Whiskey & Witchcraft Read online

  As the muscles in his neck corded, his jaw clenched, he squared his shoulders, standing at the ready to battle the memory of a dead man as he squared off with the one loss he'd never recovered from. A mixture of lust and love whipped through him more violent than the storm-infuriated ocean battering the cliff outside his home. The rush of both would have made him stumble if he'd dared to attempt a single step.

  "You want me to leave?" she voiced with a hint of disappointment, he thought, or wished, deepening the edges of her confident tone.

  "No... No. I'm just surprised. Shocked as hell, actually. I haven't seen you since we were in high school. You haven't changed a bit either. Beautiful. Some, like me, may even say breathtaking. I would add bewitching."

  "Interesting use of terms," she said with a shrug, still not looking at him directly.

  He couldn't read her, and he slowly went mad with the need to. He wanted to touch a curl of her hair, maybe a chestnut brown one, or a golden blond one, or even one of the fiery red ones; the need to feel the silky locks drift though his fingers burrowed through him, so intense that he fisted his hands tighter until his nails cut into his palms, forcing himself to overcome the urge.

  "My mother did a whole guilt trip inducing song and dance to get me here, if you must know," she continued when he faltered for anything else to say. "I was visiting. A surprise for her birthday, and she said she had this party to go to. When I found out it was yours, I refused, of course, not wanting to make anyone uncomfortable, including myself, honestly, but my arguments fell on deaf ears. She won in the end. Cheap mom tactics and all. I appreciate the fact you kept her on once your father passed away. I'm sorry for your loss. I really am. And, she would have been lost if she'd lost her job after he died."

  She had to be a witch, he thought, to his own amusement, because she turned him inside out like no other woman—hell, human—could. Not that she knew of magic in this world like he did, or of the true evil lurking in his veins. That truth would have ended them anyway, and so when his father had threatened, he'd obeyed, let her go on at least thinking him just a human boy, rich, spoiled, and whatever else she'd once thought of him. Who the hell knew what she thought now with all the media attention his family had received over the years, even with the magic stuff, the worst of it all, still a family secret. While protected by financial means and power, his father had tarnished his family name with his ridiculous ways, his lavish lifestyle and severe, dictator-like rule.

  "I honestly don't know how my father would have survived, let alone run the company without your mother. I'm well aware of all she did for him, the good, the bad, the ugly, not to mention the cover-ups when he fucked up yet again."

  "She was indebted to the man. His money gave us our life, a way for her to support us both," she said, anger, disdain, building in her ever-deepening tone. Some words sounded forced out, too breathy. "I swear, she would have done probably just about anything for him."

  "I never got why," he added, the same derision apparent in the choked quality of his timbre as he actively wished harm to a dead man. "Of course, one didn't ask my father questions, just obeyed his curt and direct orders. I'd no idea what he had over her. The only reason I could imagine a woman as sweet as your mother working for such a monster."

  "He protected us, she would say, brought us to this country, gave us a way to survive... It's not my story to tell, though. Sorry, it's hers. I can only say she was young, made a mistake, and when she ran here, got a job, he found out, and he decided to use what he knew of her past to protect and insure his future."

  "Okay, then. Sounds like my father, though I can't imagine what mistake your mother could have made that was bad enough to need my father's help. I'm not... I mean, I wasn't prying, just stating a fact. Your mother is an amazing woman, and she made mine, and my brother's transitions to our new roles into the company flawless. I couldn't have survived it all without her. She probably knew this company better than my father did. She definitely knew it better than I did when I inherited it all, along with my brothers."

  "I did..." she went on, but yet hesitated, ignoring his comment or the sudden edge that had increased in his voice, making him feel more like himself again.

  He shook off the initial effect she'd had on him, or at least attempted to. Seeing this woman he'd been forced to let go so long ago after all of these years could well be the worst torture he'd ever endured, and the bar had been set pretty high there thanks to his family. Truth be told, while he'd dated a lot since her, no one in all of that time had ever come close to measuring up to Allanah. And, she'd been the one he measured everyone up to, always on his mind, the memory of her forever taunting him with regrets.

  "You did what?"

  "I did try, many times, to talk her into quitting, especially once I started making good money, but she wouldn't hear of it. She more than deserves retirement," she finished, the regret clouding her voice though the frustration and anger remained obvious in the biting off the ends of certain words.

  "Make good money, huh? That's what you call single-handedly designing a line of boho chic clothing, I believe they call it, and then taking yourself to millionaire status?"

  "I came from money, somewhat, remember. Your father paid my mother, his secretary slash personal assistant, more than any doctor on this coast could hope to make in any given year. In addition to that, he funded my elaborate education, surely opening doors that otherwise would have been closed, all to the end of keeping me far away from you. She was forever indebted for that, too, given our meager beginnings.

  "Anyway, though, I'd been around you and your family enough to know how the other half lived. Having money now, my own, hasn't felt entirely my achievement. He took that from me, the chance to know if I could have reached the same success on my own without his funding, his bribes or threats, or whatever he did to make it happen. It all worked to his advantage. I'm a success, which he thought would keep me from you. The idea that I was then worthy of you still wasn't there, though. Guess I had to be bred from money to gain that right. Your father took so much from me despite all he generously gave to his own ends. But, then, I suppose only you could understand that thin line between gratitude and outright loathing—no, seething hate for the man."

