Milner & Dunn: The Christmas Feast (Paranormal Gay Romance) E-Book

Trina Solet

• Herausgeber: Trina Solet
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2022

Beschreibung

Adrian Milner is a doting dad, a stern college professor and a complete skeptic who just inherited part ownership in a private investigation agency that specializes in the supernatural. To make things worse, his new partner is a gorgeous, arrogant conman that Adrian can't resist.
His first experience investigating a haunting might change Adrian's mind about the supernatural and maybe how he feels about his partner too.

Leseprobe

Milner & Dunn: The Christmas Feast (Paranormal Gay Romance) By Trina Solet

Copyright © 2021 by Trina Solet

All rights reserved.

No part of this publication may be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the author except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

This is a work of fiction. All names, characters, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, locales or actual events is entirely coincidental.

All sexual activity takes place between persons eighteen years of age or older.

This novel contains material intended for mature readers.

Cover image is only for illustrative purposes. Any person depicted is a model.

Milner & Dunn: The Christmas Feast

Paranormal Gay Romance

Trina Solet

Chapter 1

Adrian was putting his coat on while his little girl looked up at him with a slight pout. As her nanny, Luna, came in, Nessie told her where he was going.

"Daddy is going to look at a man," Nessie said reinterpreting what Adrian had told her. She was only three and loved going places with him, but today she was staying home.

"I said I was going to see a man," Adrian said, but of course Nessie didn't see the difference.

With his shoes and coat on, he bent down and gave Nessie a kiss. "Be good for Luna. I'll be back a little later."

"Bye, Daddy," Nessie said with a two handed wave, and then she and Luna walked him to the door.

Getting into his car, Adrian was already losing the good feeling Nessie gave him just by being her little self. He didn't know what to expect from his visit to Milner & Dunn Investigations, and he wasn't looking forward to it. But one of those names was his own, so he needed to have a look at the place.

Arthur Milner, his great-uncle, was a partner in the business, a silent one. When he died, Adrian inherited half the business, but he had no idea what he owned. Milner & Dunn wasn't a normal private investigation firm. According to what he heard, it specialized in supernatural investigations. In other words, it was a scam.

Why in hell would his great-uncle put his money into something like that much less put his name on it?

That's why Adrian was going to visit the office of this PI firm. Before he sold his share of it, he wanted to find out what they did there and how they got his great-uncle involved in it.

At first glance, the offices that bore the name Milner & Dunn were not sleazy looking. The firm was located in a small shopping center between an antique store and a bookstore. Milner & Dunn took up the first and second floors of a narrow building.

The first floor was a lobby with an unoccupied desk and club chairs in the waiting area. It was decorated in beige and navy blue, in other words, inoffensive. Going up the stairs, Adrian saw a spacious outer office with another unoccupied desk and another waiting area. There were two office doors. One was unmarked, the other was marked simply Dunn.

Imagining what kind of sleazy conman he would be dealing with, Adrian took a deep breath before he knocked.

"Come in," a deep voice said and Adrian opened the door gingerly. A smiling, good-looking guy was sitting behind the desk, asking, "What kind of trouble can I help you with?"

The man was beyond handsome, dark hair and short beard, incredibly luminous light brown eyes and a body that Adrian was dying to see naked. And he was asking what the trouble was.

The trouble was him, but Adrian didn't say so. "I'm Adrian Milner. I tried making an appointment, but no one was answering the phones."

"Milner as in?" Dunn pointed at a photo on the wall of him with Great-Uncle Arthur.

"My great-uncle," Adrian said simply and watched Dunn realize what that meant.

"My new partner," he said cheerfully and Adrian groaned inwardly.

"Not for long. I'd like you to buy me out," Adrian stated firmly. He came here planning to ask questions about the business, find out why his great-uncle wanted to be involved with it, but now that he was looking at Dunn with his arrogant good looks, he was only interested in getting out of there and never having to see him again. This guy was looking at Adrian like he couldn't make up his mind if he should pick his pocket or strip him naked or both.

"Not possible," Dunn said in answer to his demand. "I can't get the money, and it's not part of my agreement with Arthur."

Adrian was curious about that agreement, but he stayed focused on his goal. "I just want out of this... business or whatever it is."

