Panther's Passion (Veteran Shifters 3)

“I would never hurt you, Stella.” His voice was utterly sincere.

“You did hurt me.” They were almost at her car. A few more steps... “And now I don’t want to be with you anymore. That’s how it works. Get lost.”

“You heard the lady,” Nate said roughly.

“Never.” Todd’s voice was filled with conviction. “Just you wait—you’ll see how useless this guy is. You’ll understand that he can’t love you the way I do. How long have you even known him?”

At the car, thank God. She got in the driver’s side without thinking, and then wondered if she should’ve let Nate drive—but he was in the passenger’s side, saying, “Go.”

It started, hallelujah, and she went, leaving Todd behind. Her hands were white-knuckling the steering wheel, but it didn’t matter, because they were gone.

It took ten blocks before she was able to let her breath out, let her shoulders down. “Well,” she said.

Nate was watching her. She glanced over, saw his eyes dart back to the back windshield—checking if Todd was following them—but then come back to her. “Are you all right?” he asked quietly.

“I’m just fine!” Stella said automatically, and then caught herself. “Well—no.”

“Can I ask why you do that?” His voice was still quiet, completely nonthreatening. Stella involuntarily found herself comparing it to Todd’s desperate, demanding tone.

“Do what?” she asked.

“Pretend you’re not afraid.”

Stella shrank from the accusation. “I don’t!”

“All right.”

He said it easily, calmly. No passive-aggressive tone, no penetrating look. He just acknowledged what she’d said—even though it was clearly, obviously a lie—and settled back into his seat.

And so, paradoxically, Stella found herself wanting to explain. Someone pressing her for the truth would’ve made her feel cornered, trapped, but this felt like a sudden opening-up. A gift of space, where the truth could live and it might be all right.

“I’ve always said—no regrets,” she told him, her voice unsteady.

Nate nodded. “I remember.”

“And I meant it. I still mean it. Life’s too short to waste time regretting what’s already happened. But I made a lot of dumb choices when I was younger, and a lot of people—teachers, my grandmother, Lynn—wanted me to regret them.”

“So you feel like you can’t show it,” Nate said, with dawning understanding.

Stella nodded miserably, focusing on the road. “I really don’t regret a lot of the things that I’ve done. Leaving town at a young age, meeting all the people I’ve met, having Eva even though I was not in a good situation to raise a baby at the time...it’s been my life. I wouldn’t want anyone else’s life. And so I guess I’m in the habit of telling everyone, ‘Eff you, I’m fine!’ Even if I’m not fine.”

“It’s all right to be afraid,” Nate said softly. “And it doesn’t even have to mean that you regret being with Todd. I don’t know what it was like with him, before.”

Stella sighed. “He was so sweet. So attentive. I thought it was too good to be true, almost, and I guess it was.” She remembered the beginning, when he’d showered her with presents and kisses and little gestures—the sort of thing that a lot of men were too self-absorbed to do. She hadn’t even considered that it might be a red flag.

“I wish I knew,” she said on a long breath. “I wish to God th

ere was some way, with a man, to tell when you started out: This guy will be good. Even if it doesn’t last forever. It doesn’t have to! I just want to know if it’ll be something that I won’t even want to regret.”

Too many of her relationships had required her mantra: No regrets. And yes, a lot of the time she’d come out of them stronger, wiser, tougher—but what if she didn’t have to? What if she came out of a relationship a better person because she’d been with someone good, rather than someone...not?

“I don’t know the answer to that one,” said Nate. He sounded thoughtful, like he was really considering it. “I don’t really—get involved. I date, but it’s always casual. I make it clear up front,” he added hastily, like he was concerned Stella might think he was a liar who held women on a string.

That was cute, and Stella had to hide a little smile, despite the seriousness of the whole conversation.

“I wish I could do that,” she told him. “I used to envision myself as this glamorous woman, breaking hearts all over the world, picking men up and enjoying myself, and then dropping them when I got bored.” She laughed at her younger self. “But I get too invested. I feel too much. Even if they’re really, really not worth it. But I suppose that’s better than going around deliberately breaking hearts, like I thought would be cool when I was seventeen.”

“Oh, man,” Nate said. “When I was seventeen...” He trailed off.