The space between them fractured.
Not loudly.
Not dramatically.
But with the quiet inevitability of something that had been straining for far too long.
Lana did not remember stepping forward.
She only knew that suddenly Martin was closer — close enough that she could see the tension gathered at the corner of his mouth, the battle raging behind his eyes, the restraint he had worn like armor finally cracking.
“You shouldn’t have come,” she whispered, though her voice trembled with something that sounded dangerously close to relief.
“I know.”
“Then why are you here?”
His answer came rough, stripped of its usual control.
“Because pretending I don’t feel anything has become… impossible.”
The words landed between them like a spark in dry air.
Her breath caught.
For weeks she had ima
