His head snapped up instantly.
Ah.
There they were.
Those perfect baby blues landed on mine—and widened. His lips parted as he pushed off the couch, staring at me like he’d just seen a ghost.
All the air vanished.
From the room. From the planet.
And just like that, it was onlyus.
Ethan Bennett was standing right in front of me, and my chest could’ve exploded from the sheer amount of happiness it was trying to contain.
I smiled, holding his gaze. “Hello, darling.”
CHAPTER TWO
ETHAN
Hello, darling.
Those soft words slid under my skin like a spell. Every lie I’d told myself about seeing Sebastian Langley again unraveled in seconds. The resentment. The hurt. The years of pretending I didn’t care—gone. Fuckingpoof.
He was right there in front of me, and I knew instantly I’d been wrong about everything. About time dulling him. About distance making him smaller. About how quickly my body remembered him.
The truth was cruel in its simplicity: Sebastian Langley looked even better than I remembered.
He was older, sure, but it only made him more magnetic. His wavy hair was styled the same way, though streaked with a little more silver at the temples. The stubble I remembered had grown into a beard—longer now, but still impossibly neat. And, of course, he was impeccably dressed. Clean lines. Tailored fit. Everything about him radiated control.
He should’ve been intimidating. He would’ve been—if I hadn’t known him. If that infuriatingly familiar smile weren’t tugging at his lips, overflowing with fondness.
“I’ll make myself scarce.” Henry’s voice snapped me back to reality.
I turned just in time to catch his smug grin and just knew he’d planned this. Even though he knew I’d wanted to do it on my own terms.Rip off the bandage,he’d said. And what a fucking rip it was.
As Henry left, a treacherous flush crawled up my neck. Sebastian took a step closer, shaking his head like he couldn’t believe I was real. That made two of us.
“Hi…” It sounded awkward, even to me.
His grin deepened, and his gaze moved over me slowly, like he was memorizing me all over again. “You look so different.” His voice filled every inch of the space, commanding attention the way it always had.
“Yeah, well… I’m far past my teens now.”
Sebastian’s eyes crinkled as his laughter rang through the room. It was such a rich sound—so achingly familiar it clawed at something buried inside me. Before I knew it, I was smiling back.
“Can I…” He stepped closer. “Can I hug you?”
The hesitation in his voice undid me, and I nodded without thinking. He closed the distance between us, his hands sliding around my waist as I rose onto my toes and looped my arms around his neck.
I shut my eyes and breathed him in.
He still smelled like himself, just not quite the same—a note missing I couldn’t place. I let it crash over me; the indescribable, overwhelming feeling of being back in his arms. They tightened around me, the firm expanse of his chest pressed to mine, warming me in ways I’d thought were no longer possible.
I had missed him. So fucking much.
When Sebastian had left, it’d felt like he’d taken my heart with him, like something inside me had hardened just to survivehis absence. I’d let him become the center of my universe, and when he was gone, I’d been left drifting through the emptiness he created.
