Page 44 of Knotting on Heaven's Door

“Perfect.”

The air smelled of garlic, roasting vegetables, andrising panic. Our menu was intentionally simple—herb-roasted chicken, fresh bread, seasonal salads, and a rustic apple tart for dessert. But no one had planned to feed a small army.

The ovens were on full blast, every burner claimed. My staff moved in fast, sharp lines, voices raised, orders called. Sweat clung to everyone’s skin, but no one slowed down. Not when the stakes were this high.

I rolled up my sleeves and jumped in beside Mia, who was prepping trays of roasted carrots like she was born for this chaos.

“You could’ve stayed on logistics,” she said between tossing olive oil and cracked pepper. “You don’t have to be elbow-deep in root vegetables.”

“You think I’m letting you have all the fun?”

Her answering grin was quick, wild. “You know how to party.”

The next hour was a blur of chopping, mixing, slicing, and shouting.

Sebastian was near the back, handling meats with the confidence of someone who knew exactly how to manage time, heat, and pressure. He didn’t look my way once. Not that I noticed. Much.

Every time I thought we were caught up, another tray came in empty. Another call for more. More bread. More dressing. More plates.

We were running out ofeverything.

“Hot pans coming through!” Liam shouted, narrowly missing an intern who dropped a whole bucket of ice on the floor. I didn’t even flinch. Just stepped over it and kept moving.

The entire kitchen pulsed with energy. High-stress, high-speed,all-hands-on-decksurvival mode.

And gods help me…

Ilovedit.

This. Right here. The heat, the urgency, the desperate coordination of it all—it was where I felt alive. Not in some glassed-in office, not answering emails. But here. With the chaos. With my people. Making something out of the impossible.

We were deep in the trenches, and I wasn’t about to abandon them. Not now. Not ever.

The first real emergency hit just after one-thirty.

The salad station ran out of clean bowls. Not ran low—ran out. Someone had stacked the last of them for delivery plating, and the industrial dishwasher was already overloaded and moving slower than death on a rainy Monday.

“We need more bowls!” someone shouted over the roar of the ovens and the hiss of boiling water.

“I KNOW,” Mia yelled back, practically launching a crate of tomatoes across the prep counter. “Unless someone here knows how to conjure ceramic, we’re just going to have to reuse!”

I muttered a curse and bolted for the dish return. The bin overflowed—bits of uneaten lettuce, bread crusts, and half-melted tart pooling at the bottom like some post-apocalyptic stew.

No time to be squeamish.

I shoved the sleeves of my blouse up past my elbows, grabbed gloves, and began scrubbing faster than I’d ever washed anything in my life. Half a second later, another set of hands joined mine, steady, efficient.

Sebastian.

He didn’t say a word. Just rinsed, dried, and stacked beside me with brutal focus. Water splashed over his shirt, droplets clinging to the edge of his jaw. I didn’t look. Not really.

“Guess we’re running the dish pit now,” he said finally, his voice low, calm.

“Apparently,” I muttered. “You any good at juggling?”

His mouth curved into a smirk. “Only if it involves flamingknives.”

I rolled my eyes and tossed him a newly dried bowl. “We’ll test that later.”

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