Page 87 of Beastly Mountain Man

“I was hoping you’d say that.”

“I’m not a monster.”

“I never said you were.”

“No. You only exiled me to the mountains.”

“I sent you away from a set that needed room to breathe, and you needed room too.”

I looked toward the closed front door and thought about the snow, Lucky’s house, and the man currently outside with a dog who had eaten my underwear three days ago and somehow rearranged the entire emotional landscape of my life.

“I may have been a little busy while I was gone.”

“So I gathered from the mysterious Property Manager.”

“Glenn.”

“I’m done.”

“You’d better be.”

His voice became serious again.

“I want you back when the resort clears you to travel safely.”

There it was: not punishment, not dismissal, but a return.

“When?”

“As soon as you can get back without doing anything stupid on a mountain road. We can work around the travel time.”

“What do you need from me?”

“Your job.”

I frowned.

“That is not a useful answer.”

“It’s the answer.”

I pushed away from the island and walked toward the windows.

“The other producers have been producing. Department heads have been making the decisions that belong to them. People asked for help when they needed it. They also asked when you were coming back.”

I stopped.

Glenn continued before I could speak.

“We need the part you’re actually exceptional at, Caprice. Seeing the whole production. Catching where one department’s decision is about to hit another. Managing the big picture. We do not need you approving every chair, chasing every email, or standing behind competent people while they do jobs you already hired them to do.”

The words should have hurt, and some of them did—not because they were cruel, but because they were accurate.

“Did anything get missed?”

“Of course something got missed. It’s television. Something is always missed.”

I laughed despite myself.