Billionaire With a Twist(13)

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.