The birds sounded wrong.

That was my first muddled thought as I awoke, and as my head started to clear I realized that it wasn’t just the different sounds—more trilling and chirping from songbirds, fewer coos of doves and pigeons—but how clear the sounds were, unobscured by the blaring horns and thumping wheels of traffic outside the window.

Hunter’s plantation manor was definitely not as bustling as D.C. In theory that should have made it easier to work.

In practice, this bed was ridiculously comfortable, and I had a feeling that I was going to be using up almost all of my energy just to get out of it.

I was alone in the bed, by the way.

I’d arrived on a late flight the night before, and hadn’t seen anyone besides the housekeeper, who’d ushered me into my room, where I’d taken a shower and then passed out from exhaustion. It wasn’t just the late flight that had tired me out; I’d been prepping for this trip for a week with research into past Knox ad campaigns, their financials, and their media presence.

The fact that there wasn’t a lot of material to work with—Hunter’s grandfather had apparently considered advertising a sin, and federal income-reporting laws a barely avoidable sin—just meant that I had to dig harder for what was out there. My eyes were worn out from staring at microfiche well into the early hours of the morning, and my inbox was crammed full of e-mails from academics regretfully informing me that their archives didn’t contain any of the materials I’d asked about.

I squinted at the clock beside my bed: six hours of sleep. That was about as much in one night as I’d had all last week.

Hopefully, there’d be more information for me to work with in the family library. But to find that out, I’d have to get out of bed.

Sometimes, succumbing to my mother’s plan to get me married off to a wealthy man and never lift a finger again didn’t seem too bad after all.

I groaned and rolled off the mattress, hitting the floor with a thump. That woke me up slightly more, and I managed to stumble to my suitcase and paw at my clothes. What to wear? The sticky heat meant that my pant-suits were right out; I’d be fine within the air-conditioned manor itself, but my current guesthouse and the library were in separate buildings, and I’d be wanting to tour the fields of grain and cotton so I could snap pictures to send to Sandra, that way she could get some sketches to me as soon as possible. Immersion was the name of the game for this campaign; Hunter was commissioning a new message, new branding, new artwork. It was exciting and terrifying all at once, and I couldn’t wait to get started, and what the hell was I going to wear?

I looked around the guesthouse in exasperation at my own indecision, noted for the first time with my rested eyes how sumptuous and simultaneously homey it was.

The bed had simple but clean lines, a frame of solid oak with Egyptian cotton sheets and a hand-stitched red and blue flannel quilt on top. The warped glass in the windows looked as if it stretched back to the War of Northern Aggression, but each pane was as pristine as the day it had been made. The wooden floor glowed like carmine gold with fresh floor polish, and a portrait of a humble soldier—one of Hunter’s ancestor’s—hung over the granite stone fireplace, along with a well-loved rifle.

All in all, it made me glad I had taken Hunter up on his offer, even if it brought us into awkwardly close proximity.

Oh, Mr. Knox, I don’t want to put you out, I can stay at a hotel—

And make you have to commute an hour a day, wasting valuable time? That guesthouse is just sitting empty. You’ll be doing me a favor, giving me a reason to keep Chuck from using it for bottle storage.

I hadn’t seen Hunter yet, but like I said, I only arrived last night. I probably wouldn’t see him for quite awhile anyway: I had research to do, and the last terse e-mail he sent me said he was busy sorting out production problems with the distillery, something about the recipe being off in the last batch, potentially a problem with carelessness, dissatisfied labor, or even industrial sabotage. He certainly didn’t have time for anything as unimportant as settling me into my current digs.

I definitely wasn’t disappointed or anything. Nope.

And I was totally not freaking out about what I was wearing because we had sort of kind of a little bit slept together.

I just wanted to look professional, and not die of heat at the same time.

And of course I didn’t want to remind him of what had happened that night, but if I just happened to pick an outfit in which my legs looked particularly stunning...

No. No. No! I was here to work. That was all.

I settled on a light cotton floral skirt that swirled modestly around my knees and a sleeveless blue blouse, and then had a quick cup of coffee in my guesthouse’s mini-kitchen. Afterward, my brain finally starting to function properly, I squared my shoulders, grabbed my briefcase, and set out to find the library.

Just stepping out of the guesthouse took my breath away. The sun glowed golden over the rolling green fields, sheltered at their edges by oaks and willows hung with curtains of Spanish moss, and a stream gurgled blue and pristine along the western edge, its banks dotted with pink and purple flowers.

