Neck & Neck by Elizabeth Bevarly Read Free Book Online Page A

on—often several somethings—that run the gamut from elegant to eccentric. One day there will be a fashion show for enormous hats where they serve champagne cocktails and little Benedictine sandwiches with the crusts cut off, and the next day there will be people dressed up as rabid badgers and sock monkeys, racing tricked-out beds around a track at the fairgrounds and behaving like drunken satyrs.” She met his gaze pointedly. “Now, do you really think Mr. Mulholland wants to miss out on stuff like that?”
    Actually, Finn thought, that kind of stuff was right up Russell’s alley. Well, maybe not the hat fashion show, but he’d down more than his fair share of champagne there. And sock monkeys and rabid badgers? Say no more. Not that he was going to give Ms. Know-It-All Beckett the satisfaction. So he said, “To be honest, Ms. Know . . . ah . . . I mean, Ms. Beckett . . .”
    But she cut him off—again—before he could continue. “And there’s a rat race. With real rats. And a wine race. And a balloon race. And a steamboat race. Both Mr. Mulholland and his son would enjoy all of the above. Well, maybe not the hat fashion show,” she conceded. “But there is fun to be had for all ages and genders during the Kentucky Derby Festival.”
    “Really, Ms. Beckett, I don’t think—”
    “And the parties,” she further interjected. “My God, man, it’s party central here this time of year. Every one hosts a party for Derby, from the Dare to Care Food Bank and Make-A-Wish Foundation to Playboy and Maxim magazines. Not that I’d encourage the younger Mulholland to attend those last two, mind you,” she added. She continued starchily, “Or Mr. Mulholland, for that matter, since to do so would be to betray my gender in the most egregious way, but hey, that’s not up to me to make that call. All I can do is hope that your gender rebukes things that smack of disrespectful treatment of women and behave in a manner that is, um, respectful.” Again, before Finn had a chance to say anything—and he really, really wanted to say something—she hurried on, “But that, unfortunately, is also out of my hands, other than by ensuring that I myself behave in a way that commands respect from the opposite sex, which is something, quite frankly, I really wish certain other members of my gender would pick up on, but I guess that’s out of my hands, too.”
    By now, Finn’s head was beginning to spin at the outpourings of Natalie Beckett’s brain. Though he somehow did manage to grasp the fact that she was currently condemning the very behavior she’d just indulged in herself, dressing as she had and flirting with Finn just to get him to convince his employer to attend a party she was throwing.
    Right? Wasn’t that what she was doing? At this point, he was so befuddled, he wasn’t confident he could say for sure that the sky was blue and the grass was red.
    Green, he quickly corrected himself. The grass was green. Right? Wasn’t it?
    Oh, for . . .
    “Look, Ms. Beckett,” he said more adamantly. At least, he tried to be adamant. But she lifted her beer to her mouth for another one of those luscious sips, and when she lowered it, there was a thin veil of foam on her upper lip that she immediately swiped away with the tip of her tongue, and Finn couldn’t remember what he’d been going to say. Then her tongue darted out a second time, limning the entire outline of that succulent mouth, and all he could think about at that point was the succulence of that succulent mouth.
    And holy crap, what did he think he was doing, looking at Natalie Beckett’s succulent mouth when he should be telling her to take a hike? He reminded himself of all the reasons Russell had hired him in the first place—including the really big reason—reminded himself it was his job to ensure there was always a safe distance between the Mulhollands and people like Natalie Beckett. Or people like anyone else. It didn’t matter that the rule