Hudson’s door was open as I passed, so I knocked.

He looked up from a stack of papers, and I held up a box. “More of the perfume your grandmother liked.”

Hudson tossed his pen on the desk. “Thank you. Are you sticking around late again tonight?”

I nodded. “I have a lot to do. Your team is full speed ahead, and they’ve given me a ton to review already.”

“I’ve been going over your inventory and suppliers and have some ideas I’d like to run by you.”

“Sure. That’d be great. When do you want to do it?”

He motioned to the piles of papers on his desk. “I need a little time to finish up. How about six?”

“Sounds good.”

“Stella?” Hudson called as I turned to go.

“Yes?”

He motioned with his chin toward the box in my hand. “You forgot to give me the perfume.”

I smiled. “Oh. No, I didn’t. You’ll get it when you tell me what the smell was this morning.”

He shook his head with a smile. “Bring it to the conference room at six.”

A little after five, Hudson’s assistant called to ask if I liked Chinese food. Apparently Hudson and I were having a working dinner. I was definitely intrigued about spending some time alone with him. This would be my chance to correct my first—and second and third—impression and show him I wasn’t actually flighty.

At six on the nose, I went into the conference room, armed with a giant file of inventory data, a notebook, and the perfume I’d made. Hudson was already inside with papers spread out, and cartons of Chinese food sat in the middle of the table, along with plates and utensils.

“You ordered garlic chicken, huh?”

Hudson shook his head. “How the hell do you do that? I haven’t even opened the container.”

I smiled. “Cardboard can’t contain garlic.”

Hudson was seated at the head of the table, so I settled into a chair on his left. “Plus, I was going back and forth between garlic chicken and what I ordered, so I had garlic chicken on my mind.”

“What did you order?”

“Shrimp with broccoli.”

“We can share if you want.”

“Okay. Are we eating first or after?”

“Definitely first,” he said. “I didn’t eat lunch, so I’m starving.”

Hudson and I dished food onto our plates. He lifted his chin to the perfume box and said, “Baseball glove oil. Now pass that over, smartass.”

I smiled. “You play baseball at six in the morning?”

“No, but Charlie wants to join a peewee softball team. She only wanted the one purple glove they had at the store. Of course it’s a piece of crap. So I’ve been trying to make it softer by massaging oil into it so she can at least open the damn thing with her little hand.”

“Ah.” I nodded and pushed the box of perfume over to him. “Lanolin. I don’t know how I didn’t identify it.”

“Perhaps you should stick to gin.”

Hudson winked, and I felt a little flutter in my belly. God, I was pathetic. Why couldn’t a simple wink from Ben get me all hot and bothered? We’d had two dates and…nothing yet.

I popped a shrimp into my mouth. “Can I ask you something?”

“Would it stop you if I said no?”

I smiled. “Probably not.”

He chuckled. “No wonder you and my sister get along so well. What’s your question?”

“When exactly did you figure out I wasn’t who I said I was at Olivia’s wedding?”

“When you told me your last name was Whitley. Evelyn Whitley and my sister had been friends since high school. She was also close to my ex-wife for a while. The three of them travel in the same social circle. I suppose there could’ve been two women named Evelyn Whitley, but once you told me you’d worked at Rothschild Investments, it obviously confirmed my suspicions.”

I nibbled on my bottom lip. “So before that…when we danced that first time, you had no idea?”

Hudson shook his head. “No clue.”

“Yet you asked me to dance?”

A hint of a smile threatened at the corner of his lips. “I did indeed.”

My heart sped up. “Why?”

“Why did I ask you to dance?”

I nodded.

Hudson’s eyes dropped to my lips and lingered for a few seconds. “Because I thought you were interesting.”

“Oh…okay.”

He leaned close and lowered his voice. “And beautiful. I thought you were interesting and a knockout.”

My cheeks flushed. “Thank you.”

Hudson kept staring at me. I’d practically dragged the compliments out of the man, yet my face was beaming red.

He drummed his fingers on the table. “Anything else?”

“No.”

He grinned. “You’re sure?”

I nodded. But once again, after a minute of mulling things over, I changed my mind. “Actually…”

“Let me guess. One more question?”

“When I came to your office to pick up my cell, you asked me out to dinner, but I sort of got this weird feeling you were pissed off at yourself that you asked.”

He tilted his head. “You’re very perceptive.”

I bit my lip, debating my next question. But I really wanted to know the answer.

“Would we have gone out if I hadn’t accidentally given you the wrong number?”

The corner of Hudson’s lip twitched again. “I called, didn’t I?”

“Oh…yeah. Well, I guess everything worked out for the best anyway. We’ll be working closely together and wouldn’t want to muddy the waters.”

Hudson’s eyes flickered down to my lips again. “So if I asked you out right now, you would say no this time—because muddy water and all?”

Every part of my body wanted to go out with this man…except the part of my brain that had invested five years in my business. I just couldn’t do it.

I frowned. “I almost didn’t go forward with Signature Scent because of the mess I made with my last business partner.”

“You mentioned during your presentation that you had a partner but you bought them out.”

I nodded. “Yeah, it didn’t work out.”

Hudson seemed to be waiting for further explanation.

Sighing, I said, “My fiancé was my partner. When he became my ex-fiancé, I bought him out.”

Hudson nodded. “Is he a perfume chemist, too?”

I scoffed. “Definitely not. Aiden is a poet. At least that’s what he tells people. His paid occupation is teaching English at a community college.”

“A poet? That doesn’t sound like a very helpful business partner.”

“He wasn’t. He didn’t help with the development at all, but he contributed to the start-up funds.”

“What came first? The broken business partnership or the broken relationship?” Hudson forked a piece of shrimp and ate it.

“Hmmm... I guess what came first was him having sex with someone who wasn’t me.”

Hudson started to choke.

“Shit. Are you okay?”