Page 9 of Tempting Mr. Knightly

“Don’t,” she said.

He raised both hands and returned to his muffins.

The bell above the door chimed at exactly ten o’clock on Thursday morning. Lucy looked up from the counter where she’d been arranging sample trays for forty-five minutes, adjusting the placement of each pastry with a care that would have impressed a museum curator. She’d changed her apron twice. She’d swept the floor. She’d told herself this was standard preparation for any client meeting, and she was a liar.

Knox Knightly walked into Flour & Honey the way he probably walked into every room—like he’d already cataloged it, decided where the inefficiencies were, and was simply verifying his conclusions in person. Gray suit, wire-rimmed glasses, a leather binder tucked under one arm, and an expression that suggested he’d appraised her doorframe for resale value on the way in. Behind him, Gabriel and Tessa entered together, followed by Ronan with his hand resting at Devney’s waist.

Knox stopped two steps inside the door. His eyes found Lucy across the counter. She felt it like a hand pressed flat against her chest, solid and warm and absolutely unwelcome.

He wasn’t wearing a tie.

She noticed this and hated herself for noticing.

“Welcome to Flour & Honey,” she said, and her voice came out steady, which was a minor miracle. “The samples are in the back room. Coffee’s ready. Don’t touch the display case. Those are for paying customers.”

Knox’s gaze dropped to the counter, then to the rolling pin beside her hand. One eyebrow lifted behind those glasses. “Shall I assume the rolling pin is decorative, or should I consider it a warning?”

Lucy didn’t throw it at him. “That depends on how the meeting goes.”

Chapter 3

KNOX

The bakery smelled of butter and cinnamon and the sharp-sour edge of dough near the end of its proof. Knox had learned through long and bitter experience that smells like these usually preceded an ambush.

He’d been here before, plenty of times, and never once let the place register as anything but background.

Lucy was behind the counter, arranging sample trays as if one crooked cookie might ruin her entire reputation. She’d switched into a fresh apron since he’d last seen her. It was crisp, dark blue, tied at the waist. Her hair was pulled back, and flour dusted her left clavicle, a detail she either hadn’t noticed or didn’t care about.

Knox noticed.

He clocked the flour, the apron, the set of her jaw, and filed all of it under “irrelevant” with the same conviction he brought to forecasts that didn’t support his thesis.

Her voice was even, professional, not cold exactly but controlled, like a temperature she’d chosen and intended to hold.

His gaze swept the prep table, over the samples laid out in tidy rows and the piping bag set down without its cap. “Productive morning,” he said, “or strategic chaos?”

“That depends on how the meeting goes.”

Behind him, Gabriel made a sound that might have been a cough and was definitely a laugh. Tessa moved past them both toward the kitchen. “Lucy, the space looks wonderful. Have you got the tasting set up in the back room already? I can’t wait to see it.”

Lucy led them through the kitchen. Knox followed, keeping his eyes on the exposed brick and the industrial shelving and not on Lucy moving through her own space, fluid and certain, touching the equipment as she passed like each piece was an extension of her hands.

The back room was small and warm, crowded with the six of them around a farmhouse table. She’d laid out the sample trays with the exactness of an architect, rows of miniature pastries, each labeled in neat handwriting on folded card stock. Croissants, Danish, scones, and a row of lemon bars.

“These are preliminary,” Lucy said, standing at the head of the table. “I wanted to give you a range so we can narrow down the direction. Sweet, savory, or balanced. We can do all of them, but I need to know the tone of the event before I design the full dessert menu.”

Tessa pulled out a notebook. “Walk us through what you’re thinking.”

Lucy talked. She was good at this, Knox realized with an inconvenient clarity. She spoke about flavor profiles like he spoke about asset allocations, with specificity and confidence and an authority that made everyone in the room lean forward. She described the croissants as “classic, not fussy,” the scones as “substantial enough to anchor a morning without competing with champagne,” and the lemon bars as “the thing people remember days later.”

Knox picked up a lemon bar. The edges were even, the glaze perfect. He took a bite.

The lemon hit first, sharp and bright, balanced by a sweetness that came second and lingered. The crust was crumbly without being fragile. The ratio of filling to base was, by his accounting, impeccable.

“Well?” Lucy was watching him. Everyone was watching him, but Lucy’s attention was the only one he felt.

“Acceptable,” he said.