Sex, Lies & Bourbon (Sex and Lies Book 5) Read online

  “Sure,” Magnus replied. “I understand.”

  “No.” Lena stood abruptly and walked to Magnus, nestling her head into his shoulder. When he curled his arm around her with a loving squeeze, I felt all the blood rush to my face in a rage.

  “Does someone want to tell me what’s going on?”

  “I was going to tell you,” Lena said, walking toward me. Instinctively, I took two steps back, not wanting to hear what she was about to lay on me.

  Shifting my eyes from Lena back to Magnus, I felt the pit in my stomach grow. “Tell me what?”

  “Magnus and I are…”

  “Are what?” I asked, tripping over my own feet and coming to an abrupt halt.

  “Win,” Magnus said. “It’s just one of those things.”

  I looked to Lena, finally stopping in my tracks. “Are you telling me you’re sleeping with our father’s best friend?”

  “Don’t say it like that,” Lena said, now unable to look me in the face.

  “How long?”

  The room was silent and I could hear my heart pounding out in my head. When no one answered me, I shouted. “How long goddammit?”

  Lena looked to me as the tears flowed freely down her cheeks. “Almost a year.”

  Backing my way into a chair, I sat and stared at my little sister. My entire family had gone mad. “This is the very reason I stay away from this place. It’s poison,” I said, staring at the wall filled with family portraits and oil paintings dating a back a hundred years.

  Magnus and Lena wrapped their arms around each other, and I felt sick to my stomach. “Did Dad know?”

  “I thought—” Lena began.

  “We thought it was best if he didn’t know—at least not yet,” Magnus replied.

  I stood to pace the room. “What the hell were you waiting for? Were you waiting for him to die? Did you kill him?” My voice had reached a fevered pitch.

  “No Win!” Lena shouted. “How dare you? I found Dad for God’s sake. I can’t believe you went there.”

  And yet I did. At Winter Haven, I knew not to trust anyone. As Cecil Winterbourne once told me, keep your enemies close and your family closer. “Who else knows? Does Cee Cee know?”

  Lena shook her head. I knew better. The old man was wise to everything that went on around the farm and distillery. He liked to act as if he was clueless, but he never missed a thing and always knew more that he let on.

  “Well this is just great. Dad’s dead and you’re screwing his best friend who’s more than thirty-five years older than you are, I might add. A year?” I asked still in shock. “Why all the secrecy? Who were you hiding it from? Dad? Me?”

  “Look Win, your sister is fragile. Someone needed to watch over her and just like I’ve always made sure you had everything you needed, I did the same for her,” Magnus replied.

  “Fucking her isn’t taking care of her, Magnus—it’s fucking her.”

  “Stop talking about me this way,” Lena wailed. “It was my decision. I made the first move, Win. It was what I wanted.”

  I rubbed the frustration from my eyes and continued to my head, gripping my hair at the roots. I wanted my baby sister to find love and security. But I expected she would find it beyond the boundaries of our own home. “This is just unacceptable. I’m sorry, but it is.”

  “Winnie.” Lena sobbed. “I want you to be happy for me. I need you to be happy for me.”

  “Are you crazy?” I shouted, now pacing the room like a wild animal. “If you wanted me to be happy about it, why didn’t you want Dad to be happy about it, too? Let me answer that for you, Lena. Because you know it’s wrong. It’s why you didn’t tell him. It’s why you didn’t tell me. We talk all the time Lena—all the time. It didn’t occur to you in all those conversations over the past year to tell me you were sleeping with Magnus?”

  “I’m sorry to interrupt.”

  Everyone in the room did a one-eighty to meet the voice at the doorway. My shoulders sank. Ginny.

  “I did knock.”

  I read the chagrin on Ginny’s face. She was embarrassed for me. I was embarrassed for me. I couldn’t have been any more mortified than if I’d been caught jerking off at thirteen by one of the school nuns. Actually, that would’ve been better than this moment.

