by Lila Monroe
“Sure,” I said, my smile as fake as a spray tan.
“Wonderful,” Chuck said. He tossed his keys to Harry. “If you’d do us the honor of leading us to the Galenorn Gentleman’s Club?”
Shit.
“No, I do not want a lap dance!”
The Douchebros roared with more laughter than if I had been a professional comedian as I fended off an enthusiastic stripper in a g-string and pink sequined pasties.
I tried to avoid getting an eyeful as she sauntered off, offended, but there was nowhere safe to look. It was butts, boobs, and poorly conceived costumes as far as the eye could see. And while I’m certainly comfortable with the human body, I’m most definitely not the kind of person who wants to spend a night watching tastelessly outfitted strippers exploit themselves for cash. I could kill Chuck.
I mumbled something about needing to use the restroom and shrank backwards into the clouds of cigarette smoke. I needn’t have bothered; the whole crowd of them forgot me instantly in favor of drooling over a barely legal girl in a loincloth and an Egyptian headdress that was totally not historically accurate, with a fake rubber snake curled around her neck.
I rolled my eyes so hard I was surprised they didn’t alter the orbit of the moon.
Hunter sidled up next to me. I braced myself for some double entendre, but he just looked at me sympathetically. “Not into it, huh?” he asked dryly.
It was the cigarette smoke making my eyes water, not the unexpected kindness. I covered with snark. “That’s not even the right outfit for an Egyptian theme. Even a temple prostitute would be more clothed than she is. And she definitely wouldn’t be wearing a Mayan belt, that’s completely the wrong continent.”
Shock flitted across Hunter’s face, and then he grinned. “Well, aren’t you full of surprises.”
I shrugged. “Hey, a semester of historical costuming stays with you.”
“Your school did something other than Civil War reenactment costumes?”
I gave him a Look, capital L. “Don’t tell me you did those.”
“Okay, I won’t.” He put his hands up defensively when my Look intensified. “Hey, it’s a great place to pick up chicks. You die a dramatic death throwing yourself in front of some fake musket fire, clutch their hands, look deep into their eyes…a winner every time.”
I snorted. “Don’t tell my mom. She’ll have me in hoop skirts before you can say Robert E. Lee.”
He raised an eyebrow. “The matchmaking sort?”
“That’s putting it mildly.”
“My mom could get that way too, sometimes.” He shifted his eyes away, but not before I caught a flash of deep sadness in them.
I tried to distract him by joking about the costume of the next girl set to go on. “What’s she supposed to be, a Playboy bunny or the Easter bunny?”
He smiled, shaking his head at me. “I think she’s supposed to be a sexy cavewoman.”
“Ah, yes, that well-known trope,” I said sarcastically. “Uuuurgh. You Tarzan. Me Jane. Lap dance twenty mammoth, private room extra.”
Hunter snorted, and reached over to take my hand, pulling me closer. It was probably only to make sure he could be heard over the pounding music, but my heart still stopped as his breath tickled over my ear.
“Want to head home? I can’t wait to get out of here either.”
My hand fit into his like they were made for each other. I squeezed his hand, and looked up into his golden brown eyes with a smile. “I know I’m definitely not getting any work done here. What are we waiting for?”
Chapter Nine
Back at the estate, Hunter took my hand again to guide me out of the car. I didn’t need it this time, but I wasn’t complaining. I was actually rather rapidly conspiring to get him to do it again as soon as possible.
But then he didn’t move towards the guesthouse, instead tugging me down one of the unpaved gravel roads leading towards the edge of the property.
“Wait, where are we going?” I asked. “Is this the part of the movie where you reveal that you’ve been a ghost all along, and need me to know where you’re buried?”
Hunter snorted. “Nothing that exciting. Just…” His thumb stroked over my hand, and it became hard to concentrate on his words. “…thought you should get a moonlit tour of the distillery.”
“Oh,” I said. Then I rallied back some of my eloquence. “Is the moonlight particularly important?”
