He Didn't Know She Was the Heiress novel · Chapter 4 of 24

Chapter 4: The Honest Whiskey

I did not sleep, so at eleven I went down to the hotel bar in my navy dress and ordered a whiskey I didn't want.

The bar was my father's favorite room.

It had green leather stools and a wall of bottles, and he had known the bartender by name for twenty years.

The bartender was still there.

He set the glass in front of me and looked at my face a second longer than he needed to.

"You've got his chin, Ms. Fairbanks," he said quietly, and went to the other end of the bar.

I let that sit in my chest.

"Is that stool taken?"

Samson Sorrell had come in without a sound, still in the charcoal suit.

He had loosened his collar and lost the folder.

"It's a free country," I said. "It's an expensive bar."

"I noticed. I'm staying here. My assistant booked the hotel I was trying to buy."

"That's a bad look for your assistant."

"She's very good. She did it on purpose, to see what the staff would say about the owners." He sat, and ordered the same whiskey. "They say the old man was a tyrant and a good boss. It's a rare mix."

"He was both."

"You weren't close."

"I left home at twenty-two," I said. "He wanted to pick my job and my husband. He picked both, and I picked neither."

"And then?"

"And then I didn't call him for seven years."

The whiskey was warm in my throat.

"He died in May. I could have called any day of any week, and I thought I had time."

Samson did not tell me it wasn't my fault.

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