"You don't have to be involved," Dunn said. "You can be a silent partner like Arthur."

"My name is on the door. It reflects on me," Adrian pointed out.

"You mean reflects badly on you," Dunn said, then he threaded his fingers together and leaned forward. "Because I'm a conman."

It wasn't a question so Adrian didn't bother answering. "You can borrow the money to buy me out."

"Can I? I don't know about that, but I'm not eager to buy you out anyway," Dunn said like he enjoyed denying him and toying with him, and that's exactly why Adrian wanted out of this.

"Wouldn't you rather be the sole owner, so you can do things your own way?" Adrian asked him.

"Arthur never interfered in the business," Dunn said.

"I'm not him. If my name is going to be on the door, I'll want to make sure the business is run properly. Have a look at the books and check out your methods to make sure that business is being conducted ethically." Adrian meant it as a threat and Dunn didn't miss his meaning.

He smiled ruefully then stood up abruptly and buttoned his jacket. "In that case, you'll want to accompany me and see how things are done," he said. He headed for the door and when Adrian didn't follow him, he turned back. "Come on. I just called your bluff. Are you already backing down?"

Adrian wasn't ready to capitulate just yet. "And where would we be going?" he asked as Dunn went into the outer office and got his coat.

"To see a client," Dunn said. He pulled his coat on while walking down the stairs and actually filled Adrian in on what the client wanted. "Lloyd McKay doesn't want his Christmas dinner ruined by some apparition that's been haunting his new house. He did a lot of remodeling before he moved in, gutted the place, so he didn't think he needed a cleansing. And you see how that turned out. Remodeled or not, a place that old, of course it has to be cleansed."

While he prattled on, Adrian stared at the back of his head in disbelief. Did Dunn even believe what he was saying?

Outside, Dunn headed for a black Jag. "We'll take my car. You can drive," Dunn said and tossed him the keys.

Rather than catch them, Adrian took a step back so the keys wouldn't hit him.

"What, you can't catch? Or you can't drive?" Dunn asked.

"Neither. I just don't want to be your chauffeur," Adrian informed him.

"Don't you want to make yourself useful? It's not like you can exorcise ghosts," Dunn said.

"You can't either. Because they don't exist," Adrian told him.

Dunn sighed and bent down to pick up the keys. "Fine. I'll play chauffeur."

"So this guy is worried that a ghost is going to upend his Christmas dinner? This is what you do?" Adrian asked as he got into his car.

"Yes. I give my wealthy clients peace of mind."

"Whether their problem is real or not," Adrian added.

"You can't have that attitude while I'm working," Dunn told him and gave him a stern look.

"Will my disbelief interfere with you ghost hunting?" Adrian asked.

"No, it will annoy me."

They arrived in front of a mansion which looked quite old and stately from the outside, and Adrian couldn't wait to see what horrendous things had been done to it on the inside. During the drive he only had time for a quick online search that told him that Lloyd McKay was loaded and that he was also good-looking.

Then he got to see that for himself as the client, Lloyd McKay, opened the door to them and launched into a hug that Dunn returned warmly.

Though far from young, Lloyd was a silver fox. He had looks and money, no wonder Dunn was all over him. Plus he was obviously gullible.

"I know, I know. You're going to lecture me for not having you in for a cleansing, but I was in a rush to get the decorating done then this dinner had to be planned," Lloyd said while standing in the doorway and giving Dunn a pleading look.

"As long as you learned your lesson," Dunn told him mock sternly.

Now Lloyd noticed Adrian for the first time. "Oh, a new assistant. Wonderful," he said.

"Yes, this is Adrian," Dunn confirmed falsely so that Adrian had to correct Lloyd's mistake.

"I'm not his assistant. I'm his business partner, Adrian Milner. Unless you'd like to buy me out," he said.

Lloyd took that as a joke, which it wasn't, and laughed while inviting them in. Inside, the house was nicely decorated but it was also brand new, unlived in.

Dunn complimented everything, all sorts of touches and Lloyd ate it up. Then Lloyd actually started talking about why he needed Dunn as he led the way to the kitchen. "Every single thing in the fridge was spoiled," Lloyd said. So it turned out he had a broken fridge, which was a solvable problem. And at least appliance repair was an honest profession unlike pretending to bust ghosts.

