Page 79 of Beastly Mountain Man

“When something goes wrong at work, I don’t usually think everyone else failed me,” I continued. “I think I should have seen it sooner. Asked one more question. Made the responsibility clearer. Followed up one more time.”

“Even when it was somebody else’s responsibility?”

“Especially then, because if I could have prevented it, I think I should have.”

Saying it aloud made the logic sound less impressive than it had inside my head.

I gave a quiet laugh.

“That may be why Glenn sent me here.”

Lucky’s hand stopped moving against my upper arm.

“Glenn sent you?”

There it was—the part I hadn’t told him.

I shifted so I could see his face.

“My current production had a talent problem. One of the leads walked out during filming. Two other cast members threatened to follow.”

Lucky’s expression sharpened, but he didn’t interrupt.

“I kept trying to contain it. Every new complaint led me into another conversation, another department, another decision. I thought if I could keep enough pieces from moving, I could stop the whole thing from coming apart.”

“What did Glenn say?”

“He told me to leave the set for four days.”

Lucky’s eyebrows rose.

“He didn’t fire me,” I said quickly. “I’m still employed. Still paid. He called it a cooling-off period.”

“And you heard?”

The question was gentle.

“Failure.”

Lucky nodded once, not in agreement but in recognition.

“I drove up here with my laptop because I thought if I stayed useful enough from a distance, I could go back with everything fixed. Then being sent away wouldn’t count as something I had failed at.”

The admission sat heavily in the room.

Bear shifted on the rug and let out a long sigh.

I looked at the fire rather than Lucky.

“The worst part is that the team has been doing well without me.”

“You already told me they were handling things.”

“I know. And I’m proud of them. I mean that. They’re talented people.” I rubbed my thumb over the seam of my leggings. “But there’s a part of me that hears ‘they didn’t need you for this’ and turns it into ‘maybe they don’t need you at all.’”

Lucky leaned forward, forearms resting on his thighs.

He considered what I had said instead of answering with the first reassuring thing available.