rooms. They were her favorite part of the distillery.
A long, rustic wood bar stood in the middle of the room with twelve chrome high-back stools in ivory leather flanking each side. One of the walls had been left as red brick, the others were smooth cream. The floor was a terracotta-colored tile, offset by low hanging lights with burnt orange blown glass shades. Floor-to-ceiling windows lined one wall, and the trees in the courtyard outside were hung with thousands of fairy lights, giving the whole place a magical feel.
She turned to Connor. “Take a seat, and let me take care of you.”
Lord, if she only knew just how willing he was to let her take care of him.
He wanted her hands on him, and his on her body. Seeing her, kissing her again, no matter how briefly, only fueled that.
From the moment Connor had pulled his dark gray Mercedes into the Dyer’s Gin Distillery parking lot and turned off the engine, he’d had to cool his heels.
He’d forced himself to study the sign on the wall of the distillery. In shades of sage, white, and gold, it gave the impression of something timeless, something traditional yet with a contemporary flair.
But even as he forced himself to absorb his first impression of a distillery he still considered a potential asset or investment, his mind had wandered to Emerson of the pretty brown eyes and soft hands, who appeared in his thoughts when he least expected it.
He’d thought of her when he was grocery shopping. Buying a steak for one had seemed almost pitiful when he could have been following his father’s retro Steak Diane recipe for two. He’d thought of her while he swam laps in an attempt to assuage some of the anger from his father’s announcement.
And it was the reason he was here. He’d spent the afternoon responding to his father’s bombshell seventy-two hours earlier. Cameron had lost his shit when Connor removed his access to Connor’s team of analysts. It was a petty but painful slap to Cameron, who ran his own P&L and had his own staff. If Cameron thought he was so smart, let him wrap up the quarter without any assistance from Connor’s team.
He’d cancelled his own attendance at any meeting his uncle was in, leading to his father’s intervention. In the end, he’d given his father two alternatives. Either it was okay for him and his uncle to never be in the same room again, or his father had four weeks to figure out whether he wanted to keep Cameron or Connor.
His father let the meeting cancellations stand.
At first, Connor had plans to go to the gym or the pool again to work the frustration out of his system. He’d even been on his way there. But then he’d thought of Emerson and his world had temporarily righted itself.
And watching Emerson as she slipped behind the bar and leaned toward him, he knew he’d made the right call. Her smile had already brightened his mood.
Her long hair fell over her shoulder. “Do you have to drive home? I can lock your car in the owners’ lot with mine.”
He reached forward and tucked it behind her ear, taking a moment to trail his fingers along the smooth expanse of skin. The rest of her skin would be that smooth, he knew it. The dip of her back, the valley between her breasts. And fuck, if the idea didn’t make his dick start to harden.
“Are you propositioning me?”
“Oh,” Emerson said, her cheeks going pink. “No. I just…well, alcohol and all that.”
Connor laughed. “I was just teasing, Emerson. I’m in no rush…for dinner or anything else. I’m happy to go with whatever pace you are at. Yes, I can leave my car.”
Her shoulders relaxed. “Phew. Okay. Good. Right, menu,” she said, pulling up a short menu attached to a brown clipboard. “What do you feel like? I can do pretty much anything on there, except the risotto.”
He scanned the list quickly, more interested in Emerson than his stomach. “How easy is the pizza?” Sure, it would fuck up his macros for a few days, but the idea of pizza and Emerson was the perfect combination for the mood he was in.
“Simple, give me twenty minutes to pop them in the oven and make a salad.”
“Can I come help?”
“Let me do this,” she said. “I’ll be back before you know it.”
He watched her as she walked toward what he assumed was the kitchen. The jeans she wore fitted