The Good Chase (7 page)

“So you two know each other?” Gordon gestured between Byrne and Shea.

“We've met, yes,” Byrne said. He looked at her a second too long.

She poured out five small tastes of the Laphroaig 25 Year Old.

One of the suited guys down at the other end called out, “Oh,
now
I get it,” and swung a finger between Shea and Byrne.

Well, fuck a duck. Shea ground her teeth together. The personal and professional slammed together, obliterating her carefully made boundaries.

“Shea gives wonderful notes about Scotch whisky.” Byrne lifted his glass to her in what she thought was meant as some sort of peace offering, but it didn't feel very genuine. “She tells beautiful stories and makes you feel like you're standing right there in Scotland, sipping from the barrels.”

What was he doing? Did he think she was going to repeat all that she'd said to him at the campground, and in the same manner, to this bunch of tipsy corporate climbers?

She trapped his eyes with hers and hoped that he could read her disappointment. Over the past week and a half, when she'd allowed herself to imagine what might happen should they ever meet again, this was not it.

“This is a peaty mouthful,” she said tonelessly. “Distilled on the island of Islay. Some people say it tastes like dirt. Now will you please excuse me?”

Shea turned away, but not before she made a point to look straight at Byrne, just in time to see his face fall.

At the other end of the bar stood a woman who'd nearly drunk her way through the entire whiskey list. She'd come back to finish the grand tour. After Shea poured the woman a splash of Pappy Van Winkle twenty-three-year-old bourbon—and cringed doing so, because one should never waste such in-demand Pappy on drunkenness—she returned to her former spot to find only Gordon remained.

“Great whisky.” He saluted her with his glass. “Can I have a little more before we head out? And don't be stingy, beautiful.”

*   *   *

G
ordon and Byrne's three Weatherly and McTavish coworkers lingered by Yellin's front door, blitzed out of their minds and ready to move on to a nightclub, but Byrne barely had a buzz and he didn't want to go anywhere. If it were his choice—if it were really up to him—he'd ditch those guys, forget about Gordon's portfolio, walk right back into that library to grab Shea, and just . . . go somewhere.

From across the thinning crowd, just a few moments ago he'd watched her leave the library and slip down the shadowed hallway leading to the bathroom. If he didn't do this correctly, it might nudge him into the stalker category.

The bathroom door cracked open, a line of light falling on the hallway floor. He headed toward her.

“Shea.”

She jumped and whirled, clearly surprised. When she saw it was him, her expression changed. He couldn't stand the way she looked at him like that, like she'd rather be caught with anyone else than him in that hallway.

He kept his voice low, kept his eyes perfectly on hers. In those heels she was only an inch or two shorter than he.

“I am so sorry.”

“For what?” she asked, continuing to play the you're-just-another-guest-at-this-party card.

He pulled at his tie, wanting to rip it off, to stuff the jacket down the garbage chute. “For not saying anything when Gordon kept calling you ‘beautiful' like it was your job title. I could tell it bothered you, but he couldn't, and I wanted to say something but I didn't. And I should've said something to the guys I work with, when they made that comment about you and me knowing each other.”

There. Her eyes softened, her body sagged a little, and she took two steps back until her shoulders hit the wall. She crossed her arms and her gaze drifted away.

“I get it,” she said. “I really do. This was work for you and you didn't want to ruffle any feathers. But it's work for me, too.”

“I know it is.” He put as much heart into the words as he could. “But I wish it wasn't. On both our parts.”

Her eyes narrowed as she pushed away from the wall, but he decided that she looked more hurt than pissed off. “What I did for you in the campground, that tasting thing with the descriptions of Scotland, it was meant for you, Byrne.
You
. I've never said anything like that to anyone. I was telling you a little about my past because I liked you. And now it feels all oily. Like you were using that moment, that experience between us, to impress that guy Gordon.”

Fuck
. He squeezed his eyes shut in a long blink. “I knew that was a mistake the second I said it. I thought I was slyly telling you how much I like you, how cool that night was to me, and it was pretty much a bomb in my face.”

“A bomb in mine, too. We may not have slept together, but everyone who overheard that thinks we did. And while I'm all for sexual freedom, when it comes to being a woman in a man's world, that kind of impression usually doesn't work well in my favor.”

