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“Yes.”
I licked my dry lips.“How much did you pay?”
His head tilted.“Close to twenty thousand.”
“Twenty thousand!”Kier had taken twenty thousand from him.I stumbled back a step, catching myself on the side of the vat.Twenty thousand pounds.That couldn’t be right. Deep down though, I knew it was.
How did I begin to explain to this man who’d been loyal to my grandfather for so many years that Kier never had any intention of selling him the distillery because I already owned it? That I’d purchased the manor and all the land that it stood on to bail Kier out of his gambling debt, back when I’d been comfortable and foolish enough to think the big paychecks wouldn’t come with an expiration date.
“That’s not—I can’t—” I couldn’t get the words out.
Malcolm’s jaw clenched and those eyes became chips of ice.“You mean you don’t want to.”
I could have laughed at the irony. I wanted nothing more than to sell the distillery to him. It would solve everything. But he had no means to buy it. Hands on my hips, I retreated to the window, downing my now cool coffee in a single gulp as I raced through my options. This had to be salvageable. I refused to be the grim reaper for both of us.
Malcolm was right, the distillery should belong to him. Now I knew he’d given all that money to Kier in good faith, there was no way I could find a new buyer.
I glanced around again, an idea starting to take form. Whisky was big right now, and tourists from all over the world were flocking to Scotland, Juniper had said so herself. I might not be able to sell to him now, but one day in the future, once we became profitable, maybe I could.
“Okay, just hear me out. I might have a solution.”
He crossed his arms and boy, were they impressive.“And what’s that?”
“Together, we get this place running.” I flung out a hand.“You clearly know what you’re doing, and I—”
“It’s already running,” he snipped.
I mirrored his posture, folding my arms until we were like boxers in a ring, sizing one another up.“And what was your turnover last month?”
“What do you know about turnover, princess?”
I let the nickname roll right over me.“I know this place can’t be making a lot, Kier’s lawyer told me Kinleith Distillery had ceased trading,” I said, gesturing to the crate of empty bottles beside the door.“You don’t even have a label on the bottle!”
“It doesn’t need a label.”
“How will anyone who isn’t a local know what they’re drinking?”
He was silent for so long I thought he wasn’t going to answer.“We don’t need tourists.”
“Oh, Jesus.” Pressing the heels of my hands into my eyeballs, I prayed for strength I no longer possessed.“It’s like the dark ages, you need me more than I thought. Do you even have a website?”
“Whywould we need a website?”
Well, that answered that. My laugh was just this side of crazed.“If you want me to sell to you, we need to actually make an income—”
“There is nowe.”
I pushed as much steel into my voice as I could muster.“We work together, those are my conditions. Take it or leave it.”
Just when I thought his scowl couldn’t cut the lines of his harsh features any deeper, he proved me wrong.“Don’t pretend like you’re giving me a choice.”
That was the closest to a“yes” I was ever going to get.“Wonderful.” I clapped my hands together, drawing the attention of the dogs who’d taken to snuggling together in a patch of sun, Dudley playing the part of the little spoon.“This is going to be so much fun.”
From his side of the room, Malcolm observed me like one might examine a foreign body beneath a microscope. Like he didn’t know how he’d come to be in this situation and couldn’t fathom a way out of it.“Why do you care so much?” he finally asked. I knew the answer mattered to him.
I settled on the easiest explanation. The truth, but not quite.“It’s Kier’s legacy… this place meant more to him than anything.”
“Not anything,” Malcolm replied. And for the first time, he looked directly at me. He gave me no time to prepare myself as he stripped me bare, simultaneously seeing too much and not enough.
