Aiden would cry if he saw this.
And then, on the heels of that thought,Dad would never want me here.
I turn slowly in the square room. There are low couches in the middle, a single table, and a dusty decanter with a glass next to it. Almost like Dad was just here, drinking a glass of whiskey. My heart seems to squeeze inside my chest.
“How old are these bottles?”
“These are fifty bottles of the first bourbon that Prince Bourbon ever made. Distilled the year after we split from the Hunters and bottled in 1934.” Grandfather gestures to the bottles that are displayed under recessed lighting like the Crown Jewels. The writing on their pale, age-worn labels is spidery, and the whiskey is a deep amber color. “Your father’s tasting notes are here,” he says suddenly. His knuckles are white on the top of his cane.
“Where?” I croak.
He indicates a leather-bound notebook on top of one of the low tables. A pen is capped and set haphazardly to the side.
Oh god.
I don’t think I can do this.
“This should be Aiden’s,” I croak. “You should show Aiden.”
It’s the wrong thing to say. Grandfather’s gaze narrows an infinitesimal amount. Like all good wealthy men raised in New England, he keeps emotion off his face and out of his voice.
“How is the spouse hunt going?” he says instead.
Subtext: Marry someone suitable and this is yours.
“Fine.” I shrug. I can’t keep track of the dates anymore. I’ve met ten candidates. No, twelve.
“And your bodyguard friend is not distracting you?”
I can’t control how my jaw clenches, how my shoulders tighten. Another mistake. It shows him I care. I force myself to walk to one of the bottles and trail my fingers idly overthe label. My heart beats in my throat. Grandfather has never liked Katie, and I don’t want her in his sights. He’s the one person I can’t protect her from.
“Why would she be distracting me?”
“You go gallivanting about the property. I see her with you at all hours. I want to make sure you are focused on your responsibilities.”
I meet his heavy stare and shift on my feet, just like I did as a teenager. He still manages to make me feel untethered, like I am flapping in the wind and searching desperately for something to grasp on to. A flag looking for a flagpole, wanting nothing more than to proclaim to the world thathere is where I belong.
“I’m focused,” I say firmly.
He nods. Proud, I think. An emotion so rare that I have trouble recognizing it. “Good.”
I sitat the bar that night and watch Katie flirt with guys. She is adorably determined to make this work, from her carefully chosen black tank top to her painted-on jeans that keep drawing my eye. She even told me in the car that she wanted tolevel upby going somewhere a bit nicer. She also insisted Nour attend, in case she wanted to have a drink. Nour watches us from across the bar, where her leg is kicked up against the wall, somehow threatening even in a blouse and slacks.
Katie smiles at something this dark-haired guy is saying. They’ve been chatting for fifteen minutes. Every time his hand so much as grazes her arm, my hand tenses on my thigh.
Like I can do something to stop it. I can’t and I won’t.
Even if I can’t stop thinking about that kiss against the wall. The texts. The ones that made me think she likes this more than she’s letting on. There was something there. I know there was. And yet, she’s here, smiling up at that guy as if he could kiss her as thoroughly as I did.
Like he knows her well enough to read every sigh she makes. He doesn’t even look like he could carry her home.
He wanders to the bar to order another drink and her eyes immediately find mine.
Her nose wrinkles.I don’t know about this one.
I tip my head.You want me to intervene?
An eye roll.I don’t need you fighting my battles, rich boy.
