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But she slows down. Just slightly. A half step of hesitation near the fire pit where the light catches the sharp line of her jaw. Then she keeps walking.

I watch her go. The hem of her blazer hits just above her hips. The heels make her walk deliberate, measured. She turns the corner toward the vendor staging area, and the darkness takes her.

Seventy two hours. That's all this is. Three days of work, a clean paycheck, and then back to my regular rotation at Club Crimson where the only women I interact with are the ones I'm professionally obligated to keep safe and not think about.

Three days.

I've survived worse.

CHAPTER TWO

SLOANE

Seven fifty-three AM. The north entrance bottleneck is worse than my diagrams suggested.

Standing at the junction where the gravel path meets the bonfire circle, measuring tape stretched between my hands, I can see exactly what Dante Morales saw last night. The cedar posts for the string lights are set too close together. Four feet of walkway when we need at least five and a half for two way traffic during peak hours. Moving the posts means restringing sixty feet of lights before the gates open at ten.

Seven fifty three. He said eight.

My coffee is hot this morning. Small victory. The lodge kitchen has a proper espresso machine behind the bar, and Sage Harris dropped off a fresh batch of pastries at six thirty with a thermos of something she called her autumn blend. It's good. Better than anything I packed from Vancouver.

The air up here does something to mornings. Everything is sharper. Colder. The mountains around Crimson Hollow catch the early light in layers, gold at the peaks bleeding into amber through the tree line. Mist sits in the valley below, and when the breeze shifts, I can smell woodsmoke from last night's bonfire embers. My blazer isn't warm enough. The silk blouse underneath definitely isn't warm enough. But I dressed for the job, because that's what I do, because that's always what I do.

This contract matters. Noah Kane didn't hire me because I'm the cheapest option or the most experienced one. He hired me because Talia Monroe Kane saw the immersive dining event I designed for a boutique hotel in Whistler last spring and told her husband I had "something." Whatever that something is, I have seventy two hours to prove it exists at scale.

Twenty four years old. Running a weekend event for one of the most exclusive private clubs on the West Coast. If this goes well, my name stops being "up and coming" and starts being the one people call first.

If it goes badly, I go back to Vancouver with a portfolio gap and the same two corporate clients who book me for company picnics that make me want to scream into a centerpiece.

Footsteps on gravel. Steady, unhurried. Boots, not dress shoes.

"You're early." I don't turn around.

"So are you."

Dante stops beside me. Close enough that I can feel body heat radiating off him in the cold morning air. He's in a dark henley today, sleeves pushed to his elbows despite the temperature, forearms bare. Military tattoos. Script on the left, something geometric on the right, both faded enough to be old work. Tactical pants, boots, radio clipped at his hip.

He's holding two coffees.

"Sage said you were drinking her autumn blend. Figured you might want a second one." He extends the cup.

And this is the problem. This man. This specific man who measured my venue before I asked him to, who identified both bottleneck points independently, who showed up seven minutes early with coffee.

"Thank you." Our fingers brush during the handoff. Warm skin against cold knuckles. Brief. Neither of us acknowledges it.

"So." He looks at the cedar posts. "Pull two or reroute?"

"Pull two. Rerouting would mess with the flow I designed for the bonfire circle entrance. People need to see the fire first when they come through. It's the anchor of the whole experience."

He nods. No argument. No suggestion that I'm overcomplicating it. Just a nod, a glance at the posts, and then he's walking toward the nearest one with the measuring tape already out.

We work for twenty minutes in near silence. He measures, I note dimensions on my clipboard. We move to the second bottleneck at the path junction near the cider station, where the same spacing issue creates a funnel effect between the Ember Lounge walkway and the outdoor seating.

"If we angle the cider station forty five degrees," he says, crouching at the path edge, "foot traffic splits naturally. People coming from the lounge go left to the seating. People coming from the bonfire go right to the bar. Nobody stacks up."

He draws the angle in the gravel with his finger. Clean, precise. The kind of spatial thinking that comes from years of reading terrain for threats and flow.

"That's good." The words leave my mouth before the professional filter catches them. Too honest. Too immediate.