Billionaire With a Twist (6 page)

I looked around the guesthouse in
exasperation at my own indecision, noted for the first time with my
rested eyes how sumptuous and simultaneously homey it was.

The bed had simple but clean lines, a
frame of solid oak with Egyptian cotton sheets and a hand-stitched
red and blue flannel quilt on top. The warped glass in the windows
looked as if it stretched back to the War of Northern Aggression, but
each pane was as pristine as the day it had been made. The wooden
floor glowed like carmine gold with fresh floor polish, and a
portrait of a humble soldier—one of Hunter’s
ancestor’s—hung over the granite stone fireplace, along
with a well-loved rifle.

All in all, it made me glad I had taken
Hunter up on his offer, even if it brought us into awkwardly close
proximity.

Oh, Mr. Knox, I don’t want to
put you out, I can stay at a hotel—

And make you have to commute an hour
a day, wasting valuable time? That guesthouse is just sitting empty.
You’ll be doing me a favor, giving me a reason to keep Chuck
from using it for bottle storage.

I hadn’t seen Hunter yet, but
like I said, I only arrived last night. I probably wouldn’t see
him for quite awhile anyway: I had research to do, and the last terse
e-mail he sent me said he was busy sorting out production problems
with the distillery, something about the recipe being off in the last
batch, potentially a problem with carelessness, dissatisfied labor,
or even industrial sabotage. He certainly didn’t have time for
anything as unimportant as settling me into my current digs.

I definitely wasn’t disappointed
or anything. Nope.

And I was totally
not
freaking
out about what I was wearing because we had sort of kind of a little
bit slept together.

I just wanted to look professional, and
not die of heat at the same time.

And of course I didn’t want to
remind him of what had happened that night, but if I just happened to
pick an outfit in which my legs looked particularly stunning...

No.
No
. No! I was here to work.
That was all.

I settled on a light cotton floral
skirt that swirled modestly around my knees and a sleeveless blue
blouse, and then had a quick cup of coffee in my guesthouse’s
mini-kitchen. Afterward, my brain finally starting to function
properly, I squared my shoulders, grabbed my briefcase, and set out
to find the library.

Just stepping out of the guesthouse
took my breath away. The sun glowed golden over the rolling green
fields, sheltered at their edges by oaks and willows hung with
curtains of Spanish moss, and a stream gurgled blue and pristine
along the western edge, its banks dotted with pink and purple
flowers.

The main house rose like a triumphant
monument at the very center, circled by lilac and honeysuckle whose
heady scent swam through the thick, humid air. My own guesthouse was
bedecked with climbing morning glories in pale violet, and the others
next to me were garlanded with rows of sunflowers. Just behind them I
could see the stables, hear the horses whinnying as grain flowed into
their troughs.

And to the east—a lake,
glimmering like liquid sapphire, and on the horizon the edges of the
distillery barns and sheds for the production of the famous bourbon.
The wind shifted, and a scent of burnt caramel drifted across the
air, sweet and sharp and full of promise. It was like I’d
actually walked right into a dream.

The sky was the purest blue I had ever
seen, and through my daze I found my arm raising to snap a picture
with my cell phone. If Sandra could recreate that color I would
barely need to write any copy. That shade of blue could sell
refrigerators to the Inuit.

The beauty of the estate so gobsmacked
me that I couldn’t decide what to do first. I’d intended
to visit the library this morning—if I could find it—but
I rebelled at the thought of spending time indoors on such a lovely
day. Hadn’t I just said that the name of the game was
immersion?

It was time to explore.

#

After spending an hour splashing my
feet in the stream and meeting all of the horses—the grooms
were a little hesitant to let me visit with them, but were won over
after their most cantankerous stallion took sugar lumps from my
hand—I convinced myself to get back on track and trotted
quickly over to the blessedly air-conditioned manor to return to my
original quest: the library.

It ended up being a pretty long quest,
since the manor house ended up being larger than some Eastern
European countries.

