“Why couldn’t she have just gotten married here?”

“Because she didn’t want to,” Van says and pats me on the cheek, hard. She’s stronger than she looks.

Her phone rings with a call from her assistant.

“Yes?” Van says.

“There’s a Mallory Adams here to see you.”

“Oh, great. She can come in.” Van smiles at me. “Mallory and I are going out for lunch.”

“Is this the Mallory that rents the shop below my apartment?” I ask, just as the woman herself walks through the door.

“That’s me,” she says with a smile, and my tongue immediately sticks to the roof of my mouth. I always pictured her as a matronly woman, in voodoo witch dresses and long dreadlocks.

I was wrong.

Her hair is long and red, in soft curls. Her eyes are wide, and a curious shade between blue and purple. She’s taller than my sisters, but not by much, and she’s curvy in all the right places.

There’s nothing matronly about her.

She’s fucking beautiful.

“Mallory, this is Beau,” Van says with a wicked grin. “Also known as the pain in your ass.”

“He’s not that bad,” Mallory replies as she approaches the desk. She holds an envelope out to me, and our hands brush as I take it, making her eyes dilate. “I thought I’d drop the rent by, since I was here anyway.”

“Thank you.”

Is that my voice?

“You’re welcome.” She takes a step back and her eyes roam all around my head and shoulders, and she smiles widely. “I like you already, Beau Boudreaux.”

I raise a brow. “Really?”

“Mm.” She turns her attention to Van. “Should we go?”

“Sure.” Van grins and reaches for her bag. “I love what you’ve done with your hair.”

“Thank you. It was time for a change.”

Both women walk out of the office, and I still can’t move, struck dumb by the surprise of Mallory Adams.

I’m going to have to visit her shop in the near future.