Page 111 of The Cuddle Clause

But I didn’t shift, because what if Maggie needed me?

What if she knocked on my door, needed to talk, needed comfort, needed anything, and I wasn’t here?

The thought made me sick.

So I moved to Plan B. I dragged the old treadmill from the corner, plugged it in, and cranked it to its highest setting.

I stripped down fast and shifted, fur exploding across my skin in a rush of magic and heat. Bones cracked and rearranged. My senses sharpened. The second I landed on four paws, I jumped on the belt and ran.

Hard. Fast. Relentless.

The pounding of my paws against the rubber blurred with the sound of my own thoughts screaming in my head. I ran like I could outrun all of it. The lies we’d told. The way she’d looked at me before Seraphina exposed us. The silence that had stretched between us in the car. The ache that bloomed in my chest when I watched her crying and walked away.

I closed my eyes and imagined the forest. Pine and oak and thick underbrush. Wind in my fur. Moonlight through branches. I imagined the animals parting for me, clearing the path, letting me run without consequence.

I didn’t want to think anymore. Didn’t want to feel.

The door swung open.

My eyes snapped up, my head turning just enough to catch her standing there, framed in the doorway like a goddess of chaos and confusion and heartbreak.

“What the actual fuck is going on?” she asked, her eyes wide, her expression somewhere between horror and disbelief.

I didn’t stop running. I couldn’t. If I stopped, the feelings would catch up to me again. So I just… grunted. That was all I could give her.

She looked between me and the treadmill and my pile of clothes in the corner.

“I’m going to pretend I never saw this,” she muttered, backing out of the room slowly, “and I’m going to bed.”

The door clicked shut again.

I stared straight ahead, breath heavy, paws never slowing.

Fuck my life.

Chapter 30

Maggie

I spentmost of the night staring at the ceiling, thinking about Roman in the other room, probably still in wolf form, probably still sprinting on the treadmill. My body was still buzzing from everything—Eric showing up like a ghost from the past, Seraphina losing her damn mind in front of a hundred people, Roman avoiding my eyes like I’d betrayed him.

And the worst part? I didn’t even know what I was supposed to feel. There was no tidy category where I could file all of this away. I didn’t want Eric—I knew that. I’d known it the second he said my name like it still belonged to him and something in me recoiled.

But Roman hadn’t asked me about it. Not once. He hadn’t even looked at me like I deserved to be spoken to. And that hurt more than I’d been prepared for.

By the time morning rolled around, I was showered, dressed, and sitting stiffly at the kitchen counter while Roman silently made eggs.

The scrape of a fork against a plate had never sounded so personal.

He set a plate down in front of me without a word. No sarcastic comment. No drama. No accidental smirk. Just the clink of porcelain and tension so thick I could chew it.

We ate in silence.

It was easily the most awkward meal we’d ever shared, and that was saying something, considering our origin story involved pretending to be mated under the watchful eye of a pack alpha with emotional flare-ups that rivaled a telenovela.

Roman finally cleared his throat. “Lucien’s been calling and texting. He wants to see us.”

I set down my fork. “Okay…”