  I looked to the floor but held my arm out to present Ginny to my family. “Agent Virginia Grace, I’m pleased to introduce to you my baby sister, Karolena and…” I hesitated, not knowing what to say of Magnus. “My father’s oldest friend, Magnus Page.”

  Ginny breezed through the room and everyone straightened their attitude and dried their tears. Extending her hand, she addressed each of them. “Please, call me Ginny.”

  “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Ginny. Please call me Magnus.”

  “I’m just Lena,” said my sister.

  “Just Lena,” I scoffed with contempt. “That’s an understatement. Lena’s also apparently in a relationship with Magnus, which is all news to me.”

  “Win,” Lena said, scolding me like a petulant child.

  “Whatever,” I said, staring at Ginny. I wanted to take her by the hand and lead her out the door, tell her everything and never look back. I didn’t know if I could stand being at Winter Haven over the next few days. Being home, dealing with my dad’s funeral and digging up the past, I was ill-equipped to be around her without coming clean. My feelings were at a huge risk of ratting me out. After the latest bombshell of Lena and Magnus, I didn’t know if I even cared anymore. And then it occurred to me. My father was dead. The one obstacle that stood between Ginny and me was gone.

  Glancing back to Lena, she cocked her head and narrowed her gaze. She’d caught me staring at Ginny. Even though we were rarely around one another we could read the other like a book. I knew she could see my feelings for Ginny written all over my face.

  “I didn’t mean to interrupt,” Ginny began. “I wanted to speak with you Lena, and you as well, Magnus,” she said, looking them both in the face. “But I can see maybe tomorrow is a better plan. I’m just going to catch a taxi to my hotel—”

  “Nonsense,” Lena said, breaking Magnus’s embrace and walking to take Ginny by the arm. “There’s plenty of room right here at Winter Haven. And honestly,” she said glancing back at me. “I’d feel safer knowing there was at least one FBI agent in the house tonight with their head screwed on straight.”

  “Nice,” I sighed.

  “Let me show you to your room and I’ll have Telly bring up whatever you have with you.”

  “Really, I’m fine to stay at the hotel.” Ginny protested, giving me a frown over her shoulder as Lena led her out of the library and down the hallway to the back staircase.

  I shrugged and managed to give her the kind of forced smile I used for photographs with people I didn’t care for. That mostly included my family.

  “I’ll come find you in a bit,” I shouted after her. “There are things we need to discuss.”

  I waited until they were both gone, their voices a distant chatter in the background noise of the lonely house.

  “Magnus, what do you think you’re doing?”

  He sat and crossed his legs and I suddenly realized he was more at home at Winter Haven than I’d ever been.

  “Have another drink, Win. Let’s talk.”

  I walked to the bar, pouring myself a bourbon. “Don’t tell me what to do Magnus. I’m not some little kid you can boss around anymore.”

  “Win, I’ve always tried to be there for you when you needed me. I’ve kept you out of trouble, and even taken care of some things I probably should’ve told your father about, but didn’t.”

  “What the hell are you even saying?”

  “Prostitutes in your room at a Catholic boarding school? Jesus Win, you even charged them to your father’s American Express.”

  “That was stupid teenage crap Magnus and you know it.”

  “Still, I’ve only wanted the best for you. You may not know this, but I promised your saint of a mother
years ago that I would make sure you stayed on the straight and narrow, no matter what gauntlet might be thrown in your path. I, like your mother, only want you and your sister to be happy. Now, I know you’re not a little kid I need to boss around. So for God’s sake, stop acting like one.”

  “What?” My voice was filled with vile disdain not only for Magnus and all he represented to me but for all the pain I felt inside. Home was where people went to let their guard down, to recharge themselves. Home was supposed to be a positive place. But for me, it was nothing but a Pandora’s Box filled with lies and deceit. And although Magnus Page had been kind to me when I was growing up, he was still a part of everything I loathed about Winter Haven.

  “You heard me,” Magnus said, standing to meet me head on. He was fit for a man of sixty-four, but I could still take him down in one punch. The idea of upper cutting him to the chin was in the forefront of my mind.