It was no wonder she'd received so much attention that night. That tux fit her like a glove, the black fabric with the subtle sheen making the lines of her body long and lean. The deep V of the jacket revealed just a peek of a white top underneath, but the rest was the creamy expanse of her chest. And he loved what she'd done with her hair, slicking it back from her face and tying it up in a big knot at the nape of her neck. She looked flawless. Intriguing. Intelligent.

But he couldn't tell her any of that. Not now.

“Do you know how excited I was to turn around and see you standing there?” he said.

Her eyes snapped to his, and he was disturbed that he couldn't read them.

“The best fucking surprise,” he went on. “I had a hell of a week overseas, and I'm still jet-lagged, and my boss told me to take Gordon out, and I haven't been able to stop thinking about you, and then suddenly there you were.” That might be a little of the vodka and whisky talking, but it was the truth nonetheless.

When she smoothed a hand over her hair, tucking a loose strand behind her ear, he noticed it shook a little. “I don't want to talk like that here.”

“And I don't want to leave without saying what I have to say. I did not want to leave that campsite, Shea. I came back to the city, I had a day's rest before heading out to Switzerland, and I wanted nothing more than to rewind and pick up where we left off, only I knew you wouldn't like it if I showed up at the Amber.”

“Byrne.” One of her hands unwrapped from around her middle and she held it between them. He prayed it was because she wanted to touch him. “What happened that night—”

“Was fucking awesome. I think about it all the time. I think about
you
all the time. I wanted to kick Dan in the nuts when he showed up, because that's what it felt like he did to me that night.”

She chewed her lip, and he had to focus on another part of her face because otherwise he'd lean in and do it for her.

“You're making it out to be more than it was,” she said. “It was just going to be sex. I wanted to break my rules. I wanted to be a little free.”

He couldn't help it—the grin poked through. “So you were going to use me?”

“Yes.” Then she hastily added, “No.”

That pumped up his chest a bit. “I would've been happy to have been used, Shea. Except that I knew there was something more between us. I felt it then. I feel it now.”

The party rumbled on, but it seemed to be happening far, far away.

“It's different now,” she said. “Here in the city. I thought I could bend my rules up in Rhode Island, but I can't in New York. And what happened in there only proved my point that I need to keep my personal and professional lives absolutely separate. I've worked far too hard to make compromises now.”

“Wait—”

“I can't do it, Byrne. I'm sorry.”

She turned and walked past him, veering around the corner and back into the library.

At least up in Rhode Island, it had been Dan who'd fucked up. Tonight, Byrne had no one to blame but himself.

6

“S
hea. Big Boss?”

Shea jumped out of her daze and blinked around the dimly lit Amber Lounge. Her hand, holding a damp towel, was still moving in a lazy circle over the top of the glass bar. Streaky swirls betrayed the fact that apparently she'd been standing there, wiping away at nonexistent spills, for a very long time.

“Shea.”

“Huh?” She turned to find Dean at her elbow, his expression a compilation of worry, questions, and good old-fashioned humor. “What is it?” she snapped.

Dean held up his hands in a mock-defensive gesture, and she instantly felt bad. It wasn't her best bartender's fault that she'd been in a surly mood these past two weeks since Yellin's party. Actually that wasn't true. She wasn't surly all the time. Sometimes she switched that out with annoyed. Or snippy.

“I'm sorry,” she said to Dean. She'd been saying that a lot, and she meant it every time. She had to do something to get out of this funk, particularly since she didn't quite understand
why
she was so down. It wasn't like she and Byrne had meant anything to each other in the first place. It had only been one kiss.

One kiss, some of the most fun conversation she'd had in eons, an electric attraction, and a singular close-call sexual experience. Sigh.

“It's okay,” Dean said. Now he looked at her with what she could only categorize as fatherly concern, and that made her uncomfortable on a whole other level. She already had one father, thanks.

“There's a couple in the Corner Pocket who requested you specifically,” he said.

She peered across the sparsely filled main room—not that unusual for early on a Tuesday evening—to the private room in the far corner. To get that room, you not only had to make a reservation, but you also had to spend a minimum amount of money that had most people laughing when she told them what it was.

“Menu help?” she asked Dean.

“Didn't say.” When she slid behind him to get out from behind the bar, he touched her arm. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah, absolutely.” A little too cheery. It made him frown. She waved him off. “Don't worry about me. I'm fine.”

But the truth was, two weeks still hadn't cured her of images of Byrne. Him, all dirty and sweaty in his rugby gear. Him, in old, worn clothes and flip-flops outside the campground shower house. Him, wreathed in campfire smoke, his face so close to hers.

