Page 19 of Tempted By The Forbidden Mountain Man

Dante's cooking actually. He's making his abuela's enchiladas for the pre-retreat staff dinner. Apparently this is a big deal and I've been warned not to mess with his timeline.

Talia:

A man who cooks AND does security sweeps. Living the dream Whitfield.

Living the dream. Six months ago those words would've sounded sarcastic coming from me. Now they're just true.

The Holiday Gala in December was my first fully designed event on the retainer. Sold out in seventy two hours. Talia's social media campaign drove a thirty percent membership inquiry spike. Noah called it "the best event Club Crimson has ever produced," which from Noah Kane is basically a standing ovation with fireworks.

After the Gala, the bookings started coming in. Corporate retreats. Private parties. A wellness weekend collaboration with a resort in Revelstoke that wants to partner for next fall. My inbox went from sparse to overflowing, and for the first time in my career, I'm turning work down because I have too much, not too little.

My mom called last week. "Sloane Marie, I told your auntie about the magazine feature and she cried. I also cried. Your father would be so proud."

Daddy died when I was twelve. Heart attack in the middle of a church parking lot on a Sunday morning. My mom raised me alone after that, working two jobs, making sure I never felt the gap where he used to be. She filled it with expectations, ambitions, plans. Be something, Sloane. Build something nobody can take from you.

She meant a career. She got a career and a mountain man with tattoos who calls her señora when she visits and makes her coffee exactly the way she takes it (two sugars, splash of cream, served in the mug he bought specifically for her that says WORLD'S TOUGHEST MOTHER IN LAW even though we're not married yet).

Yet. That word keeps sneaking into my thoughts lately.

The staff dinner happens at six in the main lodge kitchen. Dante takes over the entire prep area, sleeves pushed to his elbows, tattoos visible, moving through the kitchen with the same controlled precision he brings to a security sweep. Enchiladas, rice, beans, a green salsa made from tomatillos he drove forty minutes to buy from a farm stand outside Castlegar because the ones at the Crimson Hollow grocery store "aren't right."

Sage perches on the counter eating chips and salsa, offering unsolicited commentary on his technique. "You're not using enough cumin."

"My grandmother used exactly this much cumin."

"Your grandmother was wrong."

"You called her for the empanada recipe. She likes you. Don't ruin it."

"She likes me more than she likes you. She told me on the phone."

Rivera sits at the end of the prep table, eating directly from the salsa bowl with a spoon, watching Dante and Sage argue with the resigned amusement of a man who has witnessed this exact exchange at least a dozen times.

"They do this every time he cooks," Rivera tells me.

"Every single time."

"And he always uses the same amount of cumin."

"And she always says it's not enough."

"You two know I can hear you," Dante says without turning around.

"We know." Rivera takes another spoonful. "We don't care."

This is my life now. Staff dinners where the security team eats with the event coordinator. Saturday breakfasts at Bean & Bloom where Venus does my braids at the corner table while Sage slides me a cinnamon roll. Wednesday night dinners at Paolo's where Dante orders the same lasagna every time and Paolo doesn't even write it down anymore. Sundays at the cabin where we don't set alarms, don't check emails, don't leave the bed until noon unless Dante decides to make me breakfast, which he does every single Sunday because he's the kind of man who shows up even when showing up means scrambled eggs at ten AM in sweatpants.

The cabin. Our cabin, technically. He asked me to move in three months ago over the most unromantic dinner in history. Takeout containers from the Thai place in Nelson, both of us in pajamas on his couch, his hand on my thigh while we watched a documentary about volcanoes.

"Move in," he said. Eyes on the screen. Casual. A man proposing cohabitation with the same energy as suggesting a different Netflix show.

"That's how you ask?"

"How would you like me to ask?"

"With literally any effort."

He'd turned to me then. Put the takeout container on the coffee table. Took my face in both hands. "Move into my cabin. Wake up with me every morning. Fight me about the thermostat. Leave your heels by the door so I trip over them at four AM. Let me make you breakfast. Let me love you here, where it's ours."