I didn’t mind, though, because it
was also absolutely breathtaking. My mom might put on airs about our
heritage, but even with all her efforts, our house could never have
dreamed of this opulence: crystal chandeliers, Persian carpets so
lush my feet almost disappeared in their weave, gold-framed oil
paintings that looked like they’d been taken straight from a
museum. I felt like I’d wandered onto the set of a period
drama—only the electric lights and air conditioning kept me
from feeling like I’d straight-up taken a time machine into the
past.

I might have wandered through those
luxurious labyrinthine hallways forever, but after about fifteen
minutes my stomach rumbled in response to the delicious smells being
wafted from somewhere nearby: sizzling bacon, baking bread, fresh
squeezed orange juice…

It was way past time for a proper
breakfast.

I tried to follow the scent, but
instead of leading me to the kitchen, I stumbled into a room full of
animal heads. Lions, rhinoceroses, tigers, wolves, cougars, panthers,
and bears leered at me with glass eyes from the walls, their mouths
twisted in frozen snarls.

“Sweet baby Jesus, that’s
creepy,” I muttered.

“I know, right?” a perky
voice said. “Hey, you want some breakfast, or should I leave
you to your safari?”

I whirled, and saw a plump young woman
with a brilliant smile, her curly black hair barely tamed by a
ponytail, and her friendly brown eyes sparkling with amusement. With
her dark slacks and button down, she had to be a member of the staff.
But which one?

“Sorry to spook you,” she
said, stepping forward and offering her hand. “I’m
Martha. I heard someone walking around and figured that this maze of
a house had claimed its latest victim. If you need some provisions
for your exploration, I can guide you to the kitchen. We’ve got
pretty much every kind of breakfast food you could imagine, and a few
you can’t.”

“I’ve got a pretty good
imagination,” I said, shaking her hand. “But I thank
you.”

“Trust me, you don’t want
to imagine the things we keep on tap for the U.K. ambassador,”
she said. “I’m going to go ahead and say one of them as a
warning: fish paste. As in paste, made of fish. And gelatin.”

“Wow,” I said. “Warning
appreciated. I’m a simple girl, though, so can I just get some
bacon and eggs sunny side up?”

“That and a side of fruit, plus
coffee that’ll put hair on your chest. Er, metaphorically,”
she assured me. “I don’t think I caught your name…”

“Oh my goodness, that was so rude
of me, I’m sorry,” I apologized. “Allison Bartlett,
but please call me Ally. Very pleased to meet you, and not just
because you’re offering me bacon.”

Martha led the way out of the room of
stuffed animal heads, and I followed, trying to keep track of the
route. I didn’t want to take a wrong turn when I was on my own
and starve to death, after all.

“So, are you the cook?” I
asked to make conversation.

“Oh, sweet fucking Christ on a
cupcake, no!” she blurted, and then covered her mouth with her
hand, giggling. “Sorry. I just had a vision of me trying to
work a blender to make anything other than a banana daiquiri and it
was absolutely horrifying. Nah, I’m Mr. Knox’s personal
assistant.”

“Well, either way, you’re a
lifesaver,” I said. “I feel like I could get lost in this
place for days.”

“Yeah, Theseus and the minotaur
had nothing on this place,” Martha agreed. “Last time the
British ambassador was visiting, we thought he had left after an
argument with Mr. Knox over the history of Scotch, but it turned out
he had just taken a wrong turn in the library and gotten stuck in the
greenhouse. Want me to make you a map after breakfast?”

“More than I’ve ever wanted
anything else,” I assured her.

She grinned. “I have a feeling
we’re going to be friends.”

#

“I don’t think I can take
another bite, and that is a goddamn tragedy,” I said.

It truly was. The bacon was just the
right mix of crispy and tender, seasoned with hickory smoke and
honey, and the eggs were cooked perfectly, sprinkled in fresh-cracked
pepper and with just enough yolk spreading from them to dip the bacon
in. The bread was hot out of the oven and spread with butter from the
plantation’s own cows, and over that Irish orange marmalade or
blackberry jam from the cellar. The orange juice was just-squeezed,
the pineapple just off the tree and bursting with flavor. The coffee
tasted like what would happen if you caffeinated Heaven.

