Page 21 of Craved By the Werewolf
The spell should have held. We should have kissed again, or talked about what this meant, or figured out how to navigate whatever was happening between us.
Instead, reality crashed back in like a bucket of ice water.
"I'm going to LA," I blurted out, the words tumbling over each other in my rush to get them out. "Monday. After House Party. I might be leaving Mystic Ridge."
Thorne went very still, his hands dropping from my face like I'd burned him.
He just stared at me, and I watched the realization rolled over him in waves. First confusion, then understanding, then something that looked almost like grief.
"LA," he said finally, his voice carefully controlled.
"Corporate wants to talk about a national syndication deal," I said miserably. "Bigger markets, everything I've been working toward. I have to take the meeting."
He stepped back, putting distance between us that felt like a chasm. "Of course you do."
"Thorne, I?—"
"It's fine," he said, but his voice suggested it was anything but fine. "You have your career to think about. Your future."
The careful politeness in his tone was somehow worse than anger would have been. I wanted to explain, to tell him that the thought of leaving felt wrong in a way I couldn't articulate, that standing here with him made LA seem like a foreign country I had no interest in visiting.
But how could I explain something I didn't understand myself?
"This is the worst possible timing."
He nodded curtly, already pulling back into himself, retreating behind the walls I'd glimpsed him lowering.
"I should take you back to your car," he said.
The offer was polite, distant, everything that the last hour hadn't been. I wanted to refuse, to stay and fight for whatever this was, but the shuttered look in his eyes told me that moment had passed.
"Okay," I said.
The hike back down the trail was silent. Every step felt heavier than the last, the magic of the forest spirits and the breathtaking view already feeling like something that had happened to someone else. Even the short drive to where I'd left my car felt endless, filled with everything we weren't saying.
"Thank you," I said when he pulled up next to my Honda. "For the tour. For showing me the Lookout."
"You're welcome." Professional. Polite. Nothing like the man who'd kissed me like I was everything he'd been searching for.
I climbed into my car without looking back, but I could feel his eyes on me until I pulled out of the compound gates.
It wasn't until I was halfway home that I realized I was crying.
The tears didn't make sense. This was what I wanted, wasn't it? The promotion, the bigger platform, the chance to make a real impact beyond the borders of our town.
But as I drove through the streets of Mystic Ridge, past the coffee shop where I'd learned to love caffeine, past the bookstore where I'd discovered the calming effect of a good book and a quiet place to rest, past Haven House where the windows glowed warm with the promise of safety for kids who needed it, leaving felt less like an opportunity and more like a betrayal.
Of the town. Of myself.
Of the man who'd just shown me his secret sanctuary and kissed me like I mattered.
And I still had to face him again. Still had to be professional, still had to stand beside him while pretending my heart wasn't being torn in different directions.
I pulled into my driveway and sat in the dark for a long time, staring at my little house and trying to remember why a national radio career had ever seemed like something worth wanting.
But Monday was still coming, and the meeting was still happening.
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