CALL IMMEDIATELY.
The screen’s harsh blue light illuminated Noah’s face as he read the message upside down. Something shuttered behind his eyes, with the familiar wall coming back up brick by brick. His hands fell away from my waist, leaving cold spots where his warmth had been.
“Duty calls.” Noah’s voice had lost its softness.
“Yeah.” I shoved my phone back in my pocket without responding to the calls. “LuxeLife can wait.”
Noah took a step back, the physical distance between us expanding into something more significant.
“It’s getting late. We should head back so we can take another run at Devil’s Ridge tomorrow. It will be good content for Victoria. So she can sell her resort, and I can hopefully keep my life together.”
“Right.”
“Plus, the sooner we finish this, the sooner you can get back to Los Angeles. Where you belong.”
When I looked back up at him, his eyes were empty, hisface hard. It was a stark reminder of what I was really there to do. I was there tocreatecontent … not get cozy with it.
“You’ll need your rest,” said Noah.
“Right. More authentic adventures.” The edge in Noah’s tone must have been contagious, because it had infected my voice, too.
Chapter Twenty-Three
The lobby was eerily quiet after Noah dropped me off, the eyes of the mounted elk heads following me as I made my way through. The other guests were still out at the festival or tucked away in their rooms. After saying goodbye to Brie, the walk back to his Jeep had stretched longer than it had earlier, the comfortable silence replaced by something heavy and awkward.
The elevator hummed softly as it carried me to the penthouse floor, giving me exactly thirty-two seconds to contemplate the near-miss of whatever had almost happened with Noah on that dance floor.
My suite welcomed me with its perfectly curated luxury; the fireplace automatically flickered to life as I entered. It all felt hollow somehow, the Egyptian cotton sheets, the heated marble floors, the yarrow-infused night cream waiting on my bedside table.
I wrapped my arms around myself, already missing the warmth of Noah’s embrace, wondering how we’d gone from almost kissing to…
I kicked off my shoes and flopped face-first onto the bed.
My phone vibrated again. With a groan, I rolled over and pulled it out. Now seven missed calls from Marcus. Four from Parker. And one text from Victoria.
Victoria Sterling:
CALL ME! NOW!
I pulled a pillow over my head. Whatever crisis they were having could wait until morning. My brain was too full of huckleberry muffins and fiddle music and the ghost sensation of Noah’s hands on my waist.
The phone rang again, puncturing through the pillow barrier.
It was Victoria. Again. She wasn’t the kind of person who gave up.
With a resigned sigh, I reached for my phone. “Hello?”
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” Victoria’s voice sliced through the receiver, sharp as a stiletto. “I hired you to promote luxury travel, not turn into some goddamn wildlife rescuer. Since when are you Jane Goodall with an Instagram account?”
I sat up, confusion replacing exhaustion. “I’m sorry, what?”
“Don’t play dumb with me, Samantha. The bird video. It’s everywhere.”
“Bird video?” I repeated, my brain struggling to connect the dots. “You mean the osprey rescue?”
“Yes, the osprey rescue.” Her voice dripped with sarcasm. “Very heroic. Very touching. Very much the opposite of what I’m paying you to do.”
I swung my legs over the side of the bed, fully alert now. “How do you even know about that? It just happened this afternoon.” I thought back to earlier that day, the entire episode replaying in my brain. “And I never filmed anything. I didn’teven pull out my phone. Once.” It was true. The entire time I’d been so focused on saving the osprey, it had never even occurred to me to pull out my phone.
