Billionaire With a Twist 3 (4 page)

“Ally!”

Hunter’s voice sounded
surprisingly near me, and I caught a glimpse of his hand, reaching
for mine—I reached out, but the water pushed me away and I
slipped under the waves again, my feet not finding the sandy bottom—I
surfaced with another lung-searing gasp, caught a glimpse of the
concern on Hunter’s face, lit by the moon, before the water
claimed me once more—

And then Hunter’s strong arms
were around me, my face pressed against his chest; I could feel as
well as hear his relieved sigh as he felt my pulse. The muddy scent
of the lake and the electrical smell of the storm were overwhelmed by
the smell of him, so familiar and comforting. He shifted his position
so he could hold onto me while he swam one-handed to shore, and soon
we were close enough that I could stand on my own, and begin to slog
along with him towards shelter.

“Thank you,” I choked out,
my legs still shaking beneath me.

He took his arm from around my
shoulder, and it felt like losing a limb of my own. Then he slid it
around my waist to hold me upright, and I knew that I wanted him to
never let go.

“I’m so sorry,” I
said. I almost whispered it, but somehow he still heard it above the
rising wind.

“It’s okay,” he said.
His voice was equally soft. “I should have known better.”

I didn’t know if we were talking
about the boat or about us, and for that moment, held in Hunter’s
arms, I didn’t care.

“Come on,” he said, “we’re
pretty close. Let’s head in, get warmed up.”

“The boat—” I
protested.

“Will be there in the morning,”
Hunter pointed out.

“Not if the storm—”

“I can always get another boat.”
There was a rueful tone to his voice. “You’re much harder
to replace.”

#

“Here,” Hunter said,
offering me a wool blanket as I emerged from the bathroom in a dry
set of clothes. All he’d had on hand for me to change into were
a pair of his boxers and an oversized flannel shirt, and I was 99%
sure I caught him staring at my bare legs as I made my way across the
room.

“Thanks.”

He wrapped the blanket snug around my
shoulders and steered me onto the couch, where I curled up under the
heavy blanket and tried to stop shivering. Hunter went back to
building up the fire. He hadn’t changed out of his wet clothes
yet. The cloth clung to the firm muscles of his back, and I was torn
between admiring the view and worrying myself sick about him catching
cold.

“There,” he said when the
flames sprang into life.

“Thanks,” I said again.

What sparkling conversationalists we
were.

“I’ll heat up some stew,”
he said, clomping over to the freezer.

“Great,” I said.

Well, at least it wasn’t ‘thanks’
again.

Damn. Things had been so perfect for
that moment in the water. I had thought that once the tension broke,
it would keep breaking, would bring us back to where we had been
before this whole mess exploded. But instead the tension seemed to
have formed itself right back together, with hardly a crack to show
where it had snapped.

Hunter dumped the frozen stew out of an
ice cream bucket into what looked like a glorified tea kettle, hung
it over a hook in the fireplace, and then sat on the opposite end of
the couch as me. I tried not to pout, and failed.

If there’d be a way to sit any
farther from me without leaving the cabin, I’m sure he’d
have taken it. As it was, I caught him looking out the window at the
sheeting rain more than a few times, like he was assessing his
chances for an escape. Yep, a raging storm was more appealing to
Hunter than being in the same room as me; if I hadn’t known
that I’d made some poor life choices before, I definitely knew
that now.

I wished I knew what to say to make him
look at me. And not just to sneak those lusty glances I kept noticing
him shooting in my direction when he thought I wasn’t paying
attention; I wanted him to really look at me and cut this
hot-and-cold bullshit. Clearly he cared about me, didn’t he?
Why couldn’t we just talk?

We sat in awkward silence for what
seemed an eternity but was probably only twenty minutes or so. Hunter
pulled the stew off the hook before it got hot, probably more to have
something to do than because he thought it was ready. Still, it
tasted great, beef and carrots and spices all blended together, and
just enough chili pepper for the warmth to sink down into your bones
without setting your tongue on fire.

