Chapter 15
By the time Johanna stepped off the elevator on the second floor, emotional exhaustion had settled deep into her bones.
Milan's office sat at the far end of the executive corridor.
Unlike the corporate offices downstairs, the space reflected her role overseeing guest experience throughout the Beaumont Hotel brand.
Guest satisfaction reports covered one wall.
Framed photographs from hotel openings, employee recognition ceremonies, and community events lined another.
The office felt warm and welcoming.
Exactly like Milan.
Johanna paused in the doorway.
Milan sat behind her desk reviewing guest satisfaction scores on one monitor while answering questions from a department manager on the other.
"Tell housekeeping not to comp the room yet," Milan said calmly into her headset. "I want to speak with the guest personally first."
A few seconds later she ended the call. Then she looked up. And immediately frowned.
"Oh no."
Johanna blinked tiredly. "What?"
"You got that face."
Honestly, Johanna was getting really tired of people reading her so easily.
She gave a dismissive scoff and wandered farther into the office. "I have no idea what you're talking about."
"The sad face," Milan clarified, studying her closely. "What happened?"
"Nothing."
"Johanna."
The softness in Milan's voice nearly unraveled her on the spot. Which was ridiculous. She was a grown woman, not some lovesick teenager falling apart over a man.
Unfortunately, the aching pressure inside her chest didn't seem remotely interested in cooperating with logic.
Johanna dropped into one of the upholstered chairs and stared absently through the windows at the bustling casino below.
Milan folded her arms. "Okay. You're sitting in my office staring dramatically into the distance. That's never a good sign."
A laugh almost escaped Johanna before emotion rose too quickly behind it.
She looked away immediately.
Milan's expression shifted at once.
This time, when she spoke, her voice was gentler.
"What did Blaze do?"
Johanna shook her head. "That's the problem. He didn't do anything."
Milan narrowed her eyes. "That sounds suspiciously like something a man who definitely did something would inspire."
Despite herself, Johanna almost smiled.
Almost.
She rubbed a hand across her forehead before finally answering. "He interviewed for a firefighter position in Seattle."
Milan blinked. Then blinked again. "Oh."
"Yeah."
Milan leaned back in her chair. “There's Seattle, and then there's Seattle Seattle. One requires a map. The other requires emotional damage."
That pulled a reluctant laugh from Johanna. Unfortunately, it disappeared just as quickly.
Milan noticed. "When did you find out?"
"Today."
"How?"
Johanna swallowed. "They called him during lunch."
Milan's face immediately scrunched in sympathy. "Ouch."
"Exactly." The word came out sharper than she'd intended.
Silence settled between them for a moment.
Below, the casino floor buzzed with activity. Guests drifted between slot machines. Dealers exchanged cards at blackjack tables. Somewhere, somebody hit a jackpot and a chorus of bells erupted through the gaming area.
Life went on.
Meanwhile, Johanna felt like someone had reached into her chest and pulled loose every ounce of certainty she'd spent weeks rebuilding.
"He said he interviewed months ago," she admitted quietly. "Before we started seeing each other again."
Milan nodded slowly. "But he never told you."
Johanna looked down at her hands. "No."
The simple word felt heavier than it should have. Because the truth was, Seattle wasn't what hurt most.
Not really.
It was the realization that while she'd been falling for him again, while she'd been letting herself believe they finally had a chance, there had still been a version of Blaze imagining a future somewhere else.
A future that didn't automatically include her.
Milan studied her for a long moment. "You think he's going to take it."
Johanna looked away. "I don't know."
"That's not what I asked."
The quiet accuracy of the statement landed hard.
"No," Johanna admitted. "I don't know if he's going to take it."
Milan waited.
Johanna's throat tightened. "But I know he wanted it enough to apply."
There it was. The real fear. Not Seattle. Not even the job. Instead, the possibility that some part of Blaze was still searching for something beyond Sheraton Beach.
Beyond her.
Milan exhaled slowly. "Can I tell you what I think?"
"Do I have a choice?"
"No."
That earned a weak smile.
Milan leaned forward. "I think you're scared because you finally stopped waiting for the other shoe to drop."
Johanna froze. The words hit far too close to home.
Milan continued. "For weeks you've been waiting for something to go wrong and nothing happened. He showed up and loves you exactly the way you've been wanting him to."
Johanna stared at her.
"And now Seattle shows up," Milan said softly. "So, your brain immediately goes, ‘See! There it is. There's the disaster.’"
The truth of it stung. Because that was exactly what had happened.
Johanna lowered her eyes. "I finally let myself believe this was safe."
Milan's expression softened immediately. "Oh, Jo." The sympathy almost undid her.
Johanna looked back toward the casino floor before the tears gathering behind her eyes could become visible.
"I don't think I could survive him leaving twice." The admission barely rose above a whisper.
For a moment, neither woman spoke, then Milan pushed back from her desk and crossed the room. A second later, she wrapped her arms around Johanna.
