Page 233 of Sweet Ruin

And I’ve had ten years of men who never gave me that. Right now, I’m too tired and too happy and too naked to go hunting for the rest.

“Okay,” I say.

“Okay?”

“Okay.” I lie back down and pull his arm over me like a blanket. “Wake me up at three.”

I’m at work the next morning, happy and humming, dancing, bopping oven doors closed with my hips.

Priya’s stocking the walk-in. Cameron’s out on a run. Jolene is telling a man that no, we do not do gender reveals with colored filling anymore, ever, don’t ask again.

Then Jolene sticks her head through the doorway. “Delilah? Two guys out here want the owner.”

“Inspector?”

“Don’t think so. They’re in suits. Nice ones.”

I set down the bag and wipe my hands. I’m wary. Unexpected visits haven’t gone too well for me lately.

But why would I worry? Kane and I are going to last. My life is finally taking a turn for the better.

The men are standing at the counter. One is older, fifty or so, with silver hair combed hard to one side and a folder under his arm. The other is younger and taller with a flat frown.

“Ms. Dorsey.” Silver Hair puts out a hand. “Garrett Gates. This is my associate. We represent a group acquiring commercial parcels in this corridor.”

“We’re open ‘til six. Are you buying anything?”

It doesn’t take a genius to interpret that as a fairly polite version of “Please fuck off.” Mr. Gates smiles thinly and opens the folder on my counter. He extracts a page and hands it over to me.

It takes me a few read-throughs to be sure I’m getting the number right.

“That’s a joke,” I scoff.

“That’s a cash offer, ma’am. Thirty days to close, no financing contingency, no inspection contingency. We take the building as-is.” He taps the page. “Including the loading area, which I understand needs work.”

“You’re offering me less than I paid for it three years ago.”

“We’re offering you certainty,” he corrects.

The younger one finally speaks up. “It’s a difficult location, Ms. Dorsey. Difficult year, too, from what we understand.” He looks around the shop in a way that makes me understand he’s visualizing taking a wrecking ball to every bit of it, if that’s what it takes to make me sell. “Your dairy and dry-goods supplier terminated your account with no warning in February. Health inspection the following day, unannounced, on an anonymous complaint. Two dozen of your customers received cancellations from an address that wasn’t yours. And then a rental truck took out your curb and your bollard and left.”

“That’s a lot of digging in the muck for a guy who came in to buy a building,” I say through clenched teeth.

“It’s diligence, Miss.”

Gates raps his knuckles on the counter. “Ms. Dorsey, businesses in transitional corridors experience disruption. It compounds. One more event of that nature—a shutdown, a fire code issue, an insurance non-renewal, anything along those lines—and the numbers change. Not in your favor, either. I’d hate for you to be sitting across from me in June looking at a smaller number than this one.”

So that’s what this is.

A threat.

A shakedown.

A few months ago, it might’ve scared me.

Not anymore.

“No,” I say.