The main house rose like a triumphant monument at the very center, circled by lilac and honeysuckle whose heady scent swam through the thick, humid air. My own guesthouse was bedecked with climbing morning glories in pale violet, and the others next to me were garlanded with rows of sunflowers. Just behind them I could see the stables, hear the horses whinnying as grain flowed into their troughs.

And to the east—a lake, glimmering like liquid sapphire, and on the horizon the edges of the distillery barns and sheds for the production of the famous bourbon. The wind shifted, and a scent of burnt caramel drifted across the air, sweet and sharp and full of promise. It was like I’d actually walked right into a dream.

The sky was the purest blue I had ever seen, and through my daze I found my arm raising to snap a picture with my cell phone. If Sandra could recreate that color I would barely need to write any copy. That shade of blue could sell refrigerators to the Inuit.

The beauty of the estate so gobsmacked me that I couldn’t decide what to do first. I’d intended to visit the library this morning—if I could find it—but I rebelled at the thought of spending time indoors on such a lovely day. Hadn’t I just said that the name of the game was immersion?

It was time to explore.

* * *

After spending an hour splashing my feet in the stream and meeting all of the horses—the grooms were a little hesitant to let me visit with them, but were won over after their most cantankerous stallion took sugar lumps from my hand—I convinced myself to get back on track and trotted quickly over to the blessedly air-conditioned manor to return to my original quest: the library.

It ended up being a pretty long quest, since the manor house ended up being larger than some Eastern European countries.

I didn’t mind, though, because it was also absolutely breathtaking. My mom might put on airs about our heritage, but even with all her efforts, our house could never have dreamed of this opulence: crystal chandeliers, Persian carpets so lush my feet almost disappeared in their weave, gold-framed oil paintings that looked like they’d been taken straight from a museum. I felt like I’d wandered onto the set of a period drama—only the electric lights and air conditioning kept me from feeling like I’d straight-up taken a time machine into the past.

I might have wandered through those luxurious labyrinthine hallways forever, but after about fifteen minutes my stomach rumbled in response to the delicious smells being wafted from somewhere nearby: sizzling bacon, baking bread, fresh squeezed orange juice…

It was way past time for a proper breakfast.

I tried to follow the scent, but instead of leading me to the kitchen, I stumbled into a room full of animal heads. Lions, rhinoceroses, tigers, wolves, cougars, panthers, and bears leered at me with glass eyes from the walls, their mouths twisted in frozen snarls.

“Sweet baby Jesus, that’s creepy,” I muttered.

“I know, right?” a perky voice said. “Hey, you want some breakfast, or should I leave you to your safari?”

I whirled, and saw a plump young woman with a brilliant smile, her curly black hair barely tamed by a ponytail, and her friendly brown eyes sparkling with amusement. With her dark slacks and button down, she had to be a member of the staff. But which one?

“Sorry to spook you,” she said, stepping forward and offering her hand. “I’m Martha. I heard someone walking around and figured that this maze of a house had claimed its latest victim. If you need some provisions for your exploration, I can guide you to the kitchen. We’ve got pretty much every kind of breakfast food you could imagine, and a few you can’t.”

“I’ve got a pretty good imagination,” I said, shaking her hand. “But I thank you.”

“Trust me, you don’t want to imagine the things we keep on tap for the U.K. ambassador,” she said. “I’m going to go ahead and say one of them as a warning: fish paste. As in paste, made of fish. And gelatin.”

“Wow,” I said. “Warning appreciated. I’m a simple girl, though, so can I just get some bacon and eggs sunny side up?”

“That and a side of fruit, plus coffee that’ll put hair on your chest. Er, metaphorically,” she assured me. “I don’t think I caught your name…”

“Oh my goodness, that was so rude of me, I’m sorry,” I apologized. “Allison Bartlett, but please call me Ally. Very pleased to meet you, and not just because you’re offering me bacon.”

Martha led the way out of the room of stuffed animal heads, and I followed, trying to keep track of the route. I didn’t want to take a wrong turn when I was on my own and starve to death, after all.

“So, are you the cook?” I asked to make conversation.

“Oh, sweet fucking Christ on a cupcake, no!” she blurted, and then covered her mouth with her hand, giggling. “Sorry. I just had a vision of me trying to work a blender to make anything other than a banana daiquiri and it was absolutely horrifying. Nah, I’m Mr. Knox’s personal assistant.”

“Well, either way, you’re a lifesaver,” I said. “I feel like I could get lost in this place for days.”