  "Yeah. Well..." Had been all he managed, his own ire, for her, for him, choking him. His mind did flips trying for anything to say to make it right. Faltering, failing, he moved back to the conversation about her mother. "Us... Him... Anyway, your mother, she earned every penny and more managing his investment into whiskey, film, and airlines, just to name a few. And, that wasn't anything compared to how she managed his scandals and his lavish lifestyle."

  "Like father, like son, I see. He was fond of throwing elaborate parties like this one."

  "No!" His voice boomed, making her visually jump before she turned to him. Allanah had taken one step back, though only one to her credit. If others had looked their way, he hadn't noticed, caught in the darkening color of her eyes. "My father was fond of throwing lavish parties which were show stopping hymns to bad taste. I'm not like him, not in private or in public. I thought you, at least, knew that about me. No one else matters."

  "I knew you years ago," she hissed, ignoring his last comment, though he'd watched something flash behind her eyes, the golden flecks within the darkening green more vibrant for a second as if they'd caught the light of the fire which remained at her back. "I'd heard differently since."

  "Don't believe everything you read in the papers. My father hasn't quite been dead a whole year yet," he struggled on, trying to not stare at her.

  The way the wind blew, due to the open air main floor when some walls were pushed back and windows opened like tonight, the thin material of her dress revealed the outline of a body he remembered all too well. In thirteen years she hadn't changed a bit it seemed.

  "It's going to take me a while to get out from under his shadow, especially given the fact my brothers are just like him."

  "I've hear
d that, too, about your brothers that is," she said, keeping her eyes on him, never backing down, holding his gaze, challenging him as she had so long ago to hang tough, be a better man, though due to family threats, fears for her safety, her future, he'd failed her in the end.

  It still stung, how they'd given into their families blackmail and intimidation to keep them apart. She'd not been good enough for him, the daughter of his father's secretary slash personal assistant. Though, as she'd pointed out, Allanah's mother had done far more than that and had been paid excessively more than her job description required because of it. And according to Allanah, her mother had been just as insistent that her daughter would not get mixed up with such a family when not within earshot of anyone in the Byrne family.

  The whole thing hadn't made a lot of sense, but with two families united in determination, him forced to stay and work for his, and her sent to another country to study fashion, strings he knew his father pulled and financed, they hadn't had a whole lot of say in the matter save running away penniless, which in the past decade had become a fantasy of his, too; to imagine how such a scenario could have gone for them. Maybe they'd have gone to the Caribbean, learned to bartend in a hut on a beach. He could have fished. She could have still made clothes, sold them. They wouldn't have needed much to survive. Only issue would have been his father hunting for him, forcing him back into the business through magical means unimaginable to the average human. Or, they could have disappeared, changed their looks. Hell, he'd give it all up, the money, the house, worked flipping hamburgers, to have been with her if he could have ensured her safety from the devil he'd called dad.

  It all boiled over in his mind, the years of drowning under the dark cloud of his family. He'd wanted so many times to leave them behind and go to her, but they'd have come for him and ruined her. These facts remained unchanged. He knew all too well. There would have been nowhere for them to hide, not with the demon his father had placed within him shortly after she'd left always ready to tell, to expose, and to ruin him at his father's whim. He'd loved her enough to protect her from their wrath, the only thing that had made him go along with his families wishes. If you disobeyed, you paid the highest price, one usually beyond even his diabolically inspired imagination.

  "It's widely known, now, that my father liked to throw gargantuan amounts of money into furthering his political agenda," he went on just to stop the train wreck of thoughts he had spiraled uncontrollably into. "He cut vital programs, stripped hard-working people of their mere middle class status, relegating them to struggling destitute. He literally funded nonsensical hysteria to further his own sick and demented desires, lining his own pocket, basically, screw his fellow man. My grandfather had been the same way, but given he'd started the company, earned his initial income in whiskey, he'd kept his downfalls hidden better. But, I have a choice now. I can continue to live that legacy or I can begin the lengthy, and often excruciating uphill battle to become my own person, whoever the hell that is."

  "I'm sorry," she said genuinely, strength still in her voice, not backing down from the fire that had spewed forth in his tone during his speech.

  It wasn't the shady business deals or the funding of untoward politics, unfortunately. He'd been left a legacy of magick, too, that ran through his veins, dating back generations, misused destructively for gain as well as allegiance. It slithered through him even at this moment. His skin flushed while muscles and veins strained under his crawling skin. Adrenaline rushed through his body as he tried in a jittery desperation to clamp down the desire for chaos and violence, to take this woman in the brutish manner his demon wanted to. Yet, he wouldn't let it win. He fought this battle daily, but with her here his body trembled uncontrollably as he vowed to the beast within to rip himself to shreds before he'd let that thing control him around her.

