Page 4 of Where Quiet Hearts Scream
I lower the tray, re-load the drinks and deliver them to their rightful home on table eight, all the while kicking myself for losing focus so damn easily.
This job means everything to me. It’s my ticket to freedom, my one opportunity to carve out a life of my own. Where I can heal and distance myself from the criminal underworld that my family is now firmly entrenched in.
Even though it was my future brother-in-law—the don of New York’s Di Santo Mafia family—who got me this internship, I want to keep it on my own merit. I don’t want to be beholden to the Di Santo’s any longer than I have to be. So it’s important I do everything without fault.
I have to be impeccable.
I have to be perfect.
I have to deliverthe right drinksto the right table.
Trying to look at anything other than Andrew Stone as I return to the bar is difficult. His presence feels like a magnetic field—one I don’t have the physical strength to pull away from. I dart a peek at him in the corner of my eye and thankfully he’s looking at the drinks menu. He’s perusing it with the intent of someone who could be purchasing a house… or an island.
I drop the tray onto a pile and swallow dryly before facing him. “How can I help you, sir?”
His eyes don’t lift from the menu but his jaw ticks. “I’d like a drink, please,” he grits out. “And foryouto stop calling me ‘sir.’”
My heart bolts back and forth from a combination of embarrassment and annoyance. We’ve been trained to address all our guests as ‘sir’ and ‘madam’ and I would have expected that to be normal in the hospitality world. Why wouldn’t he want me calling him ‘sir’?
“Of course,Mr. Stone. What would you like to drink?”
His chin lifts and his gaze slowly roams my face. It sends a shiver down the length of my spine.
“Give me something amber and neat.”
I cock my head slightly as if I’ve misheard. He has the entire sixteen-page drinks menu in front of him—he’s beenstudyingit—and his only preference is color?
Part of me wonders if this is a challenge. Maybe he wants to test the theory that Harbor’s Edge staff know their guests better than any other hotel. Maybe he just wants me to guess his favorite drink?
Something tells me his request isn’t for either of those reasons. He wants to know whatIthink he should have. It’s a loaded request if ever I heard one, and now I feel immensely under pressure to choose something I think he’ll like.
I nod and gaze up at the whiskeys and bourbons on display. We have probably the most extensive whisky collection in the Hamptons. The challenge isn’t finding an amber drink—the challenge is finding therightamber drink.
I let my gaze sweep over the popular single malts—something tells me he’d be insulted by their lack of complexity. Japanese is always a good bet for someone who doesn’t want to follow the pack, but would he enjoy the lightness compared to the peaty depths of an Islay Scotch?
Lifting my gaze to the very top shelf—the shelf where we keep the rarest of our liquors, the ones commanding double the cost of a night in Andrew Stone’s suite—I settle on a tall, narrow bottle. I know instantly, that’s the one.
The pop of the cork alone sounds like luxury, and I take my time meticulously pouring a measure into a cut crystal glass. When I pick it up, I can’t help but lift it to my nose just to see what ten thousand dollars smells like. My nostrils are hit with the scent of sandalwood and sea salt.
When I blink my eyes open, Andrew Stone is watching me with a strange look on his face. I quickly place a napkin on the bar in front of him and rest the whiskey on it. Then I step back just as quickly, to allow some much-welcome air to flow between us.
He drops his gaze and curls a large hand around the glass, warming it the way seasoned whiskey-drinkers do. “What did you decide on?” he asks, lifting his focus back to me.
I swallow again. “Glenglassaugh’s The Serpentine.”
“Ah.” He nods thoughtfully. “Blended with a rare whiskey unearthed from a coastal warehouse.”
I stiffen. Most guests like tothinkthey know their whiskeys, but it seems this man really does.
“How old?” he asks, narrowing his eyes. Testing me.
“Fifty-one years.”Only thirty years older than me.
“And why did you choose this particular one?”
His question stuns me and I fall silent as I try to figure out why I can’t answer it.
My response would feel too personal, that’s why. The Serpentine is earthy and deep, symbolic of ancient mysteries and wayward morals. It matured beside a turbulent sea, a northern ocean untamed and wild.
