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She held up a hand. “There’s a point. I’m gettin’ to it. So he just lets her do whatever she wants because, well, let’s just say, I’m not sure her feet ever touched the ground for the entirety of their relationship, you get what I’m sayin’?”

“Er—Yes.” Unfortunately.

“Well, right before they break up, Laney has this brilliant idea for an ad campaign that will make men consider our bourbon a lifetime commitment.” She leveled a stare at me. “Did you see it?”

“Yeah.” I scrunched my nose. “It was⁠—”

“—not great.” Ivy nodded. “Which is exactly what I told him. But did he listen? No. Already spent the money, he said. What harm could it do, he said. Pardon my French, but men are dumbasses, Shay. They really are. So I’m sure you can guess what happened next.”

“The ad ran, women revolted and started pouring out their men’s Henley bourbon, and Gray-Freeman didn’t think y’all were a great buy anymore?”

She wagged her finger at me. “I knew you weren’t valedictorian for nothing. The only good to come out of all this is that he booted Laney Delacroix to the bin where she belongs. Not that he didn’t know that to begin with. Boy’s got a weakness for dark hair and a nice ass. Never let it be said that he doesn’t have a type.”

Her sculpted blond eyebrow raised as if that was supposed to mean something to me. I drummed my fingers on my legs, trying to figure out where I fit in.

“So Shep Senior—he’s still the head honcho, you know?—gets all in a tizzy. Tells us we need to fix it, and puts Cam in charge of undoing this damage.”

My heart stopped at the mention of his name. I’d known—of course I’d known—that the “he” was Camden Shepherd. Who else could she have meant? But the confirmation rattled my insides like a kid shaking a bag of popcorn. A sip of water wet my suddenly dry throat.

Ivy tilted her head, musing. “Which is fair, supposing as he’s kind of the reason it got out, but it’s a lot of damage to undo.”

“Ivy—”

She smiled. “Which is where you come in.”

“Me?”

Her shrewd gaze was back. “You’ve got experience in marketing to women.”

“Well, yes⁠—”

“And you’re well-known—dare I say, loved—around here for being progressive and inclusive and kind.”

“I don’t know if loved is—Maybe notorious?”

She set her elbows on the desk, ignoring me. “And you have a master’s in Gender and Sexuality.”

I sighed.

“Which makes you uniquely capable of helping us out of this little pickle.”

Mint green eyes regarded me with hope, and I deflated. “What exactly do you want me to do?”

She smirked like I’d already agreed. “Take a job here as a marketing coordinator. Organize some campaigns and events that will negate that antifeminist message. Let us associate our brand with the Sweetheart of Sugar Springs. Help us get Gray-Freeman back on board. Then, if you want, maybe you can stay on for a permanent position.”

I maintained a passive face, but my insides celebrated. A job! Maybe not necessarily what I wanted, but definitely what I needed—a paycheck.

Before I could respond, the door opened with a whoosh of air.

Camden Shepherd—the Camden Shepherd—entered, staring down at a paper in his hand. “Ivy, I need⁠—”

He glanced up, and those silvery-blue eyes landed right on me, words dying on his lips.

My insides heated, then melted into a vibrating mass in my belly as I transported instantly back to high school.

Nine years. I hadn’t seen him in nine years. One glance was all it took to neutralize nine full years of memory decay. It all came back in sharp relief—floodlights snapped on inside a dark room. He looked the same, but better. His clean-shaven jaw had hardened, and his cheekbones were now honed in his thin face. His sandy brown hair was shorter, more artfully tousled than it had been in high school. His shoulders inside that gray sweater had widened. Each drop of boyhood that still existed in his eighteen-year-old body was now gone at twenty-seven.

The brick layers I’d erected against those impossible teenage fantasies exploded into rubble, and it all came back in a flood.