The Mistress ✓

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I lock the door and sag against the wooden panel as soon as it shuts behind her with a decisive click. My body trembles like I just survived an encounter with the anti-Christ. All that's left of Robyn Fenty in my office is her deceptively alluring scent-an intense burst of Creed, Aventus-and my terror.

And I can't forget the promissory note. My gaze darts to the desk and then away.

My gaze darts to the desk and then away. It has to be fake. Meek did not borrow five hundred thousand dollars using the distillery as collateral, because he certainly didn't use the money for any of the improvements I've been making. Every dollar that has gone into this place has been courtesy of the dog-and-pony show I put on for what seemed like every banker in town.

I'm in debt up to my eyeballs. Or, at least, I was. Now I'm in over my head. Robyn Fenty. I squeeze my eyes shut and lift my chin toward the ceiling, inwardly cursing my dead husband. My dad would probably say I'd be better off looking down to find his spirit.

How could you do this to me, you asshole?

This debt... to that woman... is the final nail in Meek's proverbial coffin. How could I have not seen through him for the user he was?

Self-recrimination floats through me for the thousandth time. It's like a bad rerun on TV I can't help let play on. I fell for his bullshit lines. Thought we were going to build my family's empire again. I thought I found a partner. I was the dumbass who suggested eloping because I was so convinced he was the one.

It didn't take long before I realized he was an opportunistic asshole who cheated on me since before we were even married and started skimming money from the distillery bank account as soon as he had access.

I slap my palms against the solid oak door behind me.

"Fuck you, Meek. Fuck. You."

I take a deep breath, open my eyes, and straighten my spine. My pity party is over. I've spent just over three months dealing with the fallout of his death, only a month longer than we were married, and just when I thought I was finally back on solid ground... Robyn Fenty happens.

I glance once more at the document sitting on my desk. The desk my great-grandfather had shipped over from Trinidad and Tobago that he'd sat at when they'd signed the very first lease for Seven Sinners Distillery property. There'd been seven sons, and their optimism about ruling the whiskey market had been undeniable.

I thought I finally proved myself worthy of sitting behind that desk when my father agreed to let me buy him out. I was so proud to be the first woman to take the helm of a distillery producing the finest whiskey in New Orleans, where our family planted roots and came to prosper even with the bitch of a law called prohibition.

Part of me wishes I'd been alive during those days if lawlessness. When might made right, and a man-or a woman-could rise and fall according to how hard he or she was willing to work. But then again, I could picture Robyn Fenty there too with a tommy gun, eliminating every bit of competition in her way. Except she was probably still eliminating her competition the same way even now.

Actually, I have no idea how we managed to escape her notice this long, but apparently that lucky streak is over.

I summon my ladyballs and cross the cold, cracked floor to look down on the document that sits on the desk so innocently. I reach out as though I should have a hazmat suit on before I touch it, and grasp a corner of the paper between a thumb and forefinger.