  Allanah will never know your true darkness, he promised himself even as he warned the demon squirming inside him, delighted with the rush of turbulent emotions warring in him.

  While he had gone along as a child, even as a young man, with his father and brothers, by the time he'd become a man in his own right, his family's ways had not been so ingrained in him he couldn't change. Yet, he'd known no way around the demon failsafe his father had planted inside him. Still, over a decade later, a sickness stormed within him daily that somewhere in him a better man lurked, one worthy of Allanah. At the age of thirty-two now, nearly thirty-three, his father's friends and associates looked to him and his brothers. The politicians swarmed at his doors for money. The coven hissed about him taking his father's place in the circle. While technically he did reign, his demon controlled all the others within the men in their coven, he'd not exactly warmed to the idea. At the same time, business associates threatened him to keep the business lucrative and the scandals secret.

  As if all of this was not reason enough to keep his blood pressure high and his nights sleepless, into his world tonight had roamed the woman he'd once been forbidden to love. Allanah Adams. Just for self-torture sake, he ticked off the brief facts of their history together on fingers still clenched, impervious to the ache building. Daughter of his father's personal assistant, who had made herself a millionaire in her own right within the last decade. When he'd first taken a romantic interest in her thirteen years ago, his father had made sure he knew his place, which didn't allow for him to talk to Allanah. While her mother made more than most doctors did in a year to keep his father's dirty dealing secret, her status didn't hold any weight. He'd snuck to see Allanah, at first, fast and furiously falling in love with the spirited girl by the time they'd been caught and forced apart. By this time, his heart had been to the point of never recovering, never being able to let her go or love another. Yep, that summed up the nightmare of his time with her.

  "Well, I should go find my mother again," Allanah offered, staring at him, probably sick of waiting for him to finally speak again as he tried to regain control over his wayward thoughts, ones stuck in an infinite loop of anger and despair.

  He never had emotional outbursts like this, except when he thought of her. He never let his emotions rule, except when he thought of her. But seeing Allanah, here in the flesh, right before him, her scent washing over him, blanketing him in a severe lust, one built of love, something in him had snapped, disconnected, or reconnected, whatever the case may be. At this very moment, he feared himself out of control, reckless, and at this point the consequences of what he wanted to do, to her, with her, may be more evil than ever before. Regardless, he couldn't let her go, let her walk away from him again. He had to believe he had it in himself to protect her from what lurked within.

  He fisted the back of his neck, tilted his head, and pursed his lips as he struggled to find the words that might make her stay. He moved his hand, his hot fingers rubbing his forehead as his mind raced over words and phrases while his chest tightened. His stomach fluttered only a second before the darkness within put a stop to that. In his wild mind right now, he saw the red-eyed demon, his black hand in a death clutch around a swarm of unmoving, mangled butterflies. Shaking his head to dislodge the horror, something in him laughed even as he seethed.

  "Please don't. I've waited years hoping to see you again. Please, stay with me longer." Uncontrollable words tumbled from his mouth in a whimpering growl. "We can go somewhere more private. There are lots of little spots around the house. I have one in particular I like, just down a path. It has a fireplace and roof. It should keep us dry when the storm finally gives way."

  "You've waited to see me?"

  "Yes. Allanah, you have to know. Or, I guess I have to tell you, how heartbroken I was when you left. I couldn't come after you as much as I desperately wanted to, to protect you, though please don't ask me to explain that right now. Regardless, I'm not too much of a man to finally admit to a woman that no one else in my life has ever compared to her, which kept me a playboy. I've followed your career like an internet stalker, always wishing I could reach out to you. Planning to, in fa
ct, once I got my act together, changed things here, so you would agree to see me again. Life brought you to me sooner. Please don't walk away. Give me at least a chance to show you who I really am apart from my inheritance and my horrid family legacy."

  "I..." was all she said, looking around her.

  "Please. Follow me. You can't be afraid to be alone with me," he challenged her, hoping that still was the way to best push her buttons into complying with what he wanted.

  "I'm not afraid of you," she stated in a rush of words, proving him right.

  "Then follow me."

  Chapter Two

  Her mind flew back to when they were nineteen, for just a second, as she followed behind him through the luxury kitchen.

  Stupid. Stupid. Stupid!

  She criticized herself for simply nodding and following his invitation, which led to the memories of being alone with him when they had been teenagers, burgeoning adults ripe with need, desires, and too innocent still to see the disaster that laid before them as they rolled together, literally, through the turbulent, wonderful, exciting firsts of true love. While she'd denied that fact to herself many, many times, it still proved true regardless of her self-denial.

  Of course, the vast room dedicated to entertaining guests with loads of lavish foods proved a more welcome distraction than going down that bittersweet road. She needed to keep her wits about her if she dared be alone with the man. It would take but a moment of weakness to fall into his embrace, against his rock hard body, and give in to her every desire, every fantasy she'd had of him over the last decade. She stopped a second, and he seemed to instinctively know, turning to her immediately.

  "What's wrong? Please tell me you haven't changed your mind?"

  "No. I was just observing this kitchen. I'm not much of a cook, but I can appreciate the design."