Chapter 40
TRISTAN
Isip the twelve-year Old Kingdom, pulling it over the front of my tongue, to the back, letting it slide down my throat. It tastes like caramel set aflame. It’s excellent whiskey.
It’s almost enough to distract me from the pit in my stomach. The one that’s been there for the last day, slowly gnawing at my insides, insisting that once again, I want something I can’t have. Once again, I’m not enough.
I take another sip and shake my head. “Next.”
Aiden frowns and pushes the next glass toward me. “Last one.”
I take a bite of the plain white bread next to me, then a gulp of water. Unlike drinking for fun, tasting whiskey is business. There’s a cup of coffee grounds next to me to clear my nose and plain bread and crackers to cleanse my palate.
The amber liquid in the glass stares back at me. I’d like to drown myself in it right about now. I’ve been avoiding Katie for a full twenty-four hours, even when she knocked on my door this morning. Like a coward, I pretended not to be home.
I pick up the glass and sigh. Aiden and I are in the Crownhaven stillhouse tasting room.
Fading sunlight pours into the old casement windows with their wavy glass.
The tasting room is accessible only by a hidden staircase from the barrel level.
For over a decade, the family hid whiskey up here during Prohibition.
“Bottled eleven years and ten months ago by Mac Shields and Dad.” Aiden runs his finger down the notes that every head distiller keeps.
Mac might have been meticulous, but he has nothing on my older brother.
“Special barrel test that Mac thought had promise, so they made extra. Barrels were charred for eighteen seconds.”
“That’s half what we’re doing for Old Kingdom now.”
“It should give it a deeper flavor in less time.”
“Theoretically. Shortcuts like that can also ruin it.” I examine the whiskey, tilting the crystal tasting glass with its engraved crest and watching the way the liquid clings. “Good color. More developed sugars for a whiskey of this age.”
Aiden nods and makes a note, looking so much like Dad for a second that I pause with the glass halfway to my nose. I feel like I’m fourteen again, watching Dad work and desperately hoping for him to look my way.
“Tristan?” My older brother looks up and blinks at me through his glasses. “Everything okay?”
“You just look like Dad sometimes.” I bury my nose in the glass, inhaling deeply of the caramel-spice-smoke.
Aiden winces. “Not exactly a compliment.”
I shrug and sip the whiskey. It’s good. Better than most other twelve-year whiskey I’ve had. Mac was a genius with new products.
“It’s not good enough.” I set the glass back down.
“Are you sure? Grandfather wants to announce the new product when we announce your promotion.”
I wince and take another, bigger sip. Aiden’s brows fly upward. “It needs to be better. I want to have something special to announce.”
“This is special. It’s a new product. We haven’t had one in our lifetime.”
“It’s not enough.” I shake my head, then push back from the tasting table and pace to the windows. “I want something big, you know? Something that cements my legacy.”
“Tristan, you’re a brand-new CEO. It’s going to take a while for that.” His voice is even and patient, because he’s Aiden and he epitomizes the perfect older brother—half father, half friend.
“I need it.” I trace the wood grain of the deep-set windows. “It’s not supposed to be me, you know. As CEO.”
“Of c-course it is,” he counters. “It could have been either of us.”
“No one wanted it to be me, Aiden.” I look out the window, at the grass that unfurls below the window. “Dad would be rolling over in his grave.”
“Dad would be proud.” My brother’s voice is firm and he doesn’t stutter. “Like I am, Tris.”
My gaze slices to his. He’s smiling faintly at me.
“Is this why I see your light on all the time now late at night?” he asks.
“Maybe I’m just partying.”
He levels me a look.
“Fine. I’ve been looking for something that I can present when I’m promoted.
A new yeast. A new head distiller. A perfect whiskey.
Something like that.” My pacing reaches the corner of the room, where the sun bends through the dusty crystal decanter and the engraved glassware set in front of it.
These glasses have been forbidden to us since we were kids.
The dust on the one with Dad’s initials gets thicker every day.
I run a finger along the delicate edge. He’d be furious if he saw me now.
Tristan, stop bothering your father.
You’re not supposed to be here.
“What does that change if you find this perfect thing? Will you finally let us announce?”
I don’t look at my brother. I can’t. Not when he’s like this—all understanding. Coaxing. Acting like the dad I wish we’d all had.
“I don’t want to feel like this,” I say hoarsely. “I’d rather not feel at all.”
He sucks in a breath. “Tris, come on.”
There’s a knock at that moment, and my sister-in-law pops her head in. “Aiden. New bill from the builders for the distillery roof. Can I come in?”
