Page 69 of Buckin' Around

On the other, her gelding stands fully tacked up and quivering by the tack room doorway.

“What the hell happened?” I bark.

Glenda hands the reins over to the stable hand and crosses to where I’m holding Ivy as my body bounces.

“Spencer, let me take the baby, and you deal with her.” She nods toward Mrs. Princeton, and I numbly hand Ivy over.

“Don’t let her walk all over you, bossman,” she whispers.

Glenda is walking back into the sunshine as I close the space between myself and the woman as old as her money, currently glaring at me like I’m the problem.

Maybe I am.

Well, I’m about to be her problem if I find out she’s mistreated her horse.

“What happened? I’m not going to ask again.”

A defiant look takes over her expression as she rises to her feet. “This animal almost killed me!”

“Thisanimal, Mrs. Princeton, is your horse.”

I fold my arms over my chest and set my shoulders back. We all know her play. Cruelty toward others, horses included, until she somehow manages to spin it back around to seem like the damn victim.

If you ask me, it’s the product of ingrained entitlement.

Not that I can separate myself from it, being a Lockwood. Bu?—

“Are you even listening to me?” she shrieks. “I want a new horse. The best in this decrepit establishment. The only reason I haven’t left and moved my interests to Lucky Clover Stables is because I like you, Spencer. My loyalties have always been with your family, and this is how I am repaid.”

More like she gets what she wants here. Well, mostly.

Her salacious solicitations have not been forgotten.

After the budget and board meeting, I realize we can’t afford to lose her and her associates. The founding members make up too many of our full-time patrons. It would be a mass exodus that would cripple Silver Elite financially.

Judging by this little power trip of hers, she knows that.

I move in closer, so only she can hear what I say next. “What do you really want, Priscilla?”

Her expression softens as something like want flickers through her eyes. “You know exactly what I want, Spencer.”

Her finger lands on my polo, over my heart.

I tamp back the shiver that’s starting at the top of my spine, ready to wash over my body in disgust. I know this game. Well.

Well enough to twist it to my advantage.

“Why me? You could have the pick of men,” I say softly, dropping my head so my words meet the shell of her ear.

That finger on my chest escalates to her entire hand as it presses against my shirt.

“I have been watching you since you started here. Those weekends you came to sit with that little friend of yours. What was his name, Bradley? I knew, even then, that we would be together, one day.”

Bile rises in my throat, and I grind my molars down to stop the visceral reaction to what she just admitted.

“Brady. His name is Brady,” I grind out.

The fucking nerve of this woman.