The grin that arrived during my meeting with Evelyn never left my lips as I rushed back upstairs toward the security room. Both men raised their eyebrows when I burst into the room with obvious excitement.

“Have you noticed a woman dressed as a black cat? Blonde hair, black mask.”

“I’ve seen a few cats,” Jerome replied without taking his eyes off the screens. “Haven’t been paying much attention to mask color, though.”

“You mean this one?”

The one with glasses—Kevin, if I recalled correctly—reached out with the hand that wasn’t holding a cup of coffee and tapped on a screen. I walked around his chair and leaned in, watching as she shuffled her weight awkwardly on her feet and glanced around nervously.

Looking for me, perhaps? I tilted my head to the side as she closed in on a potted plant and just... stood there.

“What the hell is she doing?” Kevin asked as we watched her get closer to her target. “Is she... talking to the plant?”

“What?” Jerome drawled in amusement, spinning his chair around to watch with a grin. “That’s definitely what it looks like.”

Ignoring their comments, I tapped gently on the display and said, “That’s my favored guest. I want you to keep an eye on her, understand?”

She shyly turned to the wall as a couple walked past without even noticing she was there. Once they were out of sight, she turned her attention back to the plant.

“You’ve got... eccentric taste in women, Mr. Stone.”

“Yes. I suppose I do.”

Not that I minded, of course. I had a number of my own oddities. To see Evelyn behaving so strangely only strengthened my interest in her. She was just so… adorable.

Her true motivations were revealed a moment later. She gripped a leaf between her fingers and attempted to pull. When the plastic plant didn’t give it up—she reached out and dumped half of her champagne into the bucket of fake soil.

So my girl doesn’t drink. Noted.

“Oh. Well, that’s better than talking to it, I guess,” Jerome said before turning his attention back to his set of screens. “Still weird, though.”

“It is curious,” I agreed distractedly. “Let me know if it looks like she’s going to leave. Or if she ventures out to the gardens.”

“Will do.”

Satisfied that I could track her whereabouts, I headed down the hall to check on the status of the guest room I was having prepared for later.

* * *

Since Fiona was busy dealing with gathering masks for the guests and overseeing the waitstaff, I ended up wasting twenty minutes ordering around the hired help to make sure the guest room was properly set up. I was just heading back downstairs to rejoin the party when my phone vibrated in my pocket.

- She stepped outside to ditch the rest of the champagne. On the terrace now.

Perfect. I nearly broke into a run just to make sure I’d make it outside in time, but I had no reason to worry. I exited through the staff door and quietly crept around toward the garden just in time to see her hesitantly stepping out to explore.

It was a shame that Bryan didn’t have the hedges to make a maze, but I supposed him allowing me to decorate the gardens for ambiance was more than I could ask for. Typically, he made sure there were guards posted at the exits to keep guests from visiting the gardens at all.

I was glad to have been able to convince him otherwise. Seeing Evelyn standing out in the moonlight with her blonde hair and adorable cat ears, it was more obvious than ever that she was the most beautiful woman in the world.

I spent months wondering how it was possible for her not to realize that. How was a woman like her so timid? Surely men fell at her feet on a regular basis. If our situations were a little different, there was a strong possibility that I would have done it during our first meeting.

Who was I trying to kid? I wasn’t that kind of man.

I sure as hell would have done things differently, though. Starting with asking her out and ending with making her completely mine.

By this point in time, we would have been visiting Bryan’s party as guests and I wouldn’t have had to set up such an elaborate meeting.

Oh well. All’s well that ends well.

I just needed to ensure everything turned out the way I wanted it to.

With a great deal of care, I managed to sneak up behind her without attracting her attention. After the briefest moment of studying her form from the back, I broke the silence and growled, “Kitten...”

The empty champagne flute fell from her hand and shattered on the concrete path.