Devlin Marsh fixes dying companies and is gone before the paint dries. Ninety days at a failing rye distillery in the Monongahela valley, a clean turnaround, a partner's chair waiting back in the city, then gone, the way she's always gone.
Except she isn't there to help. She's a condition of the loan. The bank that holds the note sent her, and Cole Aldergrove can't fire the woman brought in to decide whether four generations of his family are worth saving or worth selling for parts.
He watched an outsider in a good suit talk his grandfather out of everything once. The old man didn't survive it. So wherever Devlin goes on his property, Cole goes: ledgers, still house, rickhouse, a step behind her the whole quarter. He means it as a cage. He doesn't count on wanting her in the room.
Ninety days to save the distillery, and the only fix that works is the one thing Cole swore he'd never allow and the one thing Devlin has spent her whole life refusing. The last barrel his grandfather never lived to empty is still in the rickhouse, the old man's chalk on the head. Before the quarter is out, someone has to decide whose name gets cut in beside his. And whether the woman with the packed bag is finally going to unpack it.
Closed-door · slow burn · enemies to lovers · forced proximity · standalone · happily ever after