Winner Takes All - Anna Harrington Page 0,30

battle it out. Benny was a good jockey, and as they rounded into the backstretch, he let the gray move ahead by less than a length, just to keep pressing the black colt into giving its best effort. Just to prove to both himself and Shaw that Ghost was capable of winning.

“What did you do?” An angry voice seethed from beside him. Even angrier fingers clenched into his arm so hard that he wondered if she meant to draw blood beneath her nails.

“Go back to the owner’s box,” he ordered emotionlessly, as if he were still in charge, as if it were any other morning and they were simply putting the horses through their paces.

“The devil I will! Signal to him—tell Benny to let Ghost have his head.”

He didn’t pretend that he didn’t know what she meant. Or why. He would never insult her intelligence. Instead, he remained still as the horses thundered out of the backstretch and into the far turn.

“I know, Jack—I know about the farm and why you need the prize money.” Her voice strangled in her throat on the desperate plea. “Let Ghost win.”

“No.”

From the corner of his eye, he watched the horses pass the mile marker and enter the last half mile of the race. But he also saw her stricken expression, her blue eyes and pink lips in stark contrast to the pallor gripping her beautiful face. Around them, thousands of people in the crowd cheered at the tops of their lungs, the men waving their hats in the air and the women jumping up and down with excitement.

“For God’s sake,” she cried out, “why not?”

Finally, he looked down at her, and for a breathless moment, time froze. There was no race, no farm to worry over, no viscount father to appease—there was only Francesca, with the light breeze stirring the dark tendrils of her hair against her neck and cheeks, only the brightness of her eyes that shone with as much energy as the horses flying toward them on the track. Wild. Untamed. Free.

He would give his life to keep her that way.

“Because I love you,” he said quietly beneath the thunder of hooves and the roar of the crowd. “Enough to set you free.”

Her eyes widened, and she met his gaze with tears shining like diamonds in their sapphire depths.

“I don’t want to be free.” Her hand slid down his arm to clasp his hand, her fingers entwining with his. “I want you.”

“You can’t have me,” he rasped out hoarsely.

Yet he surrendered with a sag of his shoulders as the horses turned the last corner and started into the front stretch. He leaned over the railing and waved his arm in the air to signal to Benny to give Ghost his head and run full out, to make an honest race of it.

The horses rushed past with a cloud of turf flying from their hooves as they pounded toward the finish line. Both jockeys rode low in their saddles and urged on their mounts with shouts and slaps of their crops. They raced neck and neck, a gray and black blur of speed and power that surged past the grandstand and sprinted past the finishing post. Shaw held his breath, waiting for the race official to signal—

A cheer went up from the crowd as a tear slipped down Frankie’s cheek. The sight broke Shaw’s heart.

Midnight had won by less than half a length.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered. “Your farm, the horses…I’m so—” She abruptly cut herself off, and hope lit her face. “No, I’m not.” She clutched his hand tightly, as if never wanting to let go. “I’m not sorry, do you understand? Because I want to marry you. That’s who I’m picking with this win. I’m picking you.” She pulled in a deep breath. “Marry me, Jack.”

The hope on her face burned into him like a firebrand, and he flinched, the pain unbearable. Needing to cauterize the wound she’d unwittingly sliced into his heart, he choked out, “No, I won’t.”

Her eyes flashed, and her mouth fell open, stunned. The joy that had pulsed from her only heartbeats before extinguished in a flash, and he recognized the disbelieving and anguished look that gripped her beautiful face. Because he felt the same pain in his own gut.

It was the agony of a dream vanishing like smoke.

Frankie stared at him, her body numb and her heart bleeding. He’d shattered it like glass, and the shards had cut through her with breathtaking pain. She turned her