“Incredibly important,” he said seriously, but his eyes were dancing.
He led me down the gravel road, through the woods with the singing cicadas and the air that smelled like damp earth, sweet green growing things, and burnt caramel. The shadows made him look dark and mysterious, made me feel dark and mysterious too, a human maiden being led astray into the wilds by her feral fae prince, to dance and dance at the midsummer masque of the Faerie Queen.
Or not.
The distillery was lit by half lights as Hunter pulled me into the first room, jars and jars of grains lining the wall.
“The mash bill,” he explained in a whisper. “Mostly corn, except in the special brands. I’d tell you the exact recipes, but then…” he shrugged.
“You’d have to kill me?” I teased back, also whispering.
He grinned wickedly. “Clever girl.”
Our feet stole quietly across the floor, past the miniature grain mills to a set of spiral stairs. Cool air drifted up from the bottom, and as we descended, I could hear the burble of a spring.
“Only the purest water,” Hunter said softly. “Completely natural, straight from the earth. Filtered by limestone, not corrupted or polluted or deionized.”
He dipped his hand into the spring and held it to my lips; my eyes closed as I let the cool water slide down my throat.
I had never tasted anything so delicious.
I wanted so, so badly to lick his hand.
I pulled away, glad of the half-light that hid my blush. “What else are you hiding here?”
“Oh, all sorts of secrets.” That roguish grin again.
And then he took me to the cave rooms where yeast strains had been preserved since the Prohibition era, and there were mash cookers, and fermentation vats with thick cypress slats hewn from local forests, and cylindrical copper stills gleaming like buried treasure, and finally, thick white oak barrels where the bourbon whiskey could age, soaking up the flavor until they were ready to be bottled.
“It’s beautiful,” I said, and to my surprise, I really meant it. I wasn’t the type to get soppy over something like this. But it truly was amazing. The alchemy of it. The magic.
“It’s full of history,” he said, his gaze full of soft wonder as he surveyed his distillery as if seeing it through new eyes. “I never appreciated it when I was younger, but I look at it now and I…”
He trailed off.
My hand had been without his for far too long; I took it again.
“Tell me about it,” I asked softly.
“You probably know more about it than I do,” he said. “All that time you spend in the library. You probably appreciate it more than me by now.”
I shook my head. “I can tell it means a lot to you.”
He nodded. “The world is so full of uncertainties,” he said. “But this, the recipe, the brewing…it’s an art, and it’s a science, and it’s the history of my family, and…it’s the one thing I can put together, and know it’s strong, and it’s right, and it’s meant to last.” He shrugged, seeming embarrassed. “I can’t explain it, not really. Not in words.”
“Then show me,” I said.
His eyes met mine, and electricity sparked across our gaze.
He walked to the bottling line without breaking my gaze, and took an empty, popping open a cask to let the cool liquid spill into it before bringing it to my lips.
The fiery liquor burned as I swallowed, caramel and vanilla and hot fire unmatched by anything but the heat in his eyes. Hunter Knox. So successful, so closed off…and yet in this moment, so d
eep, so vulnerable, so trusting.
So hot…
A drop escaped the corner of my lips, and he wiped it away, his fingers lingering at the corner of my mouth, our eyes still locked. I couldn’t breathe. My heart was in my throat, beating in time with his.
He set the bottle down and traced the line of my jaw with his thumb, moving closer.
And then I leaned up and kissed him before he could change his mind.
His lips were hot, scorching, and he tasted wild and free and like everything I had ever wanted, better than cool underground streams or high-end liquors or the nectar of the gods. He grabbed my arms and pulled me close, my soft body melting against his hard chest, my hands greedy as they gripped his back, sliding down to cup that perfect ass. His hands slid up my arms to tangle possessively in my hair, grip tightly at the back of my neck, and I moaned into him, parting my lips to let his tongue plunder my mouth. I ground against him, wanting him, needing him—
But I couldn’t have him.
