I lock the door and sag against the wooden panel as soon as it shuts behind him with a decisive click. My body trembles like I just survived an encounter with the anti-Christ. All that’s left of Lachlan Mount in my office is his deceptively alluring scent—an intense burst of citrus mingled with spice and cedar—and my terror.

And I can’t forget the promissory note.

My gaze darts to the desk and then away.

It has to be fake. Brett did not borrow five hundred thousand dollars using the distillery as collateral, because he certainly didn’t use the money for any of the improvements I’ve been making. Every dollar that has gone into this place has been courtesy of the dog-and-pony show I put on for what seemed like every banker in town.

I’m in debt up to my eyeballs. Or, at least, I was. Now I’m in over my head.

Lachlan Mount.

I squeeze my eyes shut and lift my chin toward the ceiling, inwardly cursing my dead husband. My dad would probably say I’d be better off looking down to find his spirit.

How could you do this to me, you asshole?

This debt . . . to that man . . . is the final nail in Brett’s proverbial coffin. How could I not have seen through him for the user he was? Self-recrimination floats through me for the thousandth time. It’s like a bad rerun on TV I can’t help let play on. I fell for his bullshit lines. Thought we were going to build my family’s empire again. I thought I’d found a partner. I was the dumbass who suggested eloping because I was so convinced he was the one.

It didn’t take long before I realized he was an opportunistic asshole who cheated on me since before we were even married and started skimming money from the distillery bank account as soon as he had access.

I slap my palms against the solid oak door behind me. “Fuck you, Brett. Fuck. You.”

I take a deep breath, open my eyes, and straighten my spine. My pity party is over. I’ve spent just over three months dealing with the fallout of his death, only a month longer than we were married, and just when I thought I was finally back on solid ground . . .

Lachlan Mount happens.

I glance once more at the document sitting on my desk. The desk my great-grandfather had shipped over from Ireland that he’d sat at when they’d signed the very first lease for Seven Sinners Distillery property. There’d been seven sons, and their optimism about ruling the whiskey market had been undeniable.

I thought I finally proved myself worthy of sitting behind that desk when my father agreed to let me buy him out. I was so proud to be the first woman to take the helm of a distillery producing the finest whiskey in the Irish tradition in New Orleans, where our family planted roots and came to prosper even with the bitch of a law called Prohibition.

Part of me wishes I’d been alive during those days of lawlessness. When might made right, and a man—or a woman—could rise and fall according to how hard he or she was willing to work. But then again, I could picture Lachlan Mount there too with a tommy gun, eliminating every bit of competition in his way. Except he was probably still eliminating his competition the same way even now.

Actually, I have no idea how we managed to escape his notice this long, but apparently that lucky streak is over.

I summon my ladyballs and cross the cold, cracked floor to look down on the document that sits on the desk so innocently. I reach out as though I should have a hazmat suit on before I touch it, and grasp a corner of the paper between a thumb and forefinger.

I leave as much of the legal BS to the lawyers as possible, but with their hourly rates running so high and adding up so quickly, and with barely enough money to pay the overdue bills I already have, I’ve had to learn plenty myself just to keep costs down.

Promissory Note.

I read it word for word. My quick-and-dirty summary: this one document spells out the doom of my family’s heritage.

Brett Hyde borrowed five hundred thousand dollars from Lachlan Mount four months ago and it was due in full last week, on the three-month anniversary of Brett’s death. Or, if you wanted to get more specific, the anniversary of the discovery of his remains in a burned-out car in the Ninth Ward with an unidentified female.

A cacophony of emotions riot in my chest like brass bands on opposite street corners in the French Quarter, competing for tourist dollars.

This is a disaster.

I can’t pay it.

Mount knows I can’t pay it.

But there’s something he’s willing to take in trade.

I stumble around the side of the desk as my knees turn to water, and I collapse into the chair.

“You.”

Shivers rip through my body, leaving chill bumps across every inch of my exposed skin, even though the leather still carries the heat from his body. Like his blood runs hotter than any ordinary man. And maybe it does. One thing is safe to say—Lachlan Mount isn’t an ordinary man.

Sweet Jesus, what would he want from me?

My inner voice of reason develops an attitude. Are you serious? What the hell does any man want from a woman? You’ll pay on your back.

There may only be a few things I know as absolute fact in this life. Seven Sinners Whiskey is the best I’ve ever tasted. New Orleans will always be my home. And I am not going to prostitute myself to pay my dead husband’s debts.

But still, that word hangs in the air.

“You.”

My hand shakes as I flip through the pages, committing the words to memory. But, really, the only things on this paper that matter are the amount I can’t pay and the date it was due. I flip it over, not wanting to look at it anymore, but a bold scrawl on the back mocks me.

---

---

There’s an illegible signature beneath it, but it doesn’t take a genius to know whose it is.

Seven days? It wouldn’t matter if I had seven months. I can’t come up with a half million dollars.

What did Brett do with the money?

I wait in silence like the good Lord might answer me in a booming voice from the heavens, but that obviously doesn’t happen.

Does it really matter at this point? It’s gone. He’s gone. And I’m the one left on the hook because as I unpleasantly learned, as the sole beneficiary and executor of his estate, all his debts became mine to deal with. The mess of a bad marriage lasts a hell of a lot longer than till death do us part.

I will not roll over and pay for Brett’s bad decisions on my back.

The steady thrum of fear running through my veins attempts to weaken my titanium spine.

“I will find a way to fix this. Somehow. Some way. I will.”

The silence in my office is the only answer I need.

I don’t believe myself either.

But I have to do something or I’m fucked. And, apparently, Lachlan Mount will be doing the fucking.