Then Dunn asked him what Adrian had been thinking. "Could your fridge just be on the fritz?"

Lloyd denied it. "No, it's brand new and top of the line."

"That doesn't mean it can't break," Dunn pointed out reasonably.

"Even if the fridge did break, food doesn't rot in a matter of hours," Lloyd said. "What the maid found was horrific. Putrid, liquefied. I had to have the whole fridge out of here and got a new one. I can't have that sort of thing happen at my Christmas dinner. Please do your thing and get rid of the nasty intruder."

"I'll see what I can do. Now tell me what else happened," Dunn said.

"The knives. They're always being stuck into things, bread, apples, cheese, chicken," Lloyd said and Adrian noticed that those were all things that normally get cut with knives. But there was more to the list. "Milk jugs, orange juice cartons. Then there are the eggs. I haven't had an egg in days. They always end up broken. Then the oven was turned on to the highest temperature right when Wanda was baking my poppy seed muffins."

"Wanda is the maid, right? Could Wanda possibly be disgruntled?" Dunn asked, again saying what Adrian had just been thinking.

"So she's attacking my food with knives and setting my poor poppy seed muffins on fire?". Lloyd shook his head. "No. Never."

Dunn seemed skeptical, though not as skeptical as Adrian. "What else?" he asked.

"Broken china, the everyday stuff and the fine bone china I got on my trip to Ireland. Bent silverware."

"Anything outside the kitchen?" Dunn asked.

"The fine china and the silverware were in the dining room hutch," Lloyd said.

"Then it's all been in the kitchen and dining room," Dunn said as he stepped out into the hall.

"No. My liquor cabinet in the living room was absolutely devastated," Lloyd said and motioned toward a set of double doors. "The pantry was a disaster. But the worst thing was last Sunday. I woke up to a horrific cracking noise and then I nearly broke my neck coming down the stairs. Every step on the stairway was cracked in half and the railing was pulled off, just hanging there. I had to have people in to replace the whole thing and it was brand new."

"If things are this bad, why didn't you call me sooner?" Dunn asked.

"I was embarrassed because I didn't call you when I should have. And I'm sorry about that, by the way," Lloyd said.

"Alright. You did call me in the end so all is forgiven," Dunn told him sweetly and Adrian used all his self-control to keep from rolling his eyes. "My assistant, Adrian, and I will do an evaluation of the issue now."

"I'm not your assistant," Adrian told him, but once again something true he said only made Lloyd laugh.

He went off leaving Adrian to glare at Dunn, who now began to wander around the man's house starting with the downstairs. While he poked around, looked at empty corners and up at light fixtures with the same interest as featureless ceilings, Adrian watched him. He wanted to see how far Dunn would go with this charade now that Lloyd wasn't there.

But as Adrian stared at him, he couldn't help noticing the flex of his muscles under his suit, the curve of his ass as his jacket rose when he reached up to touch a spot high up on a wall for some reason. Of course his eyes were amazing too and his lips, but he was a terrible person, who swindled people, and that's what mattered most.

Then Adrian caught sight of his own reflection in a mirror. Broad shoulders, dirty blond hair, and a generous beard that his friend Kayla accused him of using to hide behind. Then there were his serious, slate blue eyes which flashed with reactions he was terrible at hiding, and told everyone that he was stiff and closed-minded, no fun. So what was he doing chasing after a man who pretended to hunt ghosts?

Dunn was very committed to the pretense. He examined the stairs next, though they were probably just not built right in the first place and that's why they cracked. But Dunn was looking at each one, practically crawling up the stairs though the ones that got damaged had clearly been replaced. The whole time, Adrian was getting a really good look at his ass.

Dunn was working way too hard putting on an act for Adrian's sake. Unless he was doing it for the benefit of cameras.

"Does this place have cameras?" Adrian wondered.

"They aren't very useful when it comes to apparitions," Dunn said from the top of the stairs. "Come on up. Just because most of the activity seemed to be downstairs doesn't mean that the upstairs is clear."

"Right," Adrian said while shaking his head but went upstairs anyway.

There was nothing to see up there either, only recently remodeled, expensively decorated rooms and Dunn looking at nothing. He did notice that one of the guest rooms was being used.