I pulled away, my breath coming in ragged gasps.
“Hunter, you—you know we can’t.”
He reached out, his fingers trailing along my chin, and I almost took it back immediately.
His eyes were regretful. “I know.”
“I’m sorry—”
“It’s fine.”
And then there was nothing we could do but leave.
I retreated to the guesthouse and lay on top of the flannel quilt of my bed, trying to persuade myself that the heat refusing to leave my body was only the humid Virginia night air. But I knew it wasn’t true.
Chapter Ten
The scent of lilacs drifted through the air along with the clink of raised champagne glasses, and I wondered how long I could hide in the fancy white gazebo behind the honeysuckle bushes.
I’d been so wrapped up in my personal drama, I’d almost forgotten about my mother’s big matchmaking plans. I might have managed to wriggle out of this event early on in the game, when she wasn’t as desperate and her focus wasn’t as tight, except for two things:
Norcross Hope, the charity, bought schoolbooks for impoverished kids, a cause that was really dear to my dad’s heart, and I couldn’t let him down, and;
Knox was also affiliated with Norcross Hope, and so attending this shindig was technically part of my job.
“Are you really wearing that?” Oh crap, my mom had found me. “Allison, darling, you know green absolutely washes you out.”
“Does it?” I said. “Ah, well.”
“I think she looksh—looks lovely,” my dad said. He avoided my mom’s dagger eyes by taking another swig of champagne. Was this his fifth? We were way too early in the evening for that. I wished he didn’t have to drink to get through events with my mother. Though honestly, I couldn’t blame him. And come to think of it, maybe he had the right idea…
“She looks washed out, and you know it,” my mother snapped. “Allison, on the phone we specifically discussed the color palettes that most favor—”
“Oh look, I see a handsome successful man, bye!” I interrupted, and sped off to find another, better, hiding place. I eventually chose the nook behind the catering crew, but decided to first stop by the cash bar and tip the bartender fifty small to make sure Daddy got his drinks watered down for the rest of the night.
“Bribing someone to slip arsenic in Chuck’s drink?”
Hunter’s honey voice slid luxuriously through the scented air. Suddenly my dress felt very tight, and the night very, very hot.
I turned to survey him. Oh, big mistake. He was looking good enough to eat, his classic cut tuxedo hugging the perfect lines of his muscular body, a slight five o’clock shadow adding just a hint of danger and bad boy appeal to the grin he was sending my way.
“As if I’d be that obvious,” I said, trying to act unaffected. “Why, did you already bribe someone?”
“Nah,” he said. He leaned closer. “I’d offer to buy you a drink, but given the way this conversation started, I’m not sure you’d take me up on it.”
My hand raised itself of its own volition, trailing down the front of his shirt. “Given the way this conversation went last night, I’m pretty sure I would.”
He grinned at me, our eyes locking. For a moment, we were the only people in the world.
And then—
“Hunter!” A booming voice rang out as a man in a blue business suit came up and slapped him jovially on the back. He didn’t seem to see me at all. “Good to see you! Got some questions about the board meeting coming up, know you won’t mind taking a minute to answer them—”
With a pained look at me, Hunter allowed himself to be led away. Now was not the time for him to brush off any of his supporters within the company; he couldn’t afford to lose any foothold he had.
And right behind him, where they had heard every word we had said to each other: the Douchebros. My stomach clenched and I willed myself not to blush tomato red.
Harry and his little posse strutted up to me like roosters with brand-new tail feathers. I braced myself. But not, as it turned out, hard enough.
“Well, what do we have here, bro?” Harry asked the Douchebro closest to him.
“I think it’s the case of Nancy Drew and the Secret Slutbag, bro,” the second said.
“Bro, you are totally right.”
Their weird verbal tic almost distracted me from what they were actually saying. “What—what are you talking about?”