Two weeks since her stupid, fragile hope—a hope she hadn't really known she'd been harboring—had been ground to dust beneath his ridiculously expensive loafers at Yellin's party.

But there was no way they could make it work. Too much crisscrossing between her worlds: personal and professional, past and present.

Focus, Shea. You've got customers now.

The Corner Pocket was an octagonal room with a similarly shaped, specially made table filling the center. Four windowed walls looked out over a cobblestoned intersection in TriBeCa. The other four walls were curtained off, separating the Pocket from the rest of the main bar. She wondered who the couple could be inside. Visiting dignitaries? Celebrities? Trust-fund babies?

But when she pulled back the velvet curtain to step inside, the man and woman sitting three seats apart looked as not-famous as two people could be. Both in their fifties, Shea guessed, plain and unassuming. They were both dressed in dark suits, and the woman's cherry red blouse was the only splash of color in the whole room.

Shea smiled as she dropped the curtain, but the man and woman did not return the gesture. The man crossed one ankle over his opposite knee and sat back in the cream-colored, calf leather chair. The woman cocked her head, as though examining a horse at the racetrack. Odd.

Shea came to the edge of the table and rested her fingertips on the shiny wood. “Hello, I'm Shea Montgomery. What can I do for you this evening?”

After a brief pause, the man flipped closed the thick menu he'd had open in front of him and gave it a little push toward her. The thing was as thick as a Bible, and out of everything she'd done at the Amber, she was most proud of her choices and descriptions listed on those pages.

“You know the minimum we have to spend in here.” Now he smiled a little, but it was more a gleam in his eye than anything else. “Why don't you bring out something really special for us? Your best. And we'd love to hear why you picked them.”

Okaaaay. “Fantastic. Are you thinking Scotch or bourbon or—”

“Just Scotch. Your best,” he repeated, holding up a hand and closing his eyes. Like he was used to interrupting people and telling them what to do.

Shea glanced at the woman, who folded her arms on the top of the table. Her head cocked toward the other shoulder.

“Single malts?” Shea asked. “Blends?”

“Yes and yes.” The man finally smiled with his mouth.

“Will you be expecting anyone else?”

“No,” said the man. “Just us.”

So she could really go all out. She couldn't deny that excited her, to be able to head downstairs to the locked room where she kept the rare prizes of her Scotch collection.

“I'll be right back.”

When she did return she had Dean in tow, both of them carrying trays tiled in deeply bowled glasses filled with expensive tastes of her best stuff. Just as her mysterious patrons had requested. If they drank it all, they'd be plastered by the time they left.

Dean set down his tray and departed, leaving Shea alone with the suited man and woman. They were completely unreadable. Usually she could peg a customer within a few seconds of them opening up their mouths, but these two were blank walls. Blank Walls. A new label to add to her inventory.

Shea opened her arms above the set of glasses, their varying amber liquids beautifully reflecting the dangling overhead lights. “So where shall we start?”

The man had one finger pressed vertically over his lips. “Why don't you take a look at us and give it your best shot as to what we might like? We're yours. Take us on a journey.”

Hoo boy. No pressure there or anything.

Good thing this was exactly what she loved most—a rapt audience, interested drinkers, and some seriously wonderful whisky.

“All right.” She set two glasses in front of her customers. “This one is aged twice, first in American bourbon casks and second in barrels once used for port . . .”

She talked for nearly forty-five minutes straight, switching out glasses and stories as easily as changing the filter in her coffeepot at home. She told them about the aging and the distilleries, peppering in some personal anecdotes about employees at each place and describing what their barrel storehouses looked and smelled like. They were spending enough that night; they deserved a little more than the average insight.

About halfway through, she realized they seemed more interested in what she had to say than the drink itself, although the man did drink every bit of his. He was a closet Brown Vein. The woman, still a Blank Wall. And a sober one, at that.

After a particular glass, he held it up to eye level and smacked his lips together. “This reminds me of this one pub in Edinburgh. On High Street, near where the old toll bridge arches over the street.”

Shea brightened. “I think I know which one you're talking about. The one with the stuffed pheasant in the window, covered in dust?”

The man guffawed. “How long has that thing been there?”

“Since the toll bridge was used, probably.”

“So you've been there?”

“Many, many times. I could probably be an Edinburgh tour guide at this point.”

The man and woman exchanged a glance, and that's when the woman took out a pad of paper and pen. What the hell was going on?

