by Mia Sheridan
“Huh,” I said, biting at my lip. Thirteen years. It must have been one hell of a disagreement. What a terrible loss for both of them.
Just then, a couple of the stablemen walked into the kitchen, greeting us both and sitting at the large island. May began pouring them coffee as I took the last bite of my cinnamon roll. I wished them a good day and excused myself, heading to the office on the other side of the house.
I sat at the ornate carved desk, logging in to the computer in front of me. I started to go through emails, pausing as I tapped my foot on the plush oriental carpet beneath my feet. After a second, I clicked off my email account, going to Google where I quickly typed in Brant’s name.
A plethora of hits came up, all related to articles on his myriad New York City nightlife establishments, or so it seemed. I scrolled down, browsing through the headlines for a moment and then clicked on images, an entire page appearing of Brant Talbot at different social events. In almost every one, there was a beautiful woman on his arm, though from what it looked like, rarely the same one. He obviously wasn’t married. The most recent photo showed him with a woman identified as Sondra Worthington, a Manhattan real estate agent. She was tall and gorgeous and they made a striking couple. He wore the same relaxed, yet somehow removed half-smile that he seemed to wear in most of his pictures as she smiled coyly at the camera. Self-consciously, I fiddled with the messy braid hanging over my shoulder, auburn strands loose around my face. I’d never concerned myself too much with my looks before, but staring at the gorgeous woman on the screen made me feel plain, dowdy. God, I’d look like a ragamuffin next to a woman like that.
My eyes moved back to Brant Talbot. May had called him passionate, but the apathetic expression on his chiseled face made me doubt that description still fit. Or perhaps he’d decided passion was better left behind in Kentucky.
Punching at the mouse with perhaps a little more force than was warranted, I opened the desk drawer to do some filing.
I couldn’t say why those blue eyes—Brant Talbot’s eyes—continued to flash in my mind.
CHAPTER TWO
Brant
“Dinner should be ready in fifteen minutes or so.”
Sondra smiled, turning from where she’d been standing at the edge of the balcony. Her smile was seductive. “Your talents never cease to amaze me, Brant Talbot. Entrepreneur”—she moved toward me—“businessman extraordinaire”—she came to a stop directly in front of me—“and master chef, on top of it all?” She reached up to remove what I was sure was an invisible piece of lint from the shoulder of my shirt. I knew the game. Knew the rules. Knew exactly how to play. She’d be in my bed by the end of tonight. Her body would be toned, supple, and the sex would be good. I should be looking forward to it. I’d been dating her for a couple of weeks, and she’d been playing hard to get, though there was really nothing hard to get about her. Her expression was carefully casual, but her eyes were calculating. She knew the game too.
So why did I feel this . . . removed? So . . . bored by it all?
I gave a wry tilt of my lips. “I wouldn’t call myself a master. At least not when it comes to cooking.” I winked and her composure slipped briefly, hunger flaring in her eyes. For a moment it concerned me. She was playing a game, but it seemed she wanted me, not just as a lover, but as more. And that wasn’t part of the game. At least not anything I was willing to participate in. She fluttered her lashes, parting her lips as she gazed at me, offering me her mouth.
I turned to the door, looking over my shoulder. “I’m going to the wine room to grab a bottle.”
“Lovely,” she said, not quite able to hide the disappointment in her voice.
The wine room in my apartment was a small, temperature-controlled space just off the kitchen. I pulled air in through my lungs, attempting to get my head together. Sondra Worthington was an extremely successful real estate agent in Manhattan. She sold multi-million-dollar apartments to the ultra-rich. That was how I’d met her. She’d sold me this luxury apartment on the Upper West Side. She was beautiful, intelligent, sophisticated, and she was going to let me fuck her on every surface in my apartment later if I wanted to. So why the hell couldn’t I manage even a trickle of anticipation? A small buzz of excitement? And I didn’t mean sexual excitement—I was a young, healthy, red-blooded male. My body would rise to the occasion, so to speak. It was my damn head that was out to pasture for some inexplicable reason.
