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Nuni,

Pleasure meeting you and Felik. Gorgeous office, by the way (designed by Rorik + Stimis, I presume?).

Anita (copied in) will be leading on the event. She is a consummate professional and a real stickler for details, so I have the utmost confidence that you will be beyond satisfied with her work.

Best,

Corva

I scrubbed a hand over my face, silently groaning. Was it just me, or did Corva’s wording choices sound a little… suggestive? No, it was just me. It was only because I’d stupidly let my mind wander to what Nuni var Rorik would be like in bed. I didn’t even know why I’d started thinking about it—he wasn’t my type. Not that I had a type, but if I had, it wouldn’t be him.

Exhaling, I scrolled up a little more to finally read his response, sent just two minutes after Corva’s email.

Great. Thanks, both.

I stared at it. That was it? No list of demands telling us he wanted go-go dancers or a trained tiger or a corner of the room reserved for a beer pong tournament?

As soon as I thought it, I squirmed guiltily in my seat. I knew I was being unfairly judgemental based on one meeting with the guy. He’d been nothing but polite and professional, even when his partner had clearly been trying to flirt with Corva.

And maybe she was wrong. Maybe he would be easy to work with, even if he insisted on being involved throughout the whole process.

With that in mind, I opened a new email to him, copying in Lipa. I didn’t copy in Corva—she got about a million emails a day, so there was no need unless it was absolutely pertinent. She’d handed the event over to me. She was trusting me with it. I had no idea why that felt so important. She’d trusted me with dozens of other events in the past.

Dear Mr var Rorik,

I look forward to working with you and your associates for your firm’s ten-year anniversary event. Please feel free to email me with any other ideas you may have while we’re in the early stages. Otherwise, I’ll be in touch soon to arrange a visit to the proposed venue. I’m sure you’re very busy, so it’s absolutely no problem if Lipa attends on your behalf.

I’m sure you’ll be pleased to know that we’ve already booked Piquante to cater. Great choice, by the way.

Best wishes,

Anita

I stared at the email for a solid minute, then deleted the Great choice, by the way. He didn’t care about my opinion—he’d picked them because he knew they were the best.

I hovered the cursor over the send button, unsure why I was hesitating. Why I felt all squirmy. I’d sent a thousand emails like this.

“You okay, hon?” Hustin’s voice made me jolt and accidentally hit send, my stomach bottoming out when I heard the little whoosh sound letting me know the email was out there in the ether now, about to reach his inbox in a split second. Fuck. I hadn’t given it a final read-through for any errors! What if I’d spelled something wrong? Crap, what if I’d spelled his name wrong?

Frantically clicking to my sent items, I shot Hustin a distracted, “Yeah, all good.”

I breathed a sigh of relief when I saw that I had not, in fact, spelled his name wrong, but before I could scan the rest of the email, a notification popped up in the corner of my screen. He’d already replied.

I didn’t let myself read into that. I was the same—I couldn’t let unread emails sit in my inbox. And he was probably so busy that if he didn’t get back to people straight away, it’d quickly slip down his list.

Anita,

Great news about the catering.

I’ll be there. Just let me know the time and date.

Nuni

Letting out a slow breath, I sat back, my foot tapping restlessly under my desk. Well, okay. That went well.

And when I went with him to visit the venue, I definitely would not be thinking about what he was like in bed. What he looked like with his hair all messed up against a pillow. Maybe whether that strangely alluring tail of his would swish around wildly while he was—

Snatching up my tablet, I bent my head and quickly searched for the Blackgrass building’s website so I could get their number to arrange a visit. No point wasting time, right? Locking down the venue was one of the first steps.