Page 105 of The Werewolf’s Wrong Mate

“You can be angry,” I said quietly. “You just can’t use me as the excuse.”

His gaze lowered to mine. For a moment, the wolf receded enough that I saw the man beneath all that brutal control. Tired. Guilty. Listening.

“I don’t know how to want to kill him only for myself,” he said.

That was too honest.

I looked away first. “Work on that.”

“I am.”

Unfortunately, I believed him.

Lucien returned less than five minutes later with a cream envelope pinched between two fingers.

No blood. No shouting. No signs Grant had been introduced to a marble edge by Aunt Linda, which was disappointing but probably best for everyone.

Lucien handed the envelope to Ronan, and Ronan offered it to me.

The envelope had my name on it.

Cass, not Cassie.

The nickname looked obscene in his handwriting.

Grant’s note was written in the same clean, ornate script he used on anniversary cards, apology flowers, and once, memorably, a therapy worksheet where he had described my “fear of vulnerability” in blue-black ink.

Cass,

Seeing you hurt has shaken me more than I can explain. I know I do not have the right to say that, but I am tired of pretending this weekend has not stirred up things I thought I had buried.

When I saw you in that bed, I remembered us.

Not the fighting. Not the pain. The real parts.

The way you used to look at me when you were trying not to smile. The way you used to get sharp when you wanted me and didn’t want to admit it. The way your body knew mine before either of us needed words.

I should not be thinking about that now, I know that.

Tessa is good. She is sweet. She loves me in a way I know I should be grateful for.

But seeing you here, seeing you hurt, knowing I might have lost the chance to say anything honest to you, has made me question whether I mistook peace for love and comfort for desire.

There was always fire with us. Too much sometimes. Maybe that is why I ran from it. Maybe I convinced myself that what we had was damage because it frightened me to want someone with that much force.

I have not stopped thinking about your mouth. I know how that sounds. I know it is unfair. But almost losing you has stripped away a lot of the polite lies I have been telling myself.

If you feel even a fraction of what I felt when I saw you again, you know this is not finished.

I need to see you.

Alone.

G.

For a moment, I didn’t hear the ocean. I didn’t hear the hedges shifting in the wind or Ronan speaking low to Lucien. I didn’t hear Sava’s bag close or the distant murmur from the west side of the resort.

I heard Grant’s voice. Not as it had sounded when we were good. That was the trick. Men like Grant didn’t come back wearing horns. They came back wearing the voice that had once made you feel chosen.