“Yeah, Theseus and the minotaur had nothing on this place,” Martha agreed. “Last time the British ambassador was visiting, we thought he had left after an argument with Mr. Knox over the history of Scotch, but it turned out he had just taken a wrong turn in the library and gotten stuck in the greenhouse. Want me to make you a map after breakfast?”

“More than I’ve ever wanted anything else,” I assured her.

She grinned. “I have a feeling we’re going to be friends.”

* * *

“I don’t think I can take another bite, and that is a goddamn tragedy,” I said.

It truly was. The bacon was just the right mix of crispy and tender, seasoned with hickory smoke and honey, and the eggs were cooked perfectly, sprinkled in fresh-cracked pepper and with just enough yolk spreading from them to dip the bacon in. The bread was hot out of the oven and spread with butter from the plantation’s own cows, and over that Irish orange marmalade or blackberry jam from the cellar. The orange juice was just-squeezed, the pineapple just off the tree and bursting with flavor. The coffee tasted like what would happen if you caffeinated Heaven.

“One more bite,” I promised myself, and moaned in ecstasy as the piece of pineapple burst between my teeth.

And of course that was the exact moment that Hunter came in. When I was moaning like a porn star.

The universe hates me so, so much.

He raised an eyebrow. “That’s one way to enjoy breakfast.”

I raised my cloth napkin, pretending to wipe my mouth but mostly attempting to cover up a blush that was actively trying to make my face burst into flames.

It definitely didn’t help that he was wearing a tight T-shirt that clung to his sweaty, rugged frame like it couldn’t bear to let go. Not that I could blame it.

“Yes. Um. You’ve been working?” I asked, desperate to change the topic.

“Time and tide and distillery malfunctions wait for no man,” he said. “I’ve been up for hours. I was just going to grab a coffee and hit the sack for a quick nap, but I could give you a tour first if you want.”

Is it a tour of your bedroom? I thought but managed not to say out loud. “No thank you,” I said instead. “I’ll make my own way. I wouldn’t want to inconvenience you.”

Because if I took that tour right now, with him looking the way he did, I was definitely going to inconvenience the pants right off him.

“It’s no inconvenience,” he insisted. “In fact, I—” Then his eyes widened. “Oh dear. You’ve just saved me. I was supposed to join a conference call in fifteen minutes.” He bit his lip in a way that made me think several thoughts not even remotely fit for print. “You’re certain you’ll be all right on your own?”

“I think I’ll survive the wilds of your library,” I assured him.

He hurried off with a grateful smile. It was a relief, because I would definitely have jumped him if we’d spent any longer together. And I couldn’t risk my job for that.

Even though it would be so very nearly worth it.

* * *

After resisting the temptation that was Hunter in a tight t-shirt, I followed Martha’s map to the estate library, where I planned to spend the rest of the day. The building it was housed in was about half the size of the manor house, which is to say, about twice the size of any public library I’d ever been in. It was all wood paneling and lush carpets and wall-to-wall bookshelves that would have made the Beauty and the Beast movie drool in envy.

Thankfully, those bookshelves were full of the kind of primary sources I’d been unable to track down back in Washington, D.C., and I was able to spend hours poring over old journals, record books, and newspaper clippings in search of the most fascinating historical tidbits about the company. Those first-hand sources, including the diary of its founder, Hunter Knox’s great-great-great-great-great-great-grandfather and great-great-great-great-great-great-grandmother, poor immigrants from Scotland who wanted a better life. They’d come to the United States where they’d worked hard to earn the capital to leave their employers and strike out on their own. Learning from both their roots and the rich bourbon culture of the South, they had worked together as equal partners to create a flavorful bourbon whose popularity swept the nation and went overseas, becoming so popular in Britain that both ancestors were very nearly knighted.

I thought about Hunter as a knight. Hunter, sweaty, in chain mail, valiantly rescuing me from a dragon. He’d unchain me from the rock where I’d been offered in sacrifice, his hands gentle as he stroked my chafed, raw skin—or maybe he’d leave me chained, those soft lips lifting in a wicked smirk as he bent to press them to the sensitive skin of my neck, his hand trailing up my leg—

No, no, no! Bad Ally! Concentrate on research!

Anyway, those first ancestors weren’t even the most remarkable thing. No, the true jackpot I stumbled upon was the way that the Knox family had always strived to do what was right. Ferryville, the town that had befriended them and offered them charity when they were poor, was raised up and revitalized by the Knox’s job-creating factory; the families that had sponsored their passage to America were sent enough money so that they could immigrate as well.