  “You’re too old for my sister and you know it. I don’t know what you’re up to—”

  Magnus laughed and walked away from me. “I’m not up to anything, Win. I’ve spent my entire life running this company for your dad when he couldn’t. I’ve spent my life watching over you and your sister. I can’t help it if Lena and I have a lot of similar tastes. She knows me, Win. And I know her. It’s a good fit. For both of us. I would think you would want your sister to be happy.” He turned to face me after pouring himself another drink. “Especially with everything that’s happened.”

  “Don’t be a fool, Magnus. Of course I want Lena to be happy. It’s all I want for her.”

  He stared at me before setting his glass on the end table to leave. “Then let her be happy.”

  “Before you saunter out of here Magnus, remember this.” He stopped in his tracks, but refused to turn and face me. “You can act all high and mighty, throw your weight around this place like you own it, but your last name is and will always be Page. It’s not Holloway and it’s certainly not Winterbourne. You lay claim to nothing here at Winter Haven. You are an employee. Dad may have treated you differently, but I can promise you—to me, that’s all you are. Dad may have even needed you, but I can assure you I don’t. So, buckle up my old friend, because I’m in the driver’s seat and the ride from here on out might get a little bumpy in the back of the bus.”

  Magnus walked out of the library without responding, I assumed to find Lena. I only knew if I found him in her bed tonight, there may be more than one murder at Winter Haven this week.

  The grandfather clock chimed midnight and I opened my eyes. Slouched in an oversized chair by the fireplace, I found an empty crystal glass at my side and bourbon spilled across the old wooden planked floor. My vision was blurred, and my movements seemed to happen in slow motion. I was drunk.

  Rubbing the stubble on my face, I leaned my head into the back of the chair, trying to clear the cobwebs from my head. Focusing on the grand wall of the library, I looked to the faces of all the Winterbourne men. Dressed in their various military coats and fancy suits, their past hung on the wall for everyone to see. I knew the history—I knew it well. My mother had seen to that. The idea that it all went to hell with my immediate family was more than I could bear.

  It was a glorious tale of two men, Marshall Winterbourne and Cary Holloway. Meeting as brothers in arms during the Civil War, Marshall, a determined man with a vision and no money saved the life of Cary, a man from a well-to-do family with lots of property and subsequently, oil. The men were inseparable after the war was over, setting up businesses in their home state of Kentucky. Holloway, wanting to repay Marshall, had offered him a loan to start his business—a distillery. But as the story goes, Marshall refused, only wanting his wealthy buddy’s friendship. When Cary Holloway and his wife Sarah had their first child, they named him Winterbourne Marshall Holloway to honor Marshall’s best friend and the man who made his life possible.

  A hundred years later after the Holloway family had lost most of their fortune, my mother, heir to the Winter Bourbon empire, met and married my father, Robert Holloway. The elders of the family thought it was fate finally bringing the two families together.

  I shook my head at the pictures on the wall. Fate was a foolish idea reserved for dreamers and hopeless romantics—I was no longer either. A walking testament to everything that could go wrong with a fairytale, there would never be a Winterbourne Marshall Holloway the Fifth. The madness would end with me.

  I pulled myself to stand and stumbled like a toddler into the doorway. Shuffling out of the library and down the long hallway that led to the kitchen, I needed water and aspirin. Turning on the light, the white and mostly industrial looking kitchen was made for serving many people at once—something that rarely happened at Winter Haven any more. Opening and closing cabinets all along the south wall, I finally made it to one that contained antacids, ibuprofen and aspirin. No doubt property of Vernon, the main keeper of the house. I helped myself to three tablets, making a drunk mental note to thank him in the morning.

  Filling my glass with water again after taking the pills, I took the back staircase to the second floor where all the bedrooms were located. Staggering down the hallway, I teetered between the two walls, knocking off a vase of roses but quickly catching them before they crashed to the ground.

  When I made it to my quarters, I turned the handle on the door and paused, staring at the room across the way—the guest room I knew my sister had given to Ginny. Shaking my drunken head, I swallowed hard and thought of her exquisite body lying between the sheets a few feet away from me. A body I’d worshipped not so very long ago.