"I'll need to let Lloyd know to have everyone out for the cleansing. The owner can be present or not, but no one else," Dunn explained like he expected Adrian to take this seriously.

After the upstairs, Dunn looked at the attic, the basement and the garage and he even took Adrian on a walk through the grounds, which was kind of pleasant. Now he was driving them back to Milner & Dunn offices so Adrian could pick up his car.

"I didn't sense anything dangerous or hostile over there. But there was the potential for something. Anyway, I'll be doing the cleansing tomorrow. I assume you want to be there for that," Dunn said and gave him a small smirk.

"But you said extra people shouldn't be present, only the owner if they want," Adrian reminded him and gave him a smirk of his own.

Dunn chuckled. "That doesn't apply to my assistant."

"You need to stop calling me that," Adrian said. Then he remembered the empty office and no one answering the phones and he wondered, "Why exactly are you so short-staffed?"

"More like no staffed, my receptionist and my assistant both quit," Dunn said.

"Because you're a terrible boss?" Adrian asked.

"I guess so," Dunn said and Adrian thought he detected a note of hurt in his voice. So he took their quitting personally, though he probably also caused it.

"As my partner, you could resolve my staffing issues, do some hiring," Dunn said.

"No, thank you." He wasn't looking to get more involved in this questionable business.

"Then what good are you exactly?" Dunn challenged him.

"Feel free to buy me out," Adrian told him.

"I'll be doing the cleansing right at noon, be here and you can drive me to Lloyd's," Dunn said as they pulled up in front of his office.

"I won't play your driver, but I'll be here," Adrian said. He wanted to see what kind of show Dunn would put on for the main event.

Chapter 2

"You're going to what?" his friend Kayla practically screamed in his ear when he told her he was going to attend a cleansing.

"I told you what kind of business I got stuck with. Today I'm going to see this nonsense in action," Adrian told her gruffly.

"Try and have fun with it. Don't just glower at everyone," she told him.

"Everyone? It's only going to be me and my business partner plus the client," he informed her. "And this will not be a fun activity, just a con job in action."

"Be more open-minded," she said to him.

"Showing up is as open-minded as I can be," he told her. Even that was too much, and Adrian was sure it wouldn't be happening if Dunn didn't make him lose his head.

When Adrian arrived at the offices of that sham of an investigation agency, there was still no one at either the reception desk or the desk outside Dunn's office. Adrian did see something new. There was now a name on the door of the other office upstairs. It was Adrian Milner. Dunn was going all out calling his bluff, but Adrian still wasn't ready to back down.

Before he could knock, Dunn opened his office door while putting on his suit jacket with one arm and holding a phone to his ear with the other.

"We'll be there soon," he said and hung up then looked Adrian up and down. "A good assistant would help me with all this, phone calls, my jacket, my coat." He pointed it out hanging on the coat rack.

"Is this why your people quit, because you couldn't dress yourself without help?" Adrian asked.

"Well, today you'll be playing my assistant and you'll need to do a better job," Dunn said.

"Only one of us will be putting on an act. I'll only be there to observe," Adrian told him.

"All right then, let's go," Dunn said resignedly.

Getting into the car with him, Adrian noticed that he didn't have the same nice scent as last time. He had smelled of something green with woodsy, masculine undertones. Today he had a sharper scent, still green but more like sage and something else. Not that Adrian was memorizing the man's various scents.

"Don't you have any questions?" Dunn asked.

"Many," Adrian said, but he didn't bother asking because he didn't expect any real answers from Dunn.

Dunn told him a few things anyway. "For starters, Lloyd doesn't want to be there. He's taking his mother out to lunch. He cleared the place for us." That meant that Dunn wouldn't be putting on as much of a show. Probably a good thing.

Arriving in front of Lloyd's mansion, Adrian noticed that all the windows were standing open.

"That's for the cleansing," Dunn said as he got out of the car. "To give the place fresh air and light and to give the spirit an easy exit."

Getting out too, Adrian started to feel like he was an accomplice to a crime. Then Lloyd came out to greet them, saying, "Thank you, thank you so much for doing this. You're an angel. You're saving my Christmas. I'll finally be able to start putting up the decorations and the tree without worrying."

"So are you staying for the cleansing after all?" Dunn asked him.