Page 2 of Burning Hearts
Standard King – $600/night
Obscenely overpriced for a bed and a minibar.
That’s when I saw the next line item, labeled COMP:
Magnolia Suite – $3,000/night
My eye twitched as the doors opened on a suite that smelled of money and lemon oil.
The space sprawled out before me—two thousand square feet of “don’t touch that” pretending to be a room. Even the coasters had better posture than me. My one-bedroom apartment in Atlanta could fit in the foyer alone. Heart-pine floors, walls wrapped in silk grasscloth that caught the lamplight.
A carved magnolia panel on the wet bar so pretty it made me a little mad.
I set down my bag, snapped my cufflink into place, and followed a ribbon of air through terrace doors barely left ajar.
The terrace perched over Peachtree Commons, busy like a stage before curtain. Catering staff wheeled in chafers under perfectly crisp white linens as a florist fluffed magnolia leaves like she’d been trained in Paris.
Down by the fountain, a man in rolled sleeves moved a warming tray two feet and somehow made it look like a rescue.
“Cade!” the florist called. “Do firefighters come with a built-in urge to rearrange everything?”
The man didn’t raise his voice or hover. He pointed once, spoke once, and the whole setup quietly fell into line. The kind of calm that made other people remember to exhale.
He looked to be in his mid-thirties, broad through the chest, steady through the shoulders, strong jaw. He had neat brown hair cut short and straight. Fit from taking flights of stairs. That quiet-hot thing some men never learn and few are born with.
The tray settled, the vendor and the florist nodded, grateful. Cade half-smiled—more crease than grin—the kind you only see when someone thinks no one’s watching. He pivoted, scanning heat sources and pinch points without touching a single piece of décor.
Then his eyes flickered up.
They passed over the balcony—over me, over the French doors—and kept moving.
If he’d seen me at all, he’d probably filed me under “fixtures.”
Not a hazard, not exactly useful either.
I remembered the Magnolia Suite behind me.
“Producer’s note,” I told myself, under my breath. “Cut the balcony villain angle. Try ‘Humble bystander with a crush.’”
Because perched up here, looking down at him, I was every Riverfield resident’s worst nightmare: the heir surveying his little town. If a man like Cade learned my employer was in the running for the Langford Prize, he’d probably assume I’d be carried to the finish line.
But I wasn’t bankrolled. Just bank-adjacent, which was its own public relations problem.
Cade said something to the florist—two words, maybe three—and she shifted her ladder off an egress line like he’d done her a favor. He smoothed the front of his shirt, checked his watch,then took the hotel steps two at a time and vanished under the portico.
I wondered if he’d be a finalist for the Langford Prize, but I wouldn’t know until the drawing.
For a moment, I pictured Cade inside, changing. Casual to formal, ready to be looked at.
My phone dinged. A text from Tansy shook me back to reality.
Tansy:Where are you, dear? The ball starts soon! Langfords are never tardy.
But this Langford wasn’t like the others. Aunt Tansy and Uncle Harlan had made their billions in steel and moved out here to play benevolent dynasty; I made a salary in Atlanta and watched my card bounce in their lobby.
I worked as a producer for Signal House, a scrappy Atlanta media studio doing live streams, podcasts, micro-documentaries, whatever kept the rent paid and the ring lights on. Lately I’d been angling for a promotion to Executive Producer. A guy’s allowed to dream.
Riverfield had hired us to produce Residency Week. They wanted us to livestream The Peach Ball, grab segments for Beau Fontaine’sThe Town Talk, and cut the entire thing into shiny promos for the bank and the business council.