  “God, you’re a fuck up,” I said aloud before entering my room and closing the door.

  The moonlight shone through the open window and I began the easy process of taking off my clothes. I slept in the nude—no matter the season—and climbing into my bed tonight was the first thing I’d looked forward to all day.

  Pulling back the covers on the four poster king bed, I slid between the cool sheets, allowing my head to meld into the pillows beneath. Two deep breaths in, and I was drifting off into drunken bliss.

  Win. I could hear her calling my name, so I answered. “Ginny. I’ve missed you. I love you. You’re the one. You’ve always been the only one.”

  Win. “Win.”

  I opened my eyes and fell out of bed, hitting the floor with a thud. “Shit!” I hissed, holding my head that was now spinning from the alcohol and long drop to hardwood floor. Getting to my feet, I shuffled to the wall and turned on the lights.

  “Win, what are you doing?”

  I shook my head, trying to grip reality and watched Ginny slowly come into focus. Sitting up in my bed wearing an old University of Kentucky t-shirt, she looked like an angel.

  “I’m…” I paused, realizing I was standing in front of her completely naked, seesawing back and forth. Looking down at myself, I put my hands on my hips and owned it. “What are you doing in my bed?”

  “I’m in the room Lena gave me. I asked if this was your room—because we’ve stayed in here—you know—before.”

  “Yeah? And?”

  “She told me it was the guest room, Win. Why else would I be in here sleeping?”

  I looked around and found Ginny’s clothes and notes on the floor, her hanging bag in the closet.

  “Can you…” she began, holding her hand in the air to block my nakedness from her view.

  “What?”

  “Put something on?”

  “No. This is my room and I’m going to bed. You can stay if you like,” I said, turning off the lights and sliding back under the covers.

  The dark and silence of the room was comforting to me and I rolled my body into her.

  “Win…please don’t do this.”

  “Ginny.” My voice cracked with emotion. “I’m drunk, I’m upset and I just need…”

  “What?”

  I started to get up when Ginny’s hand caught mine in the darkness.

  “What do you need, Win?”
r />   Lying on my side, I could feel her give my hand the squeeze. “I just don’t want to be alone.”

  Outside the window, a desolate dog howled in the distance and I knew his heart. I wanted to cry too.

  “You can stay,” Ginny whispered as she released me. “But on your own side of the bed. Understood?”

  “Thank you.” The words barely escaped my trembling lips. Fueled by alcohol and raw emotion, I felt tears well in my eyes. I hadn’t felt this helpless and out of control since I was ten. Watching my mother die in my very hands had emptied my heart of all feeling—something I didn’t recover from until Ginny. Being home brought it all back—every painful memory, every heart-wrenching feeling.

  In the dark, tears rolled down my numb face. Even in the bed of the only woman I’d ever truly loved, I was alone.

  “Win?”

  “Yes?” Wiping my hand across my face, I rolled to my side, facing her in the center of the big bed. By the light of the moon she reached out to me, brushing a stray tear from my cheek.

  “Win, the only way to deal with your life is to face it, not run from it.”

  6

  GINNY

  I laid in bed until Win began to snore softly. When he finally passed out, I unhinged my hand from his and gathered my things. Slipping out undiscovered, I opened the door across the hall and found an empty guest room.

  Dropping everything but my messenger bag to the floor, I turned off the overhead chandelier that cast a yellow hue against the walls of the white room, opting for the lamp by the bedside.

  My heart ached for Win. I knew he was in pain, but I refused to let myself be sucked into his life again, knowing as soon as he made it back to the city he’d be through with me. I told myself this over and over because being in bed with him made me think of things I shouldn’t—things I couldn’t control, like the whims of Win Holloway or the raw physical need I felt in his presence.

  I had to focus on the case. Powell would be calling me in the morning and I needed a game plan. I couldn’t sleep, thinking of the way Win smelled lying next to me—his golden waves against the pillow, the sweetness of his lips—“Stop it. Stop it!” I said aloud.