The hug surprised her. Mostly because Milan wasn't particularly known for emotional demonstrations. She was known for fixing problems, moving mountains, and making impossible guest requests somehow happen.
But right now, she simply held her.
And for the first time all afternoon, Johanna let herself stop pretending she was okay.
* * *
Later that evening, Blaze sat inside the Sheraton Beach firehouse kitchen while two firefighters stared at him like a live-action soap opera had interrupted their shift.
The station smelled like burned coffee, fried food, and smoke permanently soaked into the concrete walls after years of emergency calls, while a basketball game played low from the mounted television near the bay doors.
Normally, the familiar noise grounded him. Tonight, it barely registered.
Ryan leaned back in his chair, crunching chips loud enough to qualify as harassment.
“So…” he drawled carefully. “You get dumped or what?”
Blaze lifted his eyes slowly from the untouched cup of coffee sitting in front of him. “I’m one sentence away from violence.”
Michael pointed immediately across the table. “Definitely got dumped.”
“I did not get dumped.”
Ryan squinted harder at him. “Then why’re you sitting in here looking like a divorced father eating nachos alone at Applebee’s?”
Michael nearly choked laughing from across the kitchen island. Even Darren, a junior firefighter, looked suspiciously close to laughing as he walked by.
Blaze glared at each of them.
Unfortunately, nobody appeared remotely intimidated.
After a long silence, Michael leaned forward, elbows braced against the table. “Seriously. What happened?”
Blaze rubbed one hand slowly across his jaw while exhaustion settled heavier across his shoulders. “She found out about Seattle.”
The kitchen quieted immediately after that.
Ryan sat up straighter. “Damn.”
“Yeah.”
“How’d she find out?” Michael asked.
Blaze’s jaw tightened instantly. “The department called during our lunch date.”
Michael closed his eyes briefly like he physically felt the damage from there. “Oh, that’s bad.”
“It gets worse,” Ryan muttered. “Because I know this idiot didn’t tell her about the interview.”
Blaze shot him a hard look. “I wasn’t hiding it.”
Michael gave him a long stare over the rim of his coffee cup. “That sentence literally never helps any situation involving women.”
Ryan snorted into his drink. “Especially women you emotionally devastated once already.”
Blaze leaned back heavily in the chair, regret grinding through him hard enough to tighten every muscle in his chest.
“I didn’t think it mattered anymore,” he admitted. “I interviewed months ago before we started talking again.”
Ryan tossed another chip into his mouth. “Clearly she thinks it matters now.”
That irritated him because it was true.
Blaze stared down at the scratched wooden table for several long seconds while Johanna’s face replayed in his head all over again.
The hurt in her eyes. The way she stepped away from his touch outside the hotel.
The quietness in her voice when she said she finally let herself believe loving him was safe again.
Fuck! That part was still sitting in his chest like a blade.
“She looked at me like I already left,” he admitted quietly.
The confession came rougher than he intended.
Because that was the part haunting him now, not the argument itself or even the possibility of Seattle. He'd spent weeks convincing her she was safe with him. One phone call had undone all of it.
Michael sighed slowly. “Women remember emotional patterns, man.”
Blaze looked up immediately.
“You spent years being the restless dude always chasing the next move, whether it was bigger departments, more training, or different cities.” Michael shrugged lightly. “You can’t act shocked that she panicked hearing the word, ‘Seattle.’”
The truth hit hard because Blaze understood it better now than he ever had before.
Back then, he’d spent so much time chasing the next opportunity that he never realized what it felt like standing on the other side of his ambition. Johanna had loved him while quietly waiting for the day he decided she wasn’t enough to keep him still.
And maybe the worst part was realizing that at twenty-three, Johanna hadn’t been wrong to fear it.
Blaze scrubbed one hand down his face again while regret simmered low in his chest. “I don’t even know how to fix this.”
Ryan pointed toward him immediately. “Well, first, don’t say no stupid male nonsense like ‘you’re overreacting.’”
“I know that.”
“Do you?” Michael asked skeptically, then pushed away from the counter and walked closer. “The issue ain’t Seattle.”
Blaze frowned slightly. “Then what is it?”
Ryan leaned one shoulder against the fridge. “Trust. She’s trying to figure out if loving you means eventually losing you all over again.”
Silence settled heavily across the kitchen after that.
Ryan was right. The real problem had never been distance or career ambition. It was fear.
Johanna was terrified that no matter how deeply Blaze loved her, part of him would always belong to the next dream waiting somewhere beyond Sheraton Beach.
And the brutal truth was that he’d spent years giving her every reason to believe that.
Blaze leaned forward slowly, forearms braced against his knees while tension burned through him hard enough to make sitting still impossible.
The problem was, he didn’t know how to convince Johanna that something inside him had changed.
Because for the first time in his life, Blaze Carter wasn’t chasing the next thing. The answer had been standing in front of him all along.
Johanna.