Page 15 of Taming the Boss

“I need an arrangement for my real estate agent. I want her to receive it early next week. First thing in the morning, preferably.”

I pressed the tip of the pencil into the pad. “Since it’s a Friday, we can’t process an order that fast on a weekend. Also, with the Independence Day holiday approaching, we’re pretty booked.”

“Cost is no object.” His tone brooked no arguments. “Make it happen or I’ll find someone who can.”

Bess turned from the counter. “My shop, A Flower A Day, can handle it with no issue.”

Mr. Brooks cleared his throat, effectively silencing her. “We can do it too. Do you know what flowers you want, sir?”

The newcomer jerked a shoulder without offering his name. His gaze remained lasered to mine. “Maddie can pick whatever she likes. I’m sure that will be just fine.”

Whatever I liked? I wasn’t a florist. I’d only worked here for a couple months for a few hours a week. I didn’t know what flowers went together best or anything of the sort.

But this stranger’s tone didn’t indicate he was open to discussion.

Inside, my internal organs were trembling. Outside, I remained composed as I nodded, picking up my pad. “Rush service will be 99.95.”

At the counter, Bess gasped. Mr. Brooks probably did in his head too. I didn’t even know why I’d said that. We were given rush jobs so rarely that our typical fee was much less. But if cost was no object…

The stranger waved it off as if he didn’t care. “Fine.”

I expected Mr. Brooks to interrupt and say that wasn’t the fee. He did not.

Instead, he and Bess moved to the back room to continue their briefly abated discussion.

At least I assumed. I had other concerns at the moment.

I moved to our lily of the valley display, one of our more expensive flowers, and only around for a limited time in the late spring and early summer. We were already at the tail end of their lifespan. “These are delicate and lovely, but deadly poison.”

He narrowed his brutally cold eyes. “Since I doubt she’ll take a bite, I’ll take those. And what else?”

I wandered around, selecting other flowers here and there by whim—lavender roses and some periwinkle then white carnations to fill in along with some blush dried Italian Ruscus. It probably wasn’t a bouquet worthy of that rush charge, but I was doing my best.

Not to mention tall, dark, bearded, and spookily silent followed me around the store as I built the bouquet, saying nothing, making no noise at all. Just looming and making sure I never forgot he was so close behind me.

I wanted to ask his name. It was rare I didn’t know people in the Cove. Then I quelled the impulse, figuring I’d find out when he gave me his credit card.

But he paid in cash, so I had no clue who he was.

“You’re new in town?” I finally asked after filling out the bouquet’s card to his specifications. “Where did you buy a house?”

“By the lake.”

I nearly said duh, but I managed to control myself. “Can you get more specific?”

Rather than speak, he moved from the counter to the wide window at the front of the shop and lifted his chin. I followed his lead and moved up beside him, letting out a gasp as I tracked his gaze. “Not the Windsor mansion.”

The gorgeous gigantic home was high on a hill overlooking Crescent Lake. I’d heard there was a bidding war after the most recent time the property had come up for sale.

I didn’t even know who’d owned it last. Mystery shrouded the property, which was half of its allure.

He smiled, a gesture that held absolutely no warmth. “Now it’s the Keller mansion.”

Then he was gone without even saying thank you or telling me his first name.

I exhaled into the suddenly loud silence, other than the soft classical music playing through the store’s speakers. It was as if all the air had been sucked out of the room with his absence.

And it was him. Rea’s so-called sex trafficking killer who wanted to hire a nanny.

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