Billionaire With a Twist (12 page)

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 deep, 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.

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:

1. 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;
   

2. 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 afraid 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.”

I clenched my fist before my hand could
rise up and slap him. Was he really so blind? Couldn’t he see
how different it was for him? A man could dick around all he wanted
and no one looked twice. A woman made one mistake, and her career was
done forever.

“As if you would know the first
thing about standing on your own,” I said, my voice trembling.
“Tell me, Hunter Knox, is it terribly lonely up there on your
high horse with only your millions for company? How you must have
struggled, having your opportunities occasionally delivered to you on
a silver platter instead of a gold one.”