Athena didn't feel her heart at first. She only felt the absence of it—an abrupt hollowing, a vacuum opening inside her chest the moment her mind understood what her eyes were telling her.
Antonio.
For a long, stretching second, her body forgot how to breathe. She stared at him, unable to blink, unable to form the shape of a thought. The shock didn't hit like a blow; it hit like the cold of deep water—slow, seeping, paralyzing. She tried to swallow, but her throat felt sealed.
He shouldn't be here.
He couldn't be here.
Yet there he was, stepping closer as though drawn by her disbelief, as though he took pleasure in walking directly into the center of her stunned silence.
"You bastard!!" Ewan cursed him through clenched teeth—rage, venom, disbelief all twisted together—but even that couldn't pull her eyes away.