It didn’t taste quite like the
gourmet meals back at the manor, though. Had he bought this somewhere
local? Maybe I could get some, for nights when I was feeling extra
pathetic and wanted a sense memory of time spent with him, even if it
had been terrible, awkward, silent time.

“Did you get this at a market
nearby?” I asked.

He grunted. “It’s
homemade.”

“Your cook made this?” I
said, surprised. I’d gotten used to fancier fare at Chez Knox.

Hunter shook his head. For a second I
thought that was going to be his only response, but then he grunted,
“I did.”

I was amazed. “Really?”

“It’s not so hard.”
He rubbed the back of his neck. “Old family recipe.”

He tried to say it casually, but there
was a world of hurt in those last three words.

Of course. I’d gone and done it
again. Reminded him of my betrayal. Reminded him of all that he had
lost, including rights to another old family recipe.

“Hunter,” I said as gently
as I could, trying to infuse my words with all the sincerity I felt.
“I really am sorry. And I really do want to help. How…however
I can. Don’t you want…don’t you need…anything?
Tell me what I can do.”

Hunter looked away, into the dancing
flames of the fireplace. They danced in his eyes as well. “I—I
can’t. Let you help.”

My frustration bubbled over at his
stupid, stubborn, manly-man American individualism. Men always had to
do it all on their own, didn’t they? “Why not?”

“Because it’s my fault,”
he said softly. “What you did—that shouldn’t have
mattered. It wouldn’t have mattered, if I hadn’t let
things get as bad as I did, back in the years when I was running from
the legacy. But I did. And it feels—I failed everyone. Not just
the customers, not just the workers, just—” a quaver came
into his voice, and for a second he sounded like nothing more than a
lost little boy before he made his voice hard again, his jaw clenched
tight, punishing himself. “The Knox name lasted for generations
of great bourbon, and I’m the one who let it all crumble. My
family name is mud because of me. I failed.”

Emotion swamped me like a tidal wave,
sorrow and regret and grief for what he was putting himself through.
Before I knew it I was at his side, kneeling on the couch cushion
next to him. I put my hands on his shoulders, squeezing tight. “It
is
not
your fault—”

He shrugged off my hand, a wild animal
refusing comfort. “Don’t try to tell me it’s not! I
know what I did! And I’m not going to put the blame on anybody
else.”

He stood so abruptly I was almost
jolted off the couch, and stormed off to the bedroom, not meeting my
eyes. I jumped up, intending to follow, determined to make him see
that he wasn’t to blame—

But then I heard the sound of a key
turning in the lock on his bedroom door.

Such a small sound, Hunter locking
himself away from me. I was almost surprised I could hear it over the
sound of my heart breaking. For the first time, I realized: maybe I’d
been wrong. Maybe there was no way to fix this. Maybe our
relationship—and any chance at winning back the company—was
over.

But you don’t get me off your
case that easily, Hunter Knox.

After a sleepless night tossing and
turning on the couch, I’d decided that of all the things I was,
a quitter wasn’t one of them. So no matter how hopeless it
seemed, I wasn’t giving up on Hunter or the company without one
last fight. I’d just have to make it count. This wasn’t a
battle anymore—it was a war. And I had a plan.

My strategizing was already paying off.
I flipped the eggs sunny side up and grinned, surveying the rest of
my morning’s accomplishments. I had done well.

From across the house there was the
sound of shuffling, and then a few muffled thuds, followed by what
might have been a swear word, and then footsteps. Hunter’s door
cracked open slowly, and he emerged bleary-eyed, sniffing at the
smoky air like he wasn’t sure it was real. “What the
hell?”

“I made you breakfast,” I
chirped.

That was understating it. I had fried
every damn thing that it was possible to fry.

There was fried bread, okra, beans,
tomatoes, banana peppers, eggs, bacon, potatoes, and sausage. I’d
also set out a jar of blackberry preserves that looked like they’d
been sitting in the pantry since Eisenhower was in office. There was
no
real
coffee, but apparently in some spurt of historical
accuracy, fanboying Hunter had bought a bunch of chicory coffee, not
realizing or not caring that the entire reason Confederate soldiers
drank that shit was because real coffee was hard to come by. That,
or, God forbid, he actually liked the taste.