He nods, and Emory walks in, wearing a slim red dress and carrying a stack of papers. “Ten under estimate,” she says and slaps them on the table with a triumphant grin.
I breathe a sigh of relief at her interruption and slump back into the chair at Aiden’s right.
“Did you threaten them with bodily harm again?” My brother is leaning back in his chair, eyes only for his wife as she reaches over and snags one of the whiskey glasses.
“I didn’t,” she says with a cheeky smile. She sips the whiskey and looks down in surprise at the glass. “This is damn good. I mean, for Prince whiskey.”
“Thanks, Em,” I say dryly.
She winks at me before she bends down to kiss Aiden on the cheek. His hand grips her waist briefly, his fingers flexing, then trailing along the fabric as she pulls away. She’s laughing at something he’s whispered in her ear.
She shuts the door with a small wave. Aiden is staring at it like she’ll walk back in if only he glares hard enough. I lean over and snap his mouth shut with a finger on his jaw.
The grin he cuts me is sheepish.
“Your tongue was hanging out of your head.”
His face reddens, and he takes a quick sip of water. Damn, I love needling my brother.
“I haven’t seen her all day.”
“You mean in the four hours since you left the house?”
“I like my wife,” he says defensively.
I grin, remembering a time when Aiden claimed to loathe his wife.
“Don’t say anything.” He circles a finger at me. “You’ve bragged about predicting our relationship enough times.”
I raise my hands palm-first, warmth spilling through my chest. “I would never.”
“Yes you fucking would.” His eyes crinkle at the corners.
“After a month on that boat, you’ll be sick of each other.”
“Nah.” His smile is private.
I snort. “I got you a value-sized box of condoms for the trip.”
That private smile grows. “We won’t need those.”
Shock pulls my spine straight. “You’re trying to have a kid? Already?” Aiden used to say he didn’t want marriage, or love, or a family.
He spreads his hands. “Wouldn’t you, Tris? If you had her, and all this? Wouldn’t you?” There’s a quiet intensity to his voice, a thread of conviction.
I swallow, my heart pounding. “What’s it like?” I ask quickly, before I can lose the nerve.
Aiden stills, his hazel gaze thoughtful. “It is everything. She is the center of my world. The gravity that keeps me spinning. You sure you don’t want that?”
The thing is, in the darkest recesses of my heart, I think I would want it, if I could trust myself not to fuck it up. If I could know that it wouldn’t hurt me. It feels impossible.
“I might,” I say thickly.
Aiden’s brows go up, like he’s surprised I’m willing to have this conversation. “Have you found anyone you might want that with?”
I shrug, my throat too tight to respond.
His gaze softens. “At a loss for words? That’s not like you.”
I clear my throat. “I don’t really like any of the spouse candidates.” I turn the whiskey glass in my hands. “I haven’t liked anyone in a long time.”
“About three years, right?”
My head jerks up. My brother’s eyes are too knowing as he folds his arms over his stomach and leans back in his chair.
“She doesn’t want that.”
“You sure?”
I think back to the dock last night. She tore my world apart, then told me it was practice.
I have no right to be mad at her. None. Katie’s position is incredibly vulnerable.
I’m the boss taking advantage of the help, the best friend swearing he’ll help her find a boyfriend but wanting to keep her for himself.
I’m being a selfish prick, but then again, it’s a role I’m familiar with.
“I’m sure.”
“What will you do when she meets someone?”
The words are a blow to the stomach. “I don’t know,” I say honestly. I have a brief flash of a future in which I watch from the sidelines while Katie spends her morning runs with someone else. My throat works, trying to contain words I know I shouldn’t say. “I really like her, Aiden.”
“I know, Tris.”
“I don’t think she feels the same.”
He sucks in air. I wait for him to reassure me that he thinks she feels the same, but he doesn’t.
Don’t be selfish, Tristan.
I still hear the words in my mother’s chiding, distracted voice, then my father’s deeper and even more distracted baritone.
In my head, they’re reading the paper and not even looking at me while I stand in the dining room, the remnants of a prank sending blue paint down my chin and blood trickling from my nose.
The colors swirl together on the marble floor, never mixing, just becoming a blurry swirl before my tear-filled eyes.
The worst part of that memory is the tears.
“What if she did feel the same?”
That one’s easy. It’s a possibility so remote, it almost makes me laugh. No woman has ever liked me all the way. I have never been enough to make someone happy.
“If I thought I had even a fraction of a chance with Katie, I’d stop at nothing to have her.”