“So what would you recommend to drink,” he asked, “if I were an obnoxious twentysomething with more money than God who'd reserved this room solely to impress a girl?”

Cool. A challenge. Flipping open her menu, Shea pointed to the Pappy Van Winkle bourbon. “It's in all the movies these days,” she explained, “and young, rich people like that kind of thing.”

The man chuckled. “And if I were here for my anniversary?”

Shea scanned the pages for the remote Orkney Islands distillery. “This one. I'd tell them a Scottish folktale about faeries in love. Only I'd omit the end where one of them dies. Then I'd leave and let them make eyes at each other.”

“Thank you, Shea. Thank you very, very much.” The man looked rosy cheeked. And happy. He sat back and clasped his hands over his stomach, as though he'd just eaten two Thanksgiving meals at one sitting.

“How do you know so much about whisky?” The woman sounded exactly like she looked: tight, pinched, judicious.

Shea kept up her breezy air and shrugged. “Drinking. Talking with scads of people. Remembering everything they say and coming to my own conclusions. And I'm told I have one of the finest noses in the business.” She tapped the side of it and winked. “On that, I wouldn't disagree.”

The man and woman shared an indecipherable look, the woman gave him the tiniest of nods, and then the man rose from his chair and extended his hand. “Shea, my name is Pierce Whitten, founder and CEO of Right Hemisphere Media. This is Linda Watson, my director of branding and marketing.”

Shea shook their hands but couldn't say what their grips were like because she'd gone numb all over. “Nice to meet you?” She was fully aware that it had come out as a question.

“We have something we'd like to discuss with you,” Linda said, also standing and setting a heavy briefcase on the tabletop as she did so.

“My company owns many media outlets under the Right Hemisphere umbrella. TV stations, magazines, websites, a film production company, just to name a few. We are here because we think you'd be an incredible asset to our company. We would like to work with you.”

Shea's mouth gaped open. “Me? Why? How? Doing what?”

“I've done my homework,” Pierce said. “I've seen your interviews on TV specials, read pretty much every article ever written about you. I've been in here before and loved what you've done here, and now that I've met you, heard you speak, I think you have incredible spirit. It will translate so well to consumers.”

Shea couldn't get her arms to move. All she could do was blink. “Sorry?”

“You're bigger than this one bar in New York City,” Linda said. “Bigger than a few obscure liquor specials on the History Channel. You're a brand and you don't even know it.”

“A . . . a
brand
?” Shea stammered. “You mean like those gaudy brass buckles on designer bags?”

Pierce smiled.

“The Right Hemisphere target market right now is the intelligent, successful, worldly American male. He wants to spend a lot of money and have a great time when he's not working his ass off.”

“Sounds like most of the people who come in here,” she replied.

“Exactly.” Linda unzipped her briefcase. “You give them what they want in the Amber Lounge. We want to make you bigger than that.”

Shea finally managed to move a limb, and it was to bring one hand up and rub her temple. “I'm confused. How do you propose this?”

Pierce and Linda exchanged yet another look. “Well, that's what we want to discuss with you. We have some initial ideas, but we wanted to first make you aware of our interest, and then hopefully schedule a more formal sit-down, a brainstorm, if you will. We want to open a dialogue with you.”

“What are these initial ideas?”

“Well—Linda, jump in here if I forget anything—we were thinking of having you create a formal rating system for whiskey, like Robert Parker's name on wines.” When Shea wrinkled her nose automatically at that, he pressed on. “Okay, then. A regular column in one of our magazines or websites. Franchising the Amber to other first-tier cities. Scheduled appearances at big-name food festivals, or on cooking shows.”

“Hearing you talk tonight,” Linda added, “I could see you doing a specialized travel series on whiskey-producing regions all over the world. Could be online or even on cable. I want to see you on-screen, walking us through Scotland, just like you said.”

Pierce nodded vehemently.

“Wait, wait.” This was too much all at once. Too much of so many things she'd never considered.

She'd had only one Big Dream as of late, and Pierce hadn't mentioned her starting her own distillery, producing her own whiskey and spirits. But that was
her
dream, and she was glad for that. She didn't want to have to answer to anyone when that finally came about. But maybe, if something like what Pierce was offering her could get her more money in order to bring that dream about quicker . . . Everything these two had mentioned scared her to some extent, if she could be completely honest, but if the end result was her finally having the means to start her own distillery? Maybe it would ultimately be worth it.