Intoxicated By You

At one point, I’d asked Raquel, but she’d refused to answer. It wasn’t something I had cared to look into. “To who?”

“To some business called Milano Incorporated that has zero online presence.” He’d been up way too long looking into all this. “Did you keep any of the offers for your land?”

Shaking my head, I said, “No. The bank called me with an offer once. I didn’t want to hear it and told them to reject any they got. That was the last I heard from them.”

Drake’s eyebrows pinched together. “Can you reach out to Morgan? See if she has a record of any offers received.”

“Yeah, I’ll reach out to her this morning. Any more thoughts about the letter?”

“It’s likely whoever did this wanted you isolated. You said Montgomery told you Lloyd brought the letter to him a couple of weeks before he died?”

A sense of dread settled over me. Last night in the tub, I’d had similar thoughts and hadn’t been able to fully process them. “Yes, that’s what he said. I know where you’re going with this.”

Drake waited for me to continue.

“Montgomery lied and was definitely in on it.”

“Yeah.” Drake stared into the distance, thinking. There were so many moving parts it was hard to wrap my head around them.

It was hard to believe Raquel had sold the land that had been in our family for generations. There were contingencies in the estate setup that stipulated only blood relatives of the family could inherit the land. That was why Mom only got the B&B—Dad had purchased it on his own before they got married.

How could she? Why would she? It had to be money related. Maybe that was why Mom had received all the “upgrades” to the house.

Yes, Chazz was well off, but having that kind of cash would give Raquel the opportunity to do whatever she wanted, unchecked. Dad would have been so disappointed, and it hurt my heart. “Do you think Raquel knows who Milano Incorporated is?”

If she did, I was certain she wouldn’t tell me.

“I don’t know, baby. All I’ve got is straws to grasp at.” Drake’s phone vibrated, and he looked at it. “Fuck. It’s Reeser. He’s come into town to go over the contracts. He needs them for liability reasons before he can transport my inventory.”

I stood. “Go. Take care of that. I’m going to take a shower and head to the clinic. Hollis and I were going to go over the last of the arrangements.”

Drake pulled me into his arms. “I want some time alone with you.”

“I want that, too.”

Drake must have gotten the answer he was looking for, and he gave me a smile before kissing me on the lips. My lips wanted more. My body craved him.

Drake went to his room and came out dressed less than two minutes later. He looked good, really good. I was nearly salivating when he gave me a wink.

I was having a hard time keeping my hormones under control. It had been too long since I’d been in Drake’s arms. We needed to find some time for us to be together.

“Bye, baby. I’ll see you at the clinic.”

“See you then.”

He was off. And I needed a cold shower.

Chapter Nineteen

Alexa

About an hour and a half later, I was dressed and ready to head out the door to the clinic when my phone vibrated with a text from Hollis.

Hollis: You available to talk?

That was strange. He always just called if he needed something. I dialed his number. “What’s going on?”

“There’s a woman named Morgan here. She says she’s your loan officer and needs to talk to you immediately.” There was a distinctly worried sound in his tone.