Furthermore, the Knoxes had used the company’s shipping needs as cover for the Underground Railroad, and after the Civil War, had bought up this very plantation, moving their headquarters from Ferryville to here in order to give paying jobs to newly freed slaves and newly discharged soldiers, helping the economy of the ravaged South recover. Though workforces were initially segregated, another ancestor, Alphonse Knox, was instrumental in creating the very first integrated workforce in the state.

Say, what would Hunter look like in Union blue or Confederate grey? Neither matched his eyes, but he would still look so scrumptious in a uniform, all buttoned up and proper, any uniform, and then I could unbutton it and run my hands down his chest and press myself up against him and—

Not the kind of planning you’re being paid to do! I reminded myself with a firm shake of my head. I forced myself to stop squirming in my seat, and pay attention to the record of one of Alphonse Knox’s impassioned speeches.

And all this was only the history of the company in the nineteenth century. I couldn’t take notes fast enough; how was none of this information common knowledge? If the company had maintained even a quarter of its philanthropic interests during the last hundred years, this was a goldmine of advertising catnip.

This was exactly the angle I wanted to work. Social responsibility was hot these days, particularly with the younger crowd that Knox needed so desperately to attract. I couldn’t just slap a social justice sticker on the label, though—that might have worked back in the nineties, but today’s young consumers had been burned before, and the Internet made fact-checking easy. I would have to back up my claims with solid proof, but in a way that didn’t make the company and the product sound boring, overly earnest, or self-congratulatory.

I certainly wouldn’t want Hunter to think I was any of those things, either.

I mean, for the good of our business relationship.

Could I do it? Could I get the company to back a cause both local and global in a way that wouldn’t be written off as cynical or dismissed as a media show? I jotted down a reminder to look up the current components of the packaging and see if Knox could start using anything more environmentally friendly. It joined a long list on my tablet with the rest of my ideas, notes, sketches, and first drafts of e-mails to my art partner. It made a beautiful addition, and made me feel incredibly productive.

This could work. This could really work.

I was so absorbed by the library and by my ideas that it wasn’t until my stomach gave a particularly painful rumble that I looked up and realized how low the sun had dipped in the sky. My stomach gave another rumble like it was trying to imitate Mt. Vesuvius, and then twisted painfully until I got the message. Well, with the map I could probably make my way back to the kitchen before I starved to death. Probably.

I packed up my things as quickly as I could and speed-walked out the library—

Right into the broad chest of Hunter Knox.

It was not quite the way I’d wanted to be sprawled across that muscular expanse.

“Just the lady I was looking to see,” he drawled in that gentlemanly tenor voice. “Though I confess I wasn’t thinking so up close and personal.”

It was entirely unfair how nice he smelled, like salt and spice, cedar and oak and clean sweet sweat. Without thinking, my hand opened, fingers spreading to stroke where they rested against the T-shirt over his chest…No!

I snatched my hand away, blushing.

“Uh. Why were you looking for me?” I asked quickly, trying to distract him from my accidental almost-groping. “Was there something you needed to tell me?”

“Indeed there was,” he said with a grin that told me he had definitely noticed that too-long touch, and hadn’t quite decided whether or not to let me off the hook. “I wanted to tell you that the cook has made her famous pork chops for dinner.” He offered his hand. “I was hoping that might tempt you to join me.”

Like that man needed to offer pork chops to be a walking temptation.

Too bad it was one I couldn’t give in to.

“My room has plenty of food in the kitchen, I don’t want to intrude—” I began, though I really did, in the worst way. But then my stomach rumbled like a dying bear, betraying me. I blushed so scarlet that the Red Sea would be a pale pink in comparison.

“Sounds like someone disagrees with you,” he said, eyes twinkling.

“Just my body,” I said. “It’s an idiot. I try not to listen to it.”

“Oh?” he said, raising an eyebrow. “I’ve found that my body offers excellent advice.”

Well, why don’t we reintroduce them and see if yours is a good influence, my mouth urged me to say. I bit it back down and said instead, as lightly as I could, “Care to trade?”

That was a mistake. He eyed me up and down, and I felt my blood heat up in some extremely inopportune parts of me.

“It is an excellent body,” he murmured.

He leaned forward, and for one second, I thought he was going to kiss me.

Then he linked arms with me instead. “Come on. Let your body lead you to some new experiences.”

When he put it like that, how could I refuse?