Neck & Neck by Elizabeth Bevarly Page A

with that big-ass bow on the back?
    Suffice it to say she could just sympathize with Russell Mulholland, that was all.
    But what could a man like that have to hide? Then again, what she had read painted him as a man who was using his newfound wealth to live like an overgrown adolescent. In addition to racing horses, he liked to race Formula One cars—except that he employed jockeys to ride the horses, and he himself drove the cars. He’d also been linked romantically to a number of women—though none for any length of time—but that wasn’t surprising, given both the nature of handsome, wealthy men and the often biased sensationalism of the media. Womanizing was in no way a secret when it came to business moguls, never mind acting like an overgrown adolescent. So that couldn’t be what Russell Mulholland was worried about having revealed to the world.
    She recalled again how she hadn’t been able to uncover anything about him or his chief of security prior to the formation of Mulholland Games. No mention of him being an academic standout in high school or college, which one would think he had been, considering his current success. She hadn’t found so much as his name listed on the roster of the science or chess clubs of any schools. No marriage announcement. No birth announcement for his son. Not even an obituary for his wife.
    Just to be sure, Natalie searched a variety of word combinations in an effort to rouse something like that. But there was nothing. She did the same thing with Finn Guthrie, telling herself it was only because she needed a comparison, and not because she was genuinely curious about whether or not he was married with children, or how old he was, or where he was born, or where he’d gone to school, or whether or not he’d been in the science or chess club at that school.
    But there was nothing about Finn prior to his employer’s business successes, either. There were only a few hundred thousand mentions of him at Mulholland’s side, keeping away (choose any that apply) paparazzi, autograph hounds, gold diggers, corporate spies, all of the above.
    Just who was Finn Guthrie? she wondered. Who was Russell Mulholland, for that matter? And more to the point, what was he—or what were they —trying to hide? Maybe if Natalie could figure that out, she’d have some leverage when it came to convincing the billionaire it would be in his best interests to come to Clementine’s party.
    She was brought up short when she realized what she’d just thought. Digging into someone’s background to uncover things they’d probably just as soon leave covered, and then using those things to sway that person’s actions wasn’t leverage. It was extortion. What Natalie was thinking about was blackmail, plain and simple.
    Could she really do that? Could she blackmail Mulholland into coming to Clementine’s party if it meant ensuring her own success? That was pretty conniving. Pretty coldhearted. Pretty heinous. Even assuming she could uncover whatever it was the billionaire was hiding.
    Good heavens, what was she thinking? Natalie asked herself. Of course she wouldn’t—couldn’t—blackmail anyone. Not unless, you know, she got really, really desperate.
    And she wasn’t desperate. She still had two weeks before Clementine’s party. Well, okay, one week to convince Russell Mulholland to attend and make the announcement, and then another week to have hundreds of people switch allegiance to attend the Hotchkiss gala instead of the parties to which they’d already committed. But hey, that was seven whole days she had to change Russell Mulholland’s mind. Anything could happen in seven days. An entire universe could be created in seven days. And even if that was an allegory, Natalie was up for a decidedly un allegorical challenge.
    All she had to do was find some way to convince Russell Mulholland to come to Clementine Hotchkiss’s party that didn’t involve extortion. If she could somehow appeal to the