As I stood there, looking around at the shelves upon shelves of expensive wine, the low hum of the ventilation sounding in my ears, it felt like the walls were closing in. I’d never minded being in here before, didn’t suffer from claustrophobia, so it was a strange feeling, unusual and unexpected.
I’d just been working too damn hard lately. Maybe the best thing I could do was force myself to relax a little, even if only for one night. Some good wine, good food, the release sex would provide. And I’d be back on track.
I grabbed a bottle of Château Lafite Rothschild and opened the door, the critically acclaimed vintage in one hand as I returned to the kitchen. That was when I heard Sondra’s voice coming from my living room. Frowning in confusion, I moved toward her obviously annoyed tone.
“I’m sorry, but Mr. Talbot is busy. May I—” At the sound of my footsteps, she turned, her scowl turning into a bright smile. “Oh, here he is, actually.” She paused. “May I tell him who’s calling?”
“Someone named Isabelle Farris for you, darling,” she purred, holding my cell phone out to me. Darling? My lips dipped in a frown. Why the hell was Sondra answering my cell? She eyed me as I took the phone from her and turned away, walking toward the kitchen.
“Hello?”
“Mr. . . . um, Brant Talbot?”
“Yes.”
There was a slight pause before the woman’s soft voice came back on the line. “This is Isabelle Farris. I, um . . . work for your father.”
I halted just as I stepped into my kitchen, surprise washing over me. “My father?”
“Yes. Your father. Harrison Talbot.”
“I’m aware of my father’s name. What is this about?”
There was another very brief pause before the woman—Isabelle—spoke again. “I was calling to let you know that, well, there’s no easy way to say this, but your father is dying.”
A strange sort of buzzing took up in my veins, and I leaned against the black granite counter. “Dying?” The word felt odd on my lips and for a moment, the meaning evaded me. Dying?
“Yes,” Isabelle said, and her tone had softened. “I’m sorry. The cancer has spread. The doctors have given him six months . . . maybe a little longer, just depending . . .”
Cancer? Doctors? My head felt foggy. This was the very last thing I’d been expecting. I reached up and rubbed my temples. “Did my father ask you to call me?”
Isabelle cleared her throat. “No. I took it upon myself to call you, but . . . I thought you’d want to know.”
I left the kitchen, wandering into the dining room, standing at the floor-to-ceiling window that overlooked New York City. “Ms. . . . Farris, did you say?”
“Yes.”
“Ms. Farris, I haven’t spoken to my father in thirteen years.”
“I heard. Still . . . it’s never too late to mend fences.”
Mend fences? Who was this woman? “Listen, I don’t know who you are to my father—”
“I’m his secretary. I live here at Graystone Hill.”
Ah. His secretary. Living under his roof. Right. We’d gone down that road before. “I see.” Even I could hear the condescension in my tone.
“I don’t see how you could,” she said, meeting my condescension with some of her own. Despite the confusion, the irritation, the swirling emotions in my chest I didn’t even know how to name, I almost laughed. At least this time my father had found one with a little bit of backbone. “In any case, Mr. Talbot, now you know. What you choose to do with the information is up to you I guess. Have a good night.”
“Mm, smells delicious,” Sondra said, from behind me.
I turned, and for a moment I had no idea what she was talking about. Dinner. Oh shit, the rosemary lamb chops were still cooking. I swore softly, moving past Sondra into the kitchen where I grabbed an oven mitt off the counter and pulled the overcooked meat from the oven.
Sondra, having followed me into the kitchen, laughed softly. “Don’t worry about it. We can order out, or”—her arms came around my waist from behind, one finger trailing over my belt—“we can skip dinner altogether.”
I gently took her arms and removed them from my waist, turning toward her. She let her arms drop to her sides, her expression a mixture of confusion and annoyance. “Listen, Sondra, I’m going to have to take a rain check. That call . . . I need to sort through some things. I’d like to be alone.”
