☆ ᴡᴀᴛᴛʏꜱ 2024 SHORTLISTER!! ☆
A tragic misunderstanding. A murder. A secret. An unlikely partnership. A spirited countess and an enterprising racketeer.
~~~
Manchester, England. May 1925.
The Roarin' 20s. An era of glamor, decadent parties, jazz mus...
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“What's a girl gotta do to get a drink around here?” Kitty teased, her words and tone suggestive.
“Whiskey?” Liam asked in return. He shrugged out of his suit jacket and tossed it on the sofa beside her, then made his way to the side table that housed his decanters and glasses. “Or will ya have another go at the gin? What's your pleasure tonight, Kitty?”
“Oh, you know what's my pleasure, Liam,” she answered, languidly crossing one long leg over the other. Her eyes were hungry as they followed him across the room. “Tonight and every night. But to drink, I'll take gin.”
He nodded, reaching for the decanter of clear liquor that sat modestly on the side table and poured a generous amount into a pair of handsome glasses. “Gin, it is. I'll have the same.”
Distilling his own gin was still something of a new endeavor for Liam. The recipe required a bit of tinkering, therefore the more often it was tasted, the wider array of opinions he received. Kitty knew her booze. She'd already made many a useful suggestion over the past few months.
Crossing back to his guest, Liam handed Kitty one of the glasses and held the other aloft toward her. “To good gin, and the bootleggers in the States who wanna buy it,” he toasted.
“To good gin, and profitable returns for Mercer Industries,” she agreed with a flirtatious smile. She clinked her glass against his and took a long pull.
Liam sipped carefully, his gaze on Kitty's face as she drank and swallowed in order to gauge her reaction.
“You changed it,” she remarked with a demure smack of her lips.
“You noticed,” he commented.
“Mm. It's...what? Sweeter?”
“A bit, aye,” Liam confirmed. Following his conversation with Mickey Sullivan, he'd made some adjustments. “Mickey told me that women in the States drink as much as the men, but they prefer the clear liquors to the dark. And apparently, they fancy their gin sweet.”
She took another drink, her expression thoughtful. “I like it.”
“It's not too sweet?”
Kitty shook her head, her hair swishing in a languid sashay against her shoulders. As she stared up at him, her eyes shone with a seductive gleam. “It's just right. Just my taste.”
It wasn't only the gin she was talking about, and they both knew it.
Liam reached out and gripped her chin gently, caressing her jaw with the pad of his thumb. That was enough business for one night. “Ya look good,” he murmured, dropping all pretenses. “In my study, drinkin' my gin. I missed you. I hope y'know that.”
“Oh, you missed me, did ya?” she questioned. Her coquettish expression turned a bit defiant. “You got a funny way of showin' it, Liam.” She jerked her chin out of his grasp and took a slow pull from her glass, never breaking eye contact. “Not sure I believe ya. I don't s'pose you're willin' to prove it?”
