Patricia's POV...
What did I just see?
My heart didn't stop. No—it shattered. I felt it break into jagged shards inside my chest, a raw, physical tearing as if someone had thrust their hand between my ribs and ripped it apart. The pain was so immediate, so visceral, that for a moment, I forgot how to breathe.
My Lucian. With another girl.
I stood in the doorway, my hand still gripping the frame, my fingers turning bone-white from the pressure.
Fourteen years of waiting, of hoping, of loving him with every fiber of my being—and those hands had never held me like that. Never touched me with that kind of raw, unchecked need.
I'm sure this is her...Camilla.
The name echoed in my skull, bouncing off the walls of my hollow, fractured mind. Camilla. The girl I'd heard whispers about. The one from the park. The one with the teddy bear. The one he'd been waiting for since before I even knew he existed.
This is so painful. So devastatingly, impossibly painful.
Because I love him.