**********
I took a swig from the bottle of Château Lafite Rothschild, wiping my mouth with the back of my hand before placing the almost empty bottle on the table next to where I sat on my balcony. The night was warm, and the jazz music coming through the speakers set into the wall was soothing. I’d drunk almost an entire bottle of wine by myself, so why did I still feel so damn antsy?
Your father is dying.
The words echoed in my head. I still couldn’t wrap my mind around them. Harrison Talbot couldn’t die. Harrison Talbot was too much of a stubborn bastard to die. He was supposed to . . . what? Live at Graystone Hill forever? I guess I’d never really considered it. I hadn’t thought of my father in a long time.
I picked up the bottle, finished it off, then placed it back down again harder than I’d intended, the sharp clack of glass on glass making me wince. I should go to bed. I was fucking tired. Tired and drunk.
Even so, my brain insisted on wandering to the place I now knew my father lay dying. Not imminently perhaps, but dying nonetheless. The doctors have given him six months.
Graystone Hill rose in my mind’s eye. My childhood home, the place I’d once loved . . . and then hated, and finally left, vowing never to return, not even in my mind. So many mingled emotions warred inside me when I pictured that grand farmhouse, the rolling Kentucky pastures spreading in every direction, the meandering white fences, the stables, the streams, the groves of trees, every nook and cranny I’d once known as well as the back of my hand.
Harrison Talbot was dying. What you choose to do with the information is up to you, she’d said, disdain clear in her tone. Judgment. As if she, my father’s young-sounding girlfriend, had any idea. I made a sound of disgust in my throat. What I was going to do was exactly nothing. I was not going to make a visit to Harrison Talbot so we could “mend fences.” There was too much water under the bridge for that, too much time passed, too much anger and resentment built up and solidified after all these years.
I’d already said goodbye to Harrison Talbot. The man was no longer my father. There was no need to do it twice.
A cold sort of starkness settled inside when I pictured that day, the one that had changed everything. The words we’d yelled echoed inside my skull, the visions neither time, nor distance, nor an entire bottle of expensive French wine could diminish. Apparently.
Would I even attend his funeral? No. Why would I? He wouldn’t want that anyway, despite his meddling “secretary.” As his only child, I supposed I’d be expected to settle his estate, but I had a lawyer for that. A lawyer to arrange sales, split up property, whatever needed to be done as far as Graystone Hill went. I certainly didn’t want it. My mind snagged on the old bourbon distillery buildings on the edge of the acreage. If the old man or anyone else had ever attempted to do anything with them, had ever produced any bourbon under my mother’s family’s brand, I hadn’t heard about it. And as the owner of several bars, I would have.
At the thought of my mother, a dull ache throbbed in my chest, and I unconsciously reached a hand up in an attempt to massage it away. I didn’t want to think about her. I was too raw, too taken aback by the news I’d received to go there, so I pushed it away as best as I could, focusing on those distillery buildings, my thoughts tumbling.
I picked up my cell phone on the table next to me and dialed my lawyer’s number. He answered on the second ring, sounding as if he’d been sleeping. “Hey Derek, what do you know about Caspian Skye?” I tried to keep the slight slur out of my voice but mostly failed.
There was a beat of silence on the phone. “The collector’s bourbon?”
“Yeah.”
“Uh, I know it’s a small batch bourbon that collectors cream their pants over. I know that lines form outside liquor stores each time a couple of bottles go on sale. Why? Do you want me to hunt one down for you?”
“No. My grandfather created that bourbon.”
“No shit? Why didn’t you ever say anything?”
“Long story. My father owns the formula and we’re . . . estranged.” I paused, running my hand through my hair. “Anyway, the old man is dying apparently.”
“Sorry, man. Does that mean that bourbon label is going to be yours?”
I sat up. “He doesn’t have anyone else to leave it to, so I don’t know, I guess. Derek, what if I was to make new batches of that bourbon and only serve it at my bars?”
Derek whistled. “That would be a hell of a selling point. But doesn’t it take years for bourbon to sit in a barrel before it’s ready?”