Hunter leaned over the table as if
uncertain whether to risk sitting down, picked up a fork, and poked
at a piece of sausage like it was a land mine he was afraid would go
off. He brought it to his mouth, took a minuscule bite, and chewed
carefully.

What, does he think I’m going
to poison him or something?

His eyes closed for a moment and he
grunted in an appreciatory manner before slumping into the chair and
spearing a bit of deep-fried okra.

It wasn’t exactly Shakespeare,
but I’d take it.

“I can see that you made
breakfast,” he mumbled in a belated response to my earlier
statement. “I just can’t see why.”

“Well, if you’re not going
to take care of yourself, someone has to. And I didn’t know
what you were in the mood for. Hopefully some of this will suit?”

I smiled as innocently as I was able,
my butter-wouldn’t-melt-in-my-mouth face concealing my secret
plan. Okay, maybe ‘secret plan’ was a little melodramatic
a term for what I was doing, but that’s basically what it was.
After all, being conciliatory and up-front about my feelings hadn’t
worked. Maybe I needed to be sneaky. Maybe I needed to shock him to
get him out of his slump. Maybe I needed to get him really angry.

I nibbled at some fried tomatoes and
sipped my chicory coffee—God, but this stuff was terrible, this
was probably the real reason we lost the War of Northern
Aggression—and kept careful track of the ratio of Hunter’s
trepidation-filled food prodding to his blissful food consumption.
When the ratio finally started to swing in my favor and it seemed
like he’d sufficiently softened up, I struck.

I waited until he was chewing a large
mouthful of bacon and potato, incapacitated and incapable of
immediately striking back.

“Maybe this is all for the best,”
I said philosophically, smiling so brightly at him I was surprised
not to see a spotlight on his face. “After all, Chuck has so
much more business experience. He probably has a much better handle
on what he’s doing anyway, don’t you agree?”

Hunter just stared at me coldly before
swallowing. “I know what you’re doing.”

“Doing?” I asked. My smile
became slightly strained.

“Oh, please, Ally,” he
sighed, pushing his mostly-empty plate away. He shook his head.
“You’re good at lying on paper, but in person your face
gives everything away.”

“Excuse me?” I said. But it
was all falling apart. I could hear it in the way my voice wavered,
that slightly shrill desperate note weaving its way in. Even if he
hadn’t had suspicions before, that would have convinced him.

He wiped his face with his napkin and
then stood to take his dishes to the sink to wash them, his every
movement as slow and careful as if he were dragging a body made of
stone, as if he were dragging the accumulated weight of every
disappointment and frustration he had experienced in the past two
weeks.

“You’re trying to get me
all fired up about the company so I’ll ride in and save the
day, and you can stop feeling guilty,” he said, his back turned
to me, his voice just loud enough to be heard over the running water.
“Well, your guilt is not my concern, and my loss isn’t
yours. I’ve spent two weeks wrestling with these feelings, and
I’m done with them. You can’t get to me. I won’t
rise to the bait.”

Was that honestly all he thought of me?

Frustration rose in me like a tidal
wave. “Yes, I feel guilty, but that’s not why I’m
here!”

“Oh?” he asked, his voice
dangerously quiet. “So then why
are
you here, Ally? What
possible other reason could drive you out here to disturb my peace?”

Because I love you, you asshole!
I
nearly blurted, the grief and the rage loosening the leash I had been
keeping on my tongue. I bit it just in time; Hunter needed me to help
him out of his funk, not tie him up in more emotional knots. “I
came because you have something great here, and I’m not about
to watch you throw it all away.”

“What do you care?” Hunter
snapped, whirling to face me. His golden-brown eyes were flashing,
and his breath came hard and fast, as if he were running a race. “You
betrayed
me. I trusted you, I thought we were a team, I—I
cared
.”

I felt as if my heart were being sawed
in half. I needed to touch him. I reached out to cup his cheek. “Oh,
Hunter—”

But he wrenched away from me. He
whirled toward the door, blowing through it like a gust of wind as he
stormed off toward the shadows of the surrounding wood.

“Wait!” I called
desperately after him.