“One more bite,” I promised
myself, and moaned in ecstasy as the piece of pineapple burst between
my teeth.

And of course that was the exact moment
that Hunter came in. When I was moaning like a porn star.

The universe hates me so, so much.

He raised an eyebrow. “That’s
one way to enjoy breakfast.”

I raised my cloth napkin, pretending to
wipe my mouth but mostly attempting to cover up a blush that was
actively trying to make my face burst into flames.

It definitely didn’t help that he
was wearing a tight T-shirt that clung to his sweaty, rugged frame
like it couldn’t bear to let go. Not that I could blame it.

“Yes. Um. You’ve been
working?” I asked, desperate to change the topic.

“Time and tide and distillery
malfunctions wait for no man,” he said. “I’ve been
up for hours. I was just going to grab a coffee and hit the sack for
a quick nap, but I could give you a tour first if you want.”

Is it a tour of your bedroom?
I
thought but managed not to say out loud. “No thank you,”
I said instead. “I’ll make my own way. I wouldn’t
want to inconvenience you.”

Because if I took that tour right now,
with him looking the way he did, I was definitely going to
inconvenience the pants right off him.

“It’s no inconvenience,”
he insisted. “In fact, I—” Then his eyes widened.
“Oh dear. You’ve just saved me. I was supposed to join a
conference call in fifteen minutes.” He bit his lip in a way
that made me think several thoughts not even remotely fit for print.
“You’re certain you’ll be all right on your own?”

“I think I’ll survive the
wilds of your library,” I assured him.

He hurried off with a grateful smile.
It was a relief, because I would definitely have jumped him if we’d
spent any longer together. And I couldn’t risk my job for that.

Even though it would be so very nearly
worth it.

#

After resisting the temptation that was
Hunter in a tight t-shirt, I followed Martha’s map to the
estate library, where I planned to spend the rest of the day. The
building it was housed in was about half the size of the manor house,
which is to say, about twice the size of any public library I’d
ever been in. It was all wood paneling and lush carpets and
wall-to-wall bookshelves that would have made the Beauty and the
Beast movie drool in envy.

Thankfully, those bookshelves were full
of the kind of primary sources I’d been unable to track down
back in Washington, D.C., and I was able to spend hours poring over
old journals, record books, and newspaper clippings in search of the
most fascinating historical tidbits about the company. Those
first-hand sources, including the diary of its founder, Hunter Knox’s
great-great-great-great-great-great-grandfather and
great-great-great-great-great-great-grandmother, poor immigrants from
Scotland who wanted a better life. They’d come to the United
States where they’d worked hard to earn the capital to leave
their employers and strike out on their own. Learning from both their
roots and the rich bourbon culture of the South, they had worked
together as equal partners to create a flavorful bourbon whose
popularity swept the nation and went overseas, becoming so popular in
Britain that both ancestors were very nearly knighted.

I thought about Hunter as a knight.
Hunter, sweaty, in chain mail, valiantly rescuing me from a dragon.
He’d unchain me from the rock where I’d been offered in
sacrifice, his hands gentle as he stroked my chafed, raw skin—or
maybe he’d leave me chained, those soft lips lifting in a
wicked smirk as he bent to press them to the sensitive skin of my
neck, his hand trailing up my leg—

No, no, no! Bad Ally! Concentrate on
research!

Anyway, those first ancestors weren’t
even the most remarkable thing. No, the true jackpot I stumbled upon
was the way that the Knox family had always strived to do what was
right. Ferryville, the town that had befriended them and offered them
charity when they were poor, was raised up and revitalized by the
Knox’s job-creating factory; the families that had sponsored
their passage to America were sent enough money so that they could
immigrate as well.

Furthermore, the Knoxes had used the
company’s shipping needs as cover for the Underground Railroad,
and after the Civil War, had bought up this very plantation, moving
their headquarters from Ferryville to here in order to give paying
jobs to newly freed slaves and newly discharged soldiers, helping the
economy of the ravaged South recover. Though workforces were
initially segregated, another ancestor, Alphonse Knox, was
instrumental in creating the very first integrated workforce in the
state.