Page 32 of Once You Go Pack
“She did. By three minutes. The boy was so humiliated he didn’t speak to her for two years.”
“I love her already,” Mila said, wiping tears of laughter from her eyes. “She sounds so fearless.”
“She is. Sometimes recklessly so.”
“And you’re not?”
The question caught him off guard. “I’m cautious.”
“Or just boring.”
Did she just call me boring?
“Not boring. Responsible,” he corrected, but he was fighting a smile.
“That’s definitely what all the girls would want to hear.”
The teasing note in her voice made his pulse quicken. This playful side of her was invigorating—so different from the careful politeness she’d shown at breakfast.
“My mother used to say that duty without heart becomes chains,” he found himself saying. “She believed in joy, in living fully. When she died, everything became duller.”
Mila’s expression softened. “She sounds wonderful.”
“She was.” The words came easier than expected. “She would have liked you a lot.”
“What makes you say that?”
Because you’re bringing me back to life,he thought.Because when I’m with you, I remember what it feels like to want something more.
“She believed people were more than their roles or their status,” he said instead.
The last course arrived, but neither of them was really focused on the food anymore. The tension between them had shifted, deepened, becoming something electric that made the air itself seem charged.
When Mila laughed at something he said—really laughed, throwing her head back with pure delight—something changed in him completely. The careful walls he’d built around his heart didn’t just crack, they shattered.
His wolf clawed to the surface, every instinct screaming at him to claim her, to mark her, to make sure she could never leave. The urge was so strong it left him dizzy, his hands gripping the edge of the table.
I can’t. Not yet. She deserves choice. She deserves safety first.
But when they both reached for the wine bottle at the same time and their hands brushed, something shot through him so intensely he almost leaned across the table and kissed her senseless.
Her warm presence felt like a promise. But his restraint felt like a punishment.
ELEVEN
MILA
The royal car’s interior felt smaller on the return journey. The silence between them was thick with unspoken promises and barely restrained desire. Mila pressed herself against the leather seat, hyperaware of every breath Cade took beside her and every subtle shift of his powerful frame. The wine from dinner had left her pleasantly warm and her inhibitions were softened around the edges.
He went through all that trouble for me.
The thought kept circling through her mind, sweet and disbelieving. The reserved restaurant, the perfect lighting, the way he’d listened to every word she said as if she were sharing state secrets instead of memories. No man had ever made her feel so... treasured.
So much for emotional distance.
The resolution she’d made last night—to keep things controlled, to make his life easier by staying detached—crumbled like ancient parchment.
How could she maintain her walls when he’d spent the entire evening dismantling them with gentle questions and that devastating smile?
