Page 42 of California Wild

Here.

Then gone.

She had seen him. She was sure of it. Tall frame in a gray T-shirt, inked forearms, that familiar cut of his jaw catching in the bar lights like a memory come to life.

But the booth he’d been leaning against was empty now. The crowd had swallowed him whole, and the room felt colder for it.

Her stomach twisted in protest.

Why did he leave?

More importantly—why did it matter?

“Hayley.”

A voice at her ear.

She didn’t have to turn to know who it was.

Caiden.

Of course.

His arm slid around her shoulders with the ease of someone who thought he belonged there.

“What are you looking for?” he asked, his tone too soft, too knowing.

Hayley blinked, willing the noise of the bar to distract her. The crowd pressed in. The laughter, the drinks, the music. She clung to it, like it could drown out the knot in her chest.

“Nothing,” she said lightly, voice laced with that practiced charm. The one she used in interviews, backstage lounges, green rooms full of strangers.

But Caiden wasn’t buying it.

He tipped his head, those pale blue eyes narrowing. “You sure?”

She peeled his arm off gently—polite, graceful, like the princess she knew how to be. Smiled as she stepped out from under his touch. “I just need some air.”

He sighed through his nose, already annoyed, but didn’t stop her.

“Don’t disappear,” he muttered.

She didn’t answer.

Because she already had.

The second the cold night hit her skin, Hayley felt it slice through the haze of tequila and static in her chest.

The back alley behind The Holding Company was dim and grimy, the kind of place that smelled like cigarettes and stale beer, lit only by a tired streetlamp flickering above the dumpsters.

But Jesse was already halfway down the alley, walking like he needed to outrun something burning in his blood.

She didn’t think.

Didn’t stop to ask herself why.

She just followed.

“Jesse!”

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