Page 31 of Ranger's Secret

"Doesn't it?" She finally looks at me, and her eyes are full of tears she's fighting not to shed. “My career is ruined. The promotion I've been killing myself for is gone. And for what? A week of good sex with someone I can never have a real relationship with anyway?"

"We could have a real relationship."

"How?" Her voice cracks. "Maya would never forgive me."

"I know my sister. She'll be surprised, maybe upset at first, but she'll come around. She loves you."

"Not enough to forgive me for this." She wipes her eyes with the back of her hand. "God, what am I going to tell her? How do I explain that I threw away everything because I couldn't keep my hands off her brother?"

"You tell her the truth. That we fell in love."

"Love." She laughs, but there's no humor in it. "More like mutual destruction."

She steps back, creating distance between us. "This can't work, Jagger. It was stupid of me to think it could, even for a week."

"So that's it? You're just giving up?"

She turns to walk away, and panic claws at my chest.

"Delaney, wait…"

"I'm going back to my cabin to pack. The program ends tomorrow anyway." She doesn't look back. "This is over. Please respect that and don’t come after me."

I watch her disappear into the darkness, taking my heart with her.

I don’t sleepthat night. I pace my cabin, replaying the conversation on a loop. Picking apart every word, every look,searching for something I could’ve said differently. Some way I could’ve made her stay.

By morning, I've come up with a dozen arguments, a hundred reasons why she's wrong about us being impossible. But when I get to her cabin, she's already gone.

"Delaney left about an hour ago," one of the other volunteers tells me. “Said she had an emergency."

An emergency. That’s what I am to her now, some kind of disaster she needs to evacuate from before the damage spreads.

The other volunteers are packing up, getting ready for their own departures. Brett looks particularly pleased with himself, probably already planning how to spend the commission from landing the Trailbound account. The account that should have been Delaney's.

I want to punch something. Preferably his fucking face.

Instead, I throw myself into cleanup duties, trying to work off the rage and frustration and heartbreak that's eating me alive. Physical labor has always been my therapy, but today it's not enough. Nothing could be enough to fill the hole Delaney left behind.

My phone buzzes with a text from Maya:How was the program? How’d Delaney do?

I stare at the message for a long time, trying to figure out how to respond. How do I tell my sister that I fell in love with her best friend? That I ruined Delaney's career in the process? That the life I'm getting back to feels empty without the woman who just walked out of it?

I finally type back.I'll call you later.

Not exactly a lie, but not the truth either. Just like everything else about this week.

By afternoon, the last of the volunteers have left. I finish the final equipment checks and file my report, going through the motions of my job while my mind is hundreds of miles away.

Delaney is probably back to her apartment, her real life, the career she's going to have to rebuild from scratch because of me. She's probably already crafting explanations for her boss, trying to figure out how to spin what happened into something salvageable.

She's probably already regretting every moment we spent together.

The thought makes me fucking ill.

My phone rings, and for a wild moment, I think it might be her. That she's changed her mind, realized we can work through this together.

It's my supervisor instead, asking if I have time for a conversation about some concerns that have been brought to his attention regarding the volunteer program.

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