlemen,” he hissed under his breath. “We are having a charity event here.”
Serena put her hand on Chadwick’s arm and gave it a gentle tug. “A very good joke, Phillip,” she said in a slightly too-loud voice.
Frances caught Serena’s eye and nodded in approval. “Chadwick, I’d like to introduce you to the director of the food bank, Miriam Young.” She didn’t know where, exactly, the director of the food bank was. But she was sure Ms. Young wanted to talk with Chadwick. Or, at least, had wanted to talk to him before he’d started yelling menacingly at his relatives.
“Phillip, did I introduce you to my friend Candy?” Frances added, taking her brother by the arm and pulling him in the opposite direction. “She’s dying to meet you.”
The two brothers held their poses for a moment longer, Chadwick glaring at Phillip, the look on Phillip’s face almost daring Chadwick to hit him in full view of the assembled upper crust of Denver society.
Then the men parted. Matthew walked on the other side of Chadwick, ostensibly to lead the way to the director. Serena got the feeling it was more to keep Chadwick from spinning and tackling his brother.
“Serena,” Matthew said simply. “Nicely done. Thus far,” he added in a heavy tone, “the evening has been a success. Now if we can just get through it without a brawl breaking out—”
“I’m fine,” Chadwick snapped, sounding anything but. “I’m just fine.”
“Not fine,” Matthew muttered, guiding them into a side gallery. “Why don’t I get you a drink? Wait here,” he said, parking Chadwick in front of a Remington statue. “Do not move.” He looked at Serena. “Okay?”
She nodded. “I’ve got him.”
She hoped.
Chadwick had never really believed the old cliché about being so mad one saw red. Turns out, he’d just never been mad enough, because right now, the world was drenched in red-hot anger.
“How could he?” he heard himself mutter. “How could he just buy a horse for that much money without even thinking about the consequences?”
“Because,” a soft, feminine voice said next to him, “he’s not you.”
The voice calmed him down, and some of the color bled back into the world. He realized Serena was standing next to him. They were in a nearly empty side gallery, in front of one of the Remington sculptures that made the backbreaking work of herding cattle look glorious.
She was right. Hardwick had never expected anything from Phillip. Never even noticed him, unless he did something outrageous.
Like buy a horse no one had ever heard of for seven million damn dollars.
“Remind me again why I work myself to death so that he can blow the family fortune on horses and women? So Frances can sink money into another venture that’s bound to fail before it gets off the ground? Is that all I’m good for? A never-ending supply of cash?”
Delicate fingers laced through his, holding him tightly. “Maybe,” Serena said, her voice gentle, “you don’t have to work yourself to death at all.”
He turned to her. She was staring at the statue as if it were the most interesting thing in the world.
Phillip had done whatever the hell he wanted since he was a kid. It hadn’t mattered what his grades were, who his friends were, how many sports cars he had wrecked. Hardwick just hadn’t cared. He’d been too focused on Chadwick.
“I...” He swallowed. “I don’t know how else to run this company.” The admission was even harder than what he’d shared over dinner. “This is what I was raised to do.”
She tilted her head to one side, really studying the bronze. “Your father died while working, didn’t he?”
“Yes.” Hardwick had keeled over at a board meeting, dead from the heart attack long before the ambulance had gotten there. Which was better, Chadwick had always figured, than him dying in the arms of a mistress.
She tilted her head in the other direction, not looking at him but still holding his hand. “I rather like you alive.”
“Do you?”
“Yes,” she answered slowly, like she really had to think about it. But then her thumb moved against the palm of his hand. “I do.”
Any remaining anger faded out of his vision as the room—the woman in it—came into sharp focus.
“You told me a few days ago,” she went on, her voice quiet in the gallery, “that you wanted to do something for yourself. Not for the family, not for the company. Then you spent God only knows how much on everything I’m wearing.” He saw the corner of her mouth curve up into a sly smile. “Except for a few zeros, this isn’t so different, is it?”
“I don’t need to spend money to be happy like he does.”
“Then why am I wearing a fortune’s worth of finery?”