“‘The way the conversation went last night,’” Harry mimicked in a falsetto voice. “You got some brass ones, Ally Bally Fee Fi Fo Fally. I mean, it’s one thing to fuck your way up the ladder, but flaunting it like that, in a public place? Tsk, tsk.”
“Excuse me?” I said, my voice ice to cover the way I could feel the ground slipping away from under me.
“What, you didn’t think Knox hired you on merit, did you?” Harry asked with a sneer. “He just wanted to hit that ass. Same as Mr. Avery. That’s how you got this job in the first place, or did you not notice that all the other interns were dudes? Wasn’t much to choose from, truth be told.”
“What? That is not true. I got this job on my own merits—” I sputtered.
“That your nickname for your boobs?” Harry interrupted.
The Douchebros gave him high fives.
“You—are—pathetic,” I gritted out between clenched teeth. “You are a pathetic little baby hiding in a man’s body and shouting at the world because you’re terrified it doesn’t care about you, and you know what? You’re right. It doesn’t. No one cares about you at all, Harry, and no one ever will.”
I stormed off, refusing to let the tears surface. So what if Harry and the Douchebros thought that? So what if everyone thought that? So what if I was so devastated that I felt like I was cracked apart inside, like I was going to fall into a thousand pieces? I wasn’t. I couldn’t. Not yet, not out here in the open.
I had to find Hunter.
“Ally, what’s wrong?”
I had thought my emotions were well-disguised, but one look at my face and Hunter had made his excuses to the board members and allowed me to pull him away to the gazebo for a private talk. I tried to still my trembling hands, tried to keep tears from leaking out where they’d blur my mascara, where they’d let Hunter dismiss what I was saying. I could still hear the Douchebros’ accusations ringing in my ears.
“I’ve been indecisive,” I said hurriedly. “I’ve been saying things, and then doing different things, and it’s not right and it’s not fair to you, and—Hunter, I can’t keep doing this. I’ve worked too hard; I can’t afford to let myself get the reputation of—of a—”
My voice broke. Hunter tried to lay a comforting arm on my shoulder, but I pulled back as if his hand were a red-hot brand.
“I…see,” Hunter said slowly. “Well, I certainly wouldn’t want my actions to hurt your career. But Ally—we’ve been discreet. And it’s the twenty-first century, I don’t think people are as judgmental as you’re afr
aid they are—”
“Of course they are!” I said. “People are already noticing, that’s why we’ve got to put a stop to it as quick as we can, before things get too out of hand—”
Hunter was shaking his head at me, a frown tight across his lips, refusing to go along with what I was saying or even try to understand where I was coming from.
Why was he stonewalling me like this? Couldn’t he see how much it was hurting me just to say this; couldn’t he have any mercy?
“Ally, just stop, listen to yourself.” His expression grew hard as he cut me off. “Now look, if someone has been spreading rumors, I can…”
“No, no!” The last thing I needed was Hunter charging in like a white knight and confirming everyone’s opinion that we were sleeping together. “It’s just…this is really for the best. This has to end.”
“Oh really?” he said, crossing his arms. “That doesn’t sound like you at all. Someone is spreading rumors, aren’t they? It’s those assholes you work with!”
“What does it matter who it is?” I snapped, throwing up my hands. “The fact is that it’s happening! And I can’t afford to have people think that I’m some kind of—”
“What do you care what those jerks think?” he said, taking a step towards me, his hand reaching for my shoulder as if to pull me into his line of thinking.
I almost let him. I wanted so badly to be told that I could have everything I wanted, that everything would turn out fine, that we could live happily ever after.
But I knew we couldn’t. I pulled away from his touch as if his hand were a snake.
The hurt on his face couldn’t have been greater if I had slapped him. It was followed quickly by fury. He took another stride closer; I could feel his body trembling with suppressed anger, I could feel heat radiating off him. “Is what we have so fragile that you’re going to go running from the first sign of trouble? I thought you were better than that. I thought you were strong enough to stand on your own, not be influenced by the opinions of men you don’t even like.”
