“Knock, knock.” I rap on the wooden doorjamb of my boss’s office fifty-eight minutes later, injecting a cheerful note into my voice.

Keira, my blindingly gorgeous redhead of a boss, smiles when she sees me. “Hey, Temperance. I was just about to order breakfast. You want your usual?”

I don’t turn down food. Maybe it’s because I went to bed with my stomach growling too many times as a kid, or maybe because I’m perpetually hungry. Either way, my answer is a foregone conclusion.

“Absolutely.”

Keira’s lips, slicked red, curve into a smile, and for a second, I’m reminded of the masked woman Friday night. The woman I watched . . .

I need to block that out and pretend it never happened, but the vivid memories make it nearly impossible.

Thankfully, Keira doesn’t notice my hesitation, because she’s already on the phone to place our typical breakfast order.

I settle into a guest chair in front of her desk with my notebook on my lap. It’s full of checklists and final details that we have to run through before the big fundraiser Seven Sinners is hosting on Thursday night for Mary’s House, a local women’s shelter.

After our successful Mardi Gras party for the Voodoo Kings football team, word spread that Seven Sinners is the perfect place to hold high-profile events that need extra panache. Now we’re up to our eyeballs in requests, and my job, which was already busy, has taken over my life completely, leaving no time for anything else.

That’s why it didn’t even occur to me to question meeting a potential customer on a Friday night. Even though I should dig to the bottom of how the hell the mix-up occurred, I’m far too embarrassed to admit what I did.

Over and done with.

Never to be thought of again.

Except in the dark of my room late at night.

This event-planning aspect of my job wasn’t exactly what I signed up for, but it’s not like I was going to say no to Keira. She’s a great boss, and being promoted to COO of Seven Sinners is more than I ever expected when I hired on as an office assistant.

When Keira hangs up, she smiles at me again. “So, what do we need to tackle first?”

“Donors will begin dropping off auction pieces today. If it’s okay with you, I’ll just keep them all in my office so there’s no chance of them getting misplaced or damaged.” To myself, I add, especially because my brother won’t be popping in for any more visits for a bit. The same feeling of unease creeps through me, but I push it away.

“Good idea. Keep a log of them as we receive them, and we’ll move everything upstairs once the final preparations for the room are in place.”

“Got it.” I move down to the next item on my list. “Odile has asked me to confirm for the third time that we have the correct estimated number of attendees.”

Keira winces. “I got an email over the weekend from the president that they have some heavy hitters who RSVP’d late, and they’re too big of potential donors to turn down.”

“Okay, so we need to increase by a few?”

“Try fifteen or twenty.”

I can already imagine the head chef of Seven Sinners chasing me out of the kitchen with a butcher knife when I relay that information. “So, you want to talk to Odile about that this afternoon?”

Keira laughs. “If you’re scared of her . . .”

“It’s not her, it’s her close proximity to sharp objects that I’m afraid of.” I pause, reminding myself it’s my job, so I need to handle it. “But it’s not a problem. I’m sure she’ll be thrilled to accommodate the changes.”

The snort-laugh that follows is pretty much the only appropriate reaction. “Right. Totally. She’ll be thrilled. I’ll let Mary’s House know the extra attendees won’t be a problem, but they will see an increase in the final bill.”

“Damn right they will,” I mumble, thinking of the gauntlet I’m going to run on their behalf as I make another note on my pad.

“Oh, and I totally forgot to ask if you wanted to bring a date,” Keira says. “You know you can, even though it’s a work event.” My face must freeze in some unflattering expression, because she laughs. “Or not.”

I force my lips into some semblance of a smile, and my brain stutters as I try to come up with something to say in response besides hell no. “I’m . . . uh . . . that’s really not necessary.”

“You’re going to make me think I’m working you so hard you don’t have any time left for fun at all. What about Jeff Doon? He asked me if you were seeing anyone after that interview for the local network about the distillery tours.”

“Jeff Doon? The guy from the chamber of commerce?” I ask like I don’t know who he is, mostly to buy myself some time to overcome my shock. I never would have expected him to show any interest in me, considering he was Keira’s high school boyfriend.

“It’s not weird, I promise. He was so impressed with how you’ve spearheaded the tour project and wondered if you might want to grab a drink with him sometime, but apparently he felt the need to ask for my blessing first.”

“I’m not sure what to say. I . . . I don’t really date, I guess.” It’s a true statement, especially because what happened Friday night was definitely not a date. But that’s not something I can ever tell my boss about. “Besides, I’m still fending off advances from the meat supplier because of the promises I made him to get the Voodoo Kings the cuts they wanted at the price we had to quote.”

Keira giggles at that one. “If you ever go out with him, I promise I’ll award you hazard pay for it. That’s above and beyond the call of duty.”

“I’ve held him off for this long with excuses, but for some reason, that hasn’t discouraged him nearly enough.”

Keira’s head tilts to the left. “In the sage words of the wise Magnolia Maison, have you looked in the mirror lately, girl? Because you’re shit hot.”

I choke out a laugh. “I think you’re talking about yourself.”

She shrugs. “You need to get out. Do something. It’ll appease my guilt about you working too many hours as it stands . . . and I’m going to be asking you to take the reins again because my husband has decided we’re taking a vacation.”

I sit up in the chair. “When?”

“He wants to leave next week. I told him I’ll see how it goes with the event and—”

“It’s fine. I can handle things. You know I can.” It’s a matter of pride for me to know that Keira can leave her company in my hands and disappear for a few days without worrying about it burning to the ground.

“I’ll tell him I’m thinking about it. I can’t give in to him right away because then he’ll think he’s got the upper hand. It’s all about methods and tactics with that man.” Keira’s phone rings and she grabs it. “Keira Kilgore.”

I can’t hear the voice coming through the other end, but it doesn’t take long before I can guess.

“Don’t you dare. And we agreed I would use the Kilgore name as long as Seven Sinners is around.”

Lachlan Mount, her husband.

Does he know my brother was here? It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to assume that he knows exactly who I am and who Rafe is and what he does. Mount knows everything, after all.

It’s just one more reason I need to watch my step and make sure Rafe’s job doesn’t spill over into mine.

“Yes, I’m still thinking about the vacation. No, you can’t hurry my decision.”

I look at the ceiling, not wanting to feel like I’m intruding on Keira’s conversation. Thankfully, there’s a knock at the door, and I pop out of my chair to answer it.

Breakfast.

“Breakfast is here, which I’m sure you already know, so let me call you back after this meeting. Yes. I love you too.”

Keira hangs up as I return to her desk with the bags containing our food.

“Men. I swear.” She rolls her eyes, but I know she finds comfort in his overprotective nature.

Either way, I can’t imagine having a man look at me the way Mount looks at her. Like he’d kill anyone who made her frown. And, honestly, he might.

“You should go on the vacation. I can handle things.”

With a smile, she digs into her grits. “I know you can, Temperance. That was never in doubt.”

“Then why the cat-and-mouse game with him?”

Her smile turns sly. “Because that’s how you have to handle a man like Lachlan Mount. Otherwise, he’d bulldoze right over me. Besides, my spitfire ways keep him on his toes.”

Her words rattle around in my brain as we eat and discuss the remaining items on the never-ending to-do list, and I keep myself from thinking about my stranger.

He had that same demeanor that screamed I take what I want. He’d be a bulldozer. And I’d like it.

Just as quickly, I push the thought out of my brain and bury it six feet under.

I’m never going to see him again, so it doesn’t matter.