“Yeah, there’d be a wait, but I’ve got time. I’m doing great without it, but with it—”
“There’d be lines for days,” Derek finished. “Not that there aren’t already, you’re right about that. But, man . . . you’d be the bourbon king of New York City.”
The bourbon king of New York City . . . not a bad moniker. I said goodbye to Derek, telling him I’d keep him updated, and disconnected the call.
I didn’t want Graystone Hill, but maybe I did want those buildings, the equipment, the trade secrets of that bourbon recipe that collectors still salivated over, and the label itself. I could bring my mother’s family name back by way of a revitalization of the brand. I’d hire an advertising agency to work on a campaign, market it as a comeback kid, and serve it exclusively in all my bars as a top-shelf choice.
Excitement sputtered to life. I’d never considered any of that before. But there had never been a time when that old distillery wasn’t connected to my father. Now . . . well, now either it would get broken up and sold to someone else, or I could stake a rightful claim to it.
There wasn’t much about my heritage I was interested in, but that distillery . . . yeah, I wanted it, and from the sounds of it, it was going to be mine in just about six months’ time.
CHAPTER THREE
Isabelle
I dug a fork into the potato salad on my plate, the tart, creamy tastes mingling on my tongue as I chewed.
The smell of cooking meat rose in the air. One of the men standing around the grill laughed loudly at another man’s joke. The sun was warm on my back through the light sweater I was wearing over my sundress, but the air was getting cooler now that it was early September. This would be one of the last cookouts of the season.
“Scooch,” I heard next to me and looked up to see my friend Paige swinging a leg over the picnic bench where I was sitting, a glass of white wine in her hand.
I smiled, scooting down and making room for her. “This is the perfect day for a barbeque, Paige. Thank you for inviting me.”
She bumped her shoulder against mine, smiling. “I’m so glad you came. We haven’t seen enough of you lately.”
“I know. I’m sorry. I’ve just been so busy at work. With Mr. Talbot sick now . . .” I cleared my throat. “We’re all taking up the extra slack so the stubborn old fool doesn’t have an excuse to keep working. I swear he’d work until the day he falls over if he could,” I mumbled. Despite my wry smile, a flash of pain radiated through me at the reminder that
the man I’d grown to respect so much wouldn’t be here much longer.
Paige put her hand on mine over the warm wood of the table, tapping it lightly. “I’m sorry, honey. I know you care about the old guy.”
I exhaled a long breath, using my fork to play with the food on my plate. “I do.” The truth was, he’d saved me. The detective and the medical personnel had rescued my body from the depths of hell three years ago. Harrison Talbot had rescued my soul. He’d given me a home at Graystone Hill. He’d given me purpose. And I’d found that having a meaning in life helped me cope with the suffering.
“Any idea what he’s going to do with the place? Is he looking to sell it?”
“I sort of assumed he would, but it turns out he has a son.” A rude asshole of a son, as a matter of fact, but a son nonetheless. An heir. For a moment the memory of Brant Talbot’s deep voice sent an unusual shiver down my spine, his picture from the article flashing in my mind.
“Oh. I don’t remember you mentioning that.”
“I didn’t know until recently.” I shrugged. “Anyway, they’re not close, but Mr. Talbot doesn’t have anyone else to leave Graystone Hill to, so I assume it will go to him. What he’ll do with it, I have no idea.” Truth be told, I didn’t want to think about that. What if he sold it to someone who didn’t want to continue operations as is? What if he sold it to someone who brought in all of their own people and dismissed the staff that worked there now? Me. A cold, sinking feeling settled in my stomach. “I might have to take you up on that offer you made of a job at the company,” I said, and even I could hear the despondency in my own tone.
Paige flashed me a worried look, but then her expression turned more troubled as she raised her wine glass to her lips and took a quick sip. She glanced at her husband, Aaron, flipping burgers at the grill. I watched her for a second. “Is everything okay?”
Paige sighed. “Yeah. It’s just . . . the company is struggling a little bit. Ever since Ethan—” She shot me a look of chagrin, patting my hand again. “Well, that’s nothing you need to be concerned with.”