plenty of boarders. We’re training more horses today than ever before.”
“Pet ponies, not thoroughbreds.”
“Our work may appear trivial to you, but we’re a respected farm—”
“Without a competent manager,” he softly interrupted.
“I am the manager.”
“My point, exactly.”
The gloves were off. He wasn’t worried about hurting feelings any longer, or bloodying noses. It was war, and he intended to win.
He pushed off the desk and moved to the window. His narrowed gaze swept the distant farm buildings, focusing on the old barn in need of a new roof and the new stable, erected after the old one had burned down, that had yet to be painted. “You haven’t paid me, and you certainly haven’t maintained the farm. So what have you done with your money? How did you blow my father’s investment?”
His words were a relentless assault, a hard pummeling that made her ache.
Daisy closed her eyes, swayed on her feet and wished for the first time in years that she’d never fallen in love with horses and hay and Collingsworth’s green meadows.
She wished she didn’t care so much about colts, yearlings and winning the big races. If she didn’t care she could walk away from it all. If she didn’t love the whole business so much she could give up on the disaster taking place at Collingsworth’s and become someone else. But she did love the business—she loved the horses, the foals, the stallions, all of it.
He’d turned from the window and was studying her with the same detached scrutiny he’d viewed the farm buildings. Daisy felt his gaze all the way through her and dug her nails into her palms as heat flooded her middle. She didn’t want to feel him. Didn’t want to be aware of him. She wanted nothing to do with him. Not now. Not ever.
“We didn’t blow that investment,” she answered hotly, moved by emotions she couldn’t name. Her heart raced as though she were one of the yearlings on the track, and she felt dangerously close to tears. “Our farm has been struggling for a number of years. American farmers have been struggling for a decade. But we’ve made progress this year. We’ve made progress under my management.”
Her gaze met his as she emphasized the last words, her chin lifting defiantly. “I realize being Latin, and male, you don’t want to work with a woman. But in this case, you don’t have a choice. My father retired earlier this year. I run the farm now. I cut the checks. I make the decisions.”
Dante turned completely around. “I have no problem working with women. I just don’t like working with stupid people.” He paused as her lips parted, her eyes widening. “But I don’t think you’re stupid. I think you’re very intelligent and perceptive enough to realize I don’t play games.”
His arrogance made her see red, and yet beyond the emotional reaction came another response. Unwilling admiration. He’d dealt with conflict before. He was handling her like a pro.
It crossed her mind for the first time that she just might be in over her head.
What if she couldn’t pull this off? What would happen to the farm and her family? She pictured Zoe, pictured her sister twisting and untwisting the dish towel.
A lump lodged in her throat, and she swallowed with difficulty. “I don’t play games, either, Count Galván. I want nothing more than to work this out with you. But I have to be honest. I’m not prepared to lose the farm. It’s been in our family since nineteen-eighteen, when my great-grandfather emigrated from Ireland. This is home.”
“Miss Collingsworth—”
“No. Don’t do it. Please. Give me one more year.”
She saw a flicker of emotion in his face, his eyes darkening and his jaw tensing. She felt his ambivalence and thought for a moment he’d relent. But then he gave his head a sharp shake.
“And do what?” He laughed shortly, “Watch as your barn burns down next? Sorry, muneca, can’t do it.”
She felt as though the air were being strangled from her. “Can’t, or won’t?”
“Both.”
He did pity them, she thought faintly, it was there in his face, in his voice, in the cynical twist of his lips. His smile was bitter, the lower lip curling, accenting his high carved cheekbones and the hollows beneath.
My, he was beautiful, like a fallen angel, but only worse because he was real. Daisy had never felt so out of her depth before. How on earth was she supposed to pull this off? “Why not?” she whispered.
“Bad business. You make an exception for one, you’ve set a precedent. Before long you’re making exceptions for all. So I don’t do it. Won’t do it. For anyone.”
A soft, strangled sound ripped from her throat. She hadn’t meant to cry out. She’d thought she had better control over herself.
She turned away, leaned against the desk, palms pressed flat on the scratched surface. She pressed hard, pressing against the suffocating desperation. It couldn’t be this bad. It couldn’t be the end. Everything was here. Her whole life was here. Even her mother was buried here.
Her rage threatened to boil over. “If your father were alive—”
“Your father shouldn’t have agreed to work with him,” he interrupted.
“My dad was charmed by your father.” She dug her nails into the desk. “Charmed right out of the farm.”
Dante saw her fingers whiten as she pressed them against the desk. Her blue eyes shone dark with pain, and her soft lips twisted, compressing to keep her misery within. She didn’t want to reveal her suffering but she couldn’t quite hide it.
This was his father’s responsibility, and now it had become his.
He drew a slow breath, feeling the tightness in his chest, conscious of his self-disgust. His father, Tino, should never have made the deal with Bill Collingsworth. But his father had never been able to resist easy money, or what he perceived to be easy money. Tino had intended to take possession of Collingsworth Farm and add it to the stockpile of farms, ranches and family businesses that he was accumulating around the world.
The problem with Tino’s plan had been that most of these family businesses were bankrupt or nearly bankrupt, and all were in need of massive infusions of cash.
Tino’s greed had almost bankrupted Galván Enterprises and it had taken Dante nearly two years to break up and sell off two dozen debt-ridden ventures.
What a waste of time.
He’d arrived in Lexington to settle with the Collingsworths. The unpaid stud fee was the last debt uncollected, the last of the headaches Tino had left behind, and Dante needed closure. He needed to move forward and close the door on the past, but suddenly it wasn’t that simple.
He rubbed the back of his neck, easing the knot of tension tightening the muscles there. He didn’t owe the Collingsworths anything and didn’t have to work with them, but Daisy was complicating everything.
Her golden blond beauty and leggy elegance had nothing to do with his change of heart. It was her courage, her intelligence, her passion for the horses.
He couldn’t forget her expression as she watched the horses race earlier in the morning. He’d seen the wonder in her eyes and sensed her devotion. She loved the horses profoundly. It seemed criminal to make her suffer for her father’s mistakes—and his.
Don’t do it, he told himself. Don’t turn soft now. This is exactly why you and Father always fought. This is why he called you names.
He swallowed, and his mouth tasted sour. This bad day was getting worse. Yet he couldn’t ignore his conscience, couldn’t throw the Collingsworths from their home.
If only he didn’t