“Go back to Frank and tell him no.”
“Oh, Elizabeth…” Which he only called her when he was really, really, really up a creek.
“Oh, Tobey…” she said, and she knew she was starting to get all soft, and she didn’t want to get all soft. She needed to be tough and hard-edged with a spine that wouldn’t break, no matter how much battering it took. Elizabeth drew in a deep, strength-injecting breath, happy to feel the steel return. “Now you listen—”
Suddenly she stopped, a lightbulb flashing in her head. “How much money are we talking about?” Elizabeth asked carefully.
Tobey named a figure that raised her brows, and her brows— which were perfectly arched—didn’t usually rise that far. That was all it took for her to change her mind. “Sign me up, Tobey. I’ll do it. Get the band down on the next plane out of Nashville. Actually, not the next plane, but maybe Monday after next. At least let’s give them the weekend off, then we can have two days’ worth of rehearsal.”
“Why did you change your mind so fast?” he asked suspiciously. Rightly so. A wise one, that Tobey. That was why she liked him.
“Might want to buy something,” she hedged, even though the plan was already formulating in her head.
“Couldn’t you give me a hint?” he asked.
“Whoa. Gotta go, Tobey. This phone is breaking up. Darn cells. Hate the things.” Elizabeth made crackling noises into the phone and then snapped it closed. A concert would be the perfect solution and hopefully the Prestons would think so, too.
“It looks rather deserted, don’t you think?” asked Oliver Wentworth, squinting in the direction of the empty pasture, and Demetri tried to see the stables through Oliver’s eyes.
Oh, yeah, the grounds of the Preston homestead were impressive. A thousand acres, perfect for the Thoroughbred horses that were being trained there. At one time, there had been over five hundred horses stabled on the premises. Today the numbers were dwindling. The practice track stood silent, only a few horses wandering in the pasture, grazing quietly.
Demetri took it all in, and shook his head sadly. He didn’t want to see Quest through Oliver’s eyes.
Next to him, Oliver leaned against the wooden fence and looked around, completely unimpressed. “So this is what a horse farm looks like?” he asked.
“Normally Quest is a little busier,” Demetri answered, feeling the need to defend the proud stables because of course, soon “Oliver” would be stabling horses here, as well, but they had a long way to go, and Demetri was going to have to work this slowly. Oliver was from England, and his idea of horses ran toward polo ponies and fox hunts, not Kentucky Thoroughbreds.
At first, Oliver hadn’t wanted to come to the barbecue, but Demetri had casually mentioned that there might be women there—single, attractive and lonely women—which immensely perked up Oliver, who was tall and golden haired, with a playboy’s eye.
When Oliver had made the team last year, the press had kidded that Demetri was like an older brother to him—a lousy older brother. People expected a lot from the elder sibling. They expected responsibility, maturity, vigilance and watchfulness. Demetri had none of those qualities. He never had, and he wished that people would stop expecting it from him. No matter how wild his antics, or how reckless his driving, they still expected more. Idiots. At one time, he’d had a younger brother, Seth. Demetri had come up short for Seth, and he hoped that Oliver wasn’t watching too closely, because he worried that someday he would come up short for Oliver, as well.
Demetri had yet to tell Oliver his grand plan to have Oliver stable some Thoroughbreds at Quest, because Oliver’s first priority was always Oliver, and Demetri had yet to figure out an angle, or possibly a debt obligation, which he could hold over Oliver’s head. But he would. Eventually.
Oliver grinned. “Fascinating, now can we go have dinner?”
“You’re hungry?” Demetri felt vaguely disappointed that Oliver hadn’t gone all cowboy at the sight of horses. It seemed…un-American, which, considering Oliver was British, wasn’t a total surprise. Still, Demetri had hoped.
“I’m not hungry for food, old man. I’m only here for the women.”
Demetri slapped him on the back, not hungry, either—except for her.
Elizabeth.
A smile crossed his face, and he could feel the burn inside him. “Watch and learn, Oliver. Watch and learn.”
It took a foolish woman’s heart to skip a beat when she saw six-foot-something worth of trouble walk out onto the manicured lawn. The barbecue dinner for Amanda and Robbie had gone along smooth as molasses, but then he walked outside, and Elizabeth found herself looking, which turned into ogling, which turned into lusting, and it was all downhill from there.
Dressed in dark jeans, exactly like ninety-nine percent of the other men, he still stood out. He was handsome, but there were other nice-looking men here, too. No, there was something distinctly different about Demetri Lucas. Some dangerous song that called to every woman in the place, some unspoken melody that played havoc with the female senses. Greece is where the gossip sites had said he was born, and now Elizabeth understood the appeal of exotic, foreign men.
His face was proud and arrogant, as if he didn’t care what anyone thought, and Elizabeth mused to herself that well, if you looked like that, you didn’t have to care, because the women were already lapping it up in spades. She could tell. They’d walk by him, a flirty gleam in their eyes, hoping to earn a smile or even better a touch, but Mr. Demetri Lucas was too busy looking at Elizabeth.
There was a dark gleam in those appraising eyes, as though she were some prime piece of horseflesh, rather than the bubble-brained woman who smashed up his car.
What was even worse than that was the shiver in her arms, the compulsive need to lick her lips and the general twitch under her skin that made her nervous as a twelve-year-old.
Frankly, that wasn’t quite the truth. That wicked gleam made her feel every single bit of her twenty-eight years, reminding Elizabeth that she was long past puberty, knew the real story about the birds and the bees and had woman parts that were designed to fit a man’s parts—perfectly. Although she’d recorded a few songs that delved into the shadowy mystery of passion, they’d been written by someone else, because Elizabeth had never felt the burn herself. She had never known that long lick of desire between her shoulder blades. Never truly felt that heavy throb between her thighs.
Until now.
Restlessly she stalked around the yard like a stray dog looking for a place to land. She moved from one place to another, always trying to escape the magnetic draw of his eyes, but never quite succeeding. Elizabeth pulled up a lawn chair and talked with Melanie, with Uncle Thomas, and Aunt Jenna, chattering like a blue jay, all nonsense, because if she didn’t talk, she’d find herself looking in his direction, checking to see if he was still watching.
Which he was.
Elizabeth shivered again.
Oliver was already in his element at the party. The junior driver for Sterling Motor Cars was standing next to Demetri, and in less than an hour, he’d met one long-legged blonde, one brunette with sultry eyes and one redhead with pouty red lips. Still he wasn’t satisfied. Oliver loved them all with passion rarely seen in Britain, his stunts nearly, but not quite, eclipsing Demetri.
From across the way, Hugh met his eyes, and Demetri nodded once, lifting his beer. If Hugh had noticed the way Demetri’s attention kept slipping toward Elizabeth, he showed no sign of it. In the large crowd, it was unlikely, and Demetri’s attention slipped toward her once again.
Oliver saw where Demetri was looking, and nudged him in the ribs. “Do you know who that one is?”
Demetri frowned. “She’s one